I Hate Packing

Because I feel like our house perpetually looks like this.

Discovery Gateway Children's Museum

Today we went to Discovery Gateway Children's Museum in Salt Lake. It was awesome. There was so much to do there, and it was all geared towards kids. Everything in the museum is hands on. We spent most of our time in the Kids' Eye View room. It is a room that has lots of different activities that adults do, but small so kids can do them. They have a construction zone with cranes and dump trucks, a mini super market where you can shop or be the cashier, a farm room where you can ride on a life size horse, a play house, a water table, and a lot more. Then upstairs there are a lot of other cool things, that are geared towards a little bit older kids, but we still had fun playing with the green screen and the rescue helicopter. One of the boys' favorite places was the ball room. It has millions of plastic balls, and then a huge vacuum system with tubes running everywhere. You stick the balls in the tubes and off they go! I think the boys could have stayed there all day. We had a great time. (If you click on the collage, you can see it bigger.)

Birthday Bash

Ivan is really into cars, trucks, and especially big construction vehicles. Driving on the freeway, although a nightmare for me with all the construction, is a dream come true for him. From the backseat he shouts his excitement, "Mom, it's a CRANE!!!" or, "Cement Truck, Mom! Cement truck!" So, Aaron and I decided that making him a dump truck cake would be just the ticket. We were right. He was really excited about it. The pictures show the almost finished version, I added some black piping to make the windows and headlights more defined, and to put some squares on the bed of the truck. Then I used green (Ivan's favorite color) to write Ivan on the side of the bed, and to put little 2s on each of the wheels. We used the extra cake and crumpled it up and put it in the back for dirt. Unplanned, but definitely a good addition, during the middle of the night, the back part of the bed slipped off, and the dirt kind of rolled out, but it made it look like the truck was dumping. It was cool.

During the day, Uncle Richard came by to drop off a present for Ivan. A Nerf basketball hoop that hooks on the back of our kitchen chairs. The boys had a great time with this, and it allowed me to get the house clean and ready for our dinner guests.  Look at Ivan's form, he's got the beginnings of a great basketball player. :)

 We invited Ryan and Melissa (Aaron's brother and sister-in-law) over for dinner. We had spaghetti, which is Ivan's favorite. After dinner we started to open presents. The first present Ivan opened was from Grandma and Grandpa Swan. Once he got it open, he held it up above his head and said, "A book!" really excitedly, and didn't want to open anymore presents until we read the book to him. The boys have been in story deprivation, since I've packed all but five of their books, so they were very excited to hear a new one.

Maybe I'm silly, but I have my kids get each other presents. Usually just something little from the dollar store, but I like them to feel like they are apart of the giving too. Adelia got Ivan a big bouncy ball that the size of a softball, and clear, with sparkles in it, that lights up when you bounce it. And Lincoln got Ivan a plastic tool belt full of tools, and a construction hat that came with it.

Then Ivan opened his presents from Ryan and Melissa. They got him a big blue ball, a Styrofoam army airplane, and a thing of bubble solution with a giant bubble wand. While Ivan was opening those, his little neighborhood friends started to arrive. Carson from next door gave him a matchbox car Space Shuttle. Ivan opened it and said, "A ROCKET!!" and had to have it taken out of the plastic immediately. Kaitlyn from a couple doors down gave Ivan a lobster bath toy that winds up and shakes it's tail to swim across the water. All of the kids were fascinated with this one. We had a hard time convincing our kids that it was a lobster, not a crab. And Nathan, Kaitlyn's older brother, gave Ivan a fishing pole with little fish that you can hook. Even though the kids begged, we decided no to open that once, since there were a lot of people around, and it had kind of a lot of pieces.

Last Ivan opened his present from Aaron and I. A BIG Tonka dump truck. And trust me we looked just about everywhere for this thing. I really wanted him to have it, since we have a sand box at our new place, plus I just think every little boy needs a dump truck, and Ivan loves this kind of things anyways. The dump truck was a success. Even Adelia liked it.

After that we sang to Ivan and let him blow out his "candles" (we forgot to buy candles, so we had to use matches instead, but it worked). I was determined to let Ivan blow out his own candles this year (Lincoln blew them out for him last year), so I occupied myself solely with keeping Lincoln away from the cake. Ryan was kind enough to take a picture for me. It took Ivan about 5 tries, but he got both candles out all by himself.

Ivan also decided that he wanted to have his cake and eat it too...but not with his fork! He used his pliers. Oh well, it's his birthday, I guess he can eat his cake however he wants. :)

After that all the friends left. Ryan and Melissa took Ivan and Lincoln outside to make big bubbles. They had a blast. And even now, two days later, if I ask him, "Ivan, what did you get for your birthday?" he looks at me and says excitedly, "Bubbles!!" So, I think they were a hit.

And actually, I think everything was a hit. There doesn't seem to be a toy that he likes more than another, he seems to be playing with them all equally. But that could just be because my children are also suffering from toy deprivation, since I packed all the toys up a week ago. But really, Ivan and Lincoln will sit down and play with the tools, then they'll take turns pushing each other in the dump truck, or fishing, and then at bed time Ivan wants to bring his ball from Adelia to sleep with him. So I think we did really well with the gifts this year. Way to go us.

We'll also be having some more birthday fun in the near future. Saturday we're taking the kids to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum in Salt Lake. And then sometime early next week my mom will probably come down to see Ivan and give him the presents from her and Kerry, since they were in St. George at Tanner's baseball tournament this weekend. The fun never stops when there's a birthday around here. :)

Happy Birthday Ivan. We love you and hope you had a wonderful day!

Two Today

Happy Birthday Ivan Boy! You are two years old today, and getting bigger every second. You were so cute walking around BYU campus with your orange balloon this afternoon. It's a picture I want to keep tucked away in my head forever to bring out when I need a smile. I want you to know how much your Mom loves you. We are doing everything I can think of to make sure you have as special of a day as any two year old can have.

Mini Preschool: Weather

As usual when it's my turn to host preschool, I find so many fun ideas I want to use, and then have a hard time narrowing them down. The theme for this month is Spring. And I decided to do weather using the saying, March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

Last week at Suzy's, she had music activities for the kids to do as they arrived to keep them busy until everyone got there. I thought this was such a brilliant idea, so I copied. As each child arrived, I gave them a cotton ball, which I told them was a cloud, and a straw. I told them they had to make wind using the straw to try and move their cloud across the floor. I think it worked really well. Thanks for the idea Suzy!

Once everyone was here. I sat everyone down behind a masking tape line on the floor. I did this because sometimes when we read a story, the kids crowd around the story teller so tightly that no one gets to see. So I thought I'd try getting them to sit behind a line. It worked ok. We did a hello song to get everyone focused up front. Then I asked if anyone knew what month it was? I told them it was March and that march is important because it's the month where the weather outside changes from Winter weather to Spring weather. We talked about what Winter weather was and what Spring weather was, and how it March we often get some of each, with no particular rhyme or reason to it. I told them that some people say that March has lion weather and lamb weather. Then I asked them what sounds a lion makes. They roared for me. And we talked about how lions are kind of fierce and wild. Then we described some weather that is fierce and wild. Snow, hard rain, cold strong wind, sleet, etc. are what we came up with. Then I asked them what a lamb says. The said baaaaa. And we talked about how lambs are gentle and quiet and soft, and came up with some types of weather that are like a lamb. Sunshine, warm gentle breezes, light spring rain, etc.

Then we went into the kitchen and made lion and lamb paper plates. I got the patterns for those here. The lamb kind of turned out looking like a rabbit in my opinion, but oh well. I didn't mention this specifically to the kids, but I think at our house for the rest of March, every day I will ask Linc and Ivan if the day is more like a lion or a lamb outside, and then we'll hand the appropriate paper plate up.

Next we came back out into the living room. I played a weather song and we did actions to it. The tune is to Oh My Darlin' Clementine.

Sunny, sunny
Sunny, sunny
It is sunny in the sky
S-u-n-n-y sunny
It is sunny in the sky.

And the same over again with cloudy, rainy, windy, and snowy.

That was our wiggle activity, although it was kind of low key. Then I had the kids sit down on the floor with their metal cookie sheets that they brought (as we soon found out, I should have specified magnetic, instead of metal, because some people brought aluminum and it's didn't work as well for them) I gave them a stack of small magnet (which you can buy a pack of 50 at Walmart for a couple buck) and a print out of the sun with holes. The objective was to put the magnets in the holes and "stick" the sun to the cookie sheet. This idea is good for learning one to one correspondence, and I found it here.

While the kids were working with their magnets, I read them the story It's Raining It's Pouring by Kin Eagle. It adds on different weather situations the the old man finds himself in. Some of them are kind of a stretch, but it's a cute book. I decided to read while the kids had something to do with their hands as an effort to eliminate the mass crowding of the story teller that usually happens. I think it worked pretty well.

After that we played Dress For the Weather. I'd taken two paper people and taped them to my flannel board, along with all kinds of clothes for different weather. Each kid got a turn to dress a person, and then we talked about what kind of weather it might be outside to make the person choose to wear that. It was a little stretched. I don't think the kids cared as much about dressing for a particular kind of weather as they did about dressing their person in whatever looked the coolest to them. I was actually really surprised how into this the kids were. Tears were shed and fits were thrown because we weren't taking turns fast enough.

We did weather boats next, which I thought would be the favorite activity, but we'd spent a lot of time on dressing for the weather, so we kind of had to rush through this one. Everyone got a little boat made out of a piece of Styrofoam, a tooth pick, and a square of construction paper. The kid whose turn it was would come up and put their boat in the ocean (a 9x13 pan full of water). Then they would roll the cardboard dice (made with love, by Aaron) to get either a picture of a sun, the wind, or a rain cloud. And then they would have to perform that specific weather on their boat. So if they rolled the sun they got to shine a flashlight down on their boat. If they rolled wind, they got to use a straw to blow on their boat. And if they got rain they got to spray their boat with a squirt bottle (this was the obvious favorite).

And last we made snacks. We made our lions out of a rice cake, peanut butter, chow mien noodles, and raisins. The lambs were a half an apple covered in marshmallow creme with Kix stuck to the back, a big marshmallow for the head, raisins for the eyes, and two mini marshmallow stuck onto four tooth picks for the legs. I think they turned out pretty cute, and they even tasted good. I got the ideas for these here and here.

For those of you who ask, here's a copy of my lesson plan:

March Preschool- In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb- Weather

Waiting Activity- Give each kid a cotton ball and a straw and let them be the wind, while you wait for everyone to arrive.

Introduction- Does anybody know what month it is? It’s March. March is important because it’s the month where the weather outside changes from Winter weather to Spring weather. Who can tell me some different kinds of winter weather? Spring weather? March is kind of a funny month because the weather goes back and forth, back and forth a lot. Some people say that March has lion weather and lamb weather.

Explain Lion and Lamb weather- ask them questions like “What would make the weather ferocious like a lion? (rain, cold wind, storms, sleet, etc)” and “What would make the weather gentle like a lamb? (sunshine, warm breezes, etc.)”

Lion/lamb paper plates- divide kids in half so one group does lion plate first and the other does lamb

Song about weather- have the kids act out the different kinds of weather in the song.

Story/Magnets- Read It’s raining, It’s pouring to the kids while they place magnets on their pictures on cookie sheets. If they haven’t finished the magnet page at the end of the story, read them The North Wind and the Sun.

Dress for the weather- Have the kids dress paper dolls for different kinds of weather

Weather Boats- give each kid a Styrofoam boat. They take turns rolling the dice to get different kinds of weather. They have to create that weather for their boat. (Flashlight for sun, blow with a straw for wind, squirt bottle for rain)

Lion/lamb snacks- Each kid gets a rice cake, some chow mien noodles, raisins, half an apple, a handful of Kix, 8 mini marshmallow, 1 big marshmallow, 4 tooth picks, and a plastic knife. Adults will give each child a scoop of peanut butter on their rice cake and a scoop of marshmallow creme on their apple.

I was exhausted after preschool today. I don't know if the kids were a bit more rowdy than normal, or if my late nights have been catching up to me. I love our preschool group. I think it's good for so many things. One of the things that's hard for me though, is that I want all the kids to be able to do everything hands on, for as long as they want, which just isn't possible. Ideally every kid would have had their own set of paper doll and clothes and they could have all happily dressed and redressed to their hearts content until they were tired of it. Or they would have all gotten to create every different kind of weather for their boat, and had time left over to come up with their own kinds of weather. But I know that's not reasonable or possible in the hour and a half time limit. But it does make me grateful for the decision we've made to homeschool, because in a lot of aspects of our kids' education we can do those things. If Linc wants to play with stacks of magnets all afternoon and find out what they'll stick to besides the cookie sheet, or experiment with why they push away from each other when you turn them a certain way, or how tall he can stack them before they tip over, or whatever...then he can. The freedom of it. That's the aspect I love most about homeschooling.

Cutest Leprechauns

If those aren't two of the cutest little leprechauns you've ever seen then you must be crazy. The hats are a present from Gramma Tam. (Mom, can you believe they survived this long? I know, I was shocked and amazed myself.) The beads are from Aaron and I. I gave them the beads this morning at breakfast while I was explaining what St Patrick's Day is. I told them they had to wear green or they were going to get a little pinch. Linc has taken this very seriously. I love it. After breakfast they started dancing around the house singing that they were leprechauns.

A Bike Ride to the Inside of My Head

One of our favorite activities to do outside when the weather is nice, is to go to the church and let the kids ride their bikes in the parking lot. Usually several of us from preschool group go together so that the moms have something to do while the kids are riding. The kids love having an almost unlimited amount of space to ride in.

Ivan did so good today on his little trike. He's usually the slowest when we ride to the church (since all the other kids who have bikes have pedals), and it doesn't help that he gets distracted by the rocks and sticks and whatever else he can see on the ground. But today he did so well. And although he and I were still the last ones, we were right behind everyone else. And he stayed on his bike all the way to the church. Usually about half way there, he decides he'd rather walk. But today he went the whole way. Hooray Ivan!

His birthday is this Friday, and I still can't believe it. I should though, because already those terrible twos have started creeping in. Ivan is in the top bunk of the bunk beds. The bedroom is small enough that no matter where in the room the bunk beds are placed, he can reach the light fixture. So every time he's in his bed (nap time and bed time), almost without fail, he unscrews the light bulbs and drops them on the ground. Only one has ever shattered, but dropping them breaks the filament, and then the light bulbs are no good. We're a little bit hesitant to leave the light bulbs out, because if the light switch was on and he stuck his fingers in the light socket it would electrocute him. But due to the tab we're racking up replacing light bulbs, we have currently removed all the light bulbs and duct taped the light switch down. They don't get much natural light coming into their window because there's a fence about 3 feet outside of it, so now that we can't use the lights, their bedroom feels like a cave. When he can't unscrew light bulbs, he eagerly pulls down the curtain rod, which he can also reach from his bed. I'm hoping the boy's bedroom in our new place is big enough to eliminate these issues. I can't wait to move...

But then I see pictures like this one above, my two boys and their pal Nathan, and these below, of a lot of the kids in our complex, some of which have already moved, and those of us who will be shortly, and those staying, and the picture even further below of some of my girl's night buddies...and I am reminded how much I am really going to miss the people here, even if I won't miss the apartment itself.

(thanks Cali for letting me take these last few off of your blog)

And so it happens, that I can start a post with the intent of writing about a bike ride on a lovely afternoon, and end up reminiscing and all sentimental due to the upcoming move. :) Welcome to the inside of my head.

Moving is so interesting. On one hand it's so exciting and so wonderful to (finally!) be moving on with life. But then on the other hand, you think of all the wonderful friends you've been surrounded with and you just want to pack them up and take them with you, and all live in the same neighborhood. At this point it would be a pretty big neighborhood with my good friends from high school and freshman year at college, two of my sister-in-laws that were my neighbors in Phoenix, my ward family from those eight months in Texas, and now all the wonderful friends that I've met here in the last three years, not to mention our family members. But I think about all of you a lot and the things that I've learned from you. I'm glad we sort of get to keep in touch through Facebook and blogging, but it's not the same. And so I think about what it would be like if all the people I love and care about lived in the same neighborhood...I like the idea.

Book Review: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

by Mike Brown

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was the funniest, most interesting, and informative book I've read for a few months. I absolutely loved it. The author is Mike Brown, one of the astronomers responsible for Pluto no longer being a planet. The book is his story leading up to and during the decision making process.

When I was a kid, I used to sleep outside on the trampoline in the summer time all by myself with a constellations map. I would stay up really late and see what I could see. I find the sky fascinating, but could never really get past the math of it. This book is written for people like me. All the big scientific stuff, he dumbs down and puts into terms we can comprehend. And it's not just one long spiel about astronomy stuff either. He ties in a lot about how he met his wife, and about their little daughter. And he tells jokes, and is very entertaining. His thought process reminds me so much of Aaron's, which is probably why I find him humorous and entertaining. His writing style is very similar to the style I try to use when I write (he does a better job of it than I do, however.) It was an all around great read. Plus, I feel like I learned a few things, and I now understand why it makes sense that Pluto is not a planet, and some other very interesting things about our solar system. It's an easy read, I think it took me three days, but only because we're in the middle of packing to move, so I couldn't really drop everything. And it's kind of suspenseful. I highly recommend this book.

Sitting and Scooting

Adelia is sitting up on her own these days, silly girl. She's still a tiny bit wobbly, but she usually only tips over when she's trying to get something out of her reach. She's good enough at it that I have no qualms about sitting her in the middle of the floor and walking out of the room. Way to go Adi Mae!

But that is not all, oh no that is not all (then Sally and I saw all the things fall. Cat in the Hat anyone? Okay, so  maybe Aaron and I are the only crazy parents that now quote children's books as inside jokes...) Adi is also scooting! I can't believe it. It seemed like it took her for-e-ver to decide to roll over, and so I just figured everything else would be that much further away too. But nope.

This first video is a little longer, but very cute and funny. But if you want to just cut to the chase, the second video is nice and short. :)

Seeds for Science

The past week, during our home school preschool time (aka Ivan and Adelia's afternoon nap) Lincoln and I have been doing science experiments with seeds. We are getting really excited about the fact that our new house will have good sized, raised, planter boxes for a garden, and have been anxious to get started with that. Lincoln and Ivan have caught on to the excitement as well, and so I decided to try an revolve this week's activities around seeds.

Monday- First of all, I wanted to start with an explanation of what spring is. We made this cool seasons wheel by taking an empty Cheerio box and cutting a large circle out of it. Then we divided the circle into four parts, one for each season. Then I printed out pictures of things I thought resembled spring off of the internet and let Lincoln cut them out and glue them onto our seasons wheel, while we talked about what spring is. For now, I've decided to leave the other seasons blank, until we get to them, and then we'll fill those in too. I made sure to make a point that one of the things you do in spring is to begin planting the seeds to grow a garden.

Then for FHE we went to Home Depot and picked out the seeds we wanted to try planting this year. We came away with snow peas, green peppers, onions, green beans, regular peas, corn, carrots, and watermelon. We bought some little indoor plant starter containers, and soil. Eventually we'll probably go back and get some tomato and strawberry starts, we'll see. We didn't have enough time left before bed to plant the seeds though.

Tuesday- Since we hadn't planted our seeds yet, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to do some seed sorting with Linc. I opened the packets for watermelon, peas, beans, and corn, and dumped all the seeds into a bowl together (I chose those because they were big enough and different enough to tell them apart). I printed out pictures of the different full grown plants with the fruit on them. Linc and I examined the seeds and made guesses about which seeds might go to which plants. He got peas and corn right. After we determined which went with which I spread out four different bowls and put one plant picture next to each, and let Linc sort the seeds into the bowls. He had a great time, and kept asking to do it again once he finished.

Wednesday- Today we did an experiment with bean seeds. I took a few of the bean seeds out of the packet and gave them to Lincoln, along with three different glass jars. I told him to put the beans into the glass jars however he wanted as long as there were some seeds in each jar. While he did that, I took a piece of paper and drew the three jars (obviously, I'm not the artist in the family). Then we labeled the jars 1,2,3. Then we counted the number of beans in each jar and drew them in the jars on the paper. Then we decided to find out which jar had the most beans in it. On the back of our paper I made a graph. Each bean got it's own box, and we made sure the boxes for each jar lined up, so when we were done we could see which jar had the most beans. Lincoln actually had a pretty hard time with this when it was just the beans. So I assigned each jar a different color, and we colored in the squares for each bean. Then we turned the paper sideways and I asked Linc which tower was the tallest. After that he could pick it out. I don't know if he understand that each block in the tower stood for one bean, but that'll come eventually. Right now I'm more concerned with him understanding the concept of more and most, bigger biggest, small and smallest, etc.

The we put all the beans back in their respective jars. We talked about what seeds need to grow, and one of the things we came up with was water. In the first jar we didn't put any water. In the second jar we put a half inch of water, and the third jar we filled half full of water. Then we colored the amounts of water in each jar onto our paper drawing. We'll have to wait 8-10 days to see which jar will sprout the beans. Lincoln loves coming into the kitchen to check on it every second of the day. :) I hope it works. (It's supposed to be the middle jar.)

That night we finally got around to planting our seeds. We let the boys use spoons to scoop the dirt into the little holder things. Then we each took one child and very carefully helped them plant the seeds. And last, we watered them. The boys thought the watering was great fun. Ivan even tried to help by using his sippy. :)

Thursday- Co-op Preschool day! It was Suzy's turn, and the lesson she chose to teach fit right in with what we'd been talking about all week...seeds!

It was a beautiful day, and she took us all out back and we talked about seeds and what they need to grow. Then she gave each kid an egg carton with three sections in it. She let them put dirt in them, and then they each got to choose three types of seeds to plant. Ivan chose onion, green pepper, and tomato. Lincoln (who I was not supervising, so he was pretty much on his own), I think chose a tomato, lettuce, and something that will be a surprise when it comes up (in other words, I have no idea). Then the kids got to water their seeds. Suzy did a great job of explaining how to know when the seeds needed more water, and when they'd gotten too much water.

Friday- One more experiment with bean seeds. It's very similar to the one we did Wed. except on Wed the focus was on what seeds need to grow, and today's the focus was on the roots and how the seeds sprout. We took three plastic baby food containers with the lids and Lincoln crumpled up enough paper towels to fill the containers and put them in. Then with a medicine dropper, he got all the paper towels damp. (Thoroughly soaked through, but without puddling at the bottom of the container.) Then we "planted" a seed between the wall of the container and the paper towel. (So you could see the seed through the side.) Then we put the lids on and put the containers in a dark place. They are supposed to sprout in a few days, and as we watch them we'll be able to see the roots, and we can talk about roots and what the roots do for the plant. Cool!

I should probably mention that I did not come up with these activities in my own head. :) The only one I can claim is the graph for the bean seeds. Everything else I got out of the book Science is Simple Over 250 Activities for Preschoolers by Peggy Ashbrook.

Oh ya, and some supplemental things we've done this week to go along with all of the above.

-read books about spring and seeds

-gone on a spring walk to look for signs of spring (buds on trees, flowers pushing up through the ground, snow melting, birds coming back, etc.)

-pointed out on rainy days that the rain was good because it was water the ground and helping the plants to wake up.

-Talk about the different things we eat at dinner that have seeds.

-And I wanted to eat some different seeds, but we never got around to that.

Gratitude

I listened to this conference talk on Gratitude by President Monson today. I vaguely remembered this talk, but I'm so glad I watched it again. It was full of things that I needed to hear, and that I've been wanting to hear, and praying to hear. I love when that happens.

During his talk, he mentioned being grateful in all things. Every time I hear that phrase my mind immediately goes to the book The Hiding Place by Corri Ten-Boom to the part where she and her sister are in the concentration camp, and her sister reads that verse decides to be thankful for all things, including the fleas. Corri thinks her sister has gone a bit far, but as it turns out, because there were so many fleas, the Nazi guards would not come into the bunk with the prisoners, and because there were no guards Corri and her sister were able to read the Bible out loud to the other prisoners, which brought comfort and hope to everyone. After finding that out, they truly were grateful for the fleas, and Corri was reminded that God has a purpose in all things, and that we truly do need to be grateful in ALL things. I'm still working on that, but it was a great reminder.

Last time my visiting teachers were here they challenged me to pick any principle that has been restored in the latter-days and work on gaining a stronger testimony of it. I decided to pick the living prophets. I have always had a testimony of the living prophets on the earth today, and I do believe that they relate God's will to us. But I haven't been very on top of rereading the messages they share with us in conference and keeping those things fresh in my mind. So my new goal has been to listen to/read/or watch one conference talk during nap time every day. Lincoln usually sits and watches with me, and it's only 10-15 minutes out of the day. But it's made a HUGE difference. I'm grateful for the words of our prophets and apostles. I am amazed how every day the talk I listen to seems to have something specifically that I needed to hear. I feel like I am now more aware of what God wants for His people (me) to hear. And I know that he truly does speak to us through our prophets and church leaders.

How to make an Archimedean Screw

In an effort to help Tanner with an extra credit assignment, I ended up drawing blue prints for an Archimedean Screw. I made one of these for a history class a couple years ago. For those of you interested in making your own (because we know this is going to be your top weekend priority), here are some basic instructions:

Get a two foot dowel that is one inch in diameter. Draw a line down each side and mark it every inch along the dowel. Tack the tubing at every other mark wrapping it around the tube. You'll need some way to turn the tube when its all done, so you could put a long screw into each end, one for it to pivot on and one for the top of it to turn it from. In the picture, I have it going through a hole in a 2x4, but you could support it some other way. It just has to be tilted enough so that it can carry water. When I did it, I nailed the tubing on with small nails, but the nails got a little in the way with the water going up the tube. You can get tubing and the other supplies at Home Depot.

Good luck,

Aaron

Thoughts on BYU Basketball and the Honor Code

I'll admit, I'm not a huge collage basketball fan. I love basketball, but I just don't have the time to follow it very closely (and since I don't own a television, that makes it even tougher). Since I do live in Provo though, I've over heard a lot of talk about Brandon Davies and his honor code violation. I was sad for him and for the basketball team, but honestly, I was happy that the honor code office stuck to their guns, I did not expect them to do any differently.

This is how I feel about it as a BYU student. Can the honor code be a pain the butt? Absolutely. Like the time I went to the Morris Center Cafeteria right before one of my inter-mural volleyball games. I was wearing shorts that came just above the top of my knee, but were not touching my knee, and softball socks that came up to the bottom of my knee. So the only part of my leg that was showing were my knee caps. But the cashier would not let me into the cafeteria to eat because my shorts were not long enough. Was I mad? Furious.

But you know what? I have friends who went to other collages and they've told me stories about how their roommates would have guys sleep over in the same room, and about how they got to be the third wheel to frequent love making going on in the next bed. I have friends whose roommate would have huge drinking parties that would last all night long, when she was trying to get a good night's sleep before a big test. Friends who were roommate with drug or porn addicts. And on and on. I'll take being sent out of the cafeteria for wearing my basketball shorts over any of those situations every time, thank you. And I am grateful for the honor code for keeping those kind of situations away from me.

But even that is not even the point. The point is no one forces you to sign the honor code. It is something you agree to do when you decide to attend BYU. And even if some of the things seem a bit silly, like guys not being allowed to have facial hair, every single guy at the school agreed to that in a contract (the Honor Code) when they decided to come to BYU. It bugs me when people complain about the honor code. It bugs me even more when basketball fans are angry that they don't make exceptions for athletes because it will ruin our chances in the NCAA tournament. If they made an exception for Brandon Davies, then they'd have to make an exception and for every other student, and if they did that they might as well not have an Honor Code.

I don't mean to rant, that's really not where I want to go with this post. Mostly I wanted to share this sound clip of an interview with Danny Ainge of the Boston Celtics talking about the Davies situation, and the Honor Code. I think this interview is fantastic, and I think he answers the questions really well, really thoroughly, and without being haughty or stuck up or pretending to be better than anyone. He gives great explanations about what Mormons believe, and talks a bit about what is was like to be a Mormon playing in the NBA. It's an all around great interview, and I really agree with the things he has to say about the players, the Honor Code, and our religion.

PS I had Geography with Austin Ainge (son of Danny Ainge) when I was a freshman. :) Go Cougars.

Our Weekend

We've had a busy but fun weekend. Friday they delivered our new mattress! That's what Aaron got me for my birthday. Our other one was sagging really bad in the middle, and both of us were waking up with back aches every morning. The new one is a King Koil Plush, which we ordered online for a great price. We'll put a two inch memory foam on top of it one of these days, when we get around to buying one. But it was SO NICE to sleep on a flat surface. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. My boys thought they were in heaven too, but not because of the mattress...because of the box the mattress came in.

Also for my birthday, Aunt Debby and Uncle Richard and family gave me the Lion House Cookbook! I'm so excited, everything in there looks delicious. Friday night I decided to try the Beef and Seven Vegetables. It turned out really well. Aaron kept complimenting it over and over. And it was pretty easy to make too. You have to do a lot of chopping, but the cook part was simple enough. We chose to eat ours over rice, and it was amazing.

Beef and Seven Vegetables

1 Tbsp cooking oil
3 cups sliced cooked roast beef (about 1 1/2x2-inch strips), or 1 1/2 pounds fresh lean beef cut into strips
2 1/2 cups carrots, cut in thin slices
1 1/2 cups sliced green pepper
1 1/2 cups sliced onion
2 1/2 cups slant-cut celery
1 can (about 4 oz) bamboo shoots, drained
4 cups beef stock or 4 beef bouillon cubes and 4 cups water
1/2 to 3/4 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons cornstarch in 1/4 cup cold water
15 cherry tomatoes
1 cup fresh or frozen snow peas or broccoli florets
Cooked rice or Chinese noodles

Heat oil in frying pan. Add beef and brown lightly; remove meat. Add carrots and green pepper to pan; stir-fry for 1 minute. Add onions and celery; stir-fry for 1 minute. Add bamboo shoots. Remove vegetables and keep warm. Vegetables should remain crisp.

In a heavy pot, bring soup stock and soy sauce to a gentle boil; thicken with cornstarch-water mixture. Add tomatoes, snow peas or broccoli, stir-fried vegetables, and meat; heat gently. Serve over rice or Chinese noodles. Makes 8 servings.

Saturday we went up to Hooper for the monthly family potluck. My friend and visiting teaching companion, Rachel, was telling me all about these blond brownies the other day, where you use white beans in the ingredients. I thought it sounded awesome, because beans are really good sources of calcium, which I'm always looking for since Ivan doesn't drink milk, but I can't get him to eat plain beans. So I thought maybe if I hid them in brownies. So I tried it, and they turned out great! No one at the party even suspected there were beans in the brownies. :) I did end up telling them at the end. If you are interested in that recipe you can visit Rachel's blog.

The kids had a great time at Mom's, as usual. Ivan and Graham (Tanya and Nelson's oldest) got to be quite the little buddies, and played together all afternoon. They especially loved when Uncle Tanner gave them horsey rides.

Lincoln was really into Just Dance on the Wii. And he did well too. He was scoring points left and right. His favorite song is Shake Shake Shake Senora.

And Adi surprised us all by being a moving machine! We put her on the floor to play and she was rolling laps around the living room. She also got up on her hands and knees several times and started rocking back and forth. Aaron even saw her try to put one knee forward and then fall. (Not the greatest picture, but hey, it's proof!)

Also on Saturday we were able to give away our old mattress to someone for free, as opposed to having to pay $50 bucks to have someone come haul it to the dump, which we were very happy about. AND we packed 5 boxes. Books, of course, those are always the first thing to get packed up. So we've officially started moving. :)

"Oh Give Me a Home..."

...with a backyard to roam

...and a bunch of other great features

Property Details:

Sq. Feet: 1600 ft.
Acres: 0.14
Year Built: 1999
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 3
Cooling: Central Air
Heating: Forced Air
Garage: 1 Car

Description:
Nice Springville home for rent.
3 bed, 2.5 bath. 1600 square feet.
Available around April 1st (perhaps sooner)

Literally only 10 minutes to BYU and 15 to UVU.

Large master bedroom with crown molding, fan and lights on dimmers, ensuite bathroom with walk-in closet, extra linen closet and separate water closet.

Custom closet organizers in every room in the house. Lots of storage space.

All bedrooms and laundry room upstairs
3-tone paint throughout and nice upgraded carpet.

Larger kitchen w/ corian countertops, disposal, dishwasher, canned lighting and large bar which can seat 5 and an informal dining room.

Fully-fenced, fully landscaped yard equipped with 5 raised garden boxes, over sized built-in sandbox, custom-built storage shed, shade trees, decorative finishes and room to run around.

1 car finished garage with workbench and lots of built-in storage shelving.

Central air conditioning, Forced air heating

3-Acre park with playground and swings 4 houses down (less than a block away)

Newer, North-East area of town with great view of Little Rock canyon.

Great quiet neighborhood with great mix of neighbors from very established families, retired folk, to newlyweds, students and everyone in between!

We went and looked this morning. Aaron and I both had a good feeling about it, so we went prepared with the information we'd need to fill out an application on the spot. The owner said she felt good about us. We filled out an application. She called us back this afternoon and said it's ours if we want it! Aaron's stopping on his way home from work to sign a contract and give her our deposit.

Although this house is a twin home, the aspect of sharing one side wall is not a deterring factor, especially since the wall that touches isn't any of the bedrooms or the family room. This house is a little smaller square footage than the other one we looked at, but the back yard is bigger and fully fenced and to die for! It only has a 1 car garage vs. 2 like the other one, BUT we only have one car :) And it has an awesome wood-working bench that Aaron will love, and tons of shelving to hold all his tools and our camping stuff. Aaron likes Springville since it's halfway between school and work (I'd prefer to be in Spanish Fork, but not enough to pass up this place based on only that). And probably the most important aspect of it, is that it is about $150 a month less rent than the other one. My only sad thing, is that it doesn't have the extra space for a school room like the other one had, but I still think we can make that work.

I really like the layout of the house, with the bedrooms upstairs and everything else down, I think that's a nice way to break up a living space. I love that all the closets (and there are a lot of them) have custom shelving in them. I love that there is a little "toy room" closet under the stairs. There is a crawl space for extra storage.

The owner also told us that there are TONS of kids in the neighborhood that are around Lincoln's age, and we're really close to two parks and the library. She said the kids programs at the library are awesome (she was one of the people in charge of story time over there). The church building is right behind the house.

So there you have it. Our new home. Obviously the furniture, etc. in the pics above are not ours, so it will look a little different when we move in, but I'm sure I'll post more pictures then. We will be moving in about three weeks, the official date hasn't been set yet, but we have to be out of our apartment by the end of the month. I'm relieved. It's so nice to have a plan.

7 Months Old

Adelia is 7 months old today. The last two months she's been a completely different baby than she was for the first five. I'm really interested to see what her personality will be like. The first while was so hard, that I was sure she was destined to be a difficult child, but these last two months she's done a total 180, so now I'm not sure.

She can roll easily all the way around now, and uses this new skill to get things she wants. I think this contributes a ton to her new found happiness. She pushes up onto her arms along, trying to get them strong enough so she can crawl, I bet. She can scoot herself around in a circle too, but not very quickly, and I don't think she premeditates it yet, I think it just happens. But still, we're working our way to mobility. I'm fine with that though.

She's almost too big for the bassinet in her port-a-crib, but I'm hoping she can hold on for one more month until we move, because when we move she'll have a bedroom big enough for her crib to be set up. In her current bedroom, there isn't room for the full size crib, so she's in a port-a-crib. Her rolling has effected her naps a bit, which is kind of frustrating for both of us. She sleeps on her tummy, but then she rolls over onto her back, she can roll back, but by the time she does she's gotten the blanket in such a twist that she's not comfortable, and so her nap comes to and end too soon.

She's not sleeping through the night yet, but that's probably mostly my fault. I've refused to sleep train her because the walls in our apartment are too thin, even though she's in the next room her bed is literally five feet or less away from my head and when she cries it sounds like she's right in my ear drum. I can't lay there and listen to it for more than 10 minutes without going crazy. Plus, I know the people upstairs can hear her really well, and possibly even the people on either side, and the people down the block. So I get up with her at night and feed her, even though she probably would be just fine without food, because if I do she goes back to sleep without a fuss, and so can I. When we move...I keep telling myself...then I'll sleep train her. 

We started her back on solids. It's been interesting. My boys were never picky eaters, they liked cereal, they liked veggies, they liked fruit, whatever, as long as I was shoveling it in and doing it quickly they were happy. Not Adelia. Of course, she would pick an area where I was inexperienced and weak...Well, she refuses to eat cereal, gags on it and acts like I'm trying to kill her every time a put a spoonful in her mouth. I mixed it with applesauce, that went a little better, but not a ton. I tried pears next because I had some left on the shelf that someone had given us little while back when their kid was done with baby food. She likes the pears and will eat them and lick her lips for more. Tried sweet potatoes...hates them, cries and spits them back at me. She'll tolerate bananas, but looks at me like she's doing me a favor with every bit. She cries when I give her carrots, but will at least swallow them, but usually spits up nice orange spit-up later. And that's as far as we've gotten. Silly girl. And of course she eats better for Aaron...so guess whose job it is to feed her at dinner? :)

But I really can't complain too much. She's doing leaps and bounds better. She's mostly always happy, unless she's tired, hungry, or poopy...but I can handle those things, and I can fix them, and then she's happy again. She likes to listen to me read stories to the boys. She likes to watch the boys to anything. She loves her jumpy seat. She likes music. She's also just started the grabby phase. If it's within her reach, she'll grab it and try to get is to her mouth asap. Books, written utensils, my coat zipper, the hymn book, hair, forks, the lady sitting next to us in relief society's collar on her sweater, you name it.

She's also starting to say some words, well, at least some sounds that sound like words. :) Mama and Dada. Love it! She usually only says Dada when she's mad, and it makes me laugh. And she always says Maaaaammmm in the middle of the night (probably because she knows if she annoys me long enough I'll come get her vs. Aaron who won't.) And she babbles and tries to be just as loud or louder than her brothers.

Preschool Non-Fiction

For my own record, here are some of the good preschool non-fiction finds from our last library trip a few weeks ago.

A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme by J. Patrick Lewis


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved this book, but maybe that's just the poetry nut in me. I thought it was such a clever way to teach geography to kids, to use short and fun little poems. My favorite poem in the book is called Is the Yellow Sea Yellow?

Is the Yellow Sea Yellow?

Is the Yellow Sea Yellow?
Is the Red Sea red?
Is the Black Sea black?
Is the dead sea dead?

Yes, because there's too much loess-
A fine, rich yellow silt.

Yes, because the red seaweed
Is floating like a quilt.

No, the black come from,
They say, dark brooding storms.

Yes, it's dead. No fish, no plants,
Or any of life's forms.
It's no one's fault...
Just too much salt!

I laughed so hard at that. I'm pretty sure Aaron thought I was off my rocker. But I love poetry, and I'm kind of cheesy. My kids sat and listen to me read the whole thing all the way through though, so they must've liked it too. And the illustrations are cool. I'm probably going to buy this book.


When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer (Golden Kite Honors by Walt Whitman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love when people take great poems and then do awesome illustrations to go with them. The pictures in the book are really well done and help to convey the meaning of the poem.


What Do You Do When Something Wants To Eat You? by Steve Jenkins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Linc liked this one, but it was a little over his head. I think it could have been better if they'd chosen to use photographs instead of illustrations, and also showed a before and after picture. Still good and informative though. But I do think Linc will like it better in a few years.


Prehistoric Actual Size by Steve Jenkins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My boys both really like this book, I think because #1 It has fold out pages and #2 because it was about dinosaur like creatures. The information inside is a little bit over their heads though since they have no idea what different measurements mean.



I Face the Wind by Vicki Cobb

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this one. Simple science, with short clear explanations of what the wind is and great preschool level experiments to go along with it.




Guess What Is Growing Inside This Egg by Mia Posada

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The kids really liked this one. The first page shows you a picture of an egg and a portion of the animal or environment the egg is in, and a clue to help you guess what kind of animal will hatch out of the egg. The next page tells you the answer and some facts about the animal.



Down to the Sea in Ships by Philemon Sturges

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lincoln picked this one because it has a ship that looks like a pirate ship (but isn't) on the cover. The inside has poems about different kinds of ships and the history that goes with the ship. (Vikings, Magellan, whaling, the invention of steam ships, etc.) I really liked this book too, and I was surprised that I did. I guess it's the poetry aspect, it gets me every time. :)


Animal Colors: A Rainbow of Colors from Animals Around the World by Beth Fielding

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is really well done, I think. It takes the animal kingdom and divides it up by color. The photography is excellent, and Lincoln really like seeing the different kinds of animals. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because the descriptions of the animals are not written in complete sentences and that bothered the English gene in me :)

The other books we checked out aren't worth mentioning, but I was happy with all the good ones we found. I think it's hard to find good non-fiction for preschool aged kids.