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.

National Kite Festival

Saturday was the National Kite Festival on the National Mall. The kite festival is part of the Cherry Blossom festival which sadly have yet to show their blossoms. I knew we had to go since Macy is so into kites right now. After making sure Brigham was taken to the hospital and things were somewhat calm with Holly we left to the festival. We didn't want to be selfish but there were a lot of people there and we didn't want to add to the chaos.

We took the metro, which Macy calls the choo-choo train and loves. You have to take metro down there on days like this otherwise you'll be driving around for an hour trying to find parking like some friends did.

Anna gave the kites a thumbs up!

We found a great spot to fly our kites and Macy's little kite shot right up into the air. It's a great kite!

I love watching her hold her kite up.

She wanted my glasses because the sun hurt her eyes

Once we got that settled she said she needed to go potty so I walked her and Anna to the closest museum. Ja stayed back and got the kite sting all tangled.

He said the knot was three times this size in the beginning

As we walked back to Ja Macy saw some people sitting on a blanket so she wanted to have a picnic too. We had to get the kites put away then find a shady spot per her request. We sat on Anna's little blanket and ate snacks. Then it was off to see "stuff" because Macy didn't want to fly her kite anymore.

getting our picnic all set up

apparently Anna didn't like the picnic

We wandered over to the Washington Monument where the official kite festival activities were happening. Things were winding to a close so Macy and Ja found a good kite flying spot in the roped off area. 

I love how little she is compared to her daddy

I couldn't believe how many people were there! The beautiful blue sky was full of colorful kites.

We then headed back to the metro and stopped to get Macy an ice cream and Ja and I got hot dogs at the nearest truck. We sat on some steps of a building and ate our snacks. Macy saw some pigeons and was excited that the birds are back. Awhile ago we talked about the birds flying south for the winter so whenever she sees a bird she says, "Mommy, it's spring!" My favorite part of the whole day was sitting on those steps with her and hearing her say under her breath, "Don't step on the birds!" talking to the pedestrians walking by. She's so sweet to think about those pigeons.

Another great weekend activity in D.C.!

Another Laura Sighting!

This time I found the picture. It was on my Facebook timeline for a few weeks. It's so funny to me that these pictures are still popping up! I took this back in 2008! That laptop is now totally outdated :)

Happy Easter!

We had a very eventful Easter weekend. The Monday before Easter I explained the Easter bunny to Macy. I told her he comes to our house and fills her basket with candy and toys then he hides it somewhere for her to find it. He's a tricky bunny! All week she would either tell me or ask me about the bunny Easter being tricky and that she would find her basket. She still calls him the bunny Easter.

It started off with an Easter egg hunt at the church for play group. Macy was very, very excited about this. I couldn't get a picture of her face because she was too excited to stop and look. She followed her friend Oliver around but was very selective in her egg pickings. We was supposed to pick 10 but ended up with only 7 and I think I put 3 in there. After counting the eggs we went back inside and she proceeded to eat all the candy. Luckily one egg had stickers instead.

She ran around very happily

Checking out the candy

Saturday Holly and Greg had their annual egg hunt. In all the years we've lived here this is the first time we could actually do it outside. It was a beautifully warm day. Once again Macy was very excited to get more eggs and more candy. After the hunt the kids picked a bucket and we did another kind of hunt as a service project. We collected little pieces of roofing paper that had fallen off their neighbors roof onto the grass. The kids seemed to like this hunt just as much as the eggs. Holly's mom was visiting and she brought kites for the kids to play with. Luckily we had Macy's kite in the car so all the kids ran around the street trying to get their kite to fly. It wasn't very windy so this was comical to watch.

Our adorable little family

She's a good egg finder now

Her spoils

Then the kids jumped on the trampoline and Brigham broke his leg. Ja was on it with them and he called 911 and the ambulance came and got B. That was not the kind of excitement we wanted but Brigham was very brave through it all. He ended up having to get surgery to help his bones set.

Easter Sunday was a nice day. Macy woke up and wanted to find her basket that the tricky bunny Easter hid. She walked out her door to find little bunny footprints going around the house. She found Anna's basket first then found "clues" that helped her find her basket. We didn't put any clues out. She found things that were on the floor and thought they were clues. She's so funny.

So excited about her basket!

We enjoyed a great Sunday at church. The talks were very good and the music was great. The stake hand bell choir performed in our ward that day which was nice to hear. Oh, and Macy was the reverence child that morning! For whatever reason she loves to stand in front of the chapel or primary room. Maybe she thinks she's the teacher. For someone who is very shy she doesn't get shy when she's in teacher mode. She stood very reverently folding her arms on the stand. Ja said he couldn't see her folding her arms because the wall covered her up since she's so small. I sat in the chairs behind her at her request and she would occasionally look back at me with a big smile. She loved it so much.

On the way home from church Macy told us what she learned in primary. She said Jesus died so we can live again. He was wrapped in cloth and an angel came. And Mary was there. I was quite impressed with her memory! So cute. She also sang I Am a Child of God.

After church Macy wanted to watch a movie so I said we could watch an Easter movie. I was thinking about The Lamb of God since that's about Christ's death and resurrection. I pull it out and Macy said, "Where's the bunny Easter?" Sadly I realized we hadn't taught her the most important part of Easter. We had a little Easter lesson followed by the movie. We watched The Lamb of God and Macy loved it. We watched a few times. At the right parts Macy would say, "Jesus died." I would ask her why and she would reply, "So we can live again." She was concerned the angel didn't appear in the movie and she didn't like it when Christ was getting whipped. I found Finding Faith in Christ so we watched that one a few times also. Since it's also about Christ's death and resurrection she would say, "This is like the other movie!" when scenes were similar. We'll have to pull those movies out more often. She really liked watching them.

For dinner we went to Cassidy's house and enjoyed a very delicious dinner. Trevor's rolls were definitely the winning food on the table. Everything was delicious and the evening was very enjoyable. The night ended with Macy dressed as Snow White reading with Luc. She did not want to go home and kept saying, "No mom! Five more minutes!"

Macy not napping...

Has turned into a good thing!

It was hard to adjust to having a very active 3-year old around me all day long. She needed constant attention and I was unable to institute any "quiet time" or "read to yourself time." Plus, she was complaining that she was tired a lot so she was cranky.

We are now past all that and are in a happy place. She is getting much better at playing by herself and doesn't need me by her every second. She has gotten used to not napping and isn't cranky (at least not for that reason). She will now help me put dishes away or make snacks/dinner. I am actually enjoying the extra time I get to spend with Macy. She is very sweet and kind.

The best part of all is her going to bed at 7 p.m.! And she is exhausted at 7 so the whole going to bed routine is very easy now. I know it's only one hour earlier than her previous bedtime of 8, but it feels so much earlier. Especially now that it's still light outside at 7. I feel like I have plenty of time to get things done at night and still have time to have "me" time. I love the place we are at now. Anna goes to bed flawlessly at 7 too. They both sleep in until at least 8, sometimes 9 a.m. This morning I woke up to hear Anna laughing because Macy had climbed into the crib with her. They are the cutest little girls and we are so spoiled with them! They love each other so much and I love them both so much!

Macy the potty trained

I've blogged about Macy being potty trained so now I have to brag about her some more. She was honestly the easiest kid to train. She never has accidents (knock on wood) and always tells me when she has to go. For the last few weeks she has even been going by herself and doesn't have to tell me! Also, one night she decided she didn't want a pull-up at night and she has never wet the bed! It's been a couple weeks of that now and I'm so impressed. She'll go in public restrooms just fine too. I'm very impressed with her and how well she holds her bladder. She must have a big one and great control because she doesn't have to go when she wakes up in the morning.

I've been so spoiled with potty training her! It's been amazing! Good job Macy!!

Macy's movie list

Macy loves to watch movies. She would watch them all day if I let her. When she watches a movie for the first time she'll pick her favorite part and watch that over and over. She eventually adds new favorite parts then after a week or two she will watch the whole movie through. After viewing the entire movie she now has a new list of favorite scenes. Now we go back to skipping around. This all happens over a period of 2-3 weeks, depending in how much she likes the movie.

I've noted before the first movie she's watched all the way through is Napoleon Dynamite. Here is the list of movies she (and the rest of us too) has watched over and over and over. I've tried to put then in order.

Napoleon Dynamite
Tangled
Elf
White Christmas
Princess and the frog
Charlie and the chocolate factory (new one)
Muppets take manhattan
Mary Poppins
Toy story 2
Rateatoullie
Wreck it Ralph
The Lamb of God (Easter weekend)

Our Blog is going Private

After a few random people linking our blog to theirs I've decided to go private. I have to enter your email address in order for you to sign in to view our blog. I don't think the emails with my updates will be affected.

Please comment and leave your email address if you would like to continue to read our blog.

I tried to hold off going private for as long as possible but with lots of weirdos out there I don't want anymore strange things going on.