Camping 2011

Our family went camping for the 4th of July.  Not our normal type of camping; it was a brief overnighter and we spent our time at a campground...in the rain :)  At least part of it, but we've never done that, so it was an experience!  We couldn't disappoint the kids though-they love camping, and a sumer without it these days would be plain old sad.

The campout overall was a great success!  We loved the campsite Becca and Eric had found.  It was very spacious, which was our problem with a campground we almost used last year-it felt like everyone was on top of each other!  This area gave the kids plenty of room to run around and play without bugging anyone else, while till being nestled deep in the pine trees.  The only downside was the bathrooms....which reeked....unlike anything else I have ever smelled.  Once darkness fell, I had no problems just using a nearby patch of grass, but can't really do that at a campground during the day.  Serious grossness, but so goes camping sometimes!

The rain started about an hour after we got the tent up.  We worked to entertain the kids for about 2 hours: coloring, reading books, trapping Sara in her pack and play, taking umbrella walks through the dripping trees, visiting the stinky potty, and lamenting the fact that we opted not to bring the laptop.  Every sock we packed got soaked, and every poncho I thought to bring got used.  The kids actually looked really cute in them!  After the rain abated, we explored the surrounding area, exclaimed over all the weird bugs that popped out, and ate our fire-unnecessary-dinners (couldn't do campfires of any sort).  We found some great logs to climb and Karianna found a ton of "wheat" (didn't know what else to call it!). 

Once darkness started to fall, we gathered the kids around to eat regular old marshmallows and listen to silly stories/books. That was a fun part of the night, though we had to constantly watch Jordan, who kept trying to wander off with a lantern because apparently that would keep him completely safe!  I put the kids to bed around 10:00 if I remember correctly.  Sara stood in her bed talking for a good 15 minutes, super excited to be sleeping in the same bed as everyone else! Once she settled down though, I snuck out to play games with the adults.  I think Karianna and Jordan were still awake, but they were fine putting themselves to sleep!  The adults played scattegories and talked until 1:00 in the morning.  We had some good debates on what meritted points!  Everyone was a little colder than expected and some of our warmth factors had gotten wet in the rain, but the tarp that the boys erected worked wonderfully and the lanterns kept us warmer than we anticipated (though Eric burned his hand on one of them). 

I slept okay later that night although I had Jared get up at one point because I could have sworn I heard a huge animal walking around.  It ended up being someone going potty.  It rained off and on as well, making for a wet morning.  The kids woke up with the sun-around 5:30 am!!!!!  I made them stay quiet until about 6:15 and just resigned myself to getting up with them. We let Jared sleep while the rest of us made cereal for breakfast and hiked around for a while longer.  We had planned to stay through lunch and then maybe drive to a lake on the way back, but it was obvious pretty fast that the pregnant ladies were tired (although no one really knew I was pregnant) and too many things were soaked to really stay much longer.  I started packing our bags around 8 when Jared got up and we were pretty much packed up and ready to go by noon.  Of course, during that time the adults took turns taking the kids hiking around the area, and it was a lot of fun!  I like to be super organized while camping so nothing gets lost or broken.  Regardless, one of Karianna's shoes (her flippers) disappeared and as I am typing this up at the end of August-we still haven't found it. I think there is a very stylish bear tromping around the Tonto National Forest.

All in all, we really enjoyed our time in the mountains, although it was much shorter and more fire-less than we would have preferred!  This will probably be our only camping trip since I have summer school, a baby in my tummy, and a lot of morning sickness.  We can't have a summer though where we don't camp, so I'm glad we were able to at least get in an over nighter!

JD's Preschool Graduation!

End of the Year Reflections: Me as a Teacher

Karianna's Awards Ceremony

9 Years!

What's the Big Deal?

As we were unpacking from our California trip, Kariana and I were talking about the different types of degrees you can get from college. After I had detailed everything and after she had some processing time, she apparently came to some conclusions about college milestones. Before you read this conversation, you should know that the hotel we stayed at gave Jared a bottle of wine as a graduation gift:

Karianna: So what's the big deal about getting a masters degree?

Rachel: Well, Daddy worked really really hard to earn his masters degree and it's a really big deal to earn a masters degree. It means he learned a lot and spent a lot of time and effort to get that degree. It's a really big deal, I promise.

Karianna: But all he got was a bottle of wine. I don't get it.

California Temples!!!!

Fun at the Beach

Master of the House

Jared's Masters Graduation

I Won't Laugh at You

Easter Egg Hunt

This year we got together at Mom's house to do an Easter Egg hunt for all the little kiddos. As usuall, we had a ton of eggs dropped around the yard....I say "dropped" because there's so many eggs, we literally just litter them aroung the grassy fields in my mom's yard. Makes it easier for the little kids to "find" eggs! We let the younger kids go out first until the oldest kids just couldn't take it any longer and we turned them all loose. They had a blast opening everything and revelling in the stash of candy they found. The great thing about my kids? They ask for a single piece of candy every day (as is the rule) for about 3 days....after that, they completely forgot about it and it just ended up in the garbage. Too funny!

Easter in Our House

Goin' Buggy!

Kariana's class had their spring musicale tonite!  It was called "Goin' Buggy" and it was probably thee cutest presentation I have every seen.  It was all about bugs fighting for their freedom and independence, and convincing the audience that they were more than squash-worthy.  It was wonderfully cute and creative and I am so glad we got to attend!

But cuter than the program itself was my favorite little ant:

Karianna had a speaking part, which she said wonderfully, and she was right in the front row so we could see her singing her heart out and doing the actions with all the gusto she could muster.  The entire event was just fantastic and I love seeing these types of creative endeavors.  Makes me want to do something inventive like this with my 3rd graders!  Both grandmas were able to come and although Aunt Aubrey couldn't come, she sent a vase full of flowers and a ballone with candy for Karianna.  So sweet for my little girl!

Rock Poses...Our Best Effort

The Return of the Splash Pad!

The weather is warm enough to start considering how to stay cool! The pool is still WAY too cool to really consider, but I thought the splash pad at the park might be a good second choice and sure enough, it was open! Out of all the days we picked to go, today actually ended up being somewhat windy and thus, a bit cooler, however, the kids still loved getting wet, especially Sara! I don't think we will renew the zoo membership when it expires in May, so we'll have to really use it up in the next month's time!

Checking out the new orangutan habitat!

Jordan's Ideas about Getting Older

1. Jordan is slightly infatuated with Jared's Deoderant. He goes into our bathroom at least once a week just to pick it up, bring it over to me, and ask me, "I can use this when I am older like Daddy....Mama, I am a big boy, can I use Daddy's deoderant now?" He seems to think aging by a few days qualifies him. I am not so anxious for the horomones that will necessitate deoderant to hit my little boy!


2. I told the kids today that there are 23 days until my birthday. Jordan indignantly exclaimed, "You don't have birthdays-you are too old!" I told him I did have a birthday in 23 days. He said, "But you are bigger-you are not little." As if old people like me ;) can't have birthdays anymore. If I was turning 30 that might sting a bit, but alas, I have a whole year to enjoy the 20's and thus-I just laughed!

JD's Grand Picture

JD used to hate coloring or drawing of any sort. He would turn up his nose at coloring books in favor of fighting some action figures or animals back and forth. It has only been in the last 8 months or so that he has shown a desire to color and draw, which has evolved into an every day request to make some sort of picture or write a stream of letters/words on a piece of notebook paper. He loves to draw on the whiteboard these days, and his picture today was prety fantastic. When Karianna was this age, she was fantastic at making people-lots of details, great clothes, the works. JD doesn't care enough to get all that in. :) But he is great at making the backgrounds of pictures, such as the following:

He told me he drew an island house with a palm tree like the one we cut down in the backyard. He told me he drew a crab and a poinsonous octopus in the water and a boat with 2 guys who were trying to hide in the island house-which does have multiple windows and "ding dongs" (not the little cakes, doorbells.) I loved his picture, everything from the faint clouds in the sky to the 4 claws on his crab! The lone door on his boat was especially great. I had him label a few things just for spelling practice, and I just smiled to see the development-primacy and recency in spelling, ie, HS for HOUSE and OS for OCTOPUS! I helped him with crab, but he got sun and bot on his own, which was great! The arrows he drew-just loved it all. Can you tell I am proud of him? JD has never been as into organized learning as Karianna is, and his nature is so gentle and happy that I didn't want to disrupt that with pushing him at all-its so cool to see the natural development as he gets more and more interested in the world of literacy!

Okay, that's it for today. I love this stuff!

Sara Loves Peaches Apparently

Sara actually grabbed a spoon from I have no idea where and started stacking these containers of peaches in some attempt at the leaning tower of cheese-a (peach-a?). She was so intent on it, she managed to get a 5 tiered tower before her frustration won over and she just wanted to eat it.

Climbing Wall

I managed to get some shots of the kids climbing the wall at our old Phoenix park, as I previously mentioned, I was so tickled at how quickly they all acclimated to climbing, especially Karianna since she is working on her upper body strength (if that sounded funny, I really mean she is trying to master monkey bars but lacks the wiry-body-ness for it as of yet!). JD is all about anything physical, so I knew he would be great, but Jordan! That kiddo climbed straight to the top with no hesitation! It was pretty cool!

Slides!

Sara's favorite thing to do right now is slide. She has gotten very adept at climbing up onto any play structure, sitting herself down at the peak of a slide and pushing herself down-sitting up the whole way and climbing off on her own. Its so fun to see the exhilaration on her face, the wind in her fairy hair, and the pride as she tackles a big kid activity on her own!

It's Spring Break! Oh wait-it's already over.

Here I am, about 10 hours from the official end of spring break and I can't believe it is already over! I am sad to say I really didn't take many pictures of our spring break activities, and we didn't get to do everything on our wish list, but it sure was nice to have a full week of hanging out with the kids without work interferring. This is the first break that I have had from school where I actually feel invigorated, refreshed and overall-okay with going back to work. The reason? There's only 9 weeks left of school. 9. With 27 weeks behind us, 9 sounds kind of piddly. Plus, the next 3 weeks will be full of AIMs prepping and the 4th week with be all AIMS testing. Those 4 weeks are bound to rush by with lightning speed and before we know it, it will be down to five weeks, which I am sure will be filled with end of the year activities, field trips, assemblies-in general all things that make time go by fast. See why spring break is such a great thing? It means I can make it. :) Nice though!

Our spring break was all about bike riding, cleaning, family pictures, scootering, park hopping, pointless car drives, teacher observations, reading, wall climbing, coloring, weed picking, sliding, and haircuts. The low point was probably driving up to Anthen to play in one of our favorite spots from when we lived up there-the Anthem park with their humongous climber, splash pad, and train rides. Unfortuneately, after the anticipation was built, we arrived only to find the entire park closed, bathrooms included. We were pretty disappointed, though we still got to do the train ride and we found another park to play at (though it paled in comparison). The high point was two fold-hanging out so much with the kids in everyway possible, and waking up each morning feeling like it was a summer day. We really enjoyed each other and the relaxed days of spring break. It makes me so excited for summer break, so much so that I already planned out some camping trip dates, swimming lesson dates, and our CA trip for Jared's graduation in May.

So from here on out, Spring Break is going to be my goal-if I can make it to the middle of March with my sanity in tact, it will all be downhill from there. ;) Karianna is counting down the weeks until she "graduates" from 1st grade and JD talks every day about his schedule for kindergarten. We are still undecided if we will have Jordan do preschool with Ms. Kerry next year, but he talks all the time about swimming this summer with no floaties. Sara, dearest girl, is still learning how to control her fits, which have started to include throwing things if she is not satisfied, and going limp if she doesn't want to relinquish her fit yet. And I will miss all of this when Monday rolls around, but it will be a contented miss because I know summer is around the corner-such a lovely thought and with that we prepare to let go of spring break and dive into the last quarter of school. Thanks for the great week guys!

Fits

It was bound to happen.

I am on my 4th child, and I had yet to have a kid who threw fits. If there is one thing I don't tolerate well, its tantrums. That and children showing no respect to adults. With the three older kids, the second a tantrum started, it was squashed right away and they knew pretty quickly that it wasn't acceptable. Sometimes I think we were too harsh with Karianna on this end, and relaxed a bit with the boys, but the expectation was still the same- we don't throw fits.

Well, Sara has decided to ignore that bandwagon and is definitely a tantrum kid. We've been through several techniques with her, she seems just a bit too young for time out still-doesnt get it, and thus, it doesn't work. If she goes to her room, she'l just fall asleep. When I take a step back, her fits are actually kind of funny-she'll toss back her head, throw herself on the ground, and just scream. Sometimes she'll get a bit defiant and go into tantrum position but avoid screaming. For example, when I was walking her in the halls at church on Sunday, she was going one way and I didn't want her to go that way. I took her hand and redirected her, but she pulled away sat down, and rolled over to her back. The whole time, just staring me down, like, "You know I'll do it-you know I'll scream bloody murder if I can't have my way!" It realy is pretty humorous if you think about it-those strong little personalities rear their heads so quickly!

We are happy to say though that we have found a strategy to help control fits, as unknowingly captured in this photo:

As soon as Sara starts crying, we cover her mouth with our hand (of course leavng plenty of nose room-we have to get after the kids when they started trying it but ended up covering her nose as well!). She'll keep screaming while we are calmly saying, "We do not throw fits". Eventually she'll stop and we'll say, "Are you done?" She'll real quick nod yes, and if she can, get in a "yah!" and that's it-hugs, kisses, redirect.

Of course, she tries to get around it. We've been through several rounds of this in a 5 minutes time span. We've had to stop the car to control fits. We've had to walk out of rooms. Sara will try to pull the hand away, and if she wins that battle, she just screams even louder. It took a lot of consistentcy, but now if Sara is crying and you hold up your hand and say, "Do I need to put my hand on your mouth?" she'll stop and say "uh-uh" while shaking her head. And that's it. Of course, she still tests it, but it has really helped to sqaush fits once they start, as well as helps de-escalate.

We are still hoping the quantity of fits goes down as she learns to express herself in other ways, as well as self-soothe moreso than not. Its fun to see Sara's development, even when it comes to fits!

Sara's First Haircut

Sara got her first haircut a few weeks ago! And oh my goodness, look at that comparison pic to the right!!!!!

Looking more like each other with matching bangs!

Looking back, I don't think I ever gave Karianna a haircut until she was in her 2nd year. At least. Her hair did not grow very quickly. Sara though is a bit different, her hair is growing pretty fast, and as such, I've been having a blast giving her ponytails and barrettes and all that fun stuff! I got fed up the other day, however, with her bangs always being in her eyes. Thus, I gave her a haircut-a bang cut, in particular. It looks adorable and makes her look so much older-no more babies in the house! I love that I can also give her hair a good scrunch in the back and it will curl out-not so much curl down, but litterally curl out so her head looks an extra 2 inches long horizonatally speaking. Overall, she's a cute cookie with cute bangs and a cute smile to go with it!

*Pics courtesy of Rebecca ;)

TMI

This is probably too much information for some.

The kids were taking baths tonite and Karianna commented that the boys tend to...um...touch certain body parts a lot. I believe in being pretty objective and honest about things, so I told her that yes, sometimes that happens with little boys, and that it is harder for boys than girls because girls' bodies are different than boys-everything is inside. Karianna's comment was thus:

"And because girls are just wiser than boys."

Anyone care to argue? ;)

On this body parts topic, as we were walking through Walmart today, we were reviewing stranger danger stuff since Jordan is convinced he can stop any bad guy who tries to take him by striking a spiderman pose. Karianna said, "If a stranger tries to grab me, I will just kick him and scream until he lets me go or until someone comes to help." Jordan said, "I will kick a stranger in the bottom." And JD-bless his little heart-said, "And I will kick a stranger in his penis!" Sorry if I made you blush. He said it really loud, and I would bet that some of the old ladies around were blushing! I was laughing myself. I did have a conversation right there in the bread aisle with JD about not shouting out private body part words. Sorry if you were in the vicinity-I did see two people from my ward (current and past) there, so who knows who else was listening!

Transportation Progress

I am happy to say both JD and Karianna have mastered the scooter! They both got those things for Christmas and we honestly haven't had too much time to get out and use them-they kind of defaulted to their bikes pretty quickly, didn't want to give them too much of a chance. But Karianna got pretty good balancing on hers and can get going pretty fast now. Of course, JD saw that and decided it was cool, and voila! He is riding pretty good too! On the Jordan front, he has gotten the hang of riding his big boy bike, though he tends to slip off the seat because he pushes the pedals too hard. :) He ends up standing on the pedals more than anything to get himself going, which in and of itself isn't awful. I always told Karianna once she got her scooter mastered, we'd think about moving up to rollarblades....I'm rethinking that idea now. For sure though-her training wheels are gone over spring break. I would have done it today but the weeds were calling me louder than her bike was.