Life Interfered

Sometimes living life interferes with blogging about life.  Such has been my last month and a half.  I always face the choice between sleeping, cleaning, preparing for church and home school, spending time with Kelly, and blogging and sadly, of all those, blogging is my lowest priority. And I'm really trying to make a habit of never being in bed after midnight so sadly, my blog might continue to suffer.  We shall see.

First off, Bella graduated from preschool.  So cute.  Pretty much the identical ceremony as when Benjamin graduated from the same preschool 2 years ago.  I loved it.  The kids walk down the isle holding hands with a classmate, wearing a sash like a beauty pageant, and then they sing a set of songs as a class.  Then each child gets called up one by one and presented with their diploma as the teacher reads a little about them.  Bella's was "Bella's favorite foods are tortillas and pepperoni pizza.  Her favorite activity at preschool was eating snack.  When she grows up she wants to be a mom."  My favorite was the little boy who wants to be a tiger when he grows up.  Bella and her favorite teacher, Miss Melody:

If you ask Christian, he also wants to be a mom when he grows up.  I was busily cleaning around the toilet the other day (his aim has improved, but it's still a long way from perfect) when he came up to me and said, "I wish I were a mom so I could wear gloves and clean the toilet."
I laughed and said, "Someday soon I'll let you clean the toilet."
"When I'm a girl, right?"
"You will never be a girl."
"But girls are moms!"
"But you're a boy, so you'll be a daddy, just like your daddy."
"But I want to be a mom.  What do daddies do?"
"Go to work."
"I don't want to be a daddy.  I don't want to go to work."
"What do you want to do?"
"Stay home and play.  When I'm a dad, I will stay home and play."

Bella really enjoyed preschool but says she's not sad to be done.  That's kind of how I always felt.  I loved each stage of school but was always happy to move onto the next big and exciting thing.  For Bella that's staying home with me now.  Not terribly exciting, but she's happy about the idea.  We've begun "summer school" as a transition before our next phase.  So, I'm not only home schooling Benjamin, but have added on Bella and Christian for the summer too.  So far it's gone really well.  I combine elements of preschool as preparation for Christian, such as circle time and show and tell, with more advanced activities for the older two, such as science projects and math assignments on the computer.

We do a "daily five" - reading, writing, spelling, math, and social studies/science/art.  I plan an assignment/activity/game per child per section but often they join in on each other's if it looks fun and it takes us 2-3 hours in the morning a couple times a week.  They seem to really like it and get excited to begin.  I never have to force them, which I appreciate a lot.  I'm trying to make the most of the time I have left with Benjamin before he starts 2nd grade at his new school.  He got into the academically accelerated program to which we applied, so we are very excited for him to go there.  Just a little sad too.  I loved having the time with him this past year.  I'm so glad we did that.  It really brought us closer as a family and especially he and I really bonded.  I'm going to miss my boy next year.  Here we are fishing for lettered fish to help Christian learn his letters.  Benjamin is in Kelly's fishing float boat and Christian is pretending the pool table is a boat.  Bella pretending she was standing on the beach.

We tried to get in a few museum and zoo visits before public school officially ended a few days ago.  Sadly, we hit the field trip season.  The places were packed with school groups.  Luckily they usually had to be gone by about 2 and we could then stay and have the place to ourselves.  The three in front of the black bears:

Me and my cutie in front of the rhino:

This summer we're continuing our toddler playgroup for Christian,

 have a park days group for Bella where we meet at a different park each week with preschool friends

 

And we can finally have play dates with Benjamin's friends again now that they aren't in school all day.  We also still have piano and swim lessons.  Sadly soccer is over.  I have loved coaching Benjamin's team.  He's a good player, as were several of the kids on the team.  I loved those kids and really enjoyed being with them.  Christian has requested that I coach him next since I've now coached Bella and Benjamin.  I think that will be a lot of fun.

We've also signed up for Kids Bowl Free.  I don't expect to go too often, but it's but a lot of fun so far.  Except for Bella's refusal to wear the shoes because they weren't cute enough.  She finally came around when she saw she was missing out on the fun.  Next week it's off to Utah!  We can't wait.  It'll be so fun to spend time with family.  Yay for Summer!

Isabella is Five!

Isabella turned five years old this week.  How amazing.  We had a pretty relaxed birthday. A few weeks ago I asked her what she wanted to do on her birthday and her first answer was "go shopping!"  So, we had cake and presents in the morning and then we went shopping.  She got to spend the birthday money she got from her grandparents and great grandparents and we added some to it as well.  It was a blessing, really, because I've given up trying to find clothes for her.  We simply don't agree and every time I find something I think she'll love, I'm dead wrong.  So I gave her toys and things as presents and just let her pick out her clothes herself.  It worked great.  She picked out things I would never have selected and she's happily worn them now three days in a row when she's not wearing the outfit Kelly's parents sent her.  They are apparently much better at picking out clothes for her than I am. :)

Bella is a great girl.  She loves everything girlie - princesses, ponies, strawberry shortcake, care bears, barbie, and hello kitty.  She loves candy and cookies.  She specifically asked for Oreos for her birthday.  She loves to play with her "babies" -her stuffed animals.  She will dress them, pretend to bathe them, feed them, put them to bed, and even put them in time out.  She loves to ride her bike and play card/board games.  Her favorite is Sleeping Queens. She's an optimist who never stays sad for long and always knows how to put a happy spin on any situation.  She's a fashionista with a real eye for style, color, and flair.  She wants to be a hair stylist and a mom when she grows up.  She is very sensitive to the spirit and is always very attentive to scriptures.  She is very creative and imaginitive.  She's never without an idea of what to draw or act out and she loves being in charge of the activity for family home evening because she'll make up her own game that relates to the lesson, sometimes even designing her own board and corresponding board game. We have had some amazingly fun times playing the games she comes up with. And, much to my dismay, she still sucks her thumb and picks her nose simultaneously all day long and  refuses to stop. We love Isabella.  Our family is so much better because she's in it.

What she wore to go shopping:  The headband she made herself, the outfit from Grandma and Grandpa, leggings from Easter, and her new zebra print flats.  She had wanted them a couple weeks ago so I bought them secretly and saved them until her birthday.  She was so excited.

After shopping we came home and played some Wii (a birthday tradition in our house is to borrow a Wii system from a friend and have unrestricted play time for 2 days.)  We borrowed some Barbie games to go with it and she loved it.

Then we invited some neighbors over and played on the trampoline with the sprinkler - their first time ever doing that. The kids thought it was awesome.  I thought it was still just a bit too cold, but they didn't care.

The day prior to her birthday, they celebrated it in preschool.  She got to put 5 candles on the cake and then everyone sang to her.  She loved that.  For some reason, though, she hated the crown they made her.  She refused to wear it at first, but the teacher insisted she do it just for the picture and while they sang.  She couldn't tear that thing off fast enough when they were done.

I was trying to take a few pictures of my new 5 year old but the boys couldn't stand not being a part of it.  So they joined in.  It turned out pretty cute anyway, though.  Silly kids.

We went to another friend's birthday party this week at a park with a river.  Despite the icy water, the kids couldn't keep themselves from it.  Everyone was soaked by the end of the day.

Monday Bella and I are going to get manicures together for the first time and then in a couple weeks we're going to Great Wolf Lodge.  The trip was supposed to coincide with her birthday but the timing ended up wrong.  It's no big deal, though.  This way her birthday can last even longer!

Down on the Farm

One of my favorite field trips that Bella's preschool (and Benjamin's two years ago) makes is to Real Life Farm.  It is a small farm smack dab in the middle of a suburban neighborhood but it is amazing for kids.  They have baby sheep, goats, cows, ducks, rabbits, chickens, and horses and the kids get to pet, hold, feed, and/or ride them all.  It is so much fun.  Thank goodness the weather cooperated and we had a fabulous day there.

Before we went I prepped Christian for the cow milking.  I was a bit worried that he'd be too scared of the big cow.  "You're going to be brave, though, right and try to milk the cow?  Because she's very nice and gentle."  "I will be brave," he replied, "but Edwin will be a bit scared." :)  Edwin is what he has named his stuffed dog.  It was really cute.  We had a discussion about why Edwin doesn't have to be scared and by the end of it, Edwin was also excited to go to the farm.  Christian was wonderful too.  He held ducks and rabbits and milked the cow without hesitation.  But his favorite past time was climbing on hay bales and giving me a scare as he almost toppled head first off a particularly high stack.  He's not the athlete that Benjamin is but he's trying to be.  Bella's favorite animal in the whole farm was the cat.  That was the only animal she was interested in petting or holding and it was the only animal she talked about afterwards.  I have to hand it to that cat - it was incredibly soft and silky.

We look forward to going back when it's Christian's turn in preschool! :)

April Recap

This month was a full and exciting one for us.  We got a trampoline after years of wanting one and it's been everything we dreamed of.  We are out there jumping on it all day long no matter the weather.  It has been so much fun we've hardly gone to any playgrounds all month because we have all the outdoor entertainment we need right here.  Benjamin has learned how to do forward handsprings and forward and backward flips in the air.  Bella and Christian just love to chase each other and play silly trampoline games.  It's been such a wonderful purchase.

This month was also General Conference for our church.  This was my most prepared conference to date.  I had different activities for each of the four sessions to keep the kids engaged and excited.  Their favorites were drawing pictures of what the speakers were talking about the taping them on the wall by the speakers' pictures,  making themselves crowns so they were "King and Queen Conference,"

building a lego temple, setting up our tent like King Benjamin's people, baking a "conference cake" from scratch (and even making the icing from scratch - my first time ever doing that), eating the snacks from our 72 hour kits and restocking them with fresh supplies, and working on the workbook I found online.  It went wonderfully.  I was amazed how much they remembered when discussing things afterward - especially due to the pictures they drew.  Best conference yet, I think.  Here's how Kelly and Christian spent a large part of conference on Sunday. :)
 

Kelly also celebrated his birthday in April.  He wanted to go to Benihana for dinner.  I'd never been there and expected it to be like my other sushi restaurant experiences, ie. eat tiny amounts of lousy food that cost WAY too much money, leave hungry, stop at Taco Bell on the way home.  I was pleasantly surprised by Benihana, though - it was really good food and the kids LOVED watching it all be cooked right at their table.  The chef was a lot of fun and did cute things to entertain the kids.  It was a wonderful evening.  Wish I could say that about his birthday cake.  It tasted great, but about 20 minutes later, I got deathly ill and spent the whole night awake, throwing up chocolate cake and then just throwing up, long after the cake was gone.  Since I was the only one who got sick, I don't think I can blame the cake, but the timing of the whole episode makes me not want to eat cake for a long time.

Also this was the month that Christian finally potty trained!  Little Man has been dry for several weeks now and we couldn't be happier!  We are officially pull up and diaper free in this house!! Yay!  He's even stayed dry at night.  It's awesome.  Now we need to work on his aim.  My bathroom reeks of urine as he has yet to master the art of shooting at his target.  My walls, floors, tub, and even occasionally the counter tops get a daily soaking.  I clean up as much as possible, but when he's rewetting them every couple hours, it's hard to keep up.  He, of course, thinks this is hilarious, but we are all hoping he gets the hang of it soon.

Speaking of Christian, another cute story.  The other day a toy of his broke and I made a comment about "cheap chinese junk"  He asked me about it and I explained that a lot of things we have are made in China - a country far from here.  He looked at me with a serious expression and asked, "I made in China?"  I explained that no, he was made in Heaven by our Heavenly Father.  He said nothing more and I thought the topic was closed, but several days later he came to me with another object, I forget now which, and asked, "This made in China or in Heaven?"  Apparently those are the two places everything comes from!  Only two options available. :)

 Looking through these pictures, I just realized that Christian is wearing the same shirt in nearly all of the except for the one above where he's wearing his pajamas. :)  Guess I know which shirt of his is my favorite!

Happy Easter

We had a wonderful Easter week, capped off by a gorgeous Easter weekend.  All week I tried to keep the focus on Christ and what Easter really means.  We read scriptures and had a Family Home Evening lesson on it.  However, I also really love the fun non-religious traditions that surround Easter.  We colored eggs several times with friends.

I had a blast getting the kids things for their Easter baskets.  It was so fun to see their excitement and Bella thanked me for her gifts and told me how much she loved them at least 20 times over the course of the weekend.  That was so sweet.

We also had a fun Easter egg hunt in the backyard.  I put lego pieces and Disney princess names in the eggs and when they found them, they either got the new lego set it belonged to (Benjamin) or the corresponding princess doll (Bella).  Christian was excited either way!  He just loved calling out the colors of the eggs he found.

Kelly's present was a new kayak which the kids enjoyed even without any water.

Bella also wanted to make Kelly an Easter present, so she made this:

"It's a ship that says I love you" she told him. Kelly and I looked at each other and both tried really hard not to laugh as we started quietly singing, "The love boat!  Exciting and new!  Come aboard, we're expecting you!  The love boat!"  Boy, those 80s tv theme songs stick with you a long, long time,don't they?

On Saturday we also had a BBQ with friends at a nearby park.  We had burgers and hotdogs and roasted marshmallows.  The weather was wonderful and it was so much fun to spend the day outside flying kites, playing on the playground, and just enjoying the time with friends.

Bella's favorite activity at the park was playing with her newly acquired princess dolls.  At one point she had all their dresses lined up and all the girls in a group in front of them.  I asked her if they were in a dress shop and were trying to decide which dress each would buy.  She replied matter-of-factly, "No, their dresses are all bloody because Ariel fell off the cliff and died and sprayed blood on them, so they had to take them off."  Truly a little girl sandwiched between brothers.

First Recital

Today was Benjamin's first piano recital.  He started piano lessons about 8 months ago and has really enjoyed it so far.  He practices happily most of the time.  I'm very grateful for that because I know how hard it was for my mother to get me to practice!  I also remember always being terribly nervous before recitals, but Benjamin wasn't very nervous at all.  He was excited to have me hear the songs because I'd never heard what the second song sounded like as a duet or what the third song sounded like with the special sound effects he'd planned.  He composed it himself at home on our piano and then his teacher helped him set it up to play in a cool Hawaiian way for the recital. So he was more excited about surprising me than anything else.  He said he went up there and forgot there were other people watching him.  I think it all sounded wonderful.  Afterwards the teacher gave all the kids a carnation.  I thought Benjamin might think getting a flower was girly, but he told me, "I'm so glad I got a red one since I like red."  Thus the whole evening was a complete success.  We're so proud of him.

It's Out!

Benjamin's first tooth was quite a stubborn one!  It took a week from the time it started wiggling until it finally fell out on Sunday morning while I was in the shower.  I stepped out to find Benjamin standing there proudly holding it in his hand.  "Look what I have!" he declared, beaming.  I put it in a baggie since it's all I had readily on hand.  (Yes, I got dressed first).  And then I took a picture.  His new tooth is already so far out that the picture almost doesn't show there's a hole there.  But in reality, the adult tooth is quite a ways back from the hole.  Please let that straighten itself out on its own!

After church I gave Benjamin a little plastic treasure chest designed for teeth with the words "tooth saver" on it so we wouldn't lose it.  Of course, he insisted on carrying it with him everywhere and letting Bella and Christian hold it too.  I repeatedly asked him to give it to me so he wouldn't lose it, but a couple hours later he came to me wailing that it was lost.  "I lost my tooth and then I lost my tooth!"  We searched high and low for that little box but it was nowhere to be found.  Oh the stress - would the tooth fairy still come!?!?  He prayed and prayed to find his tooth, but it didn't turn up.  Luckily the tooth fairy was forgiving and still brought him a dollar and a little certificate which now proudly hangs on the fridge.  Luckily last night he had a bit of an anger management issue (read: temper tantrum) and ripped the cushions off the couch, only to discover his tooth!!  He was so excited. All's well that ends well.

Yesterday we discovered how to to get more bang for your buck at the zoo: confuse what time it closes.  Turns out the zoo closes at 4pm in the Winter, but I thought it closes at 5pm as it does in the Summer, so we were clear at the back of the zoo when I started to notice it was very empty around us.  However, it's winter so I didn't think of much of it and thought how nice it is not to fight the crowds.  We enjoyed the prairie dogs, the wolverine, the buffalo and the bald eagle, etc. and then we wanted to check out the polar bears and sea lions again - the kids love watching them swim overhead in their tunnel.  When we got there, however, the door was closed.  What?  Why would they close off the polar bear exhibit in the winter - that was the best time to see them!  We walked around a bit more and watched the bears and arctic foxes from outside and then an employee rode by on a bike.  I stopped him and asked why it was closed.  He looked at me funny and said, "Well, we close at four."  I looked at my watch - 4:30.  Ooops!  So here we were in the middle of the zoo 30 minutes past closing time.  So we headed out, but decided to take our time since no one seemed terribly anxious for us to leave.  We passed several more employees but no other visitors.  Not a single employee seemed to even notice us or even said anything.  We stopped at the camels, the ducks, the turtle and frog statues where the kids like to climb around, etc. and finally it was 4:55 when two zoo security guards came riding by.  "What are you still doing here this late?  Were you way in the back?" they asked.  "Yup, sorry.  Didn't realize what time you close."  They eyed me critically, said nothing more, but then followed us the rest of the way out.  Good thing they did, too, because all the exits were already locked!  In the end, we did leave at 5pm, just as planned!  Nothing like having a zoo all to yourself!  It was a fun afternoon.  The kids loved it but were a bit bummed that it's not like in the books where all the animals come out of their cages and have parties after all the visitors go home.  Maybe we just didn't stay late enough.  Guess there's always next time!

The End of an Era

We bid a sad farewell to nap time yesterday.  Christian has been fighting nap time for the last couple months but I've won the battle most of the time simply by putting him in his crib and letting him scream until he fell asleep.  Then the last three days he's screamed for over an hour an never fallen asleep.  Finally yesterday as I listened to him scream, it suddenly got quiet much earlier than I expected.  I thought that meant he'd fallen asleep, but the next thing I heard was the click of his door and the triumphant cry of "I get out of my bed!" That's when I knew it was truly over.

I count my blessings that it took this long.  Benjamin was only 11 months old when he learned to climb out of his crib.  Bella about 2.  Christian took the longest and for that I am grateful because now that he can, he will never stay in there.  I tried many things to get him to go to sleep and none worked.  Today again we tried, and every time he simply climbed right back out.  Many times during the day he admitted, "I tired!" as his head lolled to the side.  Each time I encouraged him to go to bed and rest.  I promised special rewards afterwards and I promised we'd do nothing interesting while he was sleeping.  "We are just going to sit on the couch and stare at the wall and wait for you to wake up!"  Nothing worked.  We slugged through a very long, difficult day with cranky, tired Christian.  I don't know why he goes to bed at night.  I guess he's simply too tired to put up a fight after being up for so long.

On a different Christian related note, have you ever seen those stuffed animals that look like germs in stores?  I've seen them in museum gift shops and whatnot.  They have little plush versions of staph, salmonilla, etc.
 Like this: http://www.giantmicrobes.com/
I've seen these and never really understood the appeal.  The idea of hugging something that reminded me of something that could make me violently ill just didn't appeal to me.  However, Christian received one as a gift and has loved it!!  His generous gift giver is a veterinarian and she gave him a toy flea.  Which I guess isn't a germ, but is right up there with things I wouldn't want to cuddle.  I spent too many months scratching flea bites in Madagascar to ever spend a single penny on a toy version of this dreaded pest.  Never in my life would I have thought he'd like it either, but Flea has become a member of the family around here.  Flea goes everywhere with us now and I about laughed out loud as I heard him say today while hugging the little blood sucking pest, "I love you Flea" with the sweetest little boy voice you've ever heard.  Hats off to you, inventors of plush germs and vermin.  You know your audience.

Christian - never without his flea and his blankie.

Christian is 2 and a half

That half a year makes all the difference when you're young, doesn't it?  I remember so eagerly waiting until I could add that 1/2 to my age.  My kids are no different.  Christian added the 1/2 on Valentine's day and he's been reminding me and everyone he meets ever since.  "I not two!  I two and a half!  I big boy!"  For his 1/2 birthday we made blueberry banana muffins and sang to him as he blew out 2 and 1/2 candles.  Then we had friends over and built a couch fort they could play in.  Everyone had a great time.  This was the only view I got of him most of the afternoon:

Or occasionally this:

We also followed our tradition of having pink cream of wheat for breakfast and making personal mini pizzas with heart shaped pepperoni for dinner.  I was going to make heart shaped pizzas but decided to let the kids roll out their own dough which led to some very creative looking pizzas.  "I made a dinosaur pizza!"  But when you make it yourself, you love it and that's the key.

Christian continues to crack me up all day long with his growing personality and imagination.  Today his secret animal was a dog which he called "Sprinkle Doggy."  He spent long periods of time telling me all about Doggy's habits.  "He bark a lot. When I brush his fur, he bark. When I play with him, he bark.  I tell him he need be quiet because people sleeping, but he happy and he bark a lot."  "So, it's always a happy bark?" I asked.  "Yeah, always happy.  Except when he hungry.  Then it a hungry bark.  Then I feed him.  Then it happy bark."  This went on and on.

His other thing now is he loves the word "squishy" but he can't say it right, so he says, "wooshy."  So everything is "wooshy."  Jingle Bells is now sung daily as "Wooshy Bells, Wooshy Bells, Wooshy all the way!"  And the sippy cup with the soft straw is the "cup with the wooshy lid."  So funny.

Since it was Valentine's Day last week, Bella also had a little party at school where the kids sang while in a box they decorated to look like a package sent to us.  Benjamin spent quite a bit of time afterwards hypothesizing how a kid could actually send themselves somewhere.  He had all the logistics figured out except for that tricky little business of it being against the law.  We did, however, read together the story of the slave, Henry Brown, who managed to find a way to mail himself north to escape slavery.  That was a cool story!

Here's a little bit of Bella's valentine's performance.  I thought it was really fun to watch her and she participated much more than I thought she would.  She's very outgoing and showy when she's home or just with friends at school but she gets very intimidated in front of a lot of adults.  Her ballet recital was a disaster because she completely froze when she saw all the parents watching.  I have 15 minutes of video showing Bella standing, staring, and pulling on her tights while the rest of the class dances around her and her teacher makes encouraging remarks with no success.

Benjamin has become a jump rope fanatic.  Two weeks ago I had him jump rope while doing his spelling words like in the movie Akeela and the Bee and it's completely taken on a life of its own.  Now he's jumping all the time.  At first he couldn't do more than 4 or 5 jumps in a row, but now he's up in the 30s and he loves it.  I love that he gets rid of excess energy while getting his school work done! :)

He's also got his first loose tooth!  He's so excited.  His adult tooth has already started growing in behind it which freaks me out a bit because he's had such perfectly straight cavity free teeth and I was starting to believe he'd never need braces.  Seeing this adult tooth coming in screwy from behind has been discouraging.  However, the baby one is on its way out soon, we hope.  Benjamin prays every morning and night for it to fall out.  It's been 2 days so far, so we'll see how long it lasts.  I'm excited for him.  I still remember loosing my first tooth.  I remember it better than I remember my baptism or several other events that theoretically should have been much more significant in my life.  However, that first tooth will never be forgotten.  I called relatives to inform everyone and I still remember finding that silver dollar under my pillow in the morning.  So exciting!  Well, so exciting once my dad explained to me what this large heavy coin was and agreed to exchange it for some "real" money. ;)  Bella's been avidly testing the solidity of her teeth for days as well now.  No loose ones yet, much to her dismay.