Ollie turns 6

Six years ago when this handsome fella was born, we chose to name him Oliver Michael. Oliver, because it means 'peaceful', and Michael (which means 'one who is like God') because that is Aaron's middle name. And it turned out to be very fitting because Ollie is Aaron's mini-me. Kind, patient, loyal, easy-going, eager to help out, stubborn when backed into a corner, detail-oriented, smart, mellow, and VERY snuggley.

And if his personality wasn't exactly what it is, I might not have been brave enough to have the rest of the hooligans. haha! Ollie is my angel baby six years running. A keeper for sure.

Happy Birthday kiddo! Love you to the moon.

We went swimming at the Rec Center to celebrate his big day. He was thrilled to get a new bike. And also that he got to have a friend birthday party this year. His friends came over, ate pizza, and watched The Lego Movie.

33

I turned 33. Aaron surprised me with a new mattress! And I mean really surprised. Somehow he bought it, drove it home, stored it in the garage, and got it into the living room on the morning of my birthday without me even knowing. And I loved it!! It is not very often that I get surprised. And it's not very often that I'm THRILLED with what the surprise is. So Aaron gets double points today..... Maybe he's just trying to make up for the fact the he and Lincoln, and Ivan left for a campout on the evening of my birthday. ha! Watching them get the mattress up the stairs though, that was equally as fun of a birthday present as the mattress itself. I'm was pretty grateful that I didn't have to lift a finger, and that we have two big-ish, and strong boys who were willing and able to help Aaron out.

My mom came up and helped me bake a birthday cheesecake in my instant pot. She gave me the instant pot for Christmas last year, and all the cool gadgets to go with it for my birthday this year.

And, here are some pictures of the boys' campout. Doesn't it look cold and miserable? I was pretty glad I got to be home in my warm new bed.

Records

Blogging has been a struggle for the last year or so. Not because I don't want to or can't find the time, but the actual technology is hampering me. I take all my pictures and videos on my iphone. But for whatever reason, Blogger does not let me blog directly from an iphone. So I was just downloading pictures directly onto my computer from my phone, just like I used to with my digital camera. This worked for a long time. But now, something has changed. And when I plug my phone into the port in the computer it does nothing. I cannot transfer files of any kind back and for from one to the other when I'm connecting through a cord. I can download my videos to Youtube and then upload the Youtube link into my blog post. But I do not get to the hard copies of the videos on my computer. For photos the only way I've found to go around it is to upload photos from my phone onto the Shutterfly website, and then download them again onto my computer. This is time consuming and definitely NOT ideal. But it does work. Why doesn't Blogger have an app that would allow me to blog directly from my phone? Why can't I download pictures directly off of my phone onto my computer? Sooooooo frustrating. So my blogging keeps getting further and further and further behind. *sigh*

But recently my kids have been asking for stories about themselves as babies. So I've been doing back through old blog posts and reading to them little pieces about their births and babyhoods. And I was noticing how well I used to document things. Ordinary things, that at the time I thought would be our routine for the rest of our lives. But we've grown up as a family, and our lives and routines have changed. And as I was reading through old posts, I was reminded of many things we used to do that I'd forgotten about. And I was so glad I wrote them down. And I thought, I really need to be better about writing again. Maybe that means I do it without pictures and videos, I don't know. But I don't want to lose things. I still have young kids, and I still want to record their lives. I want Cal and Ruby to have just as much to come back and read about when they were growing up as Lincoln and Ivan do. So here's my valiant effort to start again.

Today is Thursday, which means music lessons. Lincoln has piano at 10am and trombone at 10:45, both in Springville. Piano lessons has just recently started up again, Linc's teacher had a baby back in September and has taken time off until now. I used to have Ivan and Adelia in piano as well, but the budget is a bit tight right now, and neither of them were overly thrilled to start piano again. So, since Lincoln was the only one who said he's missed piano, I just put him in for now. And I'm hoping to get the other two back in when the new school year starts in August. Linc's trombone used to be in the afternoon, which meant two trips to Springville in one day. But, Linc's trombone teacher called me last week, and said she was really struggling because she's always teaching trombone lessons right after school, but it's also right when her kids get home from school, and since we are homeschooler was there anyway we could have a lesson during the school day? I pretty much jumped for joy! Explained to her how we were already coming down in the morning for piano, and how I would LOVE not to have to make a second trip back to Springville in the afternoons. So we set it up so that Linc could come to trombone right after piano.

After music we came home and had lunch. Then I put Cal down for a nap. He cries when I tell him it's nap time, so instead I tell him he needs to have his N.A.P. and he says, Oh, N.A.P. and runs upstairs to his room to pick out a story for me to read for him. I don't know why that works better than just saying 'nap', but I'll take it. His favorite book right now it Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?

After getting Cal to bed, I made up a list for each kid of what I wanted them to do for school today. Since we spent the whole morning at music, and since the two older boys have to be at chess club at 4, we aren't doing as much school today as we would on, say, a Monday....but just to give you an idea, here are the lists for each kid.

Lincoln
- 4 pages out of his math workbook
-20 minutes of Rosetta Stone German
-Find and write down at least 3 facts for upcoming wax museum presentation (he's going to be Nicola Tesla)
- 20 minutes piano practice
-10 minutes guitar practice
- 20 minutes trombone practice

Ivan
-4 pages out of his math workbook
-20 minutes of Rosetta Stone German
-Find and write at least 3 facts for upcoming wax museum presentation (he's going to be Leif Erikson)
-1 page out of cursive workbook
-20 minutes ukelala practice
-10 minutes guitar practice
- Art (art is one of Ivan's electives this year, and usually he goes to lessons, but lessons don't start up again until April, so right now he's just doing some free range art, he can choose if he wants to sketch, paint, sculpt, or whatever, as long as he spends time each day doing something art related until his teacher starts lessons up again.)

Adelia
-4 pages out of her math workbook
-20 minutes of Rosetta Stone German
-Find and write at least 3 facts for upcoming wax museum presentation (she is going to be Laura Ingalls Wilder)
-1 page our of her handwriting workbook
-10 minutes guitar practice
-photography (photography is Adelia's Technology class this year. She doesn't have a specific assignment that she has to do each day, but she is going through a National Geographics Photography Basics video series, and then using her Polaroid and digital cameras to practice the techniques she learns from the videos, and then creating a portfolio for the year.)

Ollie
-2 pages out of his Handwriting Without Tears workbook
-2 pages out of his Explode the Code workbook
-4 pages out of his math workbook
-20 minutes Rosetta Stone German
- 1 reading lesson out of Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Some days, Ruby (4) insists that I make her a list also. So on hers I usually put things like play with the tangram blocks, write your ABCs, play a game of Sum Swamp with Ollie, stuff like that. IN reality, she's probably ready to start reading lessons, but I've got to get Ollie finished with that book before I start Ruby in it. He's on lesson 89 out of 100, so it won't be long. The book works really well, which is why I use it, but it's not the most exciting book on the planet, and I only have the patience and will power to listen to one very beginning reader per day. Once Ollie's all the way through lesson 100 he'll be on about the level to read Dr. Seuss books. I'll still have to listen to him read out loud every day, but it won't be as painful as when they are just learning to sound out every word at a snail's pace, so I should be good to go to start Ruby on that journey. She's already sounding out little words, and trying to spell words when she has paper out. That's how I know she's ready. I'm the only thing holding her back.

Like I said above, at 4pm Lincoln and Ivan will go to chess club with a whole bunch of other homeschoolers in our town. This is the first week, but I think they'll really enjoy it. We live in a small town, so I'm always surprised how many homeschoolers there are here. I love it though. And I love that chess club is close enough for them to walk to. Even better.

Ivan's basketball league just ended, so we won't have anything going on this evening. It'll just be a quiet night at home.

We're all anxiously awaiting spring. But it's been snowy and gloomy for weeks. I know we need the snow, so I can't quite wish it away. But man, I could really use some sunshine and a 50 degree day. This winter has been a doosy.

But tomorrow is my birthday. :) 33 wonderful years old. And my mom is coming to hang out with me, so at least we'll get out of the house a bit.

Lincoln and Ivan, 2018 Reading Year in Review

If you've followed along on my blog over the years, you know that at the beginning-ish of each year, I do a review of all the things I read the previous year. And I intend to do that again this year. BUT, I had the genius idea this year that I should do it with the kids too, now that some of them are old enough to read on their own. And it was a lot of fun. First I had them fill out their answers on a sheet of paper, then we gathered up all the books and I interviewed them on film and they held up their books to show while they were talking about them. I'm hoping I can figure out how to upload those interviews here, but youtube is being funny at the moment, so we'll see.

After the interviews, Lincoln and Ivan thought it would be fun to go all around the house and gather up all the books they'd read in 2018, just to see what that pile would look like. And it was crazy! I knew they read a lot, but I had no idea.

I posted pieces of the kids' interviews on Instagram (it wouldn't let me post the whole thing), and I got messages from several different friends who have boys near my boys' ages, who wanted a list of book recommendations because they are always on the lookout (aren't we all?) for new ideas for their boys to read. So I thought I'd just take a minute and compile a list for them, and for my own future reference.

*  Are for books I highly recommend the Audible version of

$  Are my 11 yr old’s favorites

#  Are my 9yr old’s favorites

FICTION

Newberry Award Books

·         The One and Only Ivan

·         Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of HIMH

·         The Egypt Game

·         From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler

·         Because of Winn Dixie

·         The Golden Goblet

·         Holes #

·         Johnny Tremain *

·         Hatchet series #

·         The Sign of the Beaver

·         Call It Courage

·         Charlotte’s Web

·         Caddie Woodlawn

·         The Whipping Boy

·         Julie of the Wolves

·         The Summer of the Swans

·         A Single Shard

·         Out of the Dust

·         On the Banks of Plum Creek (And all Little House series)

·         Bridge to Terabithia

·         Bud, Not Buddy *

·         One Crazy Summer *

·          

Classics

·         Secret Garden *

·         Black Beauty *

·         Tom Sawyer

·         The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn #

·         Anne of Green Gables * (my boys enjoyed listening to this, but I doubt they'd pick it up and read it)

·         War of the Worlds (Illustrated Classics) $

·         Moby Dick (Illustrated Classics) $

·         The Three Musketeers (Illustrated Classics) $

·         Gulliver’s Travels (illustrated Classics) $

·         20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Illustrated Classics) $

·         The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Illustrated Classics) $

·         Journey to the Center of the Earth (Illustrated Classics) $

Fantasy

·         Harry Potter series *#$ (Highly recommend the illustrated editions for  younger readers who might be intimidated by huge blocks of text in regular editions, and the pictures are fabulous!)

·         Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

·         The Hobbit *#$

·         The Lord of the Rings series *

·         The Chronicles of Naria series

·         Fablehaven series $

·         Candy Shop Wars series $

·         Michael Vey series $

·         Spirit Animals series

·         Percy Jackson series

·         Mr. Lemoncello’s Library series

·         Spiderwick series

·         Charlie Bone series

·         Guardians of Ga’hool series

·         Five Kingdoms series  $

·         How to Train Your Dragon series

·         Three Tales of My Father’s Dragon

·         Odd and the Frost Giants *

·         The Graveyard Book $

·         Redwall series #

·         The Green Ember series

·         Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians series

Other Fiction

·         Bunnicula Series #

·         Mouse and the Motorcycle series

·         The Indian in the Cupboard series *

·         Keeping Score

·         Free Baseball

·         The Thing About Luck

·         Tales of Ancient Egypt #

·         Ben and Me

·         The Liberation of Gabriel King

·         Tuck Everlasting

·         In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

·         Homer Price

·         Hoot

·         Esperanza Rising *

·         The Girl Who Drank the Moon *

·         Chitty Chitty Bang Bang series * #$

·         Detectives in Togas

·         The Swiss Family Robinson $

·         Navigating Early

·         A Wrinkle in Time

·         Sherlock Holmes and the Bakerstreet Irregulars series

·         My Side of the Mountain series #

·         Greenglass House

·         A Tugging String

·         Just so Stories

·         Grimm’s Fairytales

·         Where the Red Fern Grows

·         The Wild Robot

·         The Borrowers

·         The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet series

·         A Long Way From Chicago

·         The Penderwicks series

·         Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

·         The Red Pencil

·         Elijah of Buxton *

·         The Witches (or any by Roald Dahl)

·         Nick And Tesla’s High Voltage Danger Lab series

       Summer of the Monkeys #

       Old Yeller

       Finn Family Moomintroll

      The Boxcar Children

      Pax $

Comic/Graphic Novel

·         Calvin and Hobbes #$

·         The Adventures of Tintin #$ (these have a pretty difficult vocabulary level, which is why I like them)

·         Garfield

·         Hazardous Tales series by Nathan Hale #$ (These are about historical events, and my kids not only LOVE them, but learn an amazing amount from them.)

NON FICTION

Young Readers Edition books (these are versions of adult books with the same title that have been adapted for younger readers, if you search “young readers edition” on amazon, a bunch will come up)

·         Chasing Space $

·         The Disappearing Spoon $

·         The Journey That Saved Curious George

·         Elon Musk and the Quest for a Fantastic Future $

·         The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind $

·         Omnivore’s Dilemma  $

·         Pay It Forward

·         Irena’s Children $

·         Lion A Long Way Home

·         Hidden Figures

·         The Finest Hours #

·         A Storm Too Soon #

·         Flags of Our Fathers #

·         Wicked Bugs #

·         Wicked Plants #

Biography

·         Little Britches series *

·         Mathematicians are People Too

·         Alexander Hamilton the Outsider

·         All Creatures Great and Small

·         James Herriot’s Treasury for Children

·         Who Was…. series

Other Non-Fiction

·         The Tuttle Twins series

·         Rush Revere series

·         Way To Be! By Gordon B Hinckley

·         Bear Grylls Survival Skills Handbook

       Bomb: The Race to Build, and Steal, the World's Most Dangerous Weapon #$

Christmas Sunday

Swan Family Christmas Party

Last night we drove up to Heber City to see Stacey and Rob's new house, and because they were hosting the Swan Family Christmas party. Everyone in the Chuck and Debbie Swan family was there. All six kids, plus six spouses and 24 grandkids! The only ones who aren't in the picture are Stacey because she was taking the picture, and Jeremiah, and he's potentially standing behind someone and too short to be seen. 

It was a fun party. It was potluck soups with salads and rolls, and brownies and sugar cookies for dessert. Then we played a family trivia game that Jordan and Carter put together. They put questions up on the TV screen and then everyone logged into the game using an app, and answered the questions on their phones. You got points for getting the answers right, but also for being fast. The questions they came up with were funny questions about the family like: What is Aaron's official job title? and Which sibling has moved the most times? After that there was a white elephant gift exchange that was CrAzY! Haha! Just imagine 24 grandkids and a large pile of presents. But I think everyone came out with something they were ok taking home, so that's good. 

Ollie with Silas and Ilo on top of him.

Ruby, Malia, Ilo, and Silas

Choir Concert, Temple Square

Today was quite the Saturday. I had to have Adelia in Springville at 9:50am for a choir concert dress rehearsal. Ivan had to be in Spanish Fork for a 10am basketball game. Then Adelia had to be at the Springville Art Museum by 11:30 to warm up for her choir concert at noon. Grandma and Grandpa Swan, and Gramma Tam and Papa Kerry were planning to come down for the choir concert. And since Mom and Kerry were driving a long way, they wanted to go out for pizza with us afterwards. And one of our bucketlist items of the season was to go see the lights at Temple Square, since we haven't been since Adelia was a baby, and we wanted to go with Mom and Kerry, and we thought since they were driving up today anyways, that today would be a great day to go. Whew, I'm tired just typing it.

Somehow this morning, Adelia managed to rip the buckle off of her brand new black choir shoes. Luckily Aaron was able to fix it with a glue gun and a needle and thread. Then when I got her to warm ups, I looked down and she had a giant hole in her brand new tights. I took her to the dressing room and had her change them around backwards so that the whole was on the back of her knee instead of the front of her knee. That girl!

Adelia said she had a surprise for us, and it was that during the opening number she was singing a solo! She did awesome! I was so proud of her. I took a picture first and then started recording, so the video is missing the first of the song.

Papa Kerry, Adelia, Gramma Tam

 After the concert, we went to Pier 49 Pizza with Mom and Kerry. We got a Hawaiian which is the kids' favorite pizza, and a vegetarian, which in mine and my mom's favorite at Pier 49. Neither of us are even vegetarian, but that pizza is just so good there. I don't usually like the vegetarian at other places, but at Pier 49 it's heavenly.

Then we loaded up cars and headed to Temple Square. By the time we got down there and got parked, it was about 3:30pm and still light outside, which was great. We figured we'd walk around and see the Visitor's Center and the Tabernacle, and the Conference Center, and the Christ statue while it was still pretty empty. Then right when it got dark, we went to see the lights and the reflection pond, and the nativity, that way we weren't trying to fight crowds of people the entire time. I was amazed the difference in how crowed it was while it was light, versus when it got dark. Holy smokes! Probably my favorite thing this trip was listening to the organ play in the tabernacle. It's so much cooler in real life.

We left Temple Square about 6:30, so we were home at a reasonable time to still get kids in bed on time. It was a hectic day, but a wonderful hectic, filled with the people I love most. But it wiped me right out. I want to crawl in my bed and sleep until next week (which, my ever logical son, Lincoln, reminds me is tomorrow morning anyways.)