Karianna's Extended Family Birthday Party!

Allrighty, and now on to the loud extended family birthday party! This year, I felt like it was all the more important to do a fun cousins party for Karianna since we just moved. She kept asking if she could invite a slew of her Phoenix friends to the party, and it was hard for me to explain to her that it was just too far away to do a friends party this year. She was sad as well, but the idea of most of her cousins coming over to swim and celebrate with her quickly replaced any trace of sadness!


So even though we were very excited to have a fun party, we also planned to simplify things as much as possible. See, when all the monkeys-I mean cousins get togethr, it tends ot get a little loud. Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:


Hmm, wasn't so off with the "monkeys" comment, right? We just planned a simple party formula: make little necklaces from Michaels, open presents, eat chocolate pudding pie, swim, and thereafter, hang out until whenever! Of course, snacking was intermixed into all of the above; I just have to mention, Jordan loves pretzals. I think he might have eaten more than anyone. Same goes for the peach slices. And I think he should win some sort of prize for stuffing two hershey kisses in his mouth and attempted to eat them-fully wrapped. Such a grown up boy!


As with Karianna's quiet family party, she loved opening presents with all her cousins. She ended up with a grand total of two Sharpay dolls (who have been dubbed twins), one Gabriella doll, and one Troy doll. JD wants to lay claim on the Troy doll, but thus far Karianna has declined. Some of the smallest gifts are the ones Karianna grew most attached to: a paddle ball thingie (you know, the paddle with a bouncy ball attached by a string?), a mini gum ball machine, and a HSM purse, which holds her perfume, coin purse, and chapstick.

Everything honestly was a hit, and perhaps the crowd pleaser of the day was the talking bowling set my mom presented to Karianna! I have to monitor when the kids play with that one in order to save the walls and the wood floors, but it is such a hit-fun stuff! After presents we proceeded with two chocolate pudding pies, a rousing Erickson rendition of Happy Birthday, and tons of swimming.

I love the look on Karianna's face!

Had to post this one, Karianna and Makayla always take the cutest pics together!

Probably my favorite present pic!

Thanks to everyone who made Karianna feel so special, especially all the cards that were written, created, and drawn for her! We had such a fun time with everyone and Karianna loves you all!

Karianna's Family Birthday Party

Going back to Karianna's birthday again.... :) Sorry I need these pictures on here for the sake of my blog book!!!

I think we are going to be forever stuck in the tradition of doing a quiet family party for each birthday and a loud extended family party for each birthday! Its one of the joys of living close to family in my opinion-if you haven't gathered already, I love that my kids are good friends with their cousins, so anytime we can pull them all together, I am pushing for it!

Our quiet family party for Karianna this year seemed extra special to me for some reason. Karianna is so much more aware of what birthdays mean and what they are all about, so it was extra fun to celebrate her. We had a good countdown going the entire month to her birthday. On the morning of, I went to school with Karianna and we handed out popsicles to all of her classmates. Talk about fun times! I was so tickled to see Karianna in her own little social circle. Maybe it was the birthday factor, but it was so cute to see all the kids vying over who got to sit next to Nana, and to hear them all telling her when their birthday was, etc. I always worried how Karianna would do with making friends, and I have no worries about that after the popsicle adventure! I wish I had remembered to bring my camara though....

That evening we proceeded with the quiet family party by making Karianna's birthday treat-cinnamin rolls. Karianna doesn't like cake-she eats the frosting and is done with it. Thus we made some yummy cinnamin rolls, and Karianna helped me frost them. It was honestly a perfect birthday treat, I would take that over cake anyday!

Karianna opened a few presents with her brothers at her side, completely going nuts over a High School Musical doll, a CD/book set, and a High School Musical blanket (this girlie is obsessed with HSM!). She also really liked a charm necklace that came with 7 different charms. She loves putting a "new" necklace on every day for school as a result!

After blowing up the cinnamin roll candles, we all dug in...I was pretty impressed with Jared's new diet willpower, he only ate half of one (who ate the other half you ask? Um, no comment.). I was also pretty impressed with Jordan and JD for eating their entire rolls....WOW! Guess that's the boy factor for you! We had a great time afterwards opening Karianna's new treasures and finding good places for them in her room. You could tell that she felt very special, and that was just the best part of the party for her!

As I was putting Karianna to bed that night, she informed me of some things that she gets to do now that she was five. She said she gets to watch Little Nemo because it certainly won't scare a big five year old (its a great, yet potentially scary film). She said she gets to stay up until 9:00 now that she is five. She also apparently gets to go on a date with Carter because she is closer to 16 now. I'm willing to negotiate that because she added that she won't kiss him yet...silly goose! Those are just a few of the things she feels entitled to, and I just love how grown up she is getting!

This fifth year was such a big year for Karianna, and I am so glad we got to celebrate with her as a family unit! We love you Nana! Pictures of the loud extended family party to follow!

Conference Weekend

We love conference weekend! It is such a good opportunity to feel upliftd and rejuvinated in a time when it can be easy to feel down-trodden and just plain old tired! I love listening to the messages our church's leaders present, they truly are inspired.

I do wish, however, that it was easier to listen :) It is difficult to monitor three kids and be spiritually in tune at the same time! Our Saturday did not get off to the best start either. Jared and I had planned a relaxing morning with good breakfast food and conference packets for the kids to do. Instead, we started off conference weekend with a poop smeared pack and play....green poop. Seriously no fun in the clean up department. My pregnancy horomones kicked in and I was less than happy all day. Thank heavens for the Ensign and its reprint of every conference talk!

Sunday was a lot better-I think the Lord realized I needed a break! The kids were mellow and we got to hear some great talks! We also took our traditional in-between-sessions drive down to the temple to walk around. Despite the construction/planting that is going on, the temple is such a peaceful place and I love visiting with the kids. JD kept saying on the way there, "I need to go find Jesus Christ!" The kids are always so reverent when we look at the Christus in the visitor's center. They also really enjoyed relaying the stories of Jesus as we walked through a little room that displays several paintings of Jesus' life. I am terribly excited for temple lights to go up-we are not so very far away from that!

I had Jared take the last monthly photo for this pregnancy as well-given that we have 5 days left (at the very most) until Sara gets here, I figured I'd better do it now. Plus, I have no idea if I will actually get the energy to put on make up/get dressed in real clothes/do my hair before Sara arrives :) We took a cool pumpkin photo too-I'll post that later.

All in all, I was very grateful that Sunday was a better day for listening to General Conference-a big part of me (and Jared as well) needed that spiritual uplift. The next few months are going to be a time of change (and probably stress) for our family, so going into it with a calm spirit is such a bonus! I am so grateful for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a living prophet, for my wonderful family, and especially for Jesus Christ. I cannot imagine what life would be like if I didn't have my testimony of these things.

Karianna Faith is Five!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl! Karianna turned FIVE years old on September 16th and though it has been a few weeks, I still can't believe she is five...at the same time I can. Her comments and her thought process often seem so mature. I find myself constantly wondering if it will ever slow down! I fear the answer is a big, fat NO! Thus I work every single day on making the most of my time with Karianna, regardless how tired or frustrated I might feel. Here's a few of my thoughts about my big-little girl as she passes the five year threshold:

It is such a great time to be a Mom to Karianna! She is at such an enjoyable age: our conversations are amazingly detailed, our playtime together is so creative, and even our moments of frustration are great learning experiences on both parts. I learn so much from Karianna every day. At times, she pushes me to the brink of my parenting skills! I frequently have to take a step back and remind myself to be compassionate and patient in how I choose to handle a situation. Karianna is a sensitive little girl, and her nature continually teaches me to focus on nurturing her rather than controlling the situation. I really appreciate this challenge, as I believe it has helped me to be more Christ-like on a daily basis.

Although I tend to think I learn so much from Karianna, I am constantly amazed at how much she grows and develops on a daily basis. I remember back to the last few weeks of summer vacation (a mere 2 months ago!) when I was working with her on simple number recognition, manipulative math problems, and sounding out easy words. It seemed like she was on the brink of getting it, but just couldn't jump the barrier. I can hardly believe that was a few months ago compared to how much she has learned to date! Karianna seems like a completely different person, and I get so excited to see how much she loves to learn at school, at home, in church-anywhere really. It is an amazing thing to experience as a parent, and as much as I wish Karianna would stop growing, I am excited to see what this 6th year of life holds for her.

I am also so thankful for Karianna as a helper in the home. She is a typical sister :) She doesn't want her brothers to mess with anything in her room, anything that belongs to her, or anything that she might want to play with in the near future! Yet, Karianna is a great sister and helper in the home. She loves to read Jordan his bedtime story (which is great because she can actually read the words now!). She also loves to....inform JD of various rules and potential consequences when she catches him making a less than appropriate choice. Last night, Karianna voluntarily mopped the kitchen floor, cleaned up JD's slew of dinosaurs, and actually thanked me for letting her mop every night! It's wonderful to see a growing sense of responsibility and committment to her family.

Karianna, we love you so much and we are so grateful that you are a part of our family! We cannot imagine life without your beautiful "spark" and we know you are a special daughter of God. This year, we hope you will continue to learn about Jesus Christ in Primary. We hope you ask questions when you don't understand and we hope you stand as an example of Christ at home, at school, and at play. We hope you continue to love school and to always do your very best. We hope you learn to love your brothers and your new sister more and more every day; we hope you choose to be a peacemaker in our home and treat your siblings with love and respect. Most of all, we hope that you know how much we love you and how special you are!

Happy Happy Birthday Karianna Faith-we love you!

My #1 Fan!

I just love how my kids still think I am supermom. Or at the very least an awesome artist, which I am not, but they sure get a kick out of my hastily scribbled pictures! One such drawing appeared recently on a birthday card, where JD asked me to draw a tiger so he could color it and give it to the birthday relative (I forgot who got this!!!). The finished product looked like a Lyger (sp?) from Napoleon Dynamite! But JD didn't care, he thought I was cool.

So I am once again appreciative that JD thinks my drawings are simply amazing. Yesterday he asked for me to draw a dinosaur on his cup. He was so excited when he saw my very lifelike interpretation....click it to see the artistic genius for yourself!

A Hairy Situation

**Scroll Down for THE Picture!**

We are in the official countdown to Sara's arrival! Yea! It always seems like the days pass so slowly, but now that I am 12 days away from having another baby, I can't believe it has gone by this fast....we are certainly ready to welcome Sara home though, and thankfully, my body seems like it is getting ready to say goodbye to Sara as well!

I am currently 2 cm dilated, 75% effaced, and I am tickled to say I was right about Sara dropping last week-I am all of the sudden measuring 2 weeks behind schedule, meaning the baby has dropped lower into the pelvis. I have contractions every single day now, I'm just glad to know they are doing something! I am not anticipating the baby arriving any earlier than October 12th, which is when I am being induced, but who knows-I've never had a baby drop before labor started, so we'll see what the next few weeks hold.

I am doing great, all things considered. My body hurts of course, especially my back, and I keep getting dehydrated despite my incessant drinking habit; I have zero energy for anything (even blogging!) and I hate clothes that are at all restrictive....which includes pretty much everything! However, I am completely medically healthy, as is Sara-even my GBS test came back negative! I feel so blessed to have healthy pregnancies, I have many friends who cannot say the same, and I know I have been blessed in that sense. We are all so excited to meet Sara!

On a funny note...for several days now, I have been fighting the urge to dye my hair. My roots have been growing back in, and I didn't realize how light my hair had gotten (via the magical box) over the last few years. It was somewhat embarrassing! I just didn't want any weird chemical reactions, as you never know how your pregnant body will react to hair dye. I finally gave in to the urge though and decided to dye my hair back to its natural color (or at least in the ball park).

Um, things did not go as smoothly as I anticipated. I now have a head full of BLACK hair! Not medium brown that I was expecting, not even dark brown, it is BLACK! I kind of flipped out when I had it all blow dryed and realized just how dark it was. Jared says he loves it....so did my doctor and the nurses this morning :) Nice ladies, that's why I won't switch OBs!

I just don't know if it is me at all-such a huge change! I am giving myself until the weekend, hoping that the color lightens a little bit, and hoping that maybe I get used to it. However, if I still feel weird about the fact that my eyebrows don't match my hair, I will have to do something about it. It makes sense to wait a few weeks until I am done with pregnancy, but that means I will have pictures of Sara with a weird, black-haired mommy that I don't think is me...I don't know if I am okay with that!

So weird hair dye reactions when you are pregnant? I am a victim! I look way too washed out and wiped out right now to take a picture and post it, but I WILL post a picture at some point tomorrow just for journaling purposes. Guess I can just donn my halloween costume from last year and be a more convincing witch for Halloween this year....

Poor Jordan!

We are officially in Fall! Great thing, especially considering all five of us Lautenschlagers made it through summer with zero mosquito bites-that's gotta be a record considering we have a pool.

However (yes, there was bound to be a "however" to this post), the streak ended on Monday-ironically enough, the last day of summer. We went swimming and I swatted a few mosquitos off of Jordan's back, got him good and wet, and didn't notice anything else.

Guess the mosquito count was way higher than I realized because when I woke him up the next morning, he looked like he had some sort of tropical skin disease! He must have spent the entire night itching! Poor kid!

I have found that putting desitin on the bites actually works great to get him to stop itching, and it has reduced a lot of the swelling and redness, but man! If you ask Jordan where his mosquito bites are, he'll instantly go, "Oh no, bugs!", pull up his shirt, and scratch his back! Poor kid (did I say that already?)!

Homework Time and Repeating Kindergarten

I think I posted about a month ago about how much I was loving doing homework with Karianna. Well, I am happy to report that I still love our time together and it is still so much fun for me to see her progress! All the kids know the homework routine by now. As soon as I pull out Karianna's homework supply bucket, I all of the sudden find myself with 3 over-excited kids, clamboring up onto the chairs of their choice and requesting their homework. Jordan usually beats the other two kids onto a chair; a few days ago, he pulled the yellow bucket over and pulled out a whiteboard and marker. He handed it to me and said, "Nana, Nana." I cracked up-Jordan knows Nana always starts by writing her spelling words on a whiteboard! Just too cute! So the boys now do homework with Karianna, although their attention spans wane before hers does.











A few homework highlights for Karianna that were fairly proud moments for her:

Today, Karianna finally wrote her last name all by herself-no help. Its funny, I always told people Karianna would learn the alphabet from her last name alone! Learning the alphabet has long since come and gone-guess her last name was a way harder task than I anticipated!

On Monday, Karianna wrote her numbers to 100 in order for the first time as well. She struggles remembering the tens, and I was very proud of her when I noticed that she was using the patterns on a 100 chart to help her know how to write the number 80! She never had to ask for help, and I just loved seeing the strategies she was employing to find the answers all on her own.

On the same topic of math, Karianna has finally caught on to the count back method for subtraction-yea! So to date, she has down the +/- 0, 1, 2 families. I think I will start her on +/-3 next week, potentially using the touch method I taught my first graders. We'll see how she picks it up! Funny note: I was telling Karianna to check her answers when she was done with her math fact paper-I told her this was a good habit. She said, "I know Mom, I usually just put a tally mark next to the ones that are already correct, and if it is not correct, I don't put a tally mark, I just fix itk." Hee hee, still makes me giggle!

In the reading realm, Karianna got all of her spelling words correct last week! She always has 6 decodable words and 4 high frequency words on her spelling list-its the high frequency words that catch her up because you can't sound them out for the most part. So that was a major accomplishment for her last week. I think this week will be similar, her hardest word is "could", so we'll see how that goes!

Just from the mommy point of view, I have to admit that despite Karianna's progress, I am not sure I am sold on how quickly things are moving. She's doing well, and still enjoying school a huge amount, but I do have days where I wish things would be a bit more laid back.

I called Karianna's teacher about this a few weeks ago; the conversation made me feel a ton better, especially when I realized that the kids were simultaneously learning concepts and format. Karianna's teacher told me that tons of the kids had never even seen a math problem before, which makes complete sense honestly. I have to keep these things in mind I suppose! I was also pleased to hear a good description of what they are doing in the classroom to simply play. They still do centers each afternoon, and they started the violin program last week, which I knew but was glad to have more details.

Anyhow, it has definitely been an experience with this charter school for the past month-probably will be the toughest part of the year for me as a parent! This would be so much easier if I was less involved in my daughter's life :)

Thankfully, the routines are already getting more familiar and I am learning better each day how to best encourage Karianna. Sometimes less is more with her! She likes doing her math flashcards on her own instead of me monitoring her every move, and she likes doing certain homework pages by herself and just watching me grade them afterwards. She prefers reading to me at nighttime instead of cramming it in after homework time, and that has helped her excitement levels for learning remain high. That's all I want :)

So perhaps I have learned more than Karianna in the past month! Repeating kindergarten sure can be beneficial for the mom!

Getting our Haunt On!

Our contiual celebration of Halloween proceeded with these way cool foam kits. When you buy these types of things, you never know if they are actually going to work well-will they collapse as soon as you let go? Will they end up looking like shacks as opposed to cool haunted dwellings (I had to use the word shack for Karianna's sake-it is a spelling word this week :))? These houses did in fact build so well, I actually purchased two more of them to make this week while they were on sale. The kids love to play with them-we did not glue down any of the ghosts or goblins so that they could play their imaginary games. Another successful craft to add to the Halloween decor!

Father and Son

In an effort to keep Karianna's room organized, I found this toy bin organizer for a steal at Michaels (thank you 50% off coupons!). Jared built it for me last night and JD was right there with him-he was being so helpful and really getting into the whole carpentry business. It was a very cute Father and Son moment!

Jordan is a Goofball.

Jordan is such a boy. I have to get after him so frequently during the day for climbing up onto the couches, tables, chairs, bookcases, people-it is getting ridiculous! Jared has a goal of finally building the climber in the backyard this week, and I will be so glad when he does. Then I can just tell Jordan, "Have at it! This is your climbing heaven!"

On the bright side of things, Jordan found a good use for his climbing skills today. He has been long adept at climbing onto the kitchen table chairs and looking around expectantly for dinner. A week ago, Jared and I laughed our heads off as Jordan took it one step further-he climbed up into his booster seat and managed to buckle himself in. We laughed even harder when he realized he had trapped himself in his booster seat with no prospects of dinner for at least another hour.

Things got even funnier today during snacktime. Jordan once again climbed into his booster seat, but didn't buckle himself in all the way (which I need to be more mindful of considering the next few sentences). I was running around the house picking up a few things before naptime. When I re-entered the kitchen to check on Jordan's granola bar progress, I found him climbing down from his booster seat.

Here's how he managed it:

Jordan stood up on the seat, realized he couldn't easily manuever his way down without falling, and instead climbed onto the table on his belly. From there, he slid backwards until his little feet hit the seat of the chair. He then inched his way down until he was crouched precariously on the edge of the chair, yet able to grip the sides of the booster seat. Down went his feet onto the lower rung of the chair, and then finally to the ground he got. He gave me a huge toothy grin, clapped two times, ad ran off to wreak havoc in some other room.

I watched all of this in spotting formation-ie, I was ready to dive in, 37 weeks pregnant and all, to save his poor head from yet another bruise. Pretty amazing stuff, when I think about it...then again, thinking about it leaves me wondering how in the world I am going to do this after Sara arrives...

It's Been a Week!

A week has passed since I last updated the blog, and I am proud to report that I haven't locked the keys in the car once!!!!

Keep scrolling-there's about a billion new blog posts! :)

A Degree of Gratitude

It is official! I received my Masters diploma last week in the mail and can officially claim to have completed my Masters program! My official degree is a Masters of Science in Education with an emphasis in Elementary Reading and Literacy.

This was definitely a huge accomplishment for me and one of my goals since I started college and realized how passionate I was about education and teaching. I would even consider going back for a second masters degree if the circumstances were right. I love learning, especially when it revolves around education. I really feel as if the things I studied have changed my viewpoints and eventual classroom strategies. Although I am unsure when I will go back to teaching in a traditional classroom, I am so excited to use what I have learned through my degree program.

Another neat thing for me is that, thus far, the only people in my immediate family who have earned a Masters degree are my Mom and Dad-both in education. I feel very special to be included in that catagory with two people that I admire and love very much.

Just a bit of background for anyone who is interested in reading! I started doing my Masters program in November of 2006 with University of Phoenix. I had stopped teaching 6 months prior in order to stay at home with Karianna and JD. I was shocked at how much I missed teaching and felt a very strong desire to stay connected with education in general. Beginning my masters program was the link I needed!

I began in the Curriculum and Instruction program, however I realized fairly quickly that this wasn't the exact niche for which I was looking. I considered what had been my weakest point as a teacher: teaching reading, especially to struggling readers. Thus I switched a few things up: I moved from UoP to Walden University and enrolled in their Elementary Reading and Literacy program.

I fell in love with their online program quickly and found myself truly learning strategies and techniques for being a better literacy teacher. I found myself changing how I worked with Karianna on her early academics, and honestly, changing many of my mothering techniques as well. By the time my program was drawing to a close, I realized much of what I assumed about teaching and education had changed for the better, and it was an exciting feeling of growth for me as an educator.

My degree culminated with a professional portfolio (comparable to a thesis). This project was difficult for me given some of our family circumstances. Although I finished all of my degree coursework in December of 2008, I took a few extensions on my portfolio. I was not comfortable submitting it until it was acceptable in my eyes...which basically means a perfectly professional culmination of my best work!

The end product was finally submitted in May 2009; I was pleasantly surprised when it passed review a few short weeks later with no revisions necessary! The final product was a compilation of 24 research-based essays, 16 lesson plans samples, 20 rationale statements (to prove completion of each program objective), and 6 student work samples; I printed it all out for my own records and it was 272 pages. Needless to say, I felt as if the very heart of "Teacher Rachel" was in that portfolio, and I wouldn't have it any other way!

Jared tells me all the time that I am a unique person in that I actually found a field of study and an actual career that I love. I honestly never knew it could be any other way; I grew up seeing my Dad as a principal who loved his job. I feel very blessed to have followed in his footsteps in that sense and hope my education as a teacher has not ended with this diploma. I have much to learn and I am so excited to continue on this journey. My goal for today is to hang this now framed diploma on the office wall, thus enabling me to thank the Lord each day for the blessings He has given me in this area of my life.

Halloween Costumes! Yes, You Read Correctly!

I know I am nuts! However, I am having a baby in month and I highly doubt I am going to want to go fnd Halloween costumes for the kids when October rolls around. Thus, we officially finished costume shopping today. I would love to throw in a pic of baby Sara in her costume, but I suppose that will have to wait.

Karianna is spending her Halloween as Sharpay from High School Musical 3. She seriously loves that movie. We still have to put some sleeves on her dress (which, if you know your HSM3 trivia, is what Sharpay wears to prom). When Karianna saw the ensemble, she froze and said, "Oh My Gosh! That is the cutest and most adorable costume I have ever SEEN!"

JD has told me for over a month now that he wanted to be a Transformer for Halloween! Thankfully, Walmart read his mind and he got his wish!!! Ironically enough, JD has never seen any transformers movies, has never read any transformers books, and has never owned any transformers toys. He gets is solely from his cousins, who like to play transformers when they come over to swim! In any case, he giggles like a little girl when he sees his costume, and would have preferred if I had let him sleep in the mask.

Given that Jordan really doesn't have a preference for costumes yet, I decided to stick with the Transformers theme and turned Jordan into a mini-Optimus Prime ( I think that's the right name anyway). Jordan loved it! I was shocked that he kept his little hat on. When I showed him the pic on the camera screen, he kept moving his head around until he could see out of the eye holes-didn't even seem to occur to Jordan to just take the hat off! Love it!

It wasn't me, I promise!!!

I can't help but think Karianna is trying to tell me that she was not the culprit responsible for Jordan's hairstyle.

Halloween Necklaces

Last week we made these cute little Halloween necklaces. We got them from Michaels for a buck apiece-gotta love their sales! The kids had a great time stringing them together according to the picture model and they have even more fun giving me cheesy faces to show off the fnished product! I hesitated to post this second picture, and only did after I blew it up and realized there was nothing visibly gross in Karianna's nose-picture approved! Besides, JD's overly excited grin rendered the picture blog-worthy. If you click on it, you'll see what I mean.

I am a Builder!

Jordan's favorite thing to do right now is build towers with the oversized legos. It has been a great tool to improve his hand-eye coordination and dexterity in general. This was one of the cooler towers he has built to date-I was pretty impressed! Once Jordan is done with a tower, he will pick it up and carry it with him until it drops and breaks apart. He will then search out the eyes of the nearest adult, hold up his little hands and say, "Oh no!" as if the world's greatest tragedy has occured! I love Jordan's spirit!

Decorating Pumpkins

We always like to do fun, inexpensive crafts when the holidays roll around. Given that I will be otherwise engaged with delivering and caring for a new baby next month, I decided to start the Halloween crafts early this year. We started off by decorating mini pumpkins-the kids just got markers, a pumpkin a piece, and went to town with it!

Karianna really did make a truly scary face on her pumpkin. JD was so scared by it that he asked me to recreate it on his pumpkin!

Before starting this activity, JD asked me if he could do homework like Karianna. I asked him what he wanted to do for homework, and he said he wanted to do coloring. Wish granted, JD! Karianna kept trying to convince him that Kindergarten is not just about coloring pumpkins, but I don't think JD cared one way or another!

Jordan loves to color. I can keep him entertained through the entire expanse of sacrament meeting with 3 mini markers and a piece of paper. Thus, he loved this activity, and perhaps moreso, loved doing what the big kids were doing. If you look close, you can see the little green smudges on Jordan's lips from tasting the marker...

Our goal is to do one or two simple, inexpensive crafts per week. We'll see how it goes!

Daddy Daughter Time

Karianna is getting to be such a good reader. Nonetheless, she still loves a good read aloud before bedtime. I love it when Jared reads to her and I get to witness that precious Father-Daughter bonding time. Jared's read alouds are unique anyway, because he goes overboard on the "voices" and adds in parts just to see if Karianna is really listening. It is rather comical! What a great Daddy.

Hangin' Around

The kids always do this while waiting to enter the pool-I just finally caught all three of them doing it at the same time on film! I mostly get a kick out of Jordan's ability to copy absolutely anything that Karianna or JD do-this is merely one example. I love that these three are such good buddies!

Rachel and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day...with a Silver Lining

Today has been a story book type of a day...I apparently took a page straight out of the classic children's book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. If you have never read it, don't worry about rushing out to buy it on my recommendation. Just read the following post and you'll get the general idea. Thankfully, my version involves the enigmatic "silver lining", that mysterious imp who so desperately wants you to forget about him simply to continue his game of mockery.

Think I'm being dramatic? Maybe so. Lets let the story speak for itself.

Rachel and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day...With a Silver Lining

Chapter One: Setting the Precedence

Last night I had a crazy dream. Crazy in this sentence means deathly terrifying-I'll spare the details so to not scare anyone. In any case, ending the dream meant rushing into the kids' rooms to make sure they were okay, jostling Jared awake to make sure my breathing and blood pressure were okay, and leaving the bathroom light on for the remainder of the night to make sure I was okay. Needless to say, I woke up weary and still scared of my "crazy" dream. I think I need to stop reading about Sabine and Shadow People.

The Silver Lining: I managed to go back to sleep when the sun finally peeped through the windows. It was long enough to fall back into the same dream, but with the aid of the sunlight, I think I managed to resolve it well enough so I won't have the same nightmares tonite.

Chapter Two: Is Punctuality Really That Important?

Given that my night was so miserable, I missed the alarm clock and woke up half an hour late, which means Karianna woke up half an hour late, which means we were choking down a fast breakfast, pulling her hair into a pony, and dashing off to school before she was marked tardy. And it was all my fault!

The Silver Lining: Since I didn't have time to get the boys ready, Jared was entrusted with that privilege. Meaning, he got to change a stinky diaper instead of me.

Chapter Three: Keys

In order to avoid the temptation of puting the boys down for a way early nap, I decided to go grocery shopping with them. We get to Walmart and as I was buckling Jordan into the shopping cart, I hear JD shut the car door. I realize very quickly that I had already locked the doors, but had not put my purse into the shopping cart yet. Sure enough, a quick glance into the car verifies several things: my purse is on the passenger seat. My diaper bag is on the passenger seat. My keys are on the passenger seat. And the doors are all locked. Seriously? What do you do? Get mad at your 3 year old for trying to help by closing the door? I had no make up on either. Sigh.

The Silver Lining: A nice Walmart-employee-cart-retriever-guy told me he'd watch my car while he gathered carts to make sure no one broke in to steal my oh so visible purse.

Chapter Four: Customer Non Service

With zero options for getting into the car or calling someone to help, I hike it inside to customer service to use their phone. I'm hoping to call Jared so he can tell me what my options are. The ladies at customer service kindly dial the number for me. Of course it picks up to voice mail. I ask the ladies if I can just come back to where the phone is so I can keep trying him and they say, "No, we can't let you do that-you can only make one phone call." Said to a very pregnant lady with 2 toddlers sitting in a shopping cart drenched in sweat and quickly traversing the road to misbehavior. Thanks.

The Silver Lining: 3 ladies who were waiting in the customer service line open up the purses and begin giving me quarters to use the pay phone. I almost start to cry at the generosity of a quarter.

Chapter Five: Our AAA Account Has Indeed Lapsed Into Expiration

Enough said.

The Silver Lining: One lady by the name of Becky Ryan kindly offers to let me use her AAA account to get my car open. She tells me she has been looking for a good deed to do all day and that she would be more than happy to help me out. She tells me she has been in this exact same situation and she absolutely insists. I don't even know how to thank her. I still can't get ahold of Jared, Mom says the base fee for a locksmith is 55 dollars, and I think I was about to stress myself into early labor. Becky was the good samaritan I needed right at that moment. While I called AAA, Becky disappeared, only to come back with two little boxes of goldfish crackers for the boys. She then gave me some more quarters so I could call Mom and Jared to let them know everything was okay. I wish I had been able to thank her with more than words. The 30-45 minute wait predicted by AAA was only 2 minutes, seeing as the nearest locksmith was across the street from Walmart. He had the car open in no time and before I knew it, I was back in Walmart, purse AND keys in hand, giving Becky a big hug and letting her know how much I appreciated her kindness and compassion.

Chapter Six: The Fish Escape

As we are heading back into Walmart, Jordan drops his goldfish crackers all over the floor. I can't very well leave them there since I have been shown such compassionate service.

The Silver Lining: A photographer from the in-store studio leaves her post and comes to help me pick up the fish. She says, "I know how hard it is to squat down when you are pregnant, its like okay, a little help getting back up!" Made me smile!

Chapter Seven: Ace

We finish with the groceries and head to Ace Hardware to have spare keys made. The guy can't seem to get the machine to work and it takes four tries to cut copies of both car keys. During the 3o minutes it took him to get a good copy, Jordan manages to prick his finger with a toy nail.

The Silver Lining: Jordan learns a valuable lesson. The term "toy nail" does not really exist. Nails are actually not toys-they hurt and I would wager that he will not play with nails anytime soon.

Chapter Eight: Taking A Bath

After the locksmith opened the car, I had to take out my registration to prove that I was not stealing someone else's car. I tossed the registration back into the diaper bag without realizing it was next to a cold water bottle. When we got home, the registration paper was providing a layer of insulation against the water bottle. It was soaked.

The Silver Lining: I didn't rip it when I peeled it away from the water bottle and set it out to dry.

Chapter Nine: Keys

Nope, you did not read that wrong. As I get ready to pick up Karianna from school, I realize that my car keys never got reattached to my blue lanyard. Rather, I intelligently left them in the car cup holder. The car is locked. And I can't blame this one on JD.

The Silver Lining: I have a Mom who lives a block away, who only an hour beforehand became the recipient of my spare car key. She thankfully drives down and rescues me. Is the day over yet?

Chapter Ten: The Forecast

All of this occured before 1:30 PM. I am scared for the circumstances of the remainder of the day. Thus, we are staying locked up the house to reduce the chance of anything else adding to this terrible horrible, no good, very bad day, despite all the silver linings. On the plus side, one huge silver lining happened after we got home from picking Karianna up, but I have to make a sequal to give it the justice it deserves.

The Silver Lining: As awful as this day seems to have gone, it could have been a billion times worse. I am simply grateful for kind strangers, close family members, and patient kids who made this a not so terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I am indeed grateful.

The End

Invented Spelling

Karianna was writing a note today during her quiet time (which turned into a 2.5 hour activity since Mom fell asleep, but that's not the point). She showed me her work and I was just tickled to see her invented spelling-such a fun part of a child's growing literacy skills!
Here's three things she wrote (one of which will be obvious). See if you can read them phonetically and decipher what she was trying to write. Scroll down to see the answers!

1. Sinfeyu
2. Slepi Boude
3. Lautensheogr











Answers:

1. Cynthia (her doll)
2. Sleeping Beauty
3. Lautenschlager (she has it memorized to the Laute-, the rest she just sounded out...might be the most unique spelling of our last name I have ever seen!)

Just Hanging Out

I love taking random pictures of the family just hanging out together-especially when I can snap a shot of 2+ siblings together. Bonus points if they are acting like they love each other! Which is why these are just great! Enjoy!

All three kiddos giving each other hugs...I don't think Jordan is too sure about this, but he's allowing it.

Um. I have no idea how Elizabeth does it. I tried to copy this pose yesterday. Just couldn't match the flexibility of a 4 year old contortionist! And if anyone believes that I even attempted this with a 34 weekish pregnant belly, you must also believe I am typing this from L & D, given that it would have induced labor.
Jordan woke up to join all the kids and the Mantanona cousins in a PJ Movie Party. He was so tickled to lay with Karianna in her makeshift bed!

The Brothers! That's what I call out each morning to wake the boys up! As a side note, JD is now night time potty trained-yea! Jared put JD to bed last week without pressing him to go potty beforehand. No big deal, he still had a diaper on, right? About 2 hours later, I hear JD pounding on his door, yelling "I need to PEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I rescue him, only to find his diaper sopping wet, and his bed equally water-logged. My reaction? "That's it, we are officially done with diapers". Success ever since.

Up close, this pic came out a bit fuzzy, which I was sad about! I loved how the kids just climbed on Jared to give him "loves" after missing him all day! I guess we know what is important to each kid: Karianna=magna doodle (supporting my theory that girls are natural born multi-taskers: watching Scooby Doo while drawing a picture of a princess in a castle); Jordan=sippy (no suprise there!); JD=wrestling (and seriously, that's what he was doing despite how lovey-dovey he looks). Anyone think Jared is really sleeping? Nah, he's just avoiding the migraine-inducing flash of the camara!

Jumbled Up Thoughts: Kindergarten with Karianna

This week began 1st grade curriculum in Karianna's classroom. I have been admittedly nervous about this week because it seemed so daunting: spelling words, math facts, story of the week, and related assessments!!! Doesn't that seem like a bit much for a kindergartener? I was very nervous it would turn into all work and no play, which would very much lead to a parent phone call on my end.

While we are not at the end of the week yet, I think my nerves are lessening a bit. Karianna still loves school. She is still doing centers for about 2 hours every day in the afternoon, which is the "play" part I was afraid would be deleted in the name of math facts and spelling reviews. Nope, that's still the highlight of her day! Karianna is actually fairly excited to do her spelling words and to read her story to Ms. Salvatori each day. That tells me she is adjusting just fine! She comes home each day with a report about which children at Table 4 know all the spelling words, and which children can't sound out words yet. Resultantly, we talk a lot about just doing our best and remembering that mistakes are okay-its all part of the learning process. So far, the more rigorous academics seem to be taking a very positive spin, and for that I am grateful!

I have also realized that Karianna is very resilient-she hasn't seemed daunted at all by the "more difficult" work. In fact, she is really exceeding my expectations. On Monday, I pulled out her basal reader (same one she uses in her classroom) and had her read the story of the week: "Max the Cat". It's about 17 pages long! I was fairly shocked when she read the entire thing to me, sounding out all the words on her own and only stumbling over the few high frequency words that they are reviewing this week. Grandma Erickson came over later that day, and Karianna read the story to her as well. It was a huge light bulb moment for Karianna, you could tell how proud she was of herself as everything just kind of clicked. After working with Karianna all summer, I know that she was struggling to get the knack of blending sounds together to make a word. This week, it seems like that process has clicked in her brain, and its been a major boost of confidence-kind of like realizing your feet can touch the bottom of the pool when you are still learning how to swim. Grandma had Karianna pick out of her treasure box, which just added icing to the cake. When Karianna read her story to me today, she didn't stumble over any of the words, even the vocabulary words. Granted, I assume at this point its mostly memorized, but if she misread a word, she caught herself, reread it correctly, and moved on without my help. All little behaviors that show me how far she is coming in her reading skills. Just amazing to observe!


By way of Math, Karianna has down all the +0 facts to 10, as well as the +1 facts, though not as fast. She can also do +doubles (or twins as we like to call them) to 10. I have been hesitant to introduce subtraction facts to her because we really haven't done too much with the concept of subtraction. I think addition facts have been easy for her because we have been laying the conceptual groundwork for a long time. Subtraction is a different story, and I don't want to challenge her to memorize something that she doesn't understand conceptually. I think over the holiday weekend we will look into subtraction more with a good amount of maniuplatives and realistic story problems, and maybe by next week I'll start adding a sub fact family.

So overall, school is going great for Karianna! I can't believe nearly a month has passed already-is this what every year will be like? One day you are crying over sending your child off, and the next you are welcoming summer vacation??? I know its still early, but I can just easily see how this entire first year of school is going to fly by! Just for fun, and as a reward to anyone who made it to this point of a post labelled "Jumbled Up Thoughts", here's a few get-to-know-you details about the kids in Karianna's class that she has shared with me over the last month.

1. Jacob sits at table 4 with Karianna. Apparently he is her boyfriend and he wants to marry her. She has played with him at recess for the last 2 days. I think in kindergarten terms, that qualifies as a long term relationship.


2. Amberson, Chloe, and Amelia are currently Karianna's "best friends". Karianna likes Amberson because she has beautiful blonde hair. Karianna likes Chloe because she knows how to read really good. And Karianna likes Amelia because she is a "good example when other kids are talking and they aren't supposed to".


3. Our next door neighbor, Hannah, is in Karianna's class. After being "best friends" for a week, Hannah apparently told Karianna she would never be friends with her again. We still don't know why. Last week, Hannah apparently changed her mind when she gave Karianna her box of crayons.


4. Owen also sits at table 4 with Karianna. He likes to raise his hand and tell Mrs. Salvatori that Karianna needs to erase something and do it again. When I asked Karianna what Mrs. Salvatori says to Owen, Karianna says, "She just ignores him and tells him to go back to his work." I told Karianna she could do the exact same thing anytime Owen decides to tattle on her. :)


5. Karianna says that Josh and Thomas got red lights today and they had to go see the principal. She said she always has a green light, and that means she is always making good choices. I was happy to hear that one!