Sunday, September 29, 2013

Jackson and Sabrina's Wedding & Reception


We spent the majority of the weekend up in Hooper to celebrate my lil' brother Jackson's marriage to Sabrina. These two are so great for each other. I'm so happy to have Bri for a sister-in-law. Juice couldn't have found a better gal to be his wife.

The weather cleared up just long enough to have the wedding in my parents' back yard. Everything was decorated so nicely. And during the whole ceremony, Ivan kept leaning over to me and saying, "Mom, Bri is wearing a princess dress!" The only one who wasn't very happy was Emree, Jackson's little girl, but we found out later that she had pneumonia, poor kid.

Top left: Ivan taking selfies. Top Right: Emree and Aunt Kels. Bottom Left: Jackson waiting for his bride to come out. Center: Bri and her dad. Bottom Right: My crew watching the ceremony.
Adelia with Gramma Tam after the ceremony.

After the ceremony we went over to the church for the family dinner. Jackson and Bri wanted the dinner to be casual, like back yard BBQ style. So my mom made pepperchini beef, and shredded chicken, in crock pots, for sandwiches. And everyone brought a pot luck item. There were chips and soda, and ice cream cake for dessert. It was really fun, and nice to just hang out and chat with family.

The three handsomest brothers a gal could ever have: Kyle, Jackson, and Tanner.

The wedding and family dinner were Friday night, and the reception was Saturday, so a lot of car time for us in two days. But my kids kept themselves entertained pretty well, and there was no major drama. 

On Saturday the weather for the reception was just about perfect. Which is good, because the reception was outside. :) Again things were decorated nicely, and I think everyone had a good time. My kids were especially excited about the candy bar, the cupcakes, and being able to jump on Gramma Tam's trampoline for hours. 

Gramma Tam, Juice, Bri, Ivan, Adelia, and Lincoln

This kid has been king of the selfies lately.

Pretty sure this is the first time Aaron has ever worn a pink tie. It looks good on him. 

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Great Season Red Bears!

Top: Ivan and Aaron Bottom: Aaron, Kylee, Hyrum, Cache, Spencer, Andrew, Ivan, Emery, Owen, and KC

Ivan and Aaron had their last game of the season today. It's been fun having Aaron coach, and I think he even said that he enjoyed it a lot more than he thought he would. Maybe I can convince him to do it again next year. :)

One soccer season down, one more to go!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Frosty Mountains


This morning I woke up to beautifully frosted mountain tops outside my bedroom window. I'd slept better than I have in days, there was a cool, crisp, fallishness to the air, and I decided that all is right with the world. I love fall.

Yesterday we had another great Science Club at Wynter's house. The kids learned about apes and wolves. My kids liked the apes, but they were most excited about the wolves. They made wolf masks, and learned some cool new vocab words, and all about wolves and wolf packs. My kids ate it up. They were super attached to their masks (Del even wore hers in the car all the way home), so I thought it would be a good idea to laminate them when we got home so they'd last longer. My kids are rough on things. So we laminated the masks and cut them out again. Then they wanted to wear them and play wolf pack. Lincoln said he was a cave wolf, Ivan said he was a jumping wolf, and Adelia decided to be a tree wolf. Lincoln insisted that a tree wolf was a real kind of wolf. I'm not so sure. Anyways, they lined up in a line and decided who was the biggest (Lincoln) and he got to tell the other wolves what to do. This was great until Ivan and Adelia wanted a turn being the leader, and Lincoln wouldn't let them because he was the biggest wolf. I had to send him to time out once before he consented to let everyone have two-minute turns being the leader. They played that for awhile, and then they wanted to play Wolf Hide and Seek. Basically, like normal hide and seek, except when you find someone that's hiding you have to howl. There was a lot of howling going on at my house for the rest of the evening. But they loved it, and couldn't wait to tell Aaron everything they learned over dinner.


On Tuesday we did Art Class. The kids finished up their Happy Sun projects that they started last week. Basically, they took a large piece of white constructions paper, and used red and yellow paint to paint the whole thing, using swirly motions to blend the paint in places to make orange. It was cool looking. Then they cut circles and triangles out of their painting, and glued them into a sun shape on a piece of blue construction paper. Lincoln's are on top, Ivan's are on bottom.



We finally finished On the Banks of Plum Creek, our family read-aloud that we've been working on for awhile. They got kind of tired of it in the middle and we took a break from it for awhile, but then picked it back up again, and they really enjoyed the end. We are going to take a break from the Little House series for awhile. I just got our October read-aloud in the mail...


And I am so excited to read it, I almost can't stand it. Lincoln had been begging me to read him something spooky. So hopefully this fits the bill. I loved this book when I was a kid. And the boys have like the other Roald Dahl books we've read together (James and the Giant Peach, The Fantastic Mister Fox, and George's Marvelous Medicine) so I anticipate that they'll like this as well. I just hope it does't scare Ivan too much. I probably wouldn't have read it to Lincoln when we was only four, but I guess that's the benefit to being a younger sibling, you get to do a lot of things way earlier than the oldest child did.

I went in Adelia's room today (she was having quiet time) to tell her it was time to go pick up Lincoln from school. I found her like this, only with the blanket pulled all the way over her head. When I pulled the rest of the blanket off of her, I found toys. Tons of toys, all snuggled up to her and crammed underneath the blanket. Silly girl.


Speaking of silly, I put Oliver in his jumpy chair this afternoon while I made dinner, and when I went to pull him out, he looked at me like this...


Maybe he was hungry? I don't know, but I laughed. I can't believe this kid will be seven months old tomorrow. He's gotten into this annoying habit every since he got croup of waking up at three a.m. It's just about killing me. Luckily, Aaron has been very good to me the last couple of nights that I haven't felt well, and getting up with Ollie so I don't have to.

Lincoln had a soccer game tonight, and it was raining the whole time, but there was no lightening, so they didn't call the game. We decided that Aaron would stay home with all the other kids, while I took Linc to his game. It was freezing! But Lincoln probably played the best game he's ever played so far. He had a couple nice passes, one really good "shoelace kick" that sent the ball up and over the other team's heads, and he was a little bit more aggressive than usual. When it was his turn to sit out, he came over and sat on my lap so we could try to keep each other warm. I love my Lincoln Boy.


Linc has been really into drawing lately, which I love, especially since the things he draws are really starting to look like what he's trying to make them look like. Here are a couple of the latest masterpieces.



Monday, September 23, 2013

Ollie Love


I'm a Bear


Whew...what a day. Sometime last week I caught a sinus bug, and it hit me full force over the weekend. Sunday I hardly had a voice and since I was stuffed up and couldn't breath, being the nursery music leader just about killed me. Five nurseries is too many. Only we need that many, because we have that many nursery kids in our ward. But it means that I spent two hours singing yesterday. Bad idea. I came home and pretty much spent the rest of the day in bed.

I've been trying to catch up all day today. I feel a little bit better but not a lot. My kids are all on edge and cranky as can be. I think they've all got the same thing I've got. Maybe it's allergies?

The Scera emailed me late last night to tell me that they were cancelling Lincoln's choir class because they only have two students enrolled. I emailed them back and asked if I could switch him to a different class. I want him to be doing something i the performing arts category. I didn't hear back so I decided just to head up there this morning, and sort it all out in person. Five minutes before we got there, my phone dinged letting me know I had an email from them saying yes, Lincoln could switch classes, but the class I wanted him in didn't start until 10:30. I didn't have enough time to try and go home and then come back, so we just spent an hour before Lincoln's class doing school in the little room they have set up on the second floor for that purpose. It went ok, but we weren't as productive as we would have been at home. We took Lincoln to his class and then had another hour and a half to kill before it was over. I finished up Ivan's school with him, and then took the kids outside to play in the garden area. They have a really cool sundial out there, and also these little plaques in every flower bed that have inspirational quotes on them. I really like the one above from Gandhi. Ivan and Del were restless and on each other's nerves, Oliver was tired and needed a nap. I was frazzled, my sinuses were throbbing. Such a great morning.

 But at least Lincoln is in his class. It's called Triple Threat, which basically means they teach you singing, dancing, and acting, so that when you audition for parts in productions you are a "triple threat". It looks like a fun class, there are about 20 kids in there ranging in age from 6-11, and they'll put on a show or two throughout the year, so it meets all my criteria. And he had a really good time, which is important to me also. It will be better next week because we won't be an hour earlier than need be.

It was noon before we left Orem, and my head was pounding. I so badly wanted to stop at Wendy's and just get lunch over with so I didn't have to deal with it when we got home. But my husband has been on this budgeting kick...his work paid for all it's employees to take the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University classes. So Aaron and I have been watching them. And they are great, they really are. Dave is entertaining, and all the things he says make a lot of sense. My only problem is that this course has turned my already thrift-conscious husband, into a maniac. He's got budget on the brain 24/7. I think he's trying to achieve some kind of record by accomplishing all seven Baby Steps in the next month. I want to throttle him...in the most loving way possible, that is. But I didn't want to hear about it, so no Wendy's for us today. Probably no Wendy's for us ever again until we've saved up enough money for all our kids and grand kids to graduate from collage debt free. And it's not like I'm anti-budget, and it's not like I'm a wild unruly spender who's racks up millions of dollars of credit card debt. I'm neither of those things. We're the family that got through Aaron's bachelor's degree with three babies and came out debt free.

So we came home. Ollie fell asleep in the car, so of course he didn't want to go back down for his nap when we got home. Lincoln was throwing a huge irrational fit because Ivan got out of the car before he did. Which is really unlike him, and what tipped me off that maybe he wasn't feeling so well either. He was beyond reasoning with, and starting throwing things and kicking the walls, so I took him upstairs to his room, brought him a sandwich up there, and told him to eat it and go directly to bed. He protested of course, but he was asleep in five minutes, and slept for about three and half hours. Ivan slept too, of his own free will, so now I'm thinking maybe he doesn't feel that great either. Stupid sinuses! Del didn't sleep, but I made her have quiet time. And Oliver rolled around on the living room floor while I tried cleaning our disaster area of a kitchen. It was a disaster, remember how I said I'd been MIA most of the weekend because we were either at soccer, pirate night, or I wasn't feeling well? Ex.Plo.Sion. Three days worth. Not a fun mess to tackle by yourself. But...I am a stubborn and independent individual (probably my two best and two worst qualities) so I pushed through, and came out on top with a clean kitchen. I mopped the floor while the kids watched a Magic School Bus episode, and then it was time to go get Aaron.

Might I mention that we need another car. Not want...need. We've been a one-car family for almost 8 years. And so far it's never really been an issue until this year. I feel like our kids are starting to have places they need to be and that driving to and from Aaron's work twice a day is starting to become a huge inconvenience. For one thing, it eats into my school time in the mornings. I can't start school until after 9am when we get home from taking Aaron. For another it prevents me from making dinner before Aaron gets home, because I can't leave in the middle of cooking to run and get Aaron from work, so I have to wait to start dinner until after we pick him up, which means we don't eat until 6:00-6:30, which would be ok, except that recently we've had soccer, or swimming, or Elder's Quoram meetings, or whatever else in the evenings. Anyways, my vote is that we buy another car. A truck actually, because we have a lot of uses for a truck too, but I won't go into those at the moment. But we won't get another car until we save up enough to pay cash for one. *Read paragraph above on the budgeting epidemic that has recently struck our household. Which would be ok, except that Aaron's bike tires have decided to go on strike, and refuse to hold air in them, no matter what we put on them or in them. And ironically, new bike tires cost money.

We had a nice dinner, and a nice family home evening. Aaron helped me put the kids to bed, and then went off to work on the website. I won't go there. Not tonight, and not in the mood I'm in. I think it would be best for everyone living under this roof, if I took some NyQuil and went directly to bed. I am cranky, I can tell, and I'm sure I haven't been much fun to live with the last couple of days. Sometimes it would be nice if I could turn into a bear, and just hibernate for the duration, yeah? Yeah.

Over and out.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Pirate Night


The Hutchings Museum in Lehi sponsored a Pirate Night this weekend and Aaron and I decided to take the kids. We invited our friends, the Shaws, to come along too. I wasn't sure what to expect, because admission was only $4, but the people at the Hutchings Museum really outdid themselves. There was a lot to see and a lot to do, and we all had a blast.

We dressed up (of course), and at the first station the kids were given a treasure map and a little bag to hold treasure and a new pirate name. Adelia was Sally of the Sea, Lincoln was Charley the Captain's Shadow, and Ivan was something equally good that I can't remember. At every station, after we completed the activity, the kids were given some sort of cool little treasure to go in their bags. Beads, shells, feathers, stickers, a piece of obsidian, pirate ring, eye patch, dodo bird egg, jewels, spices (packets of sugar), and gold doubloons.

In the next room the kids got to shoot paper brigands with wooden rubber band pistols. And in the next room, we were all assigned to a ship, depending on what month of the year we were born in. Then we were taught about different pirate weapons, and Lincoln got put in the stocks.

There was a room with live animals where we saw birds, and petted lizards and snakes, and learned about the dodo birds and how the pirates killed them all off for food. In another room were live bugs, spiders and scorpions. And a woman pirate told us the legend of the Fountain of Youth.

Then we listened to a pirate band. And sang and danced with them to famous pirate tunes. Adelia liked this one the best I think. The boys were too shy to dance. In the next room we met Indians who taught us a rain dance, and showed the kids how to beat on a drum. They told us a few Indian legends as well.

After that we got to grind spices, and see some of the things pirates thought were valuable. And we met a talking parrot. Then we walked into a room and all the kids had to pick a piece of paper out of a hat. Each one had a crime on it, such as wearing your eye patch on the wrong eye. The kids were hand-cuffed together, and taken to jail, where they had to answer a question about pirates. All our kids were released and got a balloon sword for their troubles.

Then we went outside for the launching of the candy cannon. That was probably Lincoln's favorite part, because it involved candy.


Anyways, it was awesome. We will definitely go again next year if they do it.

Friday, September 20, 2013

More About Bats


Well, I told you I was going to do some more with bats. I couldn't resist, because this art project was too good (and too easy!) to pass up. I got the idea for it over at Mrs. T's First Grade Class. She has some great stuff.

First I gave each of the kids a black piece of construction paper, and a few bat cut-outs. They decided where they wanted the bats to be, and then I helped tape them in place, using masking tape, so it wouldn't rip the black behind when we pulled the bats off. Then we got out our sponges and our paints and went to town, making sure we sponged all around the edges of the bats. When we were done we pulled the bats off. To finish it off, I made a nice outline around each of the bats with permanent marker.

Then it was time to learn more about bats. Of course I had books ready. You know me. :) We read:




We also watched the Magic School Bus episode on Bats, which does a really good job of explaining echolocation in a way that younger kids can understand. Man, I love Magic School Bus. No wonder my kids are obsessed. :)

After that I had the boys write down three things they knew about bats onto this bats fact sheet that I made, similar to the one Mrs T. used.


Then we took their bat facts, and their bat art project, and glued them to a large piece of orange construction paper. Wha-la! Instant Halloween decorations. A little early I'll admit; but pretty and fallish just the same.

I love how they all turned out so different, even though we were all using the same materials and colors. That's why art is great.


Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Science Club: Flying Mammals

It was my turn to teach at Science Club this week. We are still studying mammals, so I chose to teach about flying mammals, aka bats!

I started out by reading the book I am a Little Bat by Marta Prims. And I told the kids to pay really close attention as I was reading to the things that were true about bats. I stopped to explain the big words like, hibernation, nocturnal, and echolocation.

When we were done with the book, I gave everyone two pieces of paper. On the first piece was a chart with two columns, one column was labeled Facts, and the other was labeled Myths. On the second piece of paper were a bunch of different statements about bats. The kids were to cut out the statements, and decide if they were a fact or a myth, and glue them under the right column. Here is Lincoln's:


Then we did an activity to teach the kids about echolocation. I cut a piece of large poster board in half and made two large cones that looked like megaphones. I had two kids stand about six feet apart facing a wall, but kind of angled towards each other, so that the two kids and the wall were making a V, and gave each a megaphone. The first kid pointed his megaphone towards the wall and whispered semi-loudly into his megaphone. The second kid pointed his megaphone towards the wall, and put his ear up to the megaphone. The idea is that the sound will bounce off the wall and back into the second megaphone. You can hear the whisper really loudly. It's cool. And the kids loved it.


My kids and I had such a good time, that I think I am going to do a few more bat activities with them on our own this week. I have an art project in mind, and a few more books I want to read to them. :)

Monday, September 16, 2013

Puke Buckets


This is pretty much how we spent the entire weekend. All four kids and Aaron were sick. Ivan and Adelia were puking with fevers, Lincoln and Oliver got really bad croup. Aaron had allergies. Fun. It wouldn't have been so terrible, except that Adelia refuses to learn how to use a puke bucket. I think she barfed on me at least three times; and on herself, her blanket, her sheets, her pillow, etc. every single time. Can you say, "laundry"?

Also with two pukers in the house, Aaron and I were awake a lot during the nights. There was one night where we tried five times in a row to go to bed, and as soon as we'd pulled up the covers and gotten comfortable, someone else was throwing up. At one point as we were crawling back into bead, Aaron made the comment, "Ok, good night...for the fifth time." :) At least he kept his sense of humor. It's the little things that count, right?

At least we got to watch one of my favorite movies, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The old version. Love.

And here's my poor wheezy, seal-barking, not-able-to-sleep-for-very-long, croupy baby. :(



It makes me so sad when the little ones get croup. I feel so bad for the poor little chap. For the first time ever in his life he slept better in his car seat than anywhere else. Probably because he's propped way up in the car seat.

All four of the kids got priesthood blessings, and although we have lingering coughs, I think we're on the mend.

So ya wanna be a rock star?


Thursday, September 12, 2013

Schooling by Day, Canning by Night...

For some ridiculous reason, I always start our school year right when canning season kicks in. This year was no exception. Although, I have to say, it is so much easier to get excited/motivated to can this year, than it was last year as a pregnant person. :)

But I should start where I left off last time. On Friday I decided to go ahead with my Story of the World activity, because I already had it planned and printed off. Luckily, I chose to do the maps part of it, because Lincoln is way into maps at the moment, so, besides the readings, I wasn't repeating anything he did in class already. We listened to the the Introduction and Chapter 1 on the CD while we ate snack, and then we each colored a map of the Fertile Crescent. I thought Ivan did a lot better than I had expected him to, and Adelia mostly scribbled on hers while I colored it. (Lincoln liked this activity so much, that a couple days later, he asked for another blank map so he could do it again. Which is making me think that maybe we'll keep doing the maps as we read the book, and then just leave the other activities to Lincoln's teacher.) *And yes, I am aware that I spelled crescent wrong on the maps, English Major fail. :(




Then we had kind of a wild weekend. Friday night I hosted a movie night for my book club. We'd just read and discussed Life of Pi, and some of us wanted to watch the movie. I love the movie and the book, but especially the book. It's one of those that my brain goes back to, over and over again, at random parts of my life so I can analyze it from new angles. I think it's hard to grasp anything much beyond which story you believe to be true in the first reading of the book, because the shock factor is so high. But this last reading/book club discussion I kept focusing on the part about it being a story to "make you believe in God". And this, in a nutshell, is what I think. I think the second story is the true story. I think that many religions teach using parables. So I think the first story is a parable for Pi over-coming the natural man, and finding forgiveness and strength by being forced to hold the tiger within himself at bay. Pi says he can't tame the tiger, but he can train it. I think that's a wonderful metaphor. Our mistakes of the past don't have to define us, or our futures, if we can accept the grace of God, and work to rise above our animal instincts. In the book, Pi finds God's forgiveness and peace, allowing him to move beyond a horrible deed and start a new and happy life in Canada with a wife and kids and two cats. :) Anyways, I love the book. And the movie is awesome too.


Saturday we had two soccer games in the morning. Both boys played well. Then I drove up to Hooper for Sabrina's bridal shower. She and Jackson are getting married at the end of September. I'm excited to have her in our family. She is really good for Jackson. And they seem really happy together. My mom puts on a great shower. This time she had a really cute table display with cupcakes and candies in little cups. They were shaped in a heart and set on the table as party favors. It was cute. And I always love seeing all of my Hooper people. All the ladies that were my neighbors, primary teachers, young women leaders, etc. I love those ladies. They are a riot. And it's fun knowing them now as an adult, instead of just as a kid. Jack and Bri got some great gifts...makes me want to have a bridal shower again for myself. I feel like when I got married I had no idea what we needed or wanted, and I didn't know which gifts were good gifts. I remember a few things I returned, thinking I'd never need them, that I sure wish I had back now!

I got home from H-town late Saturday night. Then we all had to get up early Sunday morning to be in Salt Lake by 9:00am because Aaron's brother Kelly was blessing their new baby Eli. We almost made it on time. Luckily, Kelly's ward was flexible and let them do the blessing after passing the Sacrament, so that Aaron was still able to participate. We went back to Kelly and Esther's afterwards and had a nice brunch. It was raining so we all stayed inside, but it was still a really nice morning. The kids had fun playing with Asher, and the adults chatted. We left and got home in time for Sunday afternoon naps! Glorious! We have one o'clock church, so we don't get to have Sunday afternoon naps very often. I have greatly missed them.

Monday morning was Lincoln's first choir class as the Scera Theater in Orem. He had a great time. His teacher even made a point to come and find me afterwards and tell me how much she enjoyed having Lincoln in her class. She said that he followed directions very well. I was happy to hear that. The classes are for home school families, so there were a bunch of other people waiting in the waiting area with us while we waited for Lincoln's class to end. Ivan and Adelia soon found a couple of little friends, and spent a very happy hour playing duck-duck-goose, tag, and running up and down the stair case. I was glad for them that it turned out to be a fun adventure. I chatted with a few of the other home school moms, I hadn't met any of them before since they were all from the Orem/Provo area, and most of the other home schoolers I know are from Springville and south, but all the moms were really nice, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better. Sometimes I think people don't realize how many home school families there actually really are. Home schooling is not a very small minority anymore. And that makes me glad.


Monday night, my friend Wynter came over and we canned peaches. She did hers and I did mine, but it was way more fun to do it together and have someone to talk to. I bought a bushel from up in Brigham City this year, like I do every year; but, to my great surprise, my very own peach tree also produced this year. I wasn't expecting it to for a few more years. But I got forty peaches off my tree this year. They were a little bit smaller than the onse I bought from Brigham, but they tasted every bit as good! So I had a bazillion peaches. What to do? What to do? I still have about 12 quarts of sliced peaches from last year. I decided to only do 12 new quarts of sliced peaches this year. With the rest, I tried a new Zesty Peach BBQ Sauce recipe, and it turned out awesome. And I also blended up a bunch with some raspberries and made Peach-Raspberry jam. I've been canning like a mad woman every single night this week. Trying to use up my peaches before they go bad.


Tuesday morning it was my turn to host Ivan's preschool co-op. I set out our Wedgits and Magna-tiles for the kids to play with when they got here while we waited for everyone to arrive. Today we learned about shapes. First we did singing time though. We sang Hello Everybody, Here We Are Together, In the Leafy Tree Tops, and Five Little Monkey's (the alligator version). Then, to introduce shapes, I read them Thumper's Shapes. Then I handed each child cut-outs of the four basic shapes; circle, triangle, rectangle, square. We talked about each one, and said how many sides and how many angles it had. Then I would describe a shape by saying something like, "I'm thinking of a shape that has three sides and three angles." And the kids would have to hold up their triangles. For the next activity, we talked about how shapes can be different sizes or colors but if they have the right number of sides and the right number of angles they are still a square (or whichever shape). We played a game where the kids came up and picked shapes of different sizes and colors out of a brown paper bag, they had to decide which shape it was, and then put it on my flannel board under the right category (circle, square, triangle, rectangle). Then the kids needed some wiggle time. So we went outside on the driveway where I had drawn large shapes with chalk. We walked around the perimeter of the shapes singing Hi-Ho the Dairy-o and changing the words for each shape, like this: "A rectangle has four sides, a rectangle has four sides, two are short and two are long, a rectangle has four sides." Then I gave the kids chalk and they practiced drawing the four different shapes. Next we went back inside and had a snack. I gave them pretzel sticks and had them try to make their shapes out of pretzels too. After snack we did a cutting/gluing activity. They attempted to cut out the shapes and glue them onto another piece of paper and then color them. They did pretty well, but I think our scissor skills need a little work. For out last activity we did pattern block pictures. Each of the kids got a cookie sheet, a pile of magnetic pattern blocks, and a laminated picture to fill in. They seemed to really like this activity, and when they finished with one picture, they asked to switch out for another one. When it was time to go, every kid got to take home a bag with paper shapes and colored sticks in it. The idea is that they can set out the paper shape, and then use the same colored sticks to go around the edge, to practice making shapes. I did a piece of string so they could do a circle too.


Tuesday afternoon was also the first day of our art class. We will be doing a weekly art class at my house with Wynter and her kids. We are using the Home Art Studio DVD curriculum, and I'm really excited about it. Today we learned about Primary and Secondary colors. First the kids traced their hands a few times on a piece of large construction paper. Then they painted each of their hands a Primary color of their choice. Next they learned about mixing colors, and then got to choose which colors they wanted to mix to make a Secondary color background of their choice. Ivan's finished product is bottom left, and Lincoln's is bottom right. I put up a string along the empty back wall of my school room, and am planning on displaying all of their artwork for this year on the string using clothes pins. The kids had a great time with this project, and I am looking forward to it next week and for the rest of the year.

Tuesday night we went to soccer games. And Aaron brought me home flowers, just because. :) I love when he does that.


Also, here's a picture I took of Ollie the other night when he was taking forever to want to go to sleep. I feel like he's been a little bit left out on the blog lately. But seriously, he won't hold still long enough for me to take any good pictures of him. He's all over the place rolling around, and even pushing himself up on all fours for a few seconds at a time. I am NOT ready for a crawler. But check out those beautiful baby blues.


Wednesday we had another great Science Club at Wynter's house. I was only in charge of snack this week, and didn't have to teach, so I got to see some of the lessons. They were all so good! We have some awesome creative moms doing Science Club. We did mammals again this week, but each mom took a different type of mammal. So one class was about bears, one class was about marsupials, and one class was about sea mammals.

Jill taught the sea mammals class. She did an experiment to teach about the scientific method, and I thought it was so cool. She wanted to show the kids how some sea mammals have blubber that keeps them warm in the cold water. She had a bowl full of ice water on the table, and had the kids put their hands in it to see how cold it was. Then she had the kids take turns putting their hands in a plastic bag that had another plastic bag filled with shortening inside, then stick their hands wrapped in the plastic bag back into the water, and the shortening blubber kept their hands warm. I thought it was such a neat experiment.


In the bear class they learned about hibernating. And at dinner, Lincoln explained to Aaron how bears are really small when they are born. And in the marsupial class they learned about kangaroos, and how the baby kangaroos are born as small as a jelly-bean and then live in their mom's pouches until they are bigger.


Today was our second day of hosting preschool co-op. My subject was handwriting. Most of the kids in the class are pretty young, so I decided to go with a fine-motor skills approach, rather than an actual hold the pencil and do handwriting approach. For our first activity I used a piece of the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. They have these wooden blocks that you can use to build any capital letter in the alphabet. I've never bought the blocks, but I have cut the shapes out of card stock, and that works just as well in my opinion. So I cut out a set of shapes for each kid in preschool. We sat in a circle and practiced building the first letter in each child's name. Once we had built the letter we traced it with our fingers, and used the verbal cues from HWT, which go something like this: "Ok we're going to make the letter P. To make a P we start in the top left corner, then we make a big line down, then we frog jump back to the top, ribbit! Then we make a little curve to the middle. This is letter P." In our class, we happened to have two I's, two A's, a P, a J, and a D, so those are the letters we worked on today. But I sent the shape sets home with the parents, so if they want to practice more with their kids they can. I didn't get as many pictures today, because Ollie was awake and wanting to be held. I wish I would have been able to get one of all the kids making their letter shapes, they did so good!

Our next activity was letter lacing cards. Again I chose to focus only on the first letters of each of the kids names. So I made a block letter for each kid, and laminated it, and hole punched it, and tied a piece of yarn to it. The kids got to "sew" their letters, which is a great fine motor skill, and helps develop the hand muscles needed to hold a pencil. Then it was definitely snack time. :) I did pretzels again, because that's what I had on hand. Then we did a cutting sheet. Cutting is another fine motor skill that helps with handwriting. I had planned to go outside and write letters with sidewalk chalk, but the weather did not want to cooperate with me. It was pouring rain. Instead, I took black sheets of construction paper and wrote each child's name in big block letters, then they took the sidewalk chalk and traced over the pencil. It went pretty well. About half traced their letters, and the other half just had a great time making a chalk picture. Either way was fine with me. And that was preschool today.



This evening Lincoln had soccer pictures and a game. Lucky for us the weather cleared up a bit, the sun even came out during the game. It was lovely out. I love Linc, and he is getting better, but man! that kid is an awkward athlete. I think he might be a little too smart for sports. Not that athletes are dumb, not by any stretch...but Linc's biggest problem is that he thinks about it too much. He could probably repeat to you verbatim, everything his coach has ever told him about soccer. But he lacks that natural athletic instinct. When the balls comes his way, he freezes, and you can just see the wheels turning, "Ok, the ball is coming my way, I'm playing a defensive position right now, so that means what I need to do is kick the ball away from the goal and towards an open member of my own team..." and by the time that processes and he goes to act, the ball is long gone. He's also not super aggressive, but I  think that has more to do with his age, than his ability. He's still fun to watch though, and he does a little better at every game, and he has a good time, which is what really matters.



And of course this is a typical soccer game position for Aaron and I, kids climbing all over us, I'm surprised we even see any of the game.


"Go my favorite sports team! Score a goal/basket/unit! Go team! Go team, go!"

Uh-uh, no you didn't! Cut that out! I do NOT want a crawler! 

So that was an extremely long post. I don't mean it as a way to brag or show off, but just as a way to document. We are in a happy place right now. Life is beautiful. We've traveled some rocky roads to get here, and I know that more rocky roads are ahead. But right now, this day, this moment, I am content. Things are going smoothly. I am not over-whelmed or under-whelmed. Things are wonderful, and I am grateful. I want time to stop right here. I want to remember. I want to soak it in, and breath it back out, and love every precious moment while it lasts.