The Pulley System and My Foam Block Dance

Wow, December is barreling along . . . the kids each got a countdown of sorts at school, and Christmas is getting closer for sure. Gotta finish decorating! We had an FHE about Christmas, and talked about the symbolism of the tree, then put up the tree for the activity. Then - the lights didn't light on it. Sad, but Andrew decorated it the next day excitedly anyway. We'll have to put some other lights on top of the dead ones, and it will look fab. (To preclude commentary - no the old lights will not come off without major doing that will ruin the tree.) But. . . the kids really loved talking about the Baby Jesus and love reading a Christmas scripture each night. I love seeing them get into it.

We had a puking baby on Monday, then puking Andrew today, and other issues related to that in the meantime. Definitely going around. 

Andrew got to go to special preschool day on Tuesday at the Junior High as a guest of our neighbor. He loved it and talked about it for days. I taught preschool here, and we talked about simple machines. Fun topic, would love to get into it more. The kid-favorite activity was thought up by another mom in the group - sending secret messages via pulley. You put a clothesline inbetween two full buckets, and stretch it out so that the line is taut. Our were about 7 feet apart. The clothesline then turns around the bucket, and the kids can clip messages on it and send it to their friends. I have never seen kids so motivated to write! Josh and Noah played for a long time that night, sending awesome messages like, "You're fabulous," and "roast beef." They laughed at each one. Gary and I sent messages with them for a while that night, too.

Our Corolla wouldn't start on Wednesday, and we got that fixed. Pretty awesome. (So, I wrote that a coupla months ago. I was trying to be positive, but the fix cost 800 bucks and I cried. It stunk. It's just stuff, though . . .)

I signed up for a teacher training for Saturday that was billed as integrating dance into the classroom. I was elated to hear from the instructor that he would let me come for free. Hooray! So, I arrived at the Rose Wagner center for the arts yesterday all prepared to learn more about the kinds of things I learned in my BYU class . . . and first off, everyone was kissing eachother hello, and seemed pretty artsy and like they knew each other. So I said to a lady next to me, who was not kissing anyone, "Wow, it seems like everyone knows each other." "No," she said, "People who know each other are talking, so it gives that impression. I don't know anyone." Great, someone on my team! We exchanged names, then I asked, "So, where do you teach?" "Oh, I don't teach," she said, "I'm a belly dancer." Awesome. Then the next person in said her last name was Lotus. That's the one she uses, but it's not really, she's just a yoga instructor. Hmmm .  . . the day ended up having some fun activities in it, and the people were all very nice, but it was not at all what I expected. Also, I failed at the create a dance using a foam block and a partner portion, so too bad. I may have done well at the keep-the-blocks-afloat-with-a-group activity, though, so maybe it's a wash? Just funny. So that was my Saturday - oh, and I dropped by Target for Josh's present from Santa, and Just a Buck for Noah's.

While I was out, Gary put up hooks in the under-stairs closet and built a shelf thingy for the toy room closet. What a man! Also, we had pizza (for everybody) and Avengers (for the adults) date night at home, and it was fun. I actually liked the movie. Frustrating in parts, yes, but fun. Also it led to a "which super-hero-would-win convo at dinner just now. Boys, I tell ya.