Category Archives: The Thade Show

Jan 28

Party-time

We celebrated Thade’s birthday a little early this year.

I started working on the birthday treats on Friday while Thade was at school.

He wanted Sonic the hedgehog blue cupcakes, and Whoopie Pies with blue frosting too.

We had the party on Saturday, and Thade was so excited.

He had several of his friends over for the afternoon to play video games, and hang out for a bit too.

It was a fun afternoon.

Tomorrow is Thade’s actual birthday, so I had better make him one more cake.

Thanks again to everyone for celebrating with us.

Nov 27

New Glasses

Well, one more of us is in need of some help in the eye care department.

Thade got his new glasses last night, and he loves them. I think he looks adorable too. Dylan is already asking when he can get glasses too.

Congrats, little man.

Nov 8

Fun Days

Between Agnes’ birthday, our anniversary, and Halloween, we have been extra busy over here. It has been fun celebrating all of these awesome days.

Agnes turned three!

She was so excited to open presents. She opened them first thing in the morning.

James and I were celebrating our 11th anniversary that day too.

Later on in the day, we had the family up to celebrate too.

It was so awesome getting to spend time with everyone. We had a blast!

A few days later it was Halloween. It just happens to be my very favorite holiday.

We picked up James at work, and we went to Dylan’s school Halloween costume parade.

The parade was early in the morning, and it was a little chilly.

Dylan the cowboy was looking adorable.

In the afternoon we headed to Thade’s school to watch their costume parade.

It was crowded!

We found a good spot to watch the parade.

The parade was moving fast. I think I only got one single picture of Thade.

As soon as the kids were home from school, they were ready to go trick-or-treating.

We waited till it was almost dusk, and we headed out to walk around our neighborhood.

We walked around our neighborhood, and then we walked around a bit more.

The kids had so much fun, they didn’t want to come home.

It was time to go home though. We had lots of candy to pass out to trick-or-treaters too.

Later on we watched a movie, and we checked over all of the candy.

What  a fun couple of days.

Sep 14

Mr. Blue Belt

Last night Thade tested to earn his Blue Belt in Tae Kwon Do, and he did it!

I’m very proud of my big kid.

Congratulations Thade!

 

May 29

Sneaky Summer Reading

After the school year was finished, and all of the required reading programs had ended, Thade was burned out… I want to keep him reading this Summer, but to keep him interested, I have to be a bit creative.

I have a few tips that have worked for me so far.

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I’ve started reading more… This is good for both of us. When he catches me reading, he has a million questions about what I’m reading, what characters are involved, how many more chapters I have, and so on. It usually peaks his interest, and he’ll go choose a book to read too. Right now he is reading through the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series at night, and I’m reading the Hunger Games.

I have stashed books all over the house. I have bins of books all over the living room, and shelves covered in their room. I’ve started a collection for Agnes too. I encourage him to take a minute and read a quick book to his siblings. He’ll pick a short one, but it doesn’t matter. His brother and sister love to listen, and seeing a cool big kid read encourages them to want to read too.

I also encourage him to read beyond his school grade… Thade is an advanced reader, and I’m really proud of him for his accomplishment. This also leads him to become bored easily when he is assigned something that he can breeze through. Last school year he would get in trouble with the librarian for trying to check out a book that was above his grade level. I say read what is required at school, and read what you love on you own free time. This rebellious attitude towards reading makes him want to read longer chapter books, and he keeps pushing himself to jump up another level in reading too.

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One of my favorites is to let him read all of the menus, junk mail, magazines, coupons, and fliers that come our way. He loves to properly enunciate the punctuation marks, and scream when it is in all caps. It is hilarious, but his enthusiasm is adorable. The local fliers are much more entertaining when you have an eight year old reading them to you. It sneaks in everyday reading and understanding too, and he thinks it is just fun.

Do you have any tips to help keep kids motivated with their Summer reading?