April Wrap Up

My little Anna got sick. She had a really high fever (got up to 103.7) and she threw up three times. I couldn't believe how hot her little body felt. She got a lot of baths for those few days of fever in attempt to cool her down. I took pictures of how rosy her cheeks were and of course Macy had to jump in. They are so darn cute!

I love this one so much. I feel like Anna is saying, "Do you see what I have to deal with?!" Anna's cheeks are really that red, I didn't change anything about this photo.

Rosy cheeks

 This snot sucker saved our lives. Anna was not sleeping (by not sleeping I really mean not sleeping!) at night because she couldn't breathe very well. Heather let us borrow this and I was amazed by how much snot we could get out of her nose! Thick green mucus-y snot too. It's not wonder why she couldn't breathe. We enjoyed a much better sleep that night. I can't believe we waited two nights to try this!

Macy's flower that she planted from seed started to sprout.

I caught Macy reading books to Anna- who seems to really enjoy it.

I love my two girls so much. I love that they became instant best friends.

Towards the end of the month we had a few warm days so we walked to Safeway.

Daddy bought Macy a tricycle. She didn't know how to pedal a bike so he bought this for her so she could get used to that motion. She enjoys it for a few minutes then makes me carry it home because her "legs are sore."

We took a preschool field trip to Meadowlark Gardens. It drizzled the whole time and the kids were having a ball running around so this was the only picture I got. 

30 things my kids should about know about me Series

Second question: Name three legitimate fears and how they became so.

Ja
1. Sound of nails on a chalkboard. It makes me fingers hurt just thinking about it. And it gets me all antsy. I don't know where it came from, I just hate it.

2. A fear of water (water that is not clear). This became a fear after watching the movie Jaws.

3. Afraid if insects biting me. I don't know which ones are poisonous so they all scare me. This comes from watching tv shows and movies with people having holes in their legs from bites.


Laura
1. Dying during my children's childhood. This came to be after my aunt Karen dying when her kids were still young. After having my own kids and feeling so much love for them I would hate to leave them.

2. Falling off a roller coaster. I have visions of the car going off the track or my shoulder harness opening while I'm upside down.

3. I'm afraid of Macy or Anna being bullied or made fun of a lot in school. I love them so much and don't want kids to be mean to them.

We both have fears but that doesn't stop us from living and still going in the ocean or riding a roller coaster.

Anna in the bath

I had Anna in the bath yesterday and Macy started taking pictures of Anna with her pretend camera. I'm glad she did because it reminded me that I need to take more pictures of Anna. I could only capture a few before the memory card was full then the moment was past. I'll have to try again soon. Here are my favorites:

She's getting so big and grown up! She can sit up really well now. Thankfully we are getting our happy Anna back after a week battle with fever, runny nose, and a cough. We are all ready to get some sleep now!

Here is a picture of Macy when she was almost one. I think she and Anna have the same chin and cheeks! 

My last day teaching Macy's co-op Preschool

Here's the email I sent to the other moms:

We had a fun time on Tuesday. I can't believe I'm done teaching! It was a bitter sweet day. They are ver cute and I'll miss this little group! Each child has his or her own personality and it was fun to watch them interact. 

We did all the circle time things and I had each child pick a book we were going to read later. I'm still impressed with how well they all attentively listen to a story! One time I was having a hard time getting them to be quiet so I experimented. I started whispering asking them to be quiet because I was going to read. Then I started reading in a quiet voice and they all got really quiet! That was so much easier than trying to talk over them. 

We did a letter hunt then put the letters A-M all in order. They love singing the ABC song! 

We talked about our oval shape and colored in their Oval Book. I had them work on their fine motor skills by having them cut the outside lines of their book.

We did the letter matching worksheet and Emma is very good with her letters. She finished very quickly. I know Owen also knows his letters but he kept saying he needed help. Probably because I was helping James out. Hallie made sure everyone had an H for Hallie. They did really well with this.

We painted and once again the kids were very neat. No spilled paint or big messes.

We enjoyed some playing time and the kids are helpful with putting toys away. Although I didn't have them put stuff away when you guys arrived to the huge mess :)

Before our final play time I wanted to get a few group shots. They are all the same pose on the couch because it was hard enough to get them all on there so I didn't want to lose them while changing locations.  I had them make different faces:

Happy:

Silly

Mad

Surprised

Co-op Preschool Today

Here's the email I sent the other mom's about the preschool I taught today:

We had a good time at preschool this morning. I'm sure it wasn't as much fun as Katrina's last day (Macy asked all week if we were wearing pajamas at our preschool) but the kids did great.

We sang the hello song and the baby bumble bee song to open.

I love doing show and tell. The kids are so excited to show off their toy but they only perform the "show" part. They hold their toy out proud for all to see. They do say what it is and that's it. Macy did show her bunny and said, "This is my bunny I sleep with" (which she doesn't but whatever). I asked the kids if they had any questions for her and James asked, "Do you make your bunny jump?" Good question. Macy answered with, "No, it hops." James was so excited about his monster slippers and put them on for us. He said his mommy got them for him at the sale. Owen showed his Mater and had him vroom around the room. Emma was so excited about her singing Rapunzel. Hallie was also very excited about her play ice cream in a cup. 

We talked about 10, counted to 10, counted our ten fingers, and counted our 10 toes. Emma took her socks off to count her toes so I asked Owen if he wanted to take his socks off too. He said, "No, my mommy told me to keep them on." He was listening Brienne :) Before counting the toes I asked the kids how many toes they have. James looked at his feet with his monster slippers and said he had 3 toes. And in fact his slippers did. Owen thought it was hilarious to say we have 5 fingers and 5 toes. It's funny when kids know they are being funny. I guess we are born with a sense of humors. Then we did the 1,2 buckle my shoe rhyme. I had some strips of paper numbered 1-10 that were all mixed up and they had to put them in order to make the picture. They did great.

Onto the letter Z. We made the Z sound and talked about words that start with Z. We had a Z hunt and the kids each found a letter Z. I meant to have them make Z's with q-tips on a worksheet but I forgot.

Then we did the star shape. I picked random shapes out of the bag and asked if each one were a star. They are getting very good with shapes! We counted the 5 points of the star. Then we had star shaped cookies and apples for snack. They are such good eaters!

They played for a little while I set up the paint and pots on the table. We painted the pots and the kids did amazingly well with the paints. I reminded then we had to be very careful with the paint and they listened. I don't think a single drop was spilled. I'm glad I remembered to take pictures. I did forget to take a group shot so hopefully next week we can do that on our field trip. We let them dry while we continued.

Owen

All done! I love that smile!

Owen

Emma

Silly James

Hallie

We then read some books about planting flowers. One was called A Rainbow Garden and Owen told us he ate rainbow pasta for dinner. We then read a book about seeds. I bought 5 different seed packets and each kid picked one they wanted to examine. We talked about what the fruit or vegetable looked like and they guessed what the seed would look like. We opened the bag up and felt, smelled, and looked at each kind of seed. Hallie added a fourth sense and ate a couple too. The carrot seed smells really good! The others were odor less. 

I made a poster about the 4 things seeds need to grow: dirt, water, sun, air. We talked about each of those. 
I also had pictures of the 4 special steps we were going to take to plant our seeds: fill pot with dirt, make a hole, put seeds in, water the seeds.

We took a field trip downstairs and planted our Zinnias. (For the letter of the day) Hopefully they will sprout within 7-10 days. We went over the things seeds need to grow and talked about putting their pots in a good place at home.

Since they asked very nicely if they could play on the playground I said yes. And because they were very neat with the dirt and no one spilled. We played for a few minutes then it was time to go home!

I'll get in touch with you about next weeks field trip.

Picking Flowers for Grandma

Macy saw a bunch of yellow flowers outside and wanted to pick some. She needed a bucket to hold all the flowers she was going to pick. She told me they were for her grandma.

She was so adorable picking these flowers. The bees also liked these flowers which made Macy a little scared. We had to find a few new patches of flowers after a bee flew by.
 
After picking she wanted to put her flowers in some water. I had the little dixie cups which worked out perfectly for her little flowers.

Filling up the cups and putting the flowers in the water was just as much fun as picking the flowers.

 

 

She was so proud of her work.

Macy told me that her flowers needed to be in the sun. She very carefully carried each cup to the windowsill so the flowers could get sun. She didn't spill any water!

So there you have it grandma- virtual flowers picked by Macy!

30 Things My Kids Should Know About Me Series

I found an article on Pinterest that has a list of 30 different questions that I should answer about myself. I thought it would be fun to write them on our blog since this is my journal that I hope my kids read one day. I guess I'm starting a series called "30 things my kids should know about me" and I'll write a post whenever I can.

The first question: List 20 random facts about myself.

Me:
1. I have a dead tooth that has been dead for a long time. I've had 4 visits now to the endodontist to get a root canal and he still isn't done. Apparently the canal is very calcified. And it's a difficult case.

2. I like writing down our activities and travels (as if you couldn't tell already).

3. I like eating potato chips in my tuna sandwiches.

4. I love ice cream.

5. I'm not sure if my hair was curly all my life. It could have been but I always brushed it out.

6. I was born with extra weird shaped teeth that had to be extracted.

7. I was born missing a top lateral incisor tooth. The other one was extracted to make my mouth even.

8. Most nights I must read before going to sleep.

9. I didn't know General Conference was on Saturday until I went to college.

10. I didn't think I would live anywhere outside of California after college.

11. I love living in Virginia.

12. The first race I ever ran was Ragnar in 2011.

13. I struggle with parallel parking.

14. I like to sing when no one is listening.

15. I enjoy hanging out with friends (with and without kids).

16. If I could go back to college I would major in teaching health in high school.

17. I enjoy cooking for other people.

18. My favorite city is Paris. Or New York City. Or London.

19. I never had allergies until age 27 in our 4th spring in Virginia.

20. I enjoy going to the beach to go to the beach. Not in the water. The water is too cold and I don't want to loose a contact.

I enlisted Ja to do this project with me too.

Ja;
1. My ears are crooked.

2. I had shingles at age 14.

3. I had a boil on my nose.

4. I had appendicitis at age 11. I was at Greg and Holly's wedding reception when I got sick.

5. I had two gum graphs from my receding gum line.

6. I have more hair than I thought I would at age 30.

7. I jumped on trampolines for my 30th birthday.

8. I wanted to be a professional magician and manufacturing engineer.

9. I think Accounting is cool in theory but lame in real life.

10. I am a terrible artist.

11. I love the gospel and the history of the church.

12. I love starting exercise programs and make it a point not to finish them.

13. I love skate boarding.

14. I played varsity basketball in high school.

15. I have many hobbies. And love them all.

16. I love propping my feet up on anything. When I sit down my feet go up.

17. I had purple hair in seventh grade.

18. I was on the ballroom dance team in 9th grade.

19. I have clammy hands. Had it my whole life and I hate it.

20. I like building things.

That was fun! Hope you all enjoy it!

Anna's New Talent

My baby learned how to sit up all by herself! Good job Anna, we are proud of you!

It's a whole new world for her now.

She likes sitting in front of her toy box. She can grab for anything she likes.

I love that sweet little face so much!

Anna's first bath with Macy was a success! I could kiss those round cheeks all day long! 

A Successful General Conference Weekend

We were able to listen to all 4 sessions of conference this past weekend! I couldn't believe how well Macy did. Saturday was the most successful because Anna slept during the 2 sessions and they were new to Macy.

I did a few things to help get Macy excited to watch and listen. I did a quick FHE lesson the Monday before where I told Macy we would be watching the Prophet and Apostles speak to us. I showed her the fold-out insert from the last conference with all the head shot pictures of the Apostles and the Quorum of the Seventy. We taped it onto our bookcase next to the TV. She knows who President Monson is from other pictures we have and since she's been into the Lamb of God movie she has heard of Apostles before. That helped to make conference seem less foreign.

Saturday morning I printed out some Conference bingo sheets from the church website. As we listened we would notice the topics the speaker talked about and color in the correct square. Macy was actually good at picking out words. We would say, "Baptism! Macy, let's color in the baptism square!" so she would sit and yell out words like "Kingdom of God, mommy!" or "Jesus, mommy!" It was very cute and now we know she was actually listening. Probably not comprehending but listening. We said whoever got five in a row first wins. Ja would have won because he needed only one more square but he stopped coloring after the first session. As you can see from the picture Macy had me color in her pictures. She told me that she couldn't color after her first picture. But she did pick out the colors :)

Macy was very good at circling the person who was speaking on our fold-out insert. She would look at the person and say, "He has white hair and glasses." I would guide to her the row the man was on and eventually the actual picture too. They do all sort of look alike- balding, glasses, old. She would get a little mad when the man wasn't wearing the same color tie as his picture. She circled President Uchtdorf each time he went up the session he conducted so he's been circled a lot. I think I'll do this one again because she really enjoyed it. If a new speaker came on and I didn't say anything she'd say, "Mom we got to circle the picture!"

Macy got some candy after watching for an hour. We went on a walk in between sessions which helped get the wiggles out.

Since we had success with the Bingo sheets Saturday I didn't want to press my luck with them on Sunday too. I had the idea to print off some outlines of ties to color in. We would color them the color the speaker was wearing. Macy liked this idea but once again after coloring one she said she couldn't color and had me do them. I think she doesn't like coloring within the lines. We only did this for part of the first session. After that Macy was content doing other things so I didn't want to disrupt her since she was happy. 

This was Macy's

Macy did color the last few on my paper for me. I guess she decided to circle the whole page with her pen.

This was mine

Dying Easter Eggs

I don't think Macy has ever dyed eggs! I figured she was too young before and would make too much of a mess. She did great as far as being neat goes, until the very end. She spilled the pink dye all over the table. It's ok though, the only casualty is a spot on our carpet. No biggie.

She liked using the metal egg holder as a monocle. 

So excited to dye eggs!

She was very patient and wait for her eggs to get a nice bright color.

"Mommy look!"

"Do you see this egg? It's blue!"

Daddy jumped in at the end. He was crucial in the hurry-and-clean-up-the-red-dye part.

She took her time to decorate each egg with the correct stickers.

 

I tried to get a smile out of her with her beautiful creations but this was all I could get.

Even better. I think she had fun though!

In case you were wondering- no it wasn't warm weather outside. Macy loves wearing her bathing suit all. the. time.