toddler reading

"Mama, I will read this to you."

"Owls are very funny. Darth Vader is not funny. Bikes are very fun to ride. Octopuses love to swim. Aligator crocodiles love to swim, and people love to hold phones!"

(If you can't tell, she was looking around the pages and saying something about each picture.)

HEROES OF THE STORM, PG. 90000000000-109000000000000000 [BY JONAH, USERNAME MYNYA]

More about Heroes:
 People like Mat, Jenny, Jake and others who know about heroes already, please pitch in with some things you think I should put in here. Now, remember where we left off? The different categories of characters. Now, Mercenary Camps! These are monsters that group up in one spot- actually several- on the Map [which you will learn about shortly]. These do not bother anyone until they are attacked. Then, they will attack as one. If you defeat these and stand in their area for roughly 3 seconds, they will reappear on your team and march, un-noticing damage, to their death hitting anyone with their weapon who attacks them [or not!]. There are two types of Mercenary Camps, Bruiser camp, and Siege camp. Bruiser camps have more attack speed and have greater numbers, and Seige camps deal more damage and are ranged giving a huge advantage.

Then, there is one more type. 

A Boss.

Bosses are huge, so big that there is only one on each map. AND, some maps don't have one at all! 

They deal very large amounts of damage and have huge health bars [and are very, very hard to capture]. Now, maps. There are many unique Battlegrounds that have objectives, killing guardians, 

right-clicking tributes, and completing these will get you: a Boss-like thing that attacks heroes, a HUMONGOUS wave of monsters that also attack heroes, a pirate that fires his unstoppable cannons on your enemies towers. This is my blog, and if you deny it, you will be wisecracked to death on text.

[I am looking at you, Jojo]

If you want to see a picture of a Heroes Map look on the last blog.  

Josh vs. Facebook (round 1)

Josh doesn't spend a lot of time online, at least not in the way I do. He's rarely on Facebook. He doesn't read (or care) about a lot of politics, pop culture, or a friend of a friend's vacation. He does follow some news and sports, so he's not completely isolated from the world, but he wouldn't know what LipSense is even if a friend ever did invite him to an online party. 

Two or three times a year, however, his periodic FB session to check on a specific friend, cousin, or former student will turn into an hour or two rediscovering the internet. One such night happened last week. After showing him how to do what I consider pretty basic things on FB, I started keeping track of what I taught him:

1. How to comment on a post.
2. Why he got a notification about a post from 2009. 
3. How to tag someone else in a comment.
4. Not to watch the suggested videos.
5. How to turn on sound on said videos.
6. How hashtags work (both their intended use and their more common uses)
7. There is very little that is truly private on FB.

Everything will have changed by the time he logs in again next summer, but we had a laugh. Then he discovered he can like his own comments and gleefully began doing just that. So if you see him say or do something online that seems odd, just remember he's still learning. Be kind to the new kid on the playground.

HEROES OF THE STORM!!!!!!!!! [BY JONAH MAYS, PLAYER NAME, MAYNYA]

                                                                     FOREWARD
Matt, Jenny, Jake, Brandon, and whoever else plays Heroes, you can skip this. Everyone else, stay put.


Heroes of the Storm is a computer game, a lot like chess. You start in your base, and there's a giant dragon, a creepy gardener or a Ravan as your Core. Then there are big blue towers called Keeps on three different lanes, with smaller towers next to them, and a well-like structure filled with blue water called a Healing Fountain. Bet you can't guess what those are for! Then you go through to towers like the ones by your Keeps, with a locked blue gate in the middle. Then a voice says "The battle begins in........ten seconds. Five, Four, Three, Two ONE! Let the battle begin!" then the gate opens, and you go out. There, standing before you, lies another Keep, with a Healing Fountain. This Keep is called a, uh, tower. But this time the gate leads to an open strip of land, with bushes that make you invisible from enemies. Oh, yeah, did I mention you can KILL PEOPLE?! Your enemies have the exact same structure positioning as you do. They have health, like you. They have mana- which lets you cast abilities that heal or deal damage- like you. They have the possibility of destroying your tower, to get to your Keep to get to your Core to destroy it and win- just like you do. Okay, I just said one thing to explain another thing which explains both things. Daddy, DO NOT ask me to do that again. No, seriously, I will kill you FIVE TIMES if we get paired up against each other in a game since our number of quick matches we've played are so different.

Okay, where was I? Each Hero has a series of  Talents that make them unique. After you kill minions- little guys that appear next to your core- and kill enough heroes, you get XP, and enough XP will level you up. Levels 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, and 20, you get abilities. No, sorry guys, you get Talents. I had them mixed up. Talents empower your Abilities, all except level 10. That one gives you a VERY powerful Ability, called a Heroic. Now, more about the Heroes. There are, eh, I think 6 different categories of Heroes. Support, Assassin, Warrior, Multiclass, and Specialist. More on those, in the next blog, which COULD be on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Saturday.

Here's a picture of what I mean:

Lemonades And Ice Cream, Oh What A Cookie That'll Be! [By Jonah]

                                            PROLOGUE OR THE TOTALLY UNFAIR QUESTION


I love Girl Scout Cookies. Do you? No, sorry, that was unfair. I asked a question when I already knew the answer. Which kind of Girl Scout Cookies are your favorite? Yeah, my favorite are the Lemonades, too.


Every year, on February, Girl Scouts have a cookie sale. A fundraiser, as ya might say. And there are two different companies making the cookies. One is the Brown Company, the other is.......[ERROR! Don't expect me to know stuff like this] Anyway, North Carolina has, uh, not better cookies in general, but a much better version of the lemon cookies. So, Jenny- Jenny Grant- had us buy some of our lemon cookies for her, and we decided to try some since we were the ones who bought them, AAAAAaaaaaaaandddddddddd promptly ate the entire box. Except for Mim who hated them. Yeah, I know, right? And don't make any plans for actually eating the cookies you made us buy for you, 'cause unless you want to cut open our bellies, and eat mushed-up cookie crumbs, I believe you will have no luck whatsoever in that.

our life recently in five quotes and some pictures

The towers (starting with the oldest architect and moving down):

C: I still want to be a cheerleader, but it's not actually a job. So instead, I want to be a police officer that is a cheerleader at Alabama football games.

M: When I want to grow up, I want to be a car! Chugga chugga choo choo!

At Caroline's well check up this week, the doctor had her fill out a developmental assessment. Miriam was SO impressed:

Jonah and I made fudge as a chemistry experiment this week. He is the only person in the family that did not try a single piece.

C: I'm writing a book, Mama! It's about animals and how much I love Daddy and Jesus. It is very long. I won't be done until I'm SIX!

C (during a game of The Carpet is Hot Lava): Oh Jonah, stop! I need to take your picture. You are so cool.

Me: Ok, everyone be quiet for a minute while Daddy has a video conference!

C: Jonah! Let's play the piano!

M: (plays the harmonica while marching through the room)

INTERCRAFTEN OR I'M MINECRAFTIN' [By Jonah]

Okay, I'm really excited about something that you guys don't even know what is. It's called Intercraften, and it's a Minecraft thing. So do you remember the Minecraft blog? Well, if you don't, go back a few years. Don't worry, I'll wait, I'll make some popcorn. Pop-pop-pop-pop-POP! Okay, ready? Now, this is a Minecraft multiplayer thing, where you get to do stuff with other people. Like, mini-games, building, there's even a chat window, all kinds of stuff. You can create your own server, where people can play in your world, with your own rules. But this is a program, so there are a series of rules made by the founders, with people to make sure you are having fun and no one is gettin' picked on! I applied for an account, and have no idea when it will be ready, maybe tonight, maybe in eighteen days! So, that's the blog for the week.

WHY AUDIOBOOKS ARE AWESOME [By Jonah]

Audiobooks are awesome. They are good for passing the time during physical activities, such as cleaning up and learning the pronunciation of words. If you haven't tried audiobooks there are many reasons why you should.

                                                                     ~~~

One of my favorite things about audiobooks is they can help pass the time while working. I listen to audiobooks while cleaning up my room, and I listen to audiobooks all the time while driving. Those are all examples of why audiobooks are great.

                                                                     ~~~

Another great thing about audiobooks is you can hear how names or funny words are pronounced. For a while, I thought that a guy's name in a book was Teh-RIKE, but audiobooks saved the day. His name is actually Tuh-REEK.

                                                                    ~~~

Some might say that audiobooks have a downfall. They might comment that audiobooks can tell you the pronunciation, but not the spelling of names (or words). But no, audiobooks can reverse that! Or rather, you can. Afterwards, you can look in a copy of a book for the names, or grab a dictionary for words. 

                                                                   ~~~

Those are the reasons audiobooks are awesome, and there are still more! Audiobooks open up into a series of good reading experiences, which is yet another thing about them.