Mini Preschool: Halloween: Cooking

We had another amazing day of preschool today. Can I just tell you how much I have loved our preschool so far? Today the sub-theme was cooking, which in my mind would be the absolute hardest sub-theme to do with kids...I have no talent in that area, but Cali does. And today she did a fantastic job.

First she gave each kid a recipe and explained what a recipe was. The recipe had pictures to go along with the instructions so that the kids could "read" them, even though they can't read yet. Great idea! She asked what was the first ingredient we needed. The kids looked at their recipes and said, "hot dogs!". So Cali gave everyone a hot dog, then some biscuit dough. The moms cut up the biscuit dough into long thin strips. Then the kids wrapped the strips around the hot dogs to make Mummy Dogs. While I was helping Ivan wrap his, Lincoln decided to break his hot dog apart into little chunks. So his finished product looked more like baby dogs, but it was still good. I figure it's his preschool experience, and if that's how he wants to make his then I'm good with it. :)

While the Mummy Dogs were baking in the oven, we made some other treats. First we made witch wands out of a pretzel rod dipped in frosting. Each kid got a pile of sprinkles on their plate to decorate their wand with. And most of the kids (mine included) couldn't resist eating their wands immediately following the decorating of them. Check out their concentration. Ivan totally gets the tongue thing from me.

Next we made ants on a log. We used celery filled with cheese whiz and raisins. Except for Ivan, he got peanut butter instead of cheese whiz. Reason number two why I think this would be such a hard sub-category, lots of food allergies. But Cali pulled it off wonderfully, and no one felt left out because they couldn't eat a certain food. Nicely done.

Last we made owls. She gave the kids some sort of soft cookie with marshmallow in the middle. Then we used frosting to stick on two Mentos for eyes and a candy corn for a beak. They turned out so cute. And being the mean mom that I am, I made my kids save theirs to eat after nap time.

By then the Mummy Dogs were cooked and the kids got to eat. I didn't hear a single one complain, or have to be encouraged to take bites, so in my book that is a huge success. And even better was the fact that I didn't have to go home and think of anything to make for lunch!

Ivan's New Pass-Time

Ivan woke up about an hour before Lincoln at nap time yesterday. I had a million and one things to do, and Ivan probably would have been just fine playing by himself, but I get one on one time with him so rarely, that I decided to sit down and play his latest favorite game with him. The containers game. He likes to take empty containers (empty spice bottles, empty peanut butter jars, the box to the Jenga game, an empty tucks pad container, etc.) and find things that will fit inside of them. He fills them up, then dumps them out and rearranges the contents, and starts all over filling the containers in a different way. It's really funny to watch. He's really particular about what goes where too. He wouldn't let me put things in, because I wasn't doing it right I guess. But I was allowed to help him find small toys, and to hand them to him, or to help him get things out when they got stuck. I love my Ivan Boy, and I'm glad I took an hour to spend time with just him, doing what he loves.

Halloween Costume Dress Rehersal

                  

This week at story time the kids were supposed to wear their costumes. So we got to have a practice run getting all my little pirates in their outfits. I still haven't had time to make their swords or hooks, but those just seem like they'd be a disaster to take to a place as crowded as story time anyway. I think the kids looked cute. They'd better, since it took the WHOLE morning to get them dressed. (They were all pretty crabby and less than cooperative.)

Lincoln goes to the older kids story time. So they got to put on a costume parade for the younger kids story time. It was fun.

Adelia's Birth Announcements

Tuesday I took the kids up to Hooper to my mom's house. I love going up to my mom's. The kids have so much room to move around and different things to play with. Plus, they love Gramma Tam, who always spoils them rotten. Today Mom and I made Adelia's birth announcements to send out. Only three months behind the times, I know. I wish I had enough to send to everyone, but I only bought enough wallets to send to mine and Aaron's parents and our siblings. We used my mom's cricket machine. We did the same basic design, but each one has different paper combinations. I think they all turned out so cute! Here's a pic of all of them. I didn't do any up close, because all our family reads the blog and I didn't want to ruin the surprise. (Since I haven't mailed them yet because I can't find the right size envelope!)

Clobbered

A couple of days ago Aaron was holding Adelia on his shoulder and Lincoln was playing around Aaron's legs. We didn't hear any of the usual noises, but suddenly Lincoln comes out from behind Aaron with spit up all over the top of his head and dripping down his face. He calmly said to me, "Mom, Delia spitted on me." He wasn't even upset, or disturbed in any way. I just stared laughing mmy head off. Poor kid, I made him sit there and wait while I found the camera and took his picture, before I wiped it off of him. I'm still not quite sure how it happened. Aaron didn't have a spot on him.

She looks pretty proud of herself, don't you think?

A Day in the Life of Me

I stole the idea for this post from my friend Ashely. Every so often she just records what she does on a normal day. I love it! So, I decided to give it a try. It's actually kind of hard. I had to keep track of things on a piece of paper so I'd be able to remember it all. So here it is, the average Monday (Just for the record, Monday's are my worst day of the week. Some day I'll do Thursday which is our best day of the week, but today it's Monday)...

6:50am Adelia wakes up, I am tired so I feed her in bed.

7:15 She burps and then wants more to eat

7:32 Aaron takes her to try burping her again. I think to myself that I should get up and shower, and as I'm thinking it, I fall back asleep.

8:00 I wake up and get in the shower.

8:08 I hear Lincoln get up. Aaron sticks his head in and says Adi is back asleep and he's going to start breakfast, would I like cracked wheat. Yes. I would.

8:30 Ivan gets up and we eat breakfast.

8:40 Aaron gets in the shower. I blow dry my hair, brush the kids' teeth.

9:00 I remember I want to write this post, so I start trying to write down everything we've already done today. Aaron puts Lincoln in time-out for playing with his bike lights, Ivan is drawing with pencil and paper.

9:05 I go in back to straighten my hair, and think for the 4 millionth time that I really need a hair cut.

9:08 I go back out in the living room to stop the boys from fighting over a pencil. Lincoln was trying to take Ivan's pencil, so I get Lincoln a different pencil (not a pen, he doesn't want a pen!) and go back to straightening my hair.

9:10 Linc throws his pencil over the washing machine in the kitchen because he "...doesn't want that one!"

9:15 Aaron fishes the pencil out from under the washing machine and puts it away.

9:20 We gather in the living room for family scripture study.

9:25 We have to cut scriptures short because Ivan, who is sitting on my lap, pees through his diaper and pants, soaking himself and me. We both have to change.

9:35 We have family prayer. Ivan sitting on my lap, decides half way through to switch to Aaron's lap, and Lincoln, who was on the floor, decides he wants to be on my lap. Typical family prayer. The only thing missing is Adelia screaming her head off for the duration.

9:40 Aaron kisses us good bye and leaves for work.

9:41 I turn on a movie for the kids. Linc picks Brother Bear. I usually wouldn't do this, but Monday is my house cleaning day. I start working on the dishes in the kitchen. I always start with the kitchen, because for some reason if the kitchen is clean I can tolerate the rest of the house, but if the kitchen is messy it doesn't matter how clean everything else is, it will bug me.

10:10 Aaron calls to say that the owner of our apartment complex has scheduled to have the insulation guys come and check out the south building so they can give us an estimate for getting the insulation fixed, and would I mind going over to #4 and asking if it's all right with them if the insulation guys go into their storage closet, where there is access to the attic, so they can look around. I head over to Cali's, she's cool with it. We talk for a minute and I go home.

10:17 Ivan throws a fit because I gave him water in his cup instead of milk. He has to have time out until he calms down.

10:29 Gather all the laundry, except for what's in Adelia's room, and bring it to the living room and begin to sort it.

10:39 The boys are tired of Brother Bear, and ask for their blocks. I get the blocks down and continue sorting laundry.

10:55 Block fight. Ivan is throwing blocks at Lincoln. I put Ivan in time out. Lincoln picks up the blocks and takes them to his room.

10:57 Adelia wakes up. I change her diaper, get her dressed and feed her. I read Ivan Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See, and Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear, while I feed Adi.

11:24 I tell Lincoln to get his socks and shoes on, and miraculously he does it. I get Ivan's socks and shoes on. I put jackets on all three kids.

11:30 switch the laundry quick, then put the kids in the car so we can run a couple errands in my very minuscule window of time before lunch and naps.

11:37 The car won't start. So, for the third time this week, I go ask to borrow my neighbor's car so I can jump mine (thanks Misty, we'll fix the battery soon, I promise!) I jump the car.

11:55 Finally, on our way to the mall to pick up Adelia's pictures. We had them taken 3 weeks ago at Kiddie Kandids. BTW, I'll never go there again, but that's a story for another post. They turned out cute, but it wasn't worth the hassle or the money, and I didn't get what I went for. Okay, fine, I'll explain. When Lincoln and Ivan were babies, I took them to Kiddie Kandids and got their pictures done there, because they used to give you 12 free birth announcements. I also bought a cute collage, and have the collages hanging up in my hallway. I wanted a matching one of Adelia, and my 12 announcements. Turns out they don't do the announcements or the collages anymore, but since we were already there I went ahead with the pictures. I bought some, they were a bit pricey, but I thought it's ok, at least I get them same day. Turns out they don't print them for you right there in the studio anymore and you have to wait three weeks. Lame! Anyways, that trip took forever, and we didn't have time for any more of our errands.

12:40 We get home. Adelia is asleep in her car seat. THIS NEVER HAPPENS. I decide to leave her be. On the door step is a package with a pirate book I ordered for the boys for Christmas. We open it and I read it to them before putting it up in the closet until December.

12:45 I make PB & J for lunch since we are out of frozen fruit for shakes. (That was one of the other errands I was supposed to run.)

1:03 Adelia wakes up screaming in her car seat.

1:10 I take the boys in their room, put them in their beds, and read them Are You My Mother while nursing Adelia. Then I sing to them and tuck them in.

1:22 I feed Adi some more while I write a blog post and check Facebook (talented...yes!)

1:57 Linc gets up to use the potty

2:05 He's still in there...and quiet, so I go check on him. The toilet is clogged with toilet paper. I find the plunger and unclog it.

2:18 I send Lincoln back to bed. He protests, a lot.

2:31 I change a disgusting poopy diaper of Adelia's

2:34 She's still being fussy and squirmy so I put her in the Moby wrap and pace with her

2:41 Linc is up from his nap...pretty sure he did not sleep at all. I get him a snack.

2:44 Rewrite the dinner menu for the week up on the white board. Get the train set out for Lincoln.

2:48 Switch laundry, save the now empty dryer sheep box for a homeschool theme revolving around boxes I have planned for some day in the future.

2:58 Take a stack of folded clothes to Adelia's room to put away. Decide to see if I can get her out of the Moby and into her bed without waking her up. Success!

3:05 Fix toy lamp post from Lincoln's train set that he has unscrewed and can't get back together.

3:10 Uncle Ryan (Aaron's brother) drops by to pick up the cheese he and Melissa left here the other night. He helps Lincoln build a track while I wash out a dish of his and fill it with pumpkin seed for him to take home.

3:17 Fold laundry

3:50 Help Lincoln pick up his train set, then we build block towers together.

4:05 Ivan wakes up. I change his poopy diaper.

4:15 A neighbor comes to the door with questions about her dishwasher. I call Aaron because it's the first I've heard of it. Aaron explains to me what's going on, I explain to her. She and I chat for a minute.

4:25 The kids are kind of whiny, so I give them a small snack.

4:30 I start picking up the living room and putting away more folded laundry.

4:55 Living room is clear enough, so I vacuum while I still can.

4:58 The boys start fighting with the vacuum wands, I have to break it up. We set up a rotating schedule to take 5 minute turns each with the favorite wand. The child without the favorite wand throws a fit for the whole 5 minutes until it's their turn with the wand at which point the other child throws a fit. This continues until Aaron gets home.

5:00 Sit down at the computer to start preparing a family home evening lesson.

5:20 Aaron gets home and Adelia wakes up. I feed Adelia. The boys are running around using their loudest voices. Aaron is having a snack. They are all driving me crazy (the boys because their being loud and Aaron because he's not doing anything about it).

5:35 Sent all three boys to the store for French bread and dryer sheets and Parmesan cheese and a few other things we needed for dinner.

5:40 Put Adelia in her chair. Put away more laundry, changed laundry.

5:59 Changed Adi's poopy diaper.

6:04 Started boiling water for dinner and emptying the dish washer. Adelia gets fussy, so I pick her up and continue cooking dinner one handed. We are having green spaghetti for dinner (which was quite good). The dish washer will have to wait.

6:35 Family sits down to dinner. They start eating. Aaron dished up my food so I can eat while I feed Adelia.

7:06 Bath time for the boys. We do fast baths tonight, because it's late and we still need to do FHE. Aaron finishes preparing the lesson (he does most of it, because I didn't get very far earlier) while I bathe the boys and get them in their jammies.

7:29 Jammies on, we start family home evening. We learn about being kind to others and to ourselves. One way we can be kind to ourselves is by taking care of our bodies. We hit brushing our teeth pretty hard, since getting the kids to do so is a constant battle. They get sticker charts to mark every morning and night that they brush their teeth.

7:55 Aaron brushes the boys teeth. I am feeding Adelia.

8:01 I sneak some chocolate before going to have prayer with Aaron and the boys.

8:05 Feed Adelia again...yes, she eats a lot at night.

8:15 Aaron leaves to go look at our neighbor's dish washer. I sit at the computer while rocking Adi. My arm is asleep. I read blogs and check my email and Facebook.

8:40 Adi is finally asleep. I go lay her in her bed.

8:44 Aaron and I clean the kitchen.

9:19 We sit down for a break (but not a very long one) and eat pumpkin seeds and talk.

9:36 Adelia is up and hungry.

9:40 I feed Adi while Aaron and I do budget stuff. Doing the budget makes me cranky :(

10:29 Aaron gives Adelia a bath and she screams through the entire thing. I lay on the couch, exhausted.

10:47 Adelia is all "jammied up" as Lincoln would say. I feed her one more time.

11:25 Aaron takes Adi to burp her and pace with her, while I read a chapter of scripture out loud. 

11:45 Aaron keeps pacing with Adelia who is almost asleep and sends me to bed. He joins me a few minutes later.

Pumpkin Carving/Painting

Saturday night we invited Ryan and Melissa over to carve pumpkins. Since I don't trust Lincoln and Ivan with sharp objects, they got to paint theirs. The rule we had growing up was that you could only get a pumpkin as big as you could lift, and we decided to apply that to the boys. :) Aaron got one he wanted, and I wanted one big enough to put Adelia inside of once it was gutted, so she and I shared a pumpkin.

Ivan's giving me his "cheese!" face. He would paint until one side of the pumpkin was completely covered, then I would turn it slightly and he had a totally new surface to work with. I think his pumpkin ended up almost all the way painted.

Lincoln was pretty disappointed that he didn't get to use the knife, and spent most of his time asking for it. When he finally got bored with that, he was content to stab his pumpkin with the opposite end of his paint brush.

Ryan and Melissa's pumpkins turned out really cool. Melissa carved a scary old man face and Ryan carved a psychotic cotton ball. I wish I would have taken pictures of the finished products.

Aaron and I tried putting Adelia in the pumpkin to take pictures. She was not happy about it one little bit. Even though we lined the inside with blankets so she wouldn't have to feel the slimy pumpkin. We did something similar with Lincoln when he was her age, and it turned out really cute, but not so much luck this go around.

However, she was perfectly happy to be naked on a blanket afterwards. And so we did end up with some cute pictures. :)

Aaron and I ran out of time to actually carve our pumpkins. We set all the pumpkins outside after. It was raining. The paint on the boys pumpkins all got washed off. So really we could do the whole thing over again if we wanted to. We'll see what this week brings.

Our New Goal

An interesting side effect of Ivan's milk intolerance has been that I am starting to be really aware of what we eat as a family. And I've come to the conclusion that we don't eat very well. Well as in healthily. So I made a new goal to have us eat better. This was about a month or so ago. It's been kind of a slow transition, just because I wasn't really sure where to start.

I decided to start with lunch. Why? Because I read a thing somewhere that said what you eat for lunch will determine how you feel in the later afternoons, and most people, it said, tend to eat crappy lunches, fast or processed food, that has lots of calories but zero nutrition, etc. and that because of this they feel a slump in the afternoon around 3 or 4. This describes me very well. Afternoons are the worst time of day for me. It's when I'm the crankiest and least patient with my kids. I looked at our typical lunch menu. I hate to make lunch, I don't know why, but I always have. I have zero creative juices when it comes to lunch. I typically feel like, who cares what they're eating, lets just feed them so they aren't hungry and get them off to nap time! So it's really easy for me to just open a can of Spaghetti O's or microwave a thing of Easy Mac. So ya, I figured lunch was a good place for us to start.

For the last month or so, I've been doing green shakes for lunch. My kids LOVE green shakes, seriously. You'd think I was feeding them dessert for lunch. I usually put about two cups of spinach in the blender, then a can of fruit (home canned peaches are the best, but I like unsweetened pineapple too) with it's juice, then some sort of frozen fruit (raspberries/blackberries are my favorite). Sometimes I add an avocado if I have one. Then I blend it all up, adding either more water, or ice cubes as necessary. And that's what the kids and I eat for lunch everyday. We usually have a piece of bread or something to go with it. My kids ask for seconds. They eat spinach for lunch almost every day and they ask for seconds. Who would have thought. And on the days we do green shakes for lunch, especially if we've been really consistent for the whole week, I feel a TON better in the afternoons. It's pretty amazing.

So lunch is going well. Then we tackled breakfast. A family that Aaron home teaches mentioned to him one time that they make cracked wheat for breakfast. Aaron was interested, since we have a 50 lb. bag of wheat sitting in our food storage and nothing to do with it because we do not have a wheat grinder.She said that they just take the wheat and blend it up in their blender into small chunks. Then they stick it in boiling water (double the amount of water to wheat) and simmer it for about 15-20 minutes, like rice. Then they serve it with a little butter and brown sugar. We tried it. We love it! My kids love it. So we do that 2 or 3 times a week. Maybe eventually we can do away with cold cereal all together. That would be cool.

That leaves dinner. I borrowed a cook book from a friend called "Whole Foods for the Whole Family" that's put out by the La Leche League. I wanted to borrow it because in the back of it in the appendix it has an allergy listing section that lists a bunch of milk free, egg free, and wheat free recipes. I was really pleased with that part in the appendix. But I also really liked the rest of the cook book. It has meals separated out into breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and it has a section on freezer meals. And everything is made with almost all whole foods, and very little sugar. So I returned my friend's book, got on Amazon and bought myself a copy for $17 bucks. It came today. I planned a whole weeks worth of dinners out of it. On our trip to the grocery store today I bought more produce than I ever have before in one trip. I'm so excited!

Tonight we tried a Spaghetti Squash recipe, and it was SO GOOD!! Even my kids liked it. It tasted a lot like pizza. I thought I'd share the recipe. (Yes, this recipe has cheese in it, but we just did a portion without cheese for Ivan and he still loved it.)

Spaghetti Squash

1 2-lb spaghetti squash
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 cup grated zucchini
2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
dash of pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese 

Cut squash into halves lengthwise; scoop out seeds. Place cut side down in 2 inches of simmering water in a pan. Cook, covered, for 15 minutes. Holding hot squash with potholder, run the tines of a fork across the pulp, there is your spaghetti. Mix the strands with cheddar and mozzarella cheeses, zucchini, tomato sauce, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Spoon back into squash shells and place on a baking pan. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Yields 4 servings.

It was so good. We ate it with a green salad. And if we'd had a loaf of french bread too, it would have been the perfect meal. :) I'm glad our first experiment worked out, it's giving me courage to keep trying the rest of the week. I'll keep you posted on how things go.

Mini Preschool: Halloween: Games/Activities/Movement

We had another awesome preschool day today. Since it's still October, we're still doing Halloween. Misty was teaching today, and her sub-theme was games/activities/movement. First she had all the kids come and sit on a blanket. She showed the kids pictures of 4 different cats and asked them to pick out what was the same and what was different about the cats. She told them that today we were going to talk about Halloween cats. She explained the differences between a Halloween can and a normal cat.  And then she taught us all the song "Halloween Cat". I think Lincoln and Ivan's favorite part of the song was making the claws. :)

Halloween Cat! Halloween Cat!
Why do you meow and meow like that?

Neither I nor the moon,

like your tune.

So Scat! Halloween Cat!

Next, Misty had the kids play a game called Feed the Cat. She put out two bowl a little distance apart. One bowl had 4 ping pong balls in it that we pretended was food for the cat. Whoever's turn it was had to take kitchen tongs and carry the ping pong balls one at a time to the other bowl. The kids loved this game. And they were all really good at taking their turn and then cheering the other kids on.

After that we went over to the picnic table and talked about how Halloween cats like to wander the city at night. Misty gave each kid a piece of paper with a city mapped out on it, and a piece of tin foil with a blob of black paint. The kids got to make the foot prints of the cat by sticking two fingers in the paint and walking them around on the map.

Ivan actually did really well with this activity. He did two fingers just like Misty explained. Lincoln's still came out fine, but he had two whole hands in the paint and made a lot more mess.

After that the kids went to sit back on the blanket and learn another song. Misty made up this cute song all by herself to the tune of I'm a Little Tea Pot. I thought it was so creative. :)

I'm a Halloween cat in the night

My body is black, but my eyes are bright

If you cross my path I'll give you a fright!

So watch out for me on Halloween night.

Then she talked about how cats don't just walk places, they also jump over things, and climb on things, and go under things. Then she had the kids do an obstacle course.

I think the obstacle course was the kids favorite. :) After that, we did a cake walk. Misty put numbers down on the ground and had each kid stand on a number. Then the moms sang Halloween Cat while the kids walked around in a circle. When we stopped singing the kids had to stop on the number they were one. Each number corresponded with a different treat they collected in bags to use later to decorate cookies. I don't know that the kids fully grasped the concept, but they sure had fun anyway.

The kids did grasp the concept of decorating cookies though. And they loved it! Ivan got to decorate a graham cracker instead of a cookie, because the cookies had margarine in them. (He can have butter but not margarine, go figure.)  

Lincoln Strikes Again

It's been almost a year since the nail polish episode at Stacey's house over Thanksgiving. Lincoln has layed pretty low since then. But today he decided to strike again. I was feeding Adelia and getting her dressed for the day, and trying to get everyone's diapers changed and shoes and socks on so we could head out the door to preschool. I went to find Lincoln to put his socks on. He was sitting on my bed with a LARGE container of baby powder.

The foot prints are mine from walking over, picking him up off the bed and putting him in time out. I was so mad. But of course, I snapped a picture before attempting to clean up. :) The carpet in my bedroom is dark brown, industrial carpet. I bet it will be awhile, if ever, before all the baby powder ever comes out of it, even though I cleaned it up the best I could. I have to wait for Aaron to get home from work so we can move the bed and the dressers so I can get underneath them. Everything under our bed is also coated in baby powder. Not to mention, my sheets, everything on top of the dresser and night stand, the paper shredder, the laundry basket and it's contents, and I didn't even look on the other side of the bed to see if he dumped any down ther crack. That would have just been depressing because there isn't enough room to get the vacuum anywhere near there. (The bedrooms in our apartment are super small...this is the "big" walkway we have between our bed and dresser, on the other side it's not even wide enough to walk between the wall and the bed.) I made Lincoln sit in time out while I cleaned it up. It didn't seem like a very good punishment, but I couldn't think of anything better.

The Grand Tour of Adelia's Room

This post is mostly for Tindy and Tami, so I can show off the cute room decor they made at Adelia's baby shower. But I thought it would be fun to document as well, so here's her room. In the video I'm talking quiet because the boys are down for naps in the next room.

The view from the hallway looking in.

The cutest room decor takes the longest to make ;)

 I decided to put the Adi letters above her port-a-crib

Close up up the letters

 The view of her room with me standing right next to the crib. (Ignore all the extra crap in the room, like the 2nd bunk bed matress, my sewing cupboard, the extra night stand, and the hideous "curtains")

Close up of the shelf and picture frames. I decided that the shelf was the perfect place to hang headbands. I still need to put pictures in the frames.

 Close up of the poms. I hung them above her changing table so she has something to look at while getting her diaper changed. She likes them.

Both bow holders. They make the perfect addition.

 This is the view of the room if I'm standing by the changing table.

Adi decided to give us a wink.

Sunday After Church

I spent most of church today either in the mother's room nursing Adelia or in nursery with Ivan. So I didn't learn much. But I sure do have cute kids. :)