Halloween

Okay, I'm only 2 months late...

Halloween was very fun this year.  Aiden and Bryan were content to wear the same costumes as last year.  Aiden was a giraffe and Bryan was a lion.  Amy wanted to be Tinkerbell, which was very easy for us to put together.  I threw on Dan's old Army clothes and he put together a biker outfit.  He had fun drawing tattoos all over himself!  We didn't have Aaron and Jessi with us this year.  Dan and I took the kids to the Trunk-or-Treat party at church, and by 6:30 called it a night and went home, turned off the front porch light, and watched TV!



Amy took this picture for us.

My good friend Kristi and I put together a little Halloween party for our kids and their friends and our friends (the kids' friends' mothers).  We held it at the church on Halloween morning and had fun games and crafts and only healthy snacks.
 
Amy with some of her friends at the party.  Brooklyn, Lindsi, Amy, Savannah.

All of the kids at the party agreed that their favorite activity was hammering nails into pumpkins!  Thanks pinterest!  I took the pumpkins home and the kids continued to play with them and the nails for a few days.  Finally the nails got so rusty that I was afraid I was the on the border of child neglect/abuse so I threw them away! 

My Christmas Plan

Last year I got frustrated with Christmas.  I lost the spirit of it, being so busy with trying to plan an exciting Christmas morning with all the perfect gifts....

So this year I'm trying to plan activities for the family that will help them (and me!) enjoy the excitement and spirit of Christmas.  I thought an advent calendar would be so fun.  I spent time researching lots of different ones online and only concluded that it would stress me out to be committed to doing certain activities on certain days.  What if our day just didn't work out for whatever was on the advent calendar! 

Here is the plan that I put together that seems easy and stress-free to me.

First I collected Christmas books.  (I already had some, found at few more at DI, and supplemented the rest with library books) and wrapped one up for each day of December until Christmas.  Each one is labeled with a number, and the kids think that it is fun to find the book of the day and unwrap it and read it together.  Even Aaron and Jessi are excited about this!  So easy!  But so exciting!

Next, we have the simple paper chain counting down the days until Christmas.  I decided to do something each day that is Christmas related, and we don't take the link off of our chain until we do so.  We have a bucket list of ideas ready.  The list includes crafts, cooking, service, etc., all those things you find on the cute advent calendars, but this way it's open-ended and we're not committed to doing a certain activity on a certain day.

During my and Amy's homeschool time (while the little boys are napping) we've been following the advent reading/video posts here. This means that everyday we're remembering what Christmas is really about.

I also decided to down-size on the gift-giving.  Less gifts.  Less spending.  More second-hand toys.  Get most of the shopping done before Thanksgiving.

I still want to plan a service project for the whole family to do together.  Maybe visit an old-folks home?  Haven't decided yet.  I'm trying to think of something where we can really make someone's Christmas brighter, but without having to spend a lot of money. (Tight budget.  Can you tell?  Even though we could choose to not be on such a tight budget,  I want to teach my kids that we can make Christmas wonderful without spending, spending, spending.)

Anyway, that's my plan.  It doesn't seem too overwhelming.  Not too much planning involved.  Not too much time.  Not too much money.  But hopefully it will make a big difference in making this season memorable and spirit-filled for me and my family.

Pumpkin Patch

We kicked off the fall season by going to the Pumpkin Patch the very first week of October, which was a great time to go as we almost had the whole place to ourselves!  The pumpkin patch gave a discount if you wore costumes, and the kids were excited to oblige!  We went with our favorite playdate friends, Kristi, Davey, and Gordon.  We had so much fun walking through the corn maze, admiring the decorations, seeing the animals, playing on the inflatable slides, playhouses, and playground.  Another highlight for the kids was that the new Frontrunner train that will run from SLC to Provo (opening in Dec) was doing practice runs and it went right by the pumpkin patch several times.  The kids have been anxiously waiting for the train to open so they can ride it.  They see the train parked at the new station all the time.  So to see it zooming by (80 mph) was VERY exciting!  Before we left, we picked out some pretty indian corn which we hung in our kitchen.  We had a difficult time getting everyone to cooperate for pictures at the same time.  They were more interested in playing, so after a few attempts I put the camera away and played with them!

Pretty Princess Pumpkin

We grew pie pumpkins in our garden this year.  Amy and I spent an entire naptime together decorating this one!  It was fun to do with her and she loved it!  We slathered the inside with vaseline to preserve it longer, and then lined it with felt so the princesses would stay pretty. What an enchanting "toy" for my little daydreamer!

What You've Missed

Here's the thumbnail version of all the things I meant to blog about but didn't.  Even though this is the short version, it's still about 5 months worth so it's long!

Spring:
I created a huge garden in my backyard with the help of a few friends from church.  They live in apartments and were excited to garden with me.  We brought in a truckload of compost, put up a little fence to keep the kids out, and had fun planting lettuce, spinach, peppers, zucchini, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, pumpkins, tomatoes, and corn.  Some things turned out great, others not so much.  Some things I'm still waiting to find out.  It has been my job to water and their job to weed.  It's been fun to have garden playdates all summer with all the kids playing in the yard together while we gardened.

For Aiden and Bryan's 2nd Birthday I built a sandbox in the back yard.  I put it under the playhouse my dad built.  It's screened in to keep the cat out, with a little spring-loaded door and all.  It's been a favorite play spot for the little kids and their friends.  But it sure makes the house dirty.  It's worth it though.  :)  For their birthday I made them an excavator cake.  They LOVE anything construction!  It was a pretty cute cake if I say so myself!  They loved it too!

 Aiden and Bryan got their first big haircuts on their birthday.  I gave them different hair styles and I found that it greatly reduced the number of twin comments that I got whenever we went out.

And here's a pic from my birthday.

And here's a picture of Amy with her preschool class (plus a few of the kids' siblings) on her last day of preschool.  She was the only girl!  It's been such a great little class and we're lucky that her teacher wants to do it again next year.

Summer:
Summer is my favorite time of year.  I love being able to keep our back door open all day long.  (Our house is cooled with a swamp cooler so the door open works.)  Our living space doubles as we spend lots of time on the deck and in the yard.  I love having the kids home from school.

Dan's Father's Day card.

This summer wasn't much of a break though as freshman football practice for Aaron started by the end of June, with some weeks being 2-a-day practices.  Jessica went to Sylvan everyday for math help.  But of course, none of their activities matched up, meaning 4-6 commutes across town everyday.  We also got seven peaks passes and tried to go often.  Also, sandwiched in there somewhere Jessica went to girls camp, Aaron went on a pioneer trek youth conference, and we enjoyed visiting with family.  Jenny and her kids were in Utah for a few weeks so we got to see them a lot.  We went to Seven Peaks a few times, toured BYU campus, went to the Tracy Aviary and Trafalga, and had fun watching our kids play at my house.  My parents came to Utah for a week and while they were here most of my other siblings and their families came to Utah for a weekend, which we spent at a cabin in the mountains.  It was super busy and intense, but of course we all had fun! I guess I was so busy hosting everyone (even though most of it wasn't at my house, I was the only one from Utah, so I felt like I did a huge part of the organizing and coordinating) that I didn't get pictures!!!!

 

 Jessica turned 12 this summer!  She had a water party birthday party.  (We had lots of fun with water balloons and have had a few family water fights since then just for fun!)  Jessi has some great friends that I hope she keeps!  How much she has grown up since the little girl missing her two front teeth when Dan and I got married!  Now she's almost as tall as me and has even started shaving!  But she is still just as sweet as ever, fun to be with, a great help, and the best big sister to Amy!  They are BEST friends!  She had a fun flip flops cake.

Amy turned 4 last week.  She keeps reminding us that she's big now and doesn't need our help with things anymore.  She willingly gave up her bottles on her birthday.  (I know.  It's long overdue, but I never pushed the issue with her.)  She mailed them to her cousin Kate to give to her new baby.  (At least, that's what she thinks.  I never really mailed them as I'm sure Mandy doesn't really want a bunch of old cheapo bottles!)  Amy had a pony birthday party which was really fun, as 4 year-olds have such great fantasies about horses.  The kids decorated cardboard hobby horses that I made.  They played giddy-up whoa (red light, green light), bobbed for carrots, and rode their horses all over the playhouse "barn."

 This is a silly looking cake!  It's supposed to look like Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony.

Did you notice Amy's gorgeous hair in those pictures?  It was so beautiful, but caused so many arguments when it came to brushing it (and so she looked like a hooligan half the time!)  So a few weeks ago I cut it shoulder length.  It thought that if I cut it, it would be even curlier since it would be lighter.  Sadly, the ringlets didn't come back!  It's a lot easier to brush and she's still cute with wavy hair as you can see in her birthday picture, but how I miss those ringlets!

Also this summer the boys gave up their morning nap, which was nice (it gave us more time to be out and about) and sad (because less mommy time and they are exhausting!)  Amy gave up her napping a few weeks ago, but fortunately is still good about quiet time because "Mommy needs her work alone time!"  I've found that if I want more "mommy time" I just have to get up earlier.  Hard to do, but worth it!  Especially in the summer when I can get things done before it gets too hot.  Now we're working on getting back into a good school routine, which will probably be the next post.

Today

It's been a busy couple of months and there are many blog posts in my head to catch up on all of our happenings.  But for now, I'll just write about what is going on today.

I actually followed a pinterest idea and got my kids working on a car path project.  The pictures only have Amy in them, but everyone was involved (but Aaron and Jessi have moved on to other activities and the boys are napping.)  Aaron helped lay the tape.  Jessi and Amy made signs.  I helped cut the boxes for the stores/buildings.  Aiden and Bryan zoomed their cars.  Now Amy has added a palace and princesses and even a carnival to our little city.  There is also Walmart, Library, Fire Station, a Diner and Chinese Restaurant.  Amy's been busy with this for 3 hours so far and is still going strong.  What a great idea!

Note to self: Maybe next time I'll make one in Amy's room so that she doesn't feel like the boys wreck it.  The boys didn't peel the tape up, but did mess up the signs and stores.

Construction Crazy

Inspired by this month's theme -- Construction -- over at Totally Tots, the kids and I have been talking a lot about construction and building things.  Kids are naturally interested in bulldozers and backhoes, but having me point things out and talk about them has drawn all three of my little ones' attention.  We checked out a few books about construction sites, our favorite being Machines at Work by Byron Barton.  Amy has the book memorized and knows the name and function of all the machines!  We've played the construction counting game from Totally Tots and they have several other construction themed activities that we'll have to try out.  I also picked up a few cheapo construction trucks at the dollar store to put in the kids' (tiny) sandbox.  In addition, with the nice weather we've had this week I've worked on a few projects in the yard, which means the kids have been watching me "do construction" and use my tools. 

But best of all, this afternoon I took the kids on a "field trip" to watch a construction site in action.  On BYU campus they are tearing down all of the old DT dorms and Heritage Halls apartments and building new on-campus apartments.  It's a huge construction site that goes all the way from the BYU conference center to the Creamery on Ninth (about 5 or 6 blocks).  We parked at the top, walked down to the creamery and got some ice cream, and then walked back.  We stopped at least once every block to watch and talk about what was going on.  We saw a few different backhoes in action, and they were right by the fence so it was fun to be so close.  We saw a loader moving piles of dirt and loading gravel into dump trucks.  We saw a crane at work.  We saw a crew paving a new parking lot, spreading tar and then using the roller to flatten it.  We saw a cement mixer and talked about why it was turning.  We watched a crew prepare the framework for the concrete foundation for one of the buildings.  We saw forklifts moving lumber.  We were lucky to see so much action!  It was a beautiful day, the sun was out, the kids were loving it and learning and talking about so many things.  I didn't think to bring a camera, but I don't want to forget this!  These are the mommy moments that I love!  (The construction site will still be there for another year or more, so we'll probably do this again and see the progress on the buildings.  I'll bring a camera next time.)

When we got home all three of them were excited to play with the trucks in the sandbox.  Now they are all nestled in bed for their naps with traces of ice cream on their faces, sand under their nails, and a construction storybook by their side.  Now Amy can't wait for us to begin construction on their new, bigger sandbox.  :)  This is the kind of childhood/education I hope to provide for the kids through homeschooling.  Passionate and active!

Spinning My Wheels

I have such cute boys who LOVE cars!

Aiden sporting his pink convertible!

Bryan does this with his popper car all the time!  It always makes me laugh!  He had already been spinning for a few minutes before I grabbed the camera so he's already dizzy.

Winter Blues

The past few weeks have been a bit difficult for me.  I suppose February is a long winter month for a lot of people.  What made it long for me though were the terrible headaches I've had everyday.  Apparently I clench my jaws a lot (although I can never seem to catch myself doing it!)  It results in headaches, jaw aches, and toothaches.  My dad, who is a dentist, is helping me get a customized biteguard made to sleep with.  I'll hopefully get it in about a week and am praying that it will help.  This past week I've discovered that if I use both Tylenol and ibuprofen I can keep the headaches at bay, so I'm finally feeling somewhat normal.  Whew!  So glad!

During this time homeschooling has taken a back burner as I just wasn't motivated to do any "super parenting."  It's pretty easy to fall out of good habits.  So now I'm working on getting back into the good groove the kids and I had going.  Here's a few things we've done in the last few days.

 Pom pom balls.  These are great for fine motor skills (and good for moms with a headache as they are very quiet!)  The boys stayed busy for a long time picking them up and putting them in bottles.  Amy woke up and enjoyed taking orders for us.  How many blue berries would Aiden like?  How many lemon drops for Bryan?  And then she'd count them out and serve them up.  I'm sure we'll come up with many more fun things to play with the pom pom balls. 

 Friday, March 2 was Dr. Seuss's birthday and Amy wanted to celebrate.  We read all of our Dr. Seuss books, plus a little biography that I have about Dr. Seuss's life.  For dinner, the kids helped make green eggs and green pancakes.  Lots of fun!  (And everyone had green poop the next day.)

 This morning Amy and I read one of her books Boots' Birthday Surprise.  In the book Dora has 10 goody bags for the party in her wagon and Swiper the fox steals them one by one and hides them, and then Dora has to find them all.  After reading the book we acted the story out, using our bean bags for goody bags.  Then we labeled the bags with numbers.  Then we played the game three more times, but this time after finding all of the bags Amy had to lay them out in the correct order.  It was a good combination of counting, writing, sequencing, and FUN!

Ai-Den!

I think Aiden is a little bit confused about Bryan's name.  He knows how to say it, but he constantly refers to both himself and Bryan as Ai-den.  I'm not worried about it.  I'm sure he'll figure it out.  In the mean time it makes me laugh to myself.

My computer seems to have gotten a virus, so until I get that figured out I'm using my OLD laptop, so no pictures for now!

Homeschool Update

Here is my conclusion: The hardest part is starting.

I had in my mind a vision of what I wanted to do with Amy to begin our homeschooling (even though she is not technically school-age), but giving up my time to begin doing it was sooooo hard.  It took me four months of seriously thinking about it (and more than a year of less seriously thinking about it) to actually schedule and DO our homeschooling.

Now we've been doing it seriously for two weeks and Amy and I are both loving it. The ideas for curriculum and activities come to me easily thanks to my kindergarten teaching experience.  Putting aside MY time and making it OUR time was hard, but it only took a few days to realize how fun and meaningful it is.  It's worth it and I'm glad we FINALLY got started!

I'll plan to post about our homeschooling activities and ups and downs on a regular basis.

Right now we're going through each of the letters.  Amy knows the name and sound of most of them, but we're still reviewing them one-by-one.  She doesn't know the lowercase letters quite as well.  Writing them is hard, but I don't stress it too much since she is only three.  This past two weeks we've learned about Max the Mouse who loves to munch, BoBo the bear's birthday, Silly Squinkies, and Andy who has Allergies.  (While I was teaching I assisted BYU with a research project called SEEL and helped develop hundreds of playful, fun, phonics lessons.  If you're interested you can view them here: http://education.byu.edu/seel.  It's free and printable!)

We've also worked on numeral recognition and AB patterns.  We've made pattern trains and Valentine wreaths with hearts in an AB pattern to give to our elderly neighbors.

Today when I didn't have much energy or anything planned we just did our alphabet train puzzle and played Candy Land.  But at least we didn't just not do it!

Snowman Prayers

We haven't had too many snow days this year, so when one came a few weeks ago Amy was ready to bundle up and make snow angels and a snowman.  I didn't think she'd last more than 5 minutes because she's never really liked the cold or the snow, but I guess she's growing up because she LOVED it!

 Amy's first snowman!  We set it up in front of the window because I thought it would be fun for the boys to look out the window and see it.  It actually ended up startling me all the time because I'd see someone looking into our house out of the corner of my eye!

 As the days went by our snowman bowed further and further, but it just wouldn't fall over!  This is after two days.

 And this is after 5 days.  It is still about 2 inches off of the ground!  We had fun observing it everyday.

Dan joked that the snowman was Muslim and was praying night and day for our family.  That's great!  We need all the prayers we can get, even snowman prayers!