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.

Nesting, a Real Snowcone, the Black Sweatshirt, and More

Oh, I just remembered something, and I am typing it after everything else . . . Josh lost a front tooth, and I think it's adorable. Also very roomy in his mouth.

I am really trying to nest for the upcoming arrival of . . . the Legislative session. We must fit in this house before I lose my support. Gary has built shelves and done a marvelous job on the pantry. Both of us have been working on it. It takes forever to get through all of these papers and stuff with all of the rest of life going on, but we may just get there. Gary already had two late-nights this week, poor guy. It's winter . . .

Thanksgiving I will update later (if I'm lucky), but we had a great time in sunny St. George, and I never wanted to come back. Fortunately it was great weather here this week, so it wasn't too bad getting back into life. We also got to meet lots of family-people at City Creek/Temple Square on Monday night, so the Thanksgiving party had a great extension. It was much warmer than previous years, and less crowded, so we thoroughly enjoyed the lights, and felt the peace the season brings. The kids especially enjoyed being in a food court with cousins, and the next day Josh told his friends in the car, "All the kids wanted McDonald's, except Christian, he ate at that s-o-b place." (Sbarro's)

Also, to continue the Syphus-love, we left a bunch of crap in St. George, and had to accept dinner at Allison's to get it back. YUM! So fun to see them, and also Holly. Holly and Lissy speak the same wookie language. You know, that noise Lissy makes that I can't do. Anyway, Holly can do it, so they are BFF's.

You would have loved to have seen the ward Christmas program - it featured the kids of our street singing Picture a Christmas. It was very cute. They are energetic boys, but it turns out also great as a singing group. The kids saw Santa, also. Josh asked for Beyblades, Andrew asked for a cat (nice Andrew, the one thing we have positively identified you are allergic to), and Noah asked for a rubber snake. Santa asked him if he'd like anything else, but he knows he's only allowed to ask Santa for one thing, so he stuck with it. Santa was visibly amused. (He wants to whip the snake like Indiana Jones, I found out. Sweet. Santa can find the dollar store.)

Speaking of Noah, Piggy broke a few weeks ago. His head popped off, and I haven't figured out how to fix him. Piggy is like a drug to Noah, though, he buries his nose into his fur when he's tired and gets all relaxed. I made Piggy sleep on my dresser for a few days, but that was all Noah could take. Now he sleeps with both pieces. Creepy? Yes, but I have plans to fix the sitch . . .

Cindy and her chillins came a couple of weeks ago to par-tay while Nate was away. We chatted, ate food, kids played in the snow, Cindy and I turned old sweaters into 48 Huggies diapers (via the used childrens' clothing store), and just enjoyed them being here. Also she folded my laundry and I wish I didn't let her. It was the big snowstorm weekend, and the kids really wanted to get out there, fully equipped or not. They had fun, and later on I discovered that the snow was red. Why? I didn't know . . . until I found the empty snowcone syrup in the garage. They say they just poured it all over the snow and all the kids in the neighborhood stuck their faces in it and partook.

A couple of weeks ago a girl threw up on Josh at lunch in school. However, I didn't know until he came home in an oversized black sweat shirt that isn't his. Yeah, they didn't call me. Poor Josh. The office just issued him a sweatshirt and threw his other shirt in a bag and called it good. Gary and I have laughed about that sweatshirt. It was plain black, and looked new. Too big for Josh, but seemed about right for a third grader. Gary said, "I wonder if they just stock up on standard issue sweat-shirts in a medium size. I guess on average, it fits everyone just fine."

It is becoming very obvious Lissy is a girl. She has some very high-pitched squeals she uses when she is happy, and some very shrieky tones for when she's upset. She won't let the boys play keep-away from her, she just shrieks. She's so huggy and lovey, we just love it. Last week the boys devised a volley-ball-like game with a small ball and a large toy for a "net." The boys and Gary were all into it. Lissy just walked around with various stuffed animals and tried to get people to hug them. She loves it when people hug stuffed animals. She also likes to play the ring-stacking thing and play with blocks. Like she's a kid. As if.

And that's all, folks . . . I feel like our temple exchange was just barely, but it was two weeks ago. Ah, well, it was lovely. Also, Elder Nelson came to our stake conference today. It was a super-wonderful meeting, but we had some noise in our area that caused me to miss a lot of Elder Nelson's remarks. He was great, though, as was his wife. He taught us about the Nativity.

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.

I Even Left Some Stuff Out

So, I was going to just type a few sentences about our week, but Gary keeps playing hymns and not going to bed, so I kept typing, and things just spiraled . . .

Preschool, Lissy's birthday, Josh's show, last science club, Katie came, preschool party, Halloween costumes, Josh's flu shot, last soccer games, Andrew's birthday.

Okay, that was last week. I felt a little nutty at the beginning of the week just thinking about how we'd get through it . . . BUT, we are yet alive. And Gary is listening to many relaxing songs in preparation for his calling, so it's all good. On Monday we had lots of kids over. The usual classroom volunteering switch, and then in the afternoon some other little girls. It was so adorable to watch all of the kids play in the back yard. My boys have been a little obsessed with sports and capture the flag lately, so it was good to see things changed to leaf-gathering and snail hunting. The kids painstakingly picked up leaves and put them into their shovels so they could dump them in their small pile. It was too small to get a good jump in, but my they were proud. Also, while the kids were running back and forth from the garage getting various implements to gather leaves, Andrew decided to run down the street about 10 houses down and ask to play. I didn't know until I got a phone call. I guess he was proud of that, too. I was not.

It's all the neighborhood boys in the fall! Of course Josh and Ben are hiding, but aren't they so cute? These boys can play and play and play ALL day. They were having a pretty great time in these leaves across the street, so my neighbor snapped a picture. Pretty great, huh?

Did I mention before that I'm taking another online class for teacher certification? Well, I am. It's called financial literacy in the classroom, and it's pretty good. Unfortunately, it keeps me up late . . . or in the middle of the night when I fall asleep with Andrew then realize I still have to do the class at 1 a.m. So awesome.

So, I take pictures, but just can't post them. Yet. When I do, I may take this post apart. But until then . . . Tuesday dear little Elisabeth turned 1! She is really too cute. I can't believe how quickly she went from just sitting on the floor babbling and sucking on toys to being EVERYWHERE! And update: I posted the pictures so removed two paragraphs from this post and put them with the pics. Hooray!

On Wednesday Josh was a hit as the fifth pumpkin in the Five Little Pumpkins number in his class Halloween show. I also thought he was adorable dancing around to their witches brew song. There was a little drama making sure he had the right orange shirt to feel the part of fifth pumpkin, but we borrowed one, and things went great. I was worried about bringing little kids to the show, but I think it was like watching PBS kids for them, so phew. We also had the last science club day, and since lots of kids didn't come Noah and Andrew got to do the experiments. Noah felt very big. I mean, he was very big. Then, that night I got to pick up Katie and Lily at the airport! They are so adorable! Katie and Gary grilled each other late into the night while I stared into space and drooled. (The night before mas my middle of the night assignment stint.)

The big preschool Halloween party I was in charge of was on Thursday, which I had told Katie about, but I guess I didn't tell her there would be around 20 kids and it would be at the church. Oops. So, it was a big old bash, and the kids had fun, so that's good, right? Lily was exhausted, and disappointed that her dream of running like a horse with Andrew was not being fulfilled, so Katie fixed that by taking both of them to the nursery to play. Dreams came true! Later Dylan came to pick Katie and Lily up, and he got to meet Noah and Andrew. Noah was completely enthralled. He felt very special getting to hold him. Josh, however, was very dismayed when he came home from school and everyone was gone. Sad.

Speaking of Josh, he had two super-embarrassing moments in school this week. The first was when he got his flu shot. He was the only one to not get flu mist, and then they gave him a pink bandaid. The pinkness was the problem, not the shot. Then on Friday I was in a super rush to get him to school, and I forgot to put his sandwich in a bag before I put it in his lunch box. He says the kids made fun of him for that, and he was very ticked at me. Also, I wrote, "See you, soon, honey child," on his napkin, and all the kids read it. I am awful, I guess.

On Thursday night the weather was awful, so nobody showed up for soccer practice but Gary and Noah. So, Gary just played some one-on-one with Noah. I guess Noah was laughing the entire time, he was so pleased with his chance to get to play alone with his dad.

Noah decided he'd like to be a Ninja Turtle again for Halloween this year, so that's easy. But the others . . . yikes. Luckily I decided to try to sell our bed rail thing to a kids' used clothing store, and in the process found a coat for Andrew and a little ladybug costume for Lissy. Andrew tried on tons of costumes there, but didn't want to be any of them. I don't think most kids like stuff with heads on top of their head. Too bad, he'd be a good giraffe. I found an amazing orangutan suit that is Josh's size, but Noah insisted Josh would not want it. Turns out he was right, good thing I didn't buy it. On Friday night we went to Pizza Hut to get Josh's book-it pizza, and a little pizza for the rest of us, as well. It always reminds me of when Cindy used to sing Land Before Time songs and Sarah wanted Eternal Flame on the juke box. Anyway, fun. Then we went to the D.I. to look for a football player costume for Josh, which is what he decided he wanted. Turns out there were a million jr. Jazz jerseys there, and even a pair of Jazz shorts, so Josh decided he'd like to be a Jazz player. The outfit is waaay too big for him, and it's pretty cold outside, but he has been wearing that thing and playing basketball ever since Friday night. Slept in it, and only took it off for soccer and church. I had worried about costumes, but for $4 Josh is over the moon excited. Sweet. Oh, and Gary also got Josh a plastic sandwich holder at the D.I. so the bag incident would not occur again. He thinks this is fabulous.

Then last but totally not least was Mr. Andrew's birthday!  Hooray for the fact that 6 months later I cut the text here and put it in a post WITH the pictures. Boo-yeah.

So then it's Sunday and church is always great. I will not be teaching gospel doctrine for a month, because I'm doing a special teacher-teaching class for the Jr. Primary teachers. It will be held while the kids are in Sharing Time. I'm actually pretty excited about this, because I love Primary, and I think it really helps to have a little toolbox of ideas of how to make Primary great when you are teaching. Also, it is late, and I need to be asleep. Also, Lissy has been way ornery for a few days so I wonder if whole milk isn't happy in her tummy? My kids and their tummies . . .