First Snowfall, Clowns, Human Trash Compactors

When Cindy and chillins visited us in November, we had the good fun of the year's first snowfall. Fun for the kids, anyway, adults were on hot chocolate and deal-with-sog duty. And actually - that was fun, too, because the kids were having fun and I had Cindy to chat with. It appears that they had their snow fun in the middle of the night, but not so, it's camera problems.

Cousins, the neighborhood. I'd say it was epic if I was into misusing that word. :)

Andrew, neighbor, Josh

Noah is spiderman here, and for some reason looking at him cracks me up.

Other stuff happened in November, and lookie here, I got some on camera.

Lissy got the notion that the magna-doodle was for sitting on. Drawing, too, of course, but only when also sitting on it.

They all sat on the chair and listened to Noah "read" the book to them. Too cute.

This "cloud dough" was very popular with Lissy.

First front tooth - gone!

Noah and Andrew put lipstick on their faces and said they were clowns. Didn't  need lipstick for that . . .

Why does this crack me up in sepia?

The kids LOVED wearing the reindeer antlers all around.

Look how awesome she is on that bike!

I can't remember exactly why this was so funny, but at the time I thought it was. Andrew and Noah spent a very long time playing on this mound of snow. I love to see what they think is awesome.

Awww . . .

Just cuties on a chair . . .

Noah really wanted me to take a photo with his foot like this. OK.

Human trash compactors! This is the recycling, don't worry. Perfect way to make room.

This is Halloween

So, you may or may not be concerned about the election, but regardless, my kids were fairly adorable on Halloween, so there's that. My camera is still not working great, but I did hijack Gary's work computer, so preserving-memories-we-will-go . . . (I wrote that much earlier in the week. Doesn't seem timely now, but I'm leaving it.)

The night before Halloween we turned our pumpkins right into Jack O' Lanterns. It was very exciting, of course, especially when pumpkin guts were being flung around the kitchen . . . yeah, so anyway, here we are a' carving.

No, you cannot wear a shirt while doing this. See pumpkin gut flinging statement above.

Then Halloween day . . . started out by getting ready for Josh's class party, then going to Josh's class party. I  was in charge of an art activity, and I had the kids paint on black paper with spider rings and other little plastic buggies. The kids loved it and could have done it for a very long time, so even though the finished result is squiggles on a page, it was kinda cool looking and I'm happy when kids are exploring. Noah got to go to the party with me since I figured he would just blend in, and he had a great time. Being on-level with Josh is darn awesome.

Gary and our little lady bug.

In the evening there were hamburgers and trick or treaters, and my kids not focusing on their food because trick or treating is too awesome, and wandering around with half-hamburgers while half-naked, and then finally we were ready to go out ourselves. Most of our candy had been given out (tons more kids at our door this year!), so I didn't feel guilty going out to watch my kids have fun. We had a Star Wars costume ready for Andrew, but at the last minute he REALLY wanted to be a dinosaur like last year, so why not? It kinda still fits him, and his little face is so cute in that head . . .

Josh was so hilarious about his costume. He wore it every day from when we got it on Friday night until Halloween on Wednesday. He had a master plan to reverse the jersey color after every house, but soon realized that getting candy would be difficult if he stopped to turn his shirt around. The Jazz actually played their first game on Halloween night, and lots of people were watching the game when we knocked on their doors. It was a home game, so the team was wearing their white jerseys. This made Josh feel like a million  bucks - he'd chosen the right color to land on. Also we'd say occasionally, "Hey, why aren't you in the game?" He would laugh and be so proud of himself. Yes, it was warm enough to be dressed as he was. We had a hard time getting the undershirt on him, and although I really liked having my jacket on, he wasn't getting frostbite.

Andrew turned out to be the ham of the night. His "trick or treat" was pretty cute, just because he's little, but at tons of doors, after he got his candy Andrew would say, "Happy Halloween!" Then he would run to me and say, "I said happy Halloween!" He was sooo excited. People thought it was pretty adorable, and it may have helped his candy haul.

On the trail!

Little bug loved a little walking . . .

. . . but we didn't let her much because this is mostly all she would do.

Gotta have a couple of shots to get all of their faces.

This girl LOVES candy. She was happy as can be to sit around eating candy all night with the boys. She would sit on the stairs and dangle her legs . . . I kept looking at her and saying, "For real? She is for real?" As in I think she's cute.

Candy, candy, candy . . . feel good about my decision to let him eat it right away, no way his body absorbed it all. :)

Guess whose pumpkin this is.

The other boys chose more traditional designs.

Look at us getting our Halloween on. Or not us, our front porch.

Took his costume off right away . . . but definitely stayed for the after-party.

Be Careful Putting Pants on Andrew

My kids are playing musical chairs right now . . . I think Josh just let Andrew win, and it was adorable. Andrew said, "I sat on the chair, dad, I really did!" (In his excited-for-the-win voice.)

My right index finger is jammed. It is black and blue, and yesterday the size of a hot dog. How, you ask? I was putting on Andrew's pants on Sunday, and my finger got stuck when the pants wouldn't go over his hips, thus becoming the victim of all 40 pounds of his force. Ye-owch. Gary says to grease him up next time.

Luckily, my sister Katie was here to witness that, and to spend a day with us. She was on her way back to Texas, we were excited to see her. It was Sunday, so church and dinner was pretty much the activity. The pants fiasco and knock-knock jokes by all filled up the meal nicely, and I had big plans to make a decadent dessert then play games into the night, but after we made the decadent dessert everybody started falling asleep. So tired . . . but the dessert was fab, as was the company.

So, do you ever get into bad habits that are negatively affecting you, and you know it, but you just keep on doing it? Don't have to answer, I already know you do. Currently, I have a bad habit of not wanting to give up my silent time at night to go to bed whenever I'm feeling stressed. Not every night, but often enough to contribute to the problem. I have things on my mind, and somehow I think there will be answers if I just stay up and either ponder life or block out life. But then I get tired the next day, and don't get things done quickly . . . like tonight. I found out Gary has to work on Veteran's Day, which he wasn't supposed to, and also that I won't be going to the temple as planned on Wednesday. Not life-changers, but when you're working for things to look forward to and that's what you've identified, not awesome, either. So I go in the zone . . . answering emails I have been meaning to for weeks, finishing the Halloween blog post . . .  avoiding life, yet making it worse by being awake. Ugh.

Okay note from the next April - I am going through drafts, and found this one I never published. Horribly, I must report that i still have the same bad habit! Oh no. At least my finger eventually recovered. :) I'll publish this one around Veteran's Day-ish.

Financial Literacy Final Project

I just finished a class on Financial Literacy in the Classroom. There is a website with a ton of resources you can check out if you are interested in teaching your kids more about finances. In the meantime, my final project requires that I teach a lesson from the website and report on it. The report is here, and the pictures are displayed below. There is something wrong with my camera, but one can still tell what is going on.

When I first got out the 3 sorting circles, the kids decided to use them to play musical circles. I took a picture, because one of the lessons I could have chosen but did not used musical chairs to teach about scarcity . . . looks like we got a bonus lesson.

The kids with their bags all packed for Grandma's house.

The wants and needs sorting circles.

Due to the problem with my camera, it is hard to tell that the pillow, blanket,  and sweatshirt are in the needs pile, and the books in the wants pile. The football is also in the needs pile, but it was hotly contested by this little girl. (See reflective paper.)

This is the order of importance of the selected items for this little girl. (Most important is on our left.)

The little boy has a different order of importance for the items.

The second group put a stuffed monkey and a basketball in the wants category, and a pillow, smoke detector, toothbrush, and fluoride in the needs category. I tried to talk about the fact that most houses already have a smoke detector, but they were insistent that the "what if there isn't one" issue was important.

These boys actually agreed on the order of things for their items. While the basketball was identified as being a want, they still found it more important than fluoride and a toothbrush, which were identified as needs.

The kids are all looking at the words on the computer screen here as they sing along with Raffi's All I Really Need.

The assessment showed exactly what I learned while teaching the lesson - needs and wants can be relative to the situation. The child asked, "Is a tv a need or a want?" I said, "What do you think?" "Well," he said, "I think you need it to know what's happening, like Dad needed it tonight to know the votes." He also said he was going to put cell phone on the line because sometimes it's a need and sometimes a want. I have decided that this should be taught as prioritizing, instead of black and white categories.