Do Not Leave Child Unattended

Lincoln wanted to do his tracing book, which means Ivan also wanted to do the tracing book. No problem, I just gave Ivan an empty sheet protector and a dry erase marker and he thought he was tracing just like his big brother. Everyone was happy. I was supposed to be supervising, but I left the room for a minute and got distracted (Facebook!) and this is what Aaron found when he walked in a few minutes later. Oops. Alcohol wouldn't take it off the wall...but my Magic Eraser sponges stepped up to the plate and didn't let me down. Whoever invented those things was a freakin' genius. It must have been a woman with small children.

It's About Time

I don't know why I always put off getting my hair cut for so long. I really, really needed it this time too. My bangs were so long that I was having to pin them back every day or else be driven crazy by them hanging in my face. I sort of flirted with the idea of growing out my hair, maybe that's why I haven't had it cut for months. Aaron would really like me to grow it out, but I would really like him to leave his curly on top, and since that never happens, and today I couldn't stand my hair anymore, I went and got it cut short, the way I like it.

Special thanks to Adelia for posing with me for the pictures.

Can't Get Enough...

I love this kid! She's so stinkin' cute. And it really helps that she's starting to be fun to have around. There were a couple months there where I seriously wondered if we'd ever be able to take her anywhere.

She got the baby doll for Christmas. It's made all of soft cloth and it has a little rattle inside of it. She has another one that is similar, that she got from Aunt Karen when she was born. She loves them. The other day I was at Target and I found another similar one that's dressed in Valentine's Day stuff, so I got it for her for Valentines since she can't have any candy. :)

Mini Preschool: Winter: Cooking

I finally made it to preschool this month! Suzy had a really fun cooking themed day planned for the kids. She started by reading them a story about making pizza. Then she had kitchen items inside a paper bag. The kids got to take turns picking things out of the bag and we talked about what each one was for. (Measuring cups, spatulas, the pan, hot pads, etc.)

Then we headed into the kitchen to make our own pizzas. First we put the dough on the tray. Then we smeared sauce, sprinkled the cheese on like snow, and put pepperonis on top.

While the pizzas were in the oven, Suzy had some other yummy things to keep the kids busy. First we made banana snowmen. They got to put three slices of banana on a shishkabab stick. An apple slice and a grape made the hat, mini chocolate chips (or raisins for Ivan) for the eyes and buttons, and a carrot shaving for the nose. Super cute!

Ivan's hat is on upside down, no worries. :)

And Lincoln's snowman is standing on its hat...but it's the thought that counts, right? I'd much rather they use their imaginations and come up with something crazy, than force them to do it exactly like I would have and take the fun out of it.

Then we made cracker sleighs. Using two pretzels for runners, and an oval shaped cracker for the main part of the sleigh, we glued the two together with easy cheese (or peanut butter for Ivan). Then we put snowman marshmallows on top.

By then our pizza was finished, so we took a break to eat it. Very tasty!

Last the best of all, and it was chocolate cake for dessert. Each kid got their own small chocolate cake and they got to frost it and decorate it with marshmallows and then make it snow, by sprinkling powdered sugar on top. They kids loved it, and everyone went home full. :)

Newly Wed Cookies

Krystal had a long day today. I asked her what she wanted to do, and she said that chocolate chip cookies sounded really good, but she didn't want to make them by herself. So we spent the evening cleaning up the kitchen and making cookies together.

For the first two years of our marriage, in spite of our best attempts, we could not make normal chocolate chip cookies. We finally discovered that the recipe we were using called for three eggs! Actually, we knew the recipe called for three eggs, the discovery was that "normal" chocolate chip cookie recipes use one or maybe two eggs. At any rate something went horribly wrong tonight and we now have two dozen newly wed cookies!

Two Cool Things

A couple really cool things have happened in the last few days. They probably aren't very exciting to anyone but me, but this is my blog, so I can share.

Cool Thing #1

-Our 2009 blog book arrived in the mail today!! And it looks fantastic! I love it. It makes me super excited to get working on 2010.

Cool Thing #2

-I've been talking about the fact that I am now writing a column in a home school newsletter for a little bit now. My first article was supposed to get published the first week of February, but they must have needed or wanted it to go early because it got published with yesterday's newsletter. I was so surprised and excited to open my inbox and see it there. You can go to this website http://ldsnhe.com/sentinel_25Jan2011_Krystal_Swan.html to see it. But I will also repost it below. Here it is, my first piece of writing to ever be published since I was in high school newspaper. :)

The Parable of the Bat and the Racket
by Krystal Swan

I consider myself to be pretty athletic. I am decent at most sports, although my favorite, by far, is softball. For thirteen years growing up I played competitive fast-pitch softball. That’s lots and lots of hours spent practicing to fine tune specific skills. When I was a freshman in college, a friend of mine tried to teach me how to play tennis. I was terrible! It turns out that swinging a tennis racket and swinging a softball bat are different enough motions that if you try to swing a racket the same as you swing a bat you will fail miserably. And I did. But I was so used to swinging a bat that I could not adjust, and I gave up on tennis.

Since making the decision to homeschool, I’ve realized that I’m up against a similar struggle. This time, however, I am bound and determined to make the adjustment. I am an alumnus of the public school system. Although I don’t feel like I had an awful experience in public school, I think that homeschool has more to offer. But trying to imagine myself homeschooling was like trying to play tennis. At first, when I thought about it, I pictured my kids sitting in little desks in our living room while I stood in front of them and lectured all day. Thankfully, after a little research, I discovered that homeschoolers swing the racket a little differently. The trick is to learn how, without letting my public school mind set get in the way.

Recently I attended a homeschooling conference. The instructor talked a little bit about paradigms. He defined a paradigm as, “A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them.” The phrase, “a way of viewing reality” really stands out to me as a reminder that there are many different realities depending on your perspective or your experience. Sometimes when I am trying to learn new things I dig myself a hole because I only try to do it one way—the way I know. By shifting my paradigm a little, I’m learning that an education doesn’t have to be the same 8:00-3:00, lectures, quizzes, and one-subject-at-a-time routine I grew up with.

When I first started researching about homeschooling, my favorite thing to do was to read about the creative ways people came up with to encourage their kids to learn. An experience that’s coming to mind is a woman whose son was interested in squid. She ran with it. They read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, they visited an aquarium, they ate squid at a restaurant, they dissected a squid, etc. Tons of learning going on there, and her son was all over it because he was interested. Stories like this fascinate me, because they are so foreign to the experiences I had in school. I want to learn how to create an environment like that for my kids. But in order to do that I have to teach my mind to put down the bat and pick up the racket, so to speak. And that’s going to take some effort.

And who knows, if this homeschooling thing works out, maybe I’ll give tennis another shot. :)

You can leave your thoughts, comments or suggestions here on my feedback page. Thanks!

- Krystal

Exciting, isn't it? Well, for me anyways, it really is. I have always wanted a chance to write, and I feel like this is a great place to start, and also about a subject that I'm starting to fall in love with. I know most people think I'm nuts for wanting to home school. But I think that's mostly because a lot of people don't really know much about it. All they know is that they used to know so-and-so who homeschooled and they were really weird. Unfortunately, the "weird" homeschoolers are the ones we remember because they stick out because they are weird. But I'd bet that you know lots of people who were homeschooled, you just never guessed it because they are normal. At least, that's the reaction we get when we tell people Aaron was home schooled. People say, "Oh really? I never would have guessed that, he's so normal." Anyways, whether you are a fan of homeschooling or not, you have to admit that it's pretty freakin' awesome that I got an article published. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to write about for next month.

My Column

I mentioned briefly last post that I will be writing a column for The Sentinel, which is an LDS Homeschooling e-newsletter that comes out once a week. Because they have a lot of writers, each writer only writes once a month. (Which is probably for the best, because I don't know that I could commit to more than that!) I'm really excited about this opportunity. I have missed being published (if you count high school newspaper as being published, that is). I think this is going to be a great opportunity for me to do something I love doing, with a little bit of pressure to do my best work. I write on this blog all the time, and although I love it, it's not what I'd call my best work, since I rarely go through the revision process on my blog. So this column is a chance for me to become a better writer. It's also a chance to share some of my experiences and things that I learn as I'm starting out homeschooling. And hopefully, the things I write will be beneficial to others who are in the same place I am.

Anyways, my bio page got put up on the website over the weekend, and it was just really cool for me, and I wanted to share. This is the link to it http://www.ldsnhe.com/our_writers.html#scribble_scholars if anyone is interested in seeing it "live". For record's sake, I'm going to post my bio here, so that it'll be in the blog book when I make it. Also, if by chance anyone out there is interested in receiving the Sentinel in your inbox, you can sign up for it here. It's not overwhelming or anything, it's just two or three short articles (but they come together in one email) that have to do with homeschooling, once a week. Even if you aren't a homeschooler and never plan on being one, I think it still gives some great ideas and philosophies on child education, which is a subject you'll have to tackle no matter where your kids get their education from. So there's my plug, check it out!

And here is my Bio or my introduction page, so when people read my articles and want to know a little bit more about me, they come here. My column is called Scribble Scholars.

“What do you want to do today?” I once asked my 3 ½ year old son. After a thoughtful pause he replied, “Today I am going to fly. Wanna see?” And true to his word, he spent the rest of the day jumping off couches, chairs, and beds, pretending to be a bird, or a superhero, or a rocket. Other days he spends disassembling my vacuum to see how it works, or maybe he’ll empty my kitchen drawer to find the perfect wooden spoon to make a “driver” for his pretend racecar. A quick memory allows him to retell a story or sing the lyrics to a song after hearing it only a few times. Mega Bloks, wooden blocks, Trios, marshmallows and spaghetti noodles, you name it, and he loves to build with it. His favorite books are about pirates. And all day he asks questions. “What’s in a tree?” “Do clouds make rain?” “Was I in your tummy?” “What makes the light turn on?”

My 22 month old son, who is just learning to talk, asks questions all day too, though his are limited mostly to “What’s that? What’s that?” and pointing with his finger. He pays much closer attention to detail than his older brother, which is possibly why he enjoys coloring, looking out the window, and sorting objects into different containers. Wooden peg puzzles are his latest discovery, and dirt and water are two of his favorite toys. When we can’t be outside, he bakes imaginary cookies to feed to his stuffed animals. He loves to dance and move around to music. His favorite books are about dinosaurs.

My baby girl is only five months old, but already I see her watching her big brothers and wondering what they’re up to. She gets excited when they’re around, and seems to be content even in the middle of their chaos. And I know it’s only a matter of time before she actively participates.

These are my little Scribble Scholars. They are my inspiration. And it is for them that I am beginning this homeschooling journey.

I’m Krystal. The Mom. The Wife. The Writer. The Reader. The Athlete/Sports Enthusiast. The Chef. The Party Planner. The Talker. The Record Keeper. The Daydreamer. I have lots of shoes that I fill, but recently I’ve decided to try on a new pair and become The Educator.

For us, homeschooling is an opportunity to turn learning into a way of life right from the beginning, and to do it as a family. My Scribble Scholars and I have lots to learn in this trial and error process, but we’re excited about the possibilities. For those of you finding yourself in similar shoes, I write this column.

So that's it. Nothing really fancy, but I'm super excited about it. My first article should be coming out in February, and I'll probably post it here too. I'm a writer again, yay!

Bullet Points

I have a lot of thoughts I'd like to get down on paper, but none of them really go together in any kind of flow. So I'm just going to do one of those bullet point deals, and see where we get to from there.

• I feel bad for the little girl across the street. Not her brother so much, because he's mean, but they both come home from school every day to an empty house because they're mom works. The boy is probably 10 or so and the girl is about 8, I think. Anyways, that wouldn't be so bad in and of itself, but about half the days of the week they are locked out of the house. I know this because we used to manage our apartment complex and the girl would come by to get the keys to get in. The mom won't give the kids a key, because she says they lose it, which I guess I can see, but I wouldn't feel comfortable having my kids locked out of the house every afternoon either. For awhile, we didn't have an extra key to their door, so the kids would wait outside for a couple hours until their mom got home. Finally Aaron taught them how to open the kitchen window from the outside and climb in. The mom got mad. Dumb. So I feel bad for them. It seems like there should be a better solution.

• I think as a family we are going to go to the Discovery Kids Museum at Gateway for Ivan's 2nd birthday in March. I'm pretty excited, because Aaron is agreeable to us buying a 6 month family pass (since if we go more than one and a half times it will be worth it). Besides all the cool exhibits they have, they also offer little mini classes during the week, and at least 3 of them are geared towards 18 month - 3 year olds. Perfect! And they are fun things like musical instruments, and story telling. The classes are small, 12 students max. The classes are half hour long and you just register for them at the front desk when you get there, I think kind of like big kid story time at the library. I'm pretty pumped about this, because I'm seeing it as a way to get past some of this Winter cabin fever we've been having. Really the only downside is that I have to drive to Salt Lake. But Aaron even said he wouldn't mind if I drove down once a week, because he thought the activities and classes seemed like a valuable way to use time/money. This makes me even happier, because I was a little bit bummed that because we aren't moving any where far, that I would have no where cool to buy a family pass to (like OMSI in Portland, for example), but I think this is going to be fun. (I'm also looking into getting a family pass to Thanksgiving Point, but not until after we are done with school and have a real job/income). So if any one out there is interested in getting a pass, or already has one, to Discovery Gateway, let me know, and we can plan trips together! 

• Sickies, that's what we are around our house. Two days ago, Ivan got a fever, and that was the last straw. I decided that since we weren't getting any better, that we would go to the doctor and check things out. I'm glad we did. Ivan has a double ear infection. Both are about a 6 on a scale of 1-10 for severity. And the infection (probably started in his ears) has made its way down into his lungs, hence the coughing. He's on an antibiotic. Adelia's ear infection has cleared up but now she has bronchitis. They think the bronchitis is being caused by her spitting up and then aspirating and the spit up getting into her lungs and causing irritation and infection. The doc said she's probably had bronchitis off and on since she was born, for this reason. Acid reflux is also probably why her voice is so raspy. Super. But that would explain why she's been so unhappy since birth. I'm taking her in for her 6 month check up in two weeks, and I'm supposed to talk to the doctor more about it, and then he might order a chest x-ray, and see what else we can do. For now, she's on antibiotics to get rid of the bronchitis, and we are supposed to feed her slowly and burp her very frequently. We've been doing that the last day or so, and it does seem to be helping. She's spitting up less, so that means she can't aspirate as much. Also, today I went and bought a bunch of slow flow nipples for the bottles. I'd been using medium flow, but we thought we'd switch. The doctor also told me that he thought Adelia was over weight (18.9 pounds, is what she weighed in at), but I don't agree. At 6 months, the average baby is about double their birth weight, he said. So Adelia was 8.5 at birth, and if she were average that would put her at 17 lbs two weeks from now. So, yes, she's above average by about a 2 lbs, but my kids have always been high 90 percentiles, and it's only 2 pounds, so I'm really not worried about that. But ya, that the latest on our health. Lincoln and I are just so sick of being home we can't stand it. But thankfully we have wonderful neighbors who have come and offered to take Lincoln to preschool, or on walks with them, or to let him come play at their house during quiet time. We do have some really great neighbors here. 

• HOUSE HUNGRY!! I am hungrier for a house than I ever have been for a baby. We pretty much aren't moving anywhere until April, but that hasn't stopped me from getting on Craigslist at night, and looking up rental possibilities in Spanish Fork, Springville, Salem, and Payson. Just for fun. My husband thinks I'm whacked. And I probably am, since the listings I'm looking at probably won't still be around by the time we can even realistically start looking. But oh, how I want a master bathroom, and a backyard, and a laundry room...

• Speaking of laundry (look! I connected two ideas! Yay for me.) I hate laundry. I think I am starting to truly understand the meaning of "never ending pile of laundry". I used to think it meant that laundry was just one of the chores that never went away because you had to do it again once all the clothes were dirty. I was so wrong. Never ending pile of laundry means that the pile quite literally never ends. It means by the time you get one load washed, folded and put away there is another one coming out of the dryer or going into the washer, or sitting on the couch, and it's a vicious never ending cycle, with no break in between. When Aaron and I were first married, my weekly laundry consisted of one load of whites and one load of darks, that probably could have been done together, except that they were whites and darks. I could do our laundry in an afternoon, including folding it and putting it away, and then I was done for another whole week. This week, I think I've done two loads a day every single day. No matter how much I fold and put away there is always more piling up on our couch. It's like a nightmare where you are trying so hard to get away from the scary monster, but no matter how hard you run, you're going in slow motion and the monster will surely catch you.  So there's my laundry spiel.

• I haven't made it to preschool the last two weeks because of sickness. Linc went yesterday, but none of us went the week before. The week before they made snowmen. And I've seen them hung in everyone's windows around the apartment complex, and they were way too cute to pass up. So yesterday Lincoln and Ivan and I made snowmen. I cut out all the pieces before hand, then let the boys glue them on how they wanted. Linc did his all by himself, and I helped Ivan quite a bit since all he really wanted to do was squeeze the glue. :) These are now in our window as well.

• I don't think we'll be building a ladder to the bunk beds any time soon. :) 

• I am in the process of becoming a writer again! Like a real writer, not just the word vomit I put on this blog every day. I call it word vomit because I rarely go back and revise it, I just type it as it comes out of my head, and then I'm done. But back to my being a writer. My sister-in-law Lisa writes for an LDS Homeschooling newsletter. The newsletter comes out once a week, but there are enough writers that each writer only publishes once a month. Anyways, the newsletter was looking for some new writers, and Lisa recommended me! I'm so excited. My column is called Scribble Scholars and I'll be writing about homeschooling preschool and other thoughts that people just starting to home school, or those thinking about homeschooling might be interested in. It's going to be a great opportunity to get published and gain some experience. I think my first article will be coming out in February, and I'll post more about it then.  

• We finally finished our 2009 blog book and it is being printed as we speak! It took us long enough, I know. But it was worth it. It looks REALLY nice. I was getting so frustrated with Blurb and their stupid booksmart program, that does give you some freedom to do what you want with the layout, but not as much as I wanted, so I finally started doing my blog book in Microsoft Publisher. Aaron helped me, and between the two of us, we did a fantastic job! I'm so excited to see it. We turned the publisher files into PDFs with Kelly's help, and then sent the PDF into Blurb to have it printed. And now the book is exactly the way we want it for the same price. I'll post some pictures when we get it in the mail.

The Little Red Swan...A Twisted Fairytale

Once upon a time there was a little red swan. She always had a desire to make her own bread. One year for Christmas, her parents and in-laws went in together to get the little red swan and her family a wheat grinder. Very excited about her new treasure, the little red swan wanted to make some bread right away. "But first I must read the directions." she thought to herself. She turned to her signets (baby swans) and asked, "Who will help me out by taking a nap, so that I may read they directions to our wheat grinder to make us some bread?"

Well the first little signet thought he was too big for taking naps. He would much rather spend the afternoon interrupting his mother with a million questions than take a nap. So that's what he did.

The second signet usually took really good naps. But today he had a nasty runny nose, and felt like whining and asking his mother to hold him, instead of napping. So that's what he did.

The third signet wasn't on a normal schedule anyway, so today she decided to jump in her jumpy chair rather than napping.

Well the little red swan could see that this project was going to be a lot tougher than she imagined, without getting any help. But she so much wanted to make bread, that she sat down in the middle of all the chaos and read the directions to her new wheat grinder.

After reading the directions the little red swan realized that she would need to go and get the wheat kernels out of the back closet so she could grind them into flour. So again she asked her signets, "Who will sit here nicely in the kitchen while I go in the back and get the wheat kernels?"

The first signet decided that he was too big to sit nicely. He waited until the little red swan was out of the room, and then he started pressing the toaster button up and down to make the toaster hot.

The second signet couldn't bare to be parted from his mother, so he followed her to the back room and pulled cans and boxes off the shelves while his mother was trying to get the wheat kernels out.

The third signet was cranky because she hadn't taken a nap yet, so she cried and screamed for the duration.

Once again without any help the little red swan when and fetched the wheat kernels to be ground in the wheat grinder. Then she unplugged the toaster before it caught fire, picked up all the cans and boxes and put them back on the shelves and feed her crying little baby and put her to sleep. Then she managed to grind her wheat into flour. Her wheat grinder worked beautifully!!

All that was left was to make the bread. "Now," said the little red swan, "who will please take a nap so that I may make some bread for our dinner?"

The third little signet was already asleep, and decided to remain so.

The second little signet gave a sleepy little yawn, and said, "Bed!" So the little red swan took him to bed.

The first signet, still thinking himself much too old for nap time, decided that he would compromise and play nicely at the kitchen table while his mom made her flour into bread.

Gratefully, the little red swan quickly made her flour into bread. And pretty soon there was a delicious aroma coming from the kitchen.

"I want some bread!" said the first little signet.

"Want bread!" said the second little signet.

"Ah-goo." said the third little signet.

But because they hadn't been much help all day, the little red swan made them wait until Daddy Swan came home from work. When Daddy Swan stepped through the door, he said, "Wow it smells fantastic in here!" And the whole Swan family sat down to dinner and ate the delicious whole wheat bread.

The End

*The author may or may not have taken some artistic liberties in the retelling of this story.

Bunk Beds!

The bunk beds are done! That is except for a clear coat, a railing for the top, and possibly a ladder. I (Aaron—given that Krystal is the usual editer in chief) also need to cut some little corners out of the plywood that will go under the matresses. But we got tired of living without them and the boys have been ever patiently waiting, so we thought we would put them up anyway. And they love the top bunk... both of them. The really good news is that all of the bolts and holes (with some minor adjustments) fit together, and it is a solid bed.

I think we started this project last year in May. We kept toying with the idea, so I finally drew up some plans on the computer. We got a few measurements from my sister Lisa who now owns the pair of separable bunk beds that I grew up in. Once plans were down on paper, we looked around at some prices for bunk beds to make sure we were up to the task. Then we browsed prices at Home Depot and finally decided to go buy wood. It always looks good when you haul piles of lumber into a little apartment. With some of the pieces cut at home depot, we were able to mock up two of the posts and one of the rails for the mattress. This was mostly an attempt on my part to explain to Krystal what was in my head. I think I mostly just succeeded in creatively stacking boards.

     

Then our house began to smell like wood. I cut the wood and used a router outside in the parking lot, but most of the drilling happened in our living room on top of (sort of) a red sheet for crafts. Thanks to Tami and Kerry Sparks for the router. It was really great to have it on hand.

After what seemed like a ton of work, we finally got the head and foot boards put together. It doesn't seem like it would be so hard until you think about all the measuring and insetting the crossboards for better support and making sure all the holes you drill are straight (using a hand drill). For anyone thinking about spending tons of time building a set of bunk beds, I recommend getting a drill press... which I'm sure costs at least as much as a nice pair of bunk beds.

Once I had the head boards done, I took to making the rails which also took a lot of time. I originally thought I would make individual supports for each slat under the mattress, and I actually cut a bunch of small pieces of wood for that purpose, but ultimately it seemed like a better idea to use one long piece of wood attached to the inside of the rail. I still ended up making little inset slots for the slats to sit in so they won't move around under the mattress.

When we were finally mostly ready to sand and stain the beds, we took them to my Uncle Richards house and my dad and brothers came over to help. There was still some wood filing and a little more drilling to do, so we didn't get to staining. This all happened in the garage where Uncle Richard cleans carpets, instead of on the driveway, which probably would have been better (thank you for letting use your garage). Somewhere in the whole process of building beds, Adelia arrived and school started, and winter set in, and the beds didn't actually get stained until it was fairly cold. Then they waited patiently in the dark in Richards garage until we decided we didn't actually want to wait anymore and I went and got them with the boys last night. After one more trip to Home Depot for hardware, we assembled one bed last night and one tonight and they are finally (mostly) done!

More of What We Do to Entertain Ourselves

We've all been sick enough this last week that I thought we should try to stay away from other people as much as possible, but not sick enough to warrant laying around all day. We're doing our best to keep busy around here. Lincoln and I have been playing games during nap time. I think I've mentioned before that my mom gets the kids a subscription to Highlights High Five magazine for Christmas every year. Sometimes the magazine come with games you can rip out and play. We've been doing those, but I think you could make a game like this on your own really easily.

If you take a sheet of paper and turn it horizontally, then at one end put a starting line and at the other end put a finish line. Then divide the spaces between the lines into boxes. You should have three rows of about seven boxes. Next make three different pictures, they could be anything really, this game choose to use animals. Put the pictures on a separate strip of paper so you can fold them up so they'll stand and can be moved. Then make a small deck of cards with one of the animals pictures on each card.

To play the game, draw a card. Whichever animal you draw, move that animal's piece on the game board one space. Whichever animal reaches the finish line first is the winner! The nice thing about this game, is that you can play with your child, and each be an animal, or the child can play by himself and just see which animal finishes first. Lincoln and I had fun doing this for about 1/2 hour before he got tired of it.

A different day, I was at my wits end with what to do. The kids were bouncing off the walls, and very tired of listening to me tell them what to do every five minutes. We were desperately missing our hours of outside time on summer afternoons. The kids needed something they could do semi-unsupervised that allowed them the space they needed from me.

Call me crazy, but I set up a water table, of sorts, in my kitchen. I got two empty ice cream buckets, put a towel underneath each one, and filled them about 1/2 full of water. Then I got out my measuring spoons, some old formula scoops, and a bunch of the kids' small toys, and I let the kids go at it. Then I went and sat in the living room with Adelia. I figured any water that got on the floor was just water and would be easy enough to clean up later, and it was well worth the time this activity kept the boys attention. (An entire hour!)

We've also been building a lot with blocks. Mega Bloks, Trios, wooden blocks, Mag Neatos, you name it. Sometimes we see how tall we can make a tower. Sometimes we have a certain structure in mind, like a fire station. Sometimes we get out all my cake and pie pans and use the Mag Neatos (they're magnetic) with them to make all sorts of creations. And of course, there's always the Trio swords and guns. I really should just give in and get the boys Nerf guns and be done with it.

Lincoln had recently developed an affinity for vacuuming. So sometimes, when all else fails, I haul out the vacuum and let him go at it with the edger. The only downside to it is that I have to sit and listen to the vacuum for half an hour.

We've also been spending a lot of time on the floor with Adelia, trying to encourage her to roll over. She really is not interested, but we have fun.

We tried potato stamps for the first time. That went ok, but the boys didn't really grasp the concept, so some of them are a little be hard to identify. But after they were dry, we made them into thank you cards to send out to our family members for the nice Christmas presents that were given to us.

And, I think I mentioned that we've been sick...so one of the days we had a pajama day. None of us got dressed. :) Here's two cute kids all wrapped up in Ivan's "bing-kit" his new obsession and must-have item. We're up to three now...the binkie (which he only gets in bed, but HAS to have), his "babbit", a stuffed rabbit that goes everywhere with us, and the blanket.

So that's what we've been doing...what have you been doing?

Adelia's First Meal

Oatmeal, that is. We decided to give some baby oatmeal a try to see how Adi would like it. We started with oatmeal because with the boys we started with rice cereal and they could never keep it down, and we ended up having to switch to oatmeal anyway. So we've gotten smarter this go around and decided to save ourselves the trouble. :) (Look at those chubby legs! *love*)

I expected some sort of regurgitation, or some screaming or something...but miraculously, I was disappointed. She calmly ate all her oatmeal, and even smiled afterwards. No throw up, no crying, to turning away of the head. Wow. You go girl!

11 Step Program for those thinking of having kids

I saw this on Facebook, and I thought it was so funny, so I'm going to share it again here. My favorite part is the one about taking full grown goats to the grocery store...

11 Step Program for those thinking of having kids

Lesson 1


1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...

1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.

Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3

A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...

1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)

2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.

3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.

4. Set the alarm for 3AM.

5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.

6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.

7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.

8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.

9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4

Can you stand the mess children make? T o find out...

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.

2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.

3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.

4. Then rub them on the clean walls.

5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.

6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5

Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.

1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.

2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6

Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.

Leave it there.

2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.

3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.

4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7

Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8

1. Hollow out a melon.

2. Make a small hole in the side.

3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.

4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.

5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.

6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Children Educating Themselves

My sister-in-law Melissa, sent me the link to this video on my last post. I watched it and thought it was fascinating, so I'm reposting it here. After doing a lot of reading and research in preparation to home school our kids, I do believe that children pretty much educate themselves, and parents/teachers are there to provide resources and encouragement.

Two things I loved about this video:

1. Can Tamil speaking 12-year-old children in a South-Asian village teach themselves biotechnology in English on their own?


RESULTS AFTER 2 MONTHS:

12-year old girl:
"Apart from the fact that improper replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic disease, we've understood nothing else."

2. The Grandmother cloud. :)

Check out the video, you won't be disappointed.

Mini Preschool: Winter: Craft

Well, I think after a crazy and unruly December, that we are finally back in the swing of things, and I could not be happier. Sometimes you have to take a vacation from your mundane schedule to realize how much you love the stability of it. :) 

Today was another great day of Preschool at Cali's house. She got things off on the right foot right out of the shoot, by having the kids sing Once There Was a Snowman. (Seriously, is there a a child on this planet who isn't in love with that song?) The kids were all over it.  

The she read the kids the book The Mitten by Jan Brett, which is about a little boy who wants his grandmother to make him snow white mittens, but she's afraid that if they are the same color as the snow then her grandson will lose them. But she makes them for him anyway, and he does lose one. One by one some cold animals find the mitten and climb inside to keep warm. This stretches the mitten out so much the boy finds his mitten before returning inside.

After the story the kids got to color and make their own large mitten. Then they colored the animals and cut them out. After that, Cali read the story again and as she read each animal the kids put it inside the mitten. Very cute.

I always seem to be three hands short, on these kinds of activities, and so today for the first time, I let Lincoln do his own cutting out all by himself, so I could hold Adelia and help Ivan cut. Linc did great! I was really impressed. He didn't do perfectly, but when he finished most of his animals were all the way intact.

After the mitten activity, the Cali gave the boys little paper snow men on popsicle sticks. We sang a song about the snowmen, and the sun coming out, and the snowman turning into a puddle. When we got to the puddle part, Cali replaced their snowman with a picture of a puddle. It was a really cute song.

She did another song with them where they got to waddle like penguins. The kids went all around the room with their hands down at their sides, and only their hands flapping around. It made me laugh to watch them. I was surprised at how well they left their hands down at their sides though.

For the last activity, she gave each child a shishkabob stick and three large marshmallows and had the kids build a snowman with them. Then she used frosting to dot the eyes and buttons and the kids stuck mini M&Ms to them. Of course they ate them before we could bring them home to get a picture, but they were really cute.

5 Months Old

Adelia turned five months old yesterday. The picture above is not her happiest face ever, but I still think she looks cute. She's chubby as ever too, and I love it. She weighs 18 pounds we found out. We had to take her in to the doctor because she also has her first ear infection.

She's doing loads better in the car seat these days, for which I am eternally grateful. She's getting a lot easier to take places, because she usually won't scream or cry, unless she's hungry or something startles her. She's getting better at letting me give her floor time, but still likes to have me pretty close while she's playing. She loves her jumpy seat and her Bumbo chair, which has been great for me because it means I don't have to carry her all day every day, like I was doing previously.

She's doing about the same as far as sleeping. Still going to bed between 10-11 most nights. Occasionally she'll go earlier, around 8 or 9, but not usually. She's still waking up 1 to 2 times at night to eat. But the progress we've made in the sleeping department this month, is that now if she's sleepy, we can lay her down in her bed while she's still awake, and she will put herself to sleep most of the time. It doesn't work if she's not sleepy, or if she has a bubble, but still...that fact that it does sometimes work is comforting. Also, we've let her cry herself to sleep a few times. Usually in the middle of the night, after one of us has already fed her, changed her, and burped her, and she still won't go to sleep, then we just lay her down and she cries a little and then goes to sleep. She's never cried longer than a half hour before falling asleep, and usually it's less than 10 minutes. This is good news for those of us in the house suffering from sleep exhaustion (Aaron and I). We've debated about trying to get her off of her night time feedings, since she's now at an age/weight where there is no health reason why she needs to be eating at night, but I don't think either of us are really up for it yet.

The best news of all is that Adelia is weened! Hooray! Judge me how you will, but I think nursing is miserable. It saps all my energy, kills my back, makes me moody as all get out, and leaves me thirsty and starving on a regular basis. Not to mention the headaches. And Adelia was to a point where she refused to nurse under a blanket, which made feeding her anywhere but at home a nightmare. Really though, the final straw was when she bit me. No, she doesn't have teeth, but those gums are killers. She bit me once and that was the end. I pumped for her for awhile after that, but pumping requires a pretty dedicated schedule if you are going to keep your supply up, and I knew once we went on vacation that any schedule I thought I had would go right out the window. And it did, and I didn't stress about it. And now I'm done. This go around, I'm not feeling guilty, and I'm not letting anyone else make me feel guilty either. I nursed her for just shy of 5 months, which is a lot longer than I thought I would go, and I am very proud of my accomplishment. I am also very glad to be done. Besides, Adi is less spitty and less gassy on the formula anyway, so it makes life easier all around.

The saddest news of all is that Adelia's hair is no longer curly. And it's growing in blond. I knew it would happen sooner or later. I loved it while it lasted, and I am going to miss it. But, if I want to look at it on the bright side, she has a lot of really cute headbands and bows to help hide her hair while it's trying awkwardly to grow out. And whenever I imagine calling her Adi, I imagine a little blondy with pigtails, so it's going to help her out in the nickname department. (I keep pushing for Adi to be her nickname, and Aaron just isn't catching on, or picking it up...)

Adelia hasn't rolled over yet, but I think she's almost interested in trying. She can arch her back really far, and scoot around in a circle if she's laying on her tummy. So I'm betting it won't be too long. Heaven help me when I have three mobile children!