Like Mother Like Daughter

Me: I'm a little worried about Quincy. I think she needs glasses.

Aaron: Quincy doesn't need glasses.

Me: Did you see her just now when she walked into that wall? She does it all the time.

Aaron: Quincy doesn't need glasses.

Me: I think she might. You need glasses. Maybe she takes after you.

Aaron: No. She takes after YOU.

Meg: what?!

Aaron: Yah. Uh, Meg... you can see the walls before you walk into them, right?

ShakeShake ShakeShakeaShake It

We're under tornado watch tonight.
I just felt a 4.7 earthquake.

Luckily, the majority of this weather drama is happening south of us. Exciting day!

Half Full

Today was a rough one.

In an attempt to feel better about it, I've made a list of some of the good things that happened today

1) Like every Sunday, I slept in until 8:30
2) Like every Sunday, Aaron made chocolate chip waffles
3) We went to church
4) We took naps
5) Dinner was excellent
6) It is 6:30pm and all of the children are asleep in their beds
7) My hair looked cute
8) Reese was spotlight in Primary
9) I expected to wake up with sore muscles, but did not.
10) Quincy gave a talk...sort of
11) All of my children have dedicated teachers that nurture them, prepare lessons, and teach them with love
12) Rocky Road ice cream
13) everyone is healthy
14) apple tarts and a visit with friends

I feel better already.

Friendly Frogs: It's in the Mail

Literature:

Book: Yoko’s Paper Cranes by Rosmary Wells
Book: A Letter for Amy by Ezra Jack Keats
Book: We Need Mail Carriers by Scholastic Books
Share: Bring the address of someone you love, so we can mail them a letter! (Sammy, I need your's still, so I can send these off! I keep forgetting to take it out of your backpack)

My favorite photo of the day:

Check out that concentration! I picked up 2 sets of these unit blocks at HobLob last week for $11 each! The best thing about unit blocks? Endless opportunity for imagination and creativity! The worst part? The risk of owies when someone's tower comes crashing down.

These blocks are not wood, they're made of reeeeally heavy duty fun foam! No more owies, and no crash, bang, boom if they are thrown by Corbin :)

Dramatic Play: Post Office provide packages, envelopes, mailboxes (doors cut from cardboard boxes) mail bags, scale, cash register, and bins for l

Sensory: Feely Bag-things that are sticky (tape, stickers, jelly, glue stick, gum)

Handwriting/Fine Motor: Tracing Heart stencils

Learning to use a stencil is a difficult task for a 4 year old to grasp. I'm proud of how patient they were with the process.

Fine Motor: Flag Stamps

I set up a letter writing center where the children could decorate packages and stuff envelopes with "letters", and provided sheets of flag stickers, so they could put stamps on their letters.

Art: Decorating Postcards

Math: Big, Medium, Small , 1, 2, 3
Sort packages by size, shape, color, etc in canvas bins

Language/Phonics: add to our list of “V” words (vulture, vase, violin, Velcro, vacuum, volcano, vacation)

Reading Comprehension:

"A Letter to Amy" by Ezra Jack Keats is a great little story about a boy who only invites one girl to his birthday party. He makes a special invitation for her, but a storm rolls in when he tries to mail it.

After reading the story to the children, I asked the following questions:

1) Why did Peter send a special letter just for Amy?

2) What did the letter say?

3) What was the weather like when Peter mailed the letter?

4) Did Amy get the letter?

Practical Life: How do we mail a letter?

We read "We Need Mail Carriers" and talked about how a letter gets from one place to another"

Music and Movement:
We just got a letter (blue’s clues)
Three Valentines

Friendly Frogs: Love One Another/Valentine's Day Party

9th Love one Another/Valentine’s Day Party
Book: Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
Book: Anything For You by Harry Horse
Book: Hugs All Around by Scholastic Books
Book: I Love You More by Judy Cooley
Today is our class Valentine’s Day Party!
Share: Bring a valentine for each student in the class

Dramatic Play: Visit the Veterinarian
Provide stuffed animals and doctor supply toys for the children to play “pet hospital” with. Point out that “V” is for Vet.

Fine Motor: Rice transfer into heart shaped ice cube trays.

Sensory: Play dough! The children also had an assortment of heart shaped cookie cutters to experiment with
Gross Motor: Heart Hunt
Place assorted cutout hearts on the table, and send the children on a scavenger hunt to find their mates around the room

Cooking: Valentine treats! Decorate red velvet cupcakes with pink and red sprinkles.

Language/Phonics: Felt Valentine Letter Match.

I made an oversized valentine with felt. The children worked in pairs to match the letter hearts with the card to say,

They loved it!

Math: Valentine Math Use construction paper hearts to demonstrate simple math equations.

I chose to do this as a group lesson at the table, and the children collaborated to come up with guesses and answers to the equations.

Example: “I have 3 valentines. I give one away. How many are left?"

Record guesses.

Demonstrate with paper hearts.

"Two!”

Question: Who do you love? Why do you love them? Record answers

Practical Life: saying “thank you” when given a gift. Encourage the children to practice when they pass out their valentines to each other.

Music and Movement: Three Valentines (sing to Mary had a little lamb)
Three valentines I have for you
Have for you, have for you,
Three valentines I have for you
Pink and red and blue
I'll put them in the mail for you
Mail for you, mail for you,
I'll put them in the mail for you
Pink and red and blue

Farewell Jacob! One thing that I really love about Jacob is that he is always singing. He'll burst out in song at any given moment, and it's usually a pretty good song. I never remember to get them on video, but knowing it was his last day, I had my camera ready to catch him in the act.
Here are a couple clips of Jacob serenading the ladies at the play dough center with Black Eyed Peas. So cute.

Keep singing, Jacob! We'll miss you!

Oh, and for the record...we don't actually listen to Black Eyed Peas during preschool. Only when Jacob and Jace sing their songs for us. And Sam does a great "Hey Soul Sister", so it's like a regular radio station around here during sensory time :)

Five Alarm

There's nothing quite like a good middle-of-the-night kid vomit to make me really relish my position in the trenches of motherhood. Gross.

Don't be jealous.
It's good to be me, today.

At least I tried.

Sometimes, when my kids look extra cute, I try to take their picture.
They almost always turn out like this one.

What's black and white and red all over?

Of all weekends, it had to happen on Valentine's Day weekend.

Last Sunday:

I'm running out the door for church and am preeeety certain my team teacher had the primary lesson covered, but just in case, I grab the manual, and then look in the game closet to grab something quick that I could make a learning game from and entertain the kids in my class if I end up needing to burn time at the end, or something.

Aha! Jenga. Perfect.

Maybe the little guys could answer a question, or help repeat a scripture on their turn, or maybe we could just build something with the blocks.

I have had that Jenga game for like 10 years. We have played it a few times recently, but I didn't really pay attention.

Anyway...fast forward to Sacrament Meeting when Corbin takes the bag of Jenga blocks and DUMPS it on the floor. It makes a crazy loud crashing noise as all the blocks tumble from the bag and clunk onto the pile one at a time. I'm embarassed, but then all the blocks have been dumped and it's quiet again, and Corbin is playing happily (and more important, quietly) with the blocks, so we just let it go, since it isn't really distracting any more.

What IS disctacting is when he reaches up and hands a block to Aaron, who gasps and sort of shout-whispers to me "what IS this?!"

"What? Jenga. It's a game. I'm going to play it with my primary kids today" I hiss back.

He hands me the block.
It is red and says,

Ah!

What?!

Truth or Dare Jenga!

My sister, HolleeAnn gave it to me for a graduation present when I was 18! It was a joke, obviously, since I was headed off to school in Utah. We had laughed about how useful it would be at all those wild and crazy Mormon frat parties I'd be going to.

Aaron's like, "you can't play this with the primary kids! You'll get arrested!"

and Corbin hands me this one

Aaron laughs.
I die.

And then suddenly, I am very aware that we are in sitting in the middle of church and that SACRAMENT is being passed all around us and our naughty little game.

That our kids are playing with.

It's all hilariously irreverent....

wait.
What if someone sees this?
It is Valentine's Day.
We'd be known as that couple.
You know,

The ones with the sex game.
The ones with the sex game at CHURCH!
and that's when corbin starts THROWING the blocks and saying "choooooo!" He throws everything! I should have known.

I panic.
"Quick! clean them up! Only the red and black ones have writing on them! Put them back in the bag! Hurry!"

Corbin is having none of that. He couldn't have cared less what was written on those blocks. They were his, and we were not going to take them away. He starts screaming and pushing them everywhere in a little fit.

He sends one under the pew in front of us.

It's black. Crap.

The mom reaches for it, and all I can do is close my eyes and pray "please don't read that please don't read that please don't read that!"

Luckily, the 4 yr old beats the mom to it, and slides the block back under the pew to us, before she could notice it had anything written on it. Or at least I hope she didn't notice.

I pick it up and it says,

I'm dying.

This is it.

This is what it feels like to die.

By now, the girls have discovered the blocks-of-inappropriate-behavior and they are building grand estates for their squinkies with them. Little red and black Jenga blocks are speading like an oil spill across our pew and into the spaces around and under us! I can't keep track of them all! What if one gets left behind, or the people next to us see the block that says,

or how about

Are you kidding me?!

I can't stop sweating.

We have to get this cleaned up and out of here, like yesterday.

Aaron can't believe we even OWN this game and denies ever playing it when we were in college.

I'm pretty sure we played it once with Dave, Leisha, Kurt, Tessa, Keith, Arianne, Jen, Emily, Marissa, and Lance. In our defense: as a group of innocent/naive Single Mormon BYU coeds...it must not have gotten very interesting.

Because I am sure that if any of us had drawn

and done anything other than just gallop around the room like they were riding a horse

then we probably would have remembered the details of this game a little better.

Does this dress make my hair look big?

I will never run out of reasons for why this dress should be mine.

The buttons? True love.

I know there are several (expensive) reasons why it should not be mine.
I know it isn't bright colored or springy.

I know I am 28 (am I? eek!) and have outgrown the appropriate age for buying an "Easter Dress".

but this is the time of year when I start pining for a pretty new dress, so let's just ignore those reasons for a few minutes and admire how pretty it is.

because I need want it anyway

and I think it wants me.

Also...

I want Mae Whitman's (from Parenthood) new short haircut.

I couldn't find a pic on the web, but here is the link for the episode. She's in the scenes around 13:00 and 34:00 minutes.

Cute, yeah?

I think I could rock it.

It's much better than the mess I've going goin' on with my hair now, and I am reeeeallly over having hair past chin length.

Like, really over it. It is tangled and frizzy 100% of the time, heavy, and I don't have time for that kind of high maintenence. I'm ready to just cut it myself.

Which I might do tomorrow, if it ends up being a bad hair day.

I have so many posts to catch up on, including preschool posts and Gringo Fiesta.

Tomorrow?

Probably Monday.

Happy Weekend!

Do you still buy an "Easter Dress"?

How often to you get your hair cut?

My original plan was to grow it out, but I am lacking both in patience and normal hair, sooooo I'm ready to quit that plan.

Be Mine, Valentine

Some photos to accompany Aaron's post:

I didn't take any pictures of us the night we went out to see Mamma Mia.

I really wish that I had, because we looked pretty decent.
It was a fun show. I do like the movie better, but you just can't beat Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried. The actress that played Sophie in the play looked and sounded just like Maeby from Arrested Development, and I had a difficult time not wondering if she was actually just a 16 year old that was skipping school and living a double life where she pretended to be a professional actress/movie producer ;)

On the actual Valentine's Day, we decided to go to dinner as a family.

Here we have Corbin, eating everything in sight, including a napkin and some crayons.

And here is Quincy cutting up her food, but not actually eating any of it.

Reese ordered cheese pizza with bacon on it, spaghetti, and an orange italian soda. Quincy had a cherry italian soda and some bread. Corbin ate a full loaf and a half of bread. I probably ate the same. Everything was really good. I'm in love with the spicy romano chicken bowtie pasta there. Yum.

We kept things pretty simple for Valentine's Day this year.

Reese and I made her homemade valentines on one of the days that we were snowed in. Half of them open the wrong direction, or the writing inside is upside down, but I think they are the cutest things ever.

For Quincy's valentines, we downloaded and printed the valentines that "cousin Jenny" (that's what my girls call you, Jenny...cute, right?) designed for her work. We attached them to little boxes of conversation hearts. I made peanut butter chocolate suckers for my girls and the kids in my preschool class, with a note that says, "You are a hoot!".

And since it was Jacob's last day of preschool, his also says, "I will 'owl'-ways be your friend."

For my Valentine, I purchased no lingerie, just showed up for dinner dressed the way he likes me best: sloppy ponytail, jeans, and a t-shirt. Nothing fancy.

but not just any old tshirt, either (y'all know how Aaron feels about tshirts)...

I wore a Lakers shirt

...to go with the Lakers shirt that I got for him for Valentine's day. (Can I just point out that buying my husband another tshirt is a sign of true love? 'cuz it is.)

His and Hers Lakers shirts.

Now we can be that couple.

At least it's not his and hers matching haircuts. (Flowbee, anyone?)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day

this is aaron.
Happy Valentine's Day. The kids are all hopped up on sugar, they don't want to go to bed. We had a great time at Johnny Carinos. Corbin ate everything in sight. Quincy ate nothing as usual. Reese ate enough to get dessert. Meg and I went and saw Mamma Mia on Satruday night, it was really good. What a perfect weekend.

An Opening

I have Good(?) News and Bad News.

The Bad News:
One of our Friendly Frogs is leaving us :*(
We are very sad to see him go, but excited for his family and their new adventures together!

Keep in touch Sweet Mr. Jakey! I love you! You can do hard things!

The Good News:
There is an opening in the Friendly Frog class!

Young Learner Preschool Enrichment

Wednesdays 8:30-11:30am

$55/month

Call or email me if you are interested and I'll tell you more info about the program and send you copies of my mission statement, parent letter, and our daily schedule. Or talk to any of the moms that have sent their children here, and they'll give you a reference.

Orderly Conduct

I use canvas baskets a lot in my house. So much that it sort of looks like a canvas basket factory.
-An extra large ($16 at the red circle store where I never shop. shhh...) canvas laundry basket holds shoes in my closet, and another one holds our massive Littlest PetShop collection (thanks Missie!).

-large canvas baskets (Walmart $12 or $5 at the Associate's store when they have them, which is almost always every spring) These line the tops of our bedroom closets. You know that shelf that is so high, that you have to kind of throw the clothes up there, so it always looks like a mess? Now I just take the whole basket down, and everything stays in order. My closet baskets hold off season clothing, swimwear, ready-to-go gifts and birthday presents. The baskets in the girls room hold the Sweet Streets/Polly Pockets, Little People, Care Bears, Horses & Stable, and Ponyvilles. You can say it. My kids have too many toys. I agree...which is why most of them stay in the closet and I rotate which basket we get down each day/week. It's a great system, and they never seem to get sick of things. Plus, items actually get put away in the correct basket when they only have access to a couple of them at one time.

-small canvas baskets ($8.99 for two at walmart. 10 of mine were a housewarming gift from my friend in Green Bay, and most of the others were purchased for 1/2 that price at the Associate's store, but $4.50 per basket is still a pretty good price. I've had mine for 4-5 years and they have held up with LOTS of abuse)
There are 24 of these little guys on the shelves in my living room. The cream baskets keep Corbin's toys, Preschool/learning toys, and VHS tapes organized.
Six of them serve as cubbies for my preschoolers.

(last names blocked for privacy) Each of my Friendly Frogs has a cubby with his or her name on it. When they arrive at school, they put away any excess outerwear, backpacks, share items. They each also have a large t shirt in their cubby to serve as a smock for the really messy paint projects, and a large ziplock bag with a change of clothes and extra underwear, just in case. The cubbies are also helpful as a separation prop for those days when blankies and little toys sneak their way to preschool.

Canvas baskets=everything has a home.

Works for us!

Day Spa Willy

You've heard of that Day Spa in Vegas with the Arctic Ice Room where man made snow lightly falls down on you from a dome shaped ceiling?

Well Day Spa Willy is sort of like that,

except the snow fell in tons
and it is all outside
piled up in the street
preventing anyone from ever leaving the house ever again.

So we followed the "arctic spa" theme, and took advantage of Aaron being home. While he and Corbin had some father/son bonding, the little ladies turned on their "mrs. lady voices" and the grown up girl charm for a full spa treatment at Day Spa Willy.

Their total spa package included:
-a steam (shower)
-scented lotion massage
-"professional" shampoo treatment, a much needed deep scalp scrub (also done by resident professional hair washer), towel wrap, and blow dry
- pedicures with a sudsy foot spa


-sugar cookies to snack on
-I read another chapter of The Doll People to them, while they snacked and soaked

-cuticle treatments and manicures in valentine colors

-all followed by "relaxing music" while they sipped grape soda

Then the boys joined us again, and the relaxing music became the Killers, then Tai Cruz, and then a spontaneous dance party blew up in the kitchen like it's dynamite.

That was my favorite part of the day, perhaps the whole week.

Tia's Baby Shower

A month late, but I am finally posting pictures of the decorations from the baby shower that Britney and I threw for our friend, Tia.

The table (minus the food)
The setting was a lot cuter when it was full of yummy food! Spinach and artichoke dip, Kasey's homemade sourdough, fruits and veggies with dips, pound cake, apple tarts, and Britney made a million tiny Paula Deen Red Velvet cupcakes. I probably ate 1/2 of them.

I love any excuse to use pretty dishes...especially the little blue dessert plates.

The problem with dessert plates...not enough room for food! Instead, I had to keep going back to the table for more cupcakes ;)

The mulicolored dot fabric inspired the rest of the decorations... 60+ feet of bunting!
1/8 yard strips of fabric were cut into squares and sewed to ribbon and hanged (hung? I never know) from the ceiling. The photos just don't show how cute it was, but the effect was pretty dramatic and made a cozy environment to celebrate a very beautiful, and very deserving friend and her soon-to-be-born very beautiful baby.

Kasey came over the night before the shower and helped cut out these little onesies to hang from a tiny clothesline.

Yes! The cardstock print matches the table runner fabric, the ribbon on the dishes, and the fabrics in the bunting!

more bunting...

and some mini tissue paper pompoms above the table

pink and blue, since baby's gender was a surprise.

(see the cookie post to see what she had!)

We love you, Tia! Congrats on your sweet little arrival!