Bush Swim Party

The kids' school always has a back to school swim party at Stapely's pool.  Although Jared was working, I opted to take all the kids with me to the pool.  Although I don't terribly like doing this on my own (given how much Sara loves to just jump anywhere), I am glad I did-the kids had fun and it was great to see them bonding with kids from their classes.  A couple of moments of note:

1. Its a good thing JD is not well known at Bush because he had a diary of the wimpy kid moment.  He was climbing out of the pool at one point and kind of got stuck hoisting his leg up onto the wall.  Not a big deal, except his swimming trunks had sagged down, exposing his entire bottom. True to JD, he didnt' care, just yanked them up once he got out and went on his merry way.  Still.  Gross.
2. Sara spent the whole time throwing diving rings and retrieving them.  She had on no floatie of any sort, and at one point managed to wander all the way through the shallow-deep end:  water up to her chest.  She kept her balance nicely, which was great to see!  At one point another little toddler came up to her and smothered her in hugs and kisses....pretty much akin to being tackled.  She stayed iun my arms for a good 10 minutes afterwards, afraid of a repeat offense. Through it all, she still kindly waved hi to that little boy.
3. JD went on the slide on his own about 25 times.  It was awesome!
4. Karanna decided at the tail end of the party to go off the high dive.  I told her she was close enough to 7 and she jumped on it, especially after I observed some pretty little kids doing it as well with no retaliation from the lifeguard.  She went to stand in a line of about 10 kids, and when she got up to being 3rd in line, the announcement came:  the party is over, go home!  Karianna was dejected!  She really wanted to do it!  Oh well, we have another swim party to go to at the end of the month at Shepherd, I'm sure Karianna will try again then.






5. I was so proud of JD and Karianna at the diving boards, just really shows how much they have grown compared to last year.  If I had parental help, I would have let Jordan go on the boards as well.....we'll have to try it when we go to Shepherd.

Fun night with the kids!

Aubrey is Married!

Jared's sister, Aubrey got married a few weeks ago and had her reception this past week.  Jared and I were lucky enough to go to her sealing, which was wonderful and very emotional in my opinion! Aubrey looked very beautiful and Brennan looked quite nervous!  Regardless, they both looked very happy, which is a great way to start a marriage!

Our whole family went to Aubrey and Brennan's reception this past week. We got there at 5:30 after having a toilet explode on us.  We felt bad for being half an hour late for pictures, but felt better seeing that they hadn't even called for family members yet!  The reception finally started at 7, by which point the boys were ready to go, behaviorally speaking.  We passed the time by giving Karianna a make over and watching David's iTouch.  Sara did nothing to pass the time other than touch everything and walk everywhere.  Karianna was also in charge of Aubrey's throw away bouquet for the entire night. She loved that!

We hung in there until 8 when we decide the kids needed to get home and in bed, lest the reception hall, and its guests, suffer drastically.  We had a great time while we were there though, it was nice chatting with Jared's family on both sides, I really do enjoy them! 

Jared went back to help clean up the church building, and Karianna went with him because she was dying to catch Aubrey's bouquet.  She didn't, unfortuneately, and after getting kind of down about it, all the bridesmaids gave her their bouquets.  So sweet!  Overall, it was a fun weekend and a wonderful experience to see Aubrey turn into a Nansel!  Congratulations to Aubrey and Brennan!

Spoons and Napkins

Sara has mastered the art of using a spoon-for the most part.  She still used her other hand to make sure the spoon's contents don't fall into her lap; she mostly does this with cereal in the morning.  Its pretty adorable to watch!

 But my favorite tableside habit of hers is watching the milk dribble down her chin.  Not because I like to see oncoming messes, but because I love to see Sara reach for her napkin and clean up her chin!  She does it incessantly-after nearly every bite!  Hopefully this clean phase will continue!

Back In the Groove

Oh, the bulletin boards.......

And with that, it is official:  I am back in the groove of teaching!  I rarely take pictures of my classroom or me in it for that matter, but I couldn't resist taking a photo of our first hallway bulletin board (or at least half of it, my camera battery died right before I could click the second picture!).  I love doing bulletin boards, its one of those creative processes about teaching that I love. This particular bulletin board was based on a book called "On the First Day of School I Met...."  It is a fantastic, wonderfully illustrated, simple book of all the crazy creatures that a little girl meets on her first day of school.  The craziest one is the little girl at the end!  We read this on the 2nd day of school and I had the kids make rip art creatures afterwards of the creature they imagined meeting on the first day of a fictious school year.  They did a fantastic job, really stretching their creative skills, and adding a written description on their creation.  It made for a cute bulletin board at the beginning of school!

Beyond bulletin boards, I am into the teaching groove in every way.  My goal this year in terms of my own teaching is to stay prepped ahead of schedule.  I started the year with the first 2 weeks of school basically all prepped and copied.  This made me feel so comfortable and relaxed-I felt like I could really concentrate on my kids.  I am starting to prep/copy the next month's worth of paperwork, which is a lot of work, but I am really hoping to stay on top of it so I can have all my maternity leave stuff prepped to the degree that I will be comfortable leaving my kids pre-AIMS in the hands of a sub. 

I am also working to include more technology in my lessons-now that I have technology!  I now have a document camers, projector, and mobi in my room; I should have a laptop and a smartboard in the next month or so.  I was so used to using an overhead projecter last year, it is more work than I anticipated to make the tech switch!  I'm excited though and looking for ways to incorporate technology in my room.

So far,  I really enjoy my group of kids.  They are very different from last year.  They have certain manners that last year's kids did not-when they have a question, they quietly come out of their seat to ask me.  They keep their backpacks on ther chairs without prompting.  They all brought their own materials and keep them neatly in their desk basket.  So far, I really don't have any major issue-kids...whereas half my class qualified as that last year!  Although its a bit premature, I do think this group is slightly lower than last year, particularly in terms of math.  With that being said though, the absence of major behavior issues really leads me to believe academics will move faster, especially with the things I learned professionally last year.

I am only worried about a few kids right now, simply because they are floaters.  They float off during lessons and as a result, they don't get it.  I believe those kids are going to be doing reading intervention in the mornings and the afternoons anyway, but it is still my goal to find a way to reach them.  I have a pocket of boys who are best buds-4 of them. I have no idea how they all ended up together. They are good boys, but if one of them starts something, the others join in!  I love working with boys, which I know is weird, but its true-I relate to them more quickly;  I just have to stay on top of them and I think they'll all be okay.  I know its not fair, but I admittedly have my "favorites", just those students I already enjoy talking to and working with because of the connections they make!  It is exciting to me to think of how I will be able to bring the best out of all my students, especially using what I have learned (I Know, I already said that).

Overall, I am excited about this year of my professional life.  I miss my kids dearly but as I've mentioned before, I realize this year will fly by and be shorter than normal, so I am really trying to enjoy every minute.  I also realize that more likely than not, this will be my last year for the second time, at least until the kids are all in school.  That thought makes me enjoy the moments more often than not and to really try to maximize and stretch my teaching abilities.  The frustrating days will come, but I do truly enjoy what I do; it is a blessing for which I am grateful.

Bring on a year of awesome bulletin boards!  I"m ready!

FHE: Children's Museum

It has been a while since we have been to the Children's Museum in Phoenix! So for a final summer hurrah, we decided to trek down there for the last Monday Family Home Evening of the summer.  It was packed of course, but we didn't have to wait to get in (and good thing, because it was HOT!).  I love the museum, though I wish I could score culture passes more frequently so we could avoid the crowds on the free night!

The kids had a blast as usual! We started off in the art room where all the kids, including Sara traced letters and colored to their hearts' contents.  Jordan was very interested in playing in the paper mache castle, but it was unfortuneately labeled, "Do not touch".  Didn't stop Jordan, but you know how that one goes.  :)  I headed upstairs with Jordan and Sara once they started to lose their coloring focus and we went into my favorite room-the 3 and under room.  I loved watching Sara play house with her babies!  She loves wrapping up babies and putting them to bed, so this was a perfect room for her.  At one point, Sara saw a push wagon with about 3 babies in it, and she excitedly tucked her baby in as well and started to push it around. Within 30 seconds, another little ran up and started screaming and pulling the wagon towards her.  Sara had no idea what to do!  She just held on and stared at this little girl who was certainly making her wishes known!  I finally just told Sara to get her own baby, and sure enough, the little girl grabbed everything else and stomped off.  Ah, toddlerhood-if I am playing with it, have ever played with it, or will ever want to play with it, then it is certainly MINE!

Jordan loved diging up and planing the artificial flowers and I loved the pic I took of him peering out the window at me!  Jared came up with the older two shortly thereafter and when Jordan was putting his shoes back on, he made this spectacular dive fall over one of the mushroom chairs.  The adults surrounding us all gasped in horror while I chuckled.  Sure enough, Jordan was fine and asked me if I saw his spiderman leap.  Yup, that's my boy!

We spent the next hour going from room to room, walking through the now crowd controlled noodle forest and losing Sara a few times (we always found her).  One of our new favorite spots was this room on the other side of noodle forest.  It has these huge, pipe like seating area where children are supposed to quietly read books.  Our kids saw them as great acrobatic opportunities and completely impressed Jared and I with their strength!  Karianna is so acrobatic, and those two boys!  They are so strong, especially Jordan!  He's on his tippy toes and still held that pose for a long time!  This was another moment where Sara wandered off-we found her in Noodle Forest. 

After watching Karianna make a pizza in the kitchen room, we headed down to the climber, which had no line!  The kids all ran up, even Sara.  That one was kind of tricky because I had to shadow her-and that's hard being pregnant! After a while I cajoled her to go back down and play with Jared and the big pipe/fluff ball/air contraption.  Jordan came down on his own, as did Nana, but JD was up in that climber for EVER!  I finally had to climb up to locate him and once I did, he said to me, "I thought I would have to sleep in this thing all night!"  Silly boy, he loves that thing! 

The kids lasted for just under 2 hours, and at that point, both Jared and I were tired of the crowds.  We headed out (taking one last picture with a paper mache dragon that Sara apparently disliked) and made a pit stop at McDonalds for ice cream.  Overall, it was a great FHE evening and I truly enjoyed seeing the kids playing!

The First Day of School!

Karianna and JD were so excited for the first day of school!  For days now, they have been counting down the dwindling summer days and Karianna has been filling JD's head with school info that he absolutely needs to know.  She has been revelling in her role as the experienced grade-schooler and JD has been revelling in his role as excited kindergartener. It has been wonderful to see!

Unlike last year, I have made it a goal to be home to get the kids ready for school most days this year.  As such, I was completely prepped for my own first day of work and was able to stay home to get the kids ready, have them help pack their lunches, and take pictures.  Last year, we did all this the night before for show.  :)  It was wonderful to see their excitement on the actual first day of school and even though I really miss dropping them off, this was a good placeholder.

JD's first day of school getup!

 

Karianna's first day of school outfit!

Both of the kids were super excited and showed no hesitation.  Jared took them to school nice and early, and got out with the two younger kids so he could walk Karianna and JD to their respective paygrounds. They first walked JD to the kinder playground, right in front of the school.  JD took off without a backwards glance and in true JD form, immediately started scaling the climber and making friends.  Jared headed to the walkway Karianna has to traverse to get to her playground.  He was anticipating walking her all the way, but she saw a friend from last year and with a quick "Bye Dad!", she was off as well!  Jared went back up to the kinder playground and hung out with Sara and Jordan until the bell rang and the teachers got the kids in line.  JD was all smiles apparently and nearly forgot his backpack in his rush to line up with his teacher, Mrs. Davis. Karianna told me after school that she also had no trouble finding her line and was shocked by how many kids she actually knew in her class. 

Overall, it was an easy transition into the first day of school; the hardest part for Jared was keeping Jordan from running to the playground so he could play too!  I am glad both kids found it easy to join into a new classroom with new-ish kids.  I love Bush and the atmosphere they promote, and I am excited for the wonderful things that will come with this year!  2nd grade and kindergarten are underway!

Beginning of the Year Goal

I promise that I will not leave the house before 6am for the entire month of August.  I can do it!

Kindergarten Advice

There's a lot of things I could have told JD tonite to prepare him for his first day of kindergarten.  I could have drilled him on letters and numbers.  I could have gone over his teacher's name and room number.  I could have reminded him how much we loved him and would miss him while he was at school. 

Well.  I did do all of those things actually, but it wasn't the most important conversation.

No, the most important thing we made sure JD knew was the following (and we had this conversation multiple times tonite):

Mom:  JD, what do you do if you need to go to the bathroom?

JD:  I raise my hand and ask the teacher.

Mom:  Good.  Then what?

JD:  I go to the bathroom.

Mom:  Which bathroom:  the one with the dress picture or the one with the pants picture?

JD:  (giggles) The one with the pants! That's the boy one!

Whew.  Glad he has that down, as I really don't think he would have thoguht to look since our bathrooms at home don't really designate girls vs. boys.  The conversation continues....

Mom:  When you are in the boys bathroom, what do you do?

JD:  Um....I go potty?

Mom:  Yes, but what do you need to do first?

JD:  I close my door and lock it.

Mom:  YES!!! And you do not open it until you pull up your pants!!!

Again, this disclaimer is majorly needed at the boys in our home find something unbearably funny about exiting the bathroom a la full monty. Jared excluded.

The conversation went on to talk about good touch/bad touch as this worries me too.  I know the conversation might have sounded silly (and I meant it to!), but when I sit and think about it, I worry that JD will forget any one of those procedures and have a bad experience with it.  JD is so very innocent and naive and child-like in so many ways, I don't want that tarnished. 

So my silly bathroom lecture will go down in history as NECESSARY for kindergarten prep!  And my heart is going with my litte boy to school tomorow.

School Blessings 2011-2012

We scheduled our traditional school blessings for this afternoon, right after I got home from work and before Jared had to leave for work.  Sometimes making our schedules work appropriately is a tad hard!  Things seemed to get off to a rocky start as Sara decided to start throwing a major fit, which resulted her going to her room, still screaming her guts out....needless to say, she wasn't present.  However, the other kids were excited to do back to school blessings!

We started by talking to the kids about blessings.  Karianna sumarized how they work perfectly well and JD and Jordan got excited once they heard the phrase "priesthood power".  Karianna was first into the chair and she did so fantastic being utterly reverant.  After her blessing, I asked her what Jared mentioned and she rattled off a while list!  Amongst other things, Jared blessed her to make friends easily and quickly, and to not be afraid to stand up to people who might not be making good choices.  These things are always key for her!  When it was JD's turn, he hopped up into that seat for his first real school blessing and bless his heart, he tried so hard the entire time to be perfectly reverent!  Afterwards, he couldn't really recall what was said, but Karianna could and sure enough, she named off several things, one of which was for JD to learn to love school and to love learning. 

Now, Jordan is not doing school as far as we know yet (he might do preschool with the district, we'll see).  However, he immediately popped up after JD was done, calling out, "My turn!  My turn!"  So he got a blessing as well and I am just going to admit it, it was comical to see him attempt to keep his eyes closed the whole time.  I really wanted to snap a picture of him holding his eyelids down with two fingers most of the time!  Jared commented on Jordan's speech development and blessed him to excel this year on speaking clearly so people could understand him more frequently.  That's definitely the goal for him this year regardless of if he goes to school or not!

We had a special spirit in the house and it was a good way to spiral into the first day of school!

Great Helpers!

This summer I really pressed the kids to help out more with chores.  Of course, they are generally in charge of keeping their rooms clean and maintaining the basics of their bathroom.  But I wanted more help in the house, namely rooms that are usually up to the grown ups.  So this summer, they each learned some valuable life lessons:

How to sweep....

 How to load and unload a dishwasher...

 And how to wipe up spills on the floor with clorox wipes.

It has been a big help to have the kids know how to do these jobs, and they generally have a good attitude about it! I hope I am keeping it fun enough that they don't mind.  The smiles on their faces speak volumes though!

I Have a Secret!

Knowing there was an announcement coming...

 Blurry picture, but look at JD's face-he got it right away!

 Karianna started clapping because, of course, she has known for a long time and she got to actually see the ultrasound....

 And now everyone seems happy to know that Mommy has a baby in her tummy AND its a boy!  I had told JD and Jordan about the baby around 17 weeks, mid July.....they got it, but they forgot it pretty immediately.  I think adding a gender and a name makes the pregnancy more real to them, especially before they can really see a bulging belly!

Now that its out....

Now that we have informed the world that we are expecting baby #5 in December (did you know we are expecting baby #5 in December?  We are!), I can share some other news that has been pertinent throughout the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.  Just some milestones and memories that have trademarked pregnancy this time around:

• I found out I was pregnant the day after my birthday-April 20th-and I was shocked.  This is the first pregnancy that we have not planned to the tee.  It took a few days (for me, a week) to let the news sink in and to feel right.  After the shock wore off, we realized how right the situation was.  The Lord knows better than we do when our kids need to join our family!
• I had my first doctor appointment and my first ultrasound on May 29th-the day after school ended and right after JD's preschool graduation.  Though everything with the baby looked good, the tech/doctor found a 4 cm tear on my placenta.  I was told to do a modified bed rest for 2 weeks and to come back for a follow up ultrasound; if the tear got worse (to 7cm), then we had a problem.  I spent those 2 weeks terrified that I was going to miscarry, that the smallest cough would make the tear worse, that I would start bleeding at any moment.  I spent the first week in bed pretty much all the time.  The second week was harder since I had summer school, but I sat as much as possible and got in bed as soon as I got home. I stayed home from church for 3 weeks straight; I think everyone thought I was going inactive! My mother put my name on the prayer roll at the temple and we spent free time praying that everything would be okay.  We felt unbelievably blessed when the follow up ultrasound 2 weeks later showed the tear had clotted and cleared up; they could barely see where it was originally.  Although everything looks fine now, I had to be very careful to avoid major lifting, major exercise, etc. to make sure the tear does not open again. 
• This pregnancy so far has been very difficult from the sickness standpoint.  I have had extreme nausea since 6 weeks, as well as terrible heartburn.  It usually hit around 3pm every day, leading to some difficult nights, some of which necessitated a blessing from Jared.  Zofran doesn't do much for me, but phenegran works okay and has been a huge blessing.  At 18 weeks, I am still dealing with at least 4 nights a week that are pretty gross, but it is bearable most of the time and I am learning to get around it.
• I started feeling this baby move at 14 weeks.  It always felt like someone snapping their fingers in my belly-just muted.  Up until that moment I had no inclinations at all about what gender the baby was (I usually do).  But as soon as I felt those little snaps, I immediately started thinking boy.  We'll see if I'm right!
• When I was 17 weeks, Karianna felt the baby move!  Jared felt the baby about 3 days after her.  I usually feel the baby move every day now, which is such a relief after having a bit of a scare at the beginning.  I wish I could get an ultrasound every day to ensure that everything is still fine with the baby. 
• At 19 weeks, we found out the baby is a boy to be named James Gregory!  All of my measurements were right on target for the original due date:  December 21st.  Karianna went with me and Jared to the ultrasound and was somewhat sad when she saw it was a boy, even though she herself had guessed a boy!  She's okay with it now, but it was funny to see her reactions.  The boys were happy of course, though Jordan is sad he can't call the baby "Ree-becca" any more. 
• Sara loves this baby.  She knows exactly where to point when I ask her where the baby is, and if I ask her to give the baby hugs, she'll lean her cheek against my belly, bump her nose against it (her kiss) and pat with her hand.  It's adorable-now she's working on saying James.
• We officially leaked the news to the world via email and Facebook at 19 1/2 weeks (though I just said I was in my 20th week since that sounds so much nicer than 19).  I have never waited that long to share the news, and I probably will never do so again.  It's nice to have the pregnancy half over before everyone starts waiting for baby with you.  However, it was way too hard concealing the news when it was so obvious to me that I was pregnant, starting to show, not fitting into clothes, etc.  In some clothes, you still can't really tell I am pregnant, but in others, it is flat out obvious.  Regardless, I am working on transitioning my frame of mind from "Gotta-hide-growing-belly" to "It's-OK-to-look-pregnant-and-not-suck-in-anymore"!  Its actually kind of a tough switch....

And that's it for now!  We are excited, and even though it sounds nuts, I am already looking at Sara's room to determine the best place for the changing table, and I am going through the boy clothes boxes to determine what we might need for baby (yes, I have already started a list).  That feeling of needing to be super prepared for a baby that is arriving right after school gets out and right before Christmas is a nagging one!