Easter Egg Hunt

We had the big Easter hunt today with all the Erickson cousins.  I'll let the pictures do the talking.  We did learn one thing:  red jelly beans can look like blood when eaten by a 1-year-old who drools. We banned them from James, but apparently, he didn't get the memo-he was trying to steal every egg in the pile!  

Grandpa and the Little Man

Just a cute pic of Grandpa and James!

Again

Its happening again.  I'm not complaining-its cute.  I'm just surprised!  

The boys have started sleeping in the same bed again.  Usually, it is necessary to separate them at night, because they would stay up all night playing otherwise.  However, they have been like this every night for the past week, and I never even knew!  We have started closing their door all the way instead of leaving it cracked because, again, they will play all night if they have that stream of light filtering into their room.  JD gets really nervous in the dark though-not scared to the point of crying, but he gets nervous.  This is why the boys end up together-he climbs in next to Jordan so he will feel safer.  I LOVE that they feel that way about each other.  I love that they find comfort in each other.  I am so glad we had these two boys at the time we did, so they are so close in age-they are the best of friends most of the time, and scenes like this just make my heart melt.

Cya 6th Grade!

Just a quick shout out to Karianna-she passed her 6th-grade math blasters test on Thursday last week!  She was super surprised with herself, since that was her first attempt and she finished all 200 problems in just under 6 minutes.  Now she's gearing up for 7th grade-the final frontier!  5 minutes flat for a bunch of mixed up problems....I told her I'd get her a full-size Jamba Juice if she does it!  She should have her shirt today, I'll post a picture when she gets it!

Easter Pagaent

The Easter Pageant this year was awesome!

This is the first year I felt like the kids actually sat and really paid attention.  Sara kept a running commentary right next to me and had such emotional reactions to every part of the performance:  She was in awe with the angels yet scared they were going to fall; she was cooing and cocking her head during Mary's lullaby, like a little mommy; she asked to go onto the stage when the little children gathered around Jesus-and when I said no, she said "okay, maybe next time I can see Jesus";  she walked out into the aisle during the ten virgins dance and danced right along with them; she kept yelling "No!  Stop it!" with all the fury she could muster when Jesus was being hit and teased; and I nearly thought she would start crying when he was crucified.  When that final crack of thunder and lightning hit on Jesus' figure, Sara cried out...was silent for a moment....and then asked me, "he's gonna come back right?  And be all better?"  My sweet little girl.  She was a wonderful companion to sit next to.

Normally I would be shushing Sara out of courtesy for others, but it wasn't necessary-no one was sitting around us!  It was opening night, and not packed at all, which is abnormal for sure-and we were in the 2nd section from the front.  That gave James leeway to wander around the aisles.  He was playing the binky game:  he would throw his binky as far as he could and then toddle after it.  This eventually ended on a sad note-we couldn't find his binky after a final, every exuberant throw.  Oh well, he doesn't need it anyway.  We only had to wait about 50 minutes for the performance to start, which wasn't terrible because we brought sandwiches for dinner and took walks through the visitor's center, hence the picture above.

I love what the Easter Pageant does for us at this time of the year.  Such a beautiful portrayal of the life of Christ and his sacrifice for us.  It really doesn't even matter what religion you are-anyone can appreciate the sacred nature of this time of year and vow to be more Christlike from here on out.  Happy Early Easter!

Official First Swim

Let the record show, we went swimming for the first time in a non-heated pool today.  There's a reason this is a big deal.  

It was COLD!!!!!

 This was quite a bit earlier than we have ever gone swimming before, and it definitely makes a difference in water temperature.  Congrats to Karianna and Kaitlynn, who stayed in the longest out of the kids!  I stayed in for maybe 20-25 minutes.....and though I got used to it, you could definitely feel the bite!  I think I would be willing to jump in after getting particularly hot doing yardwork this spring (and we have a TON of yardwork!)  Otherwise, leisurely swims in our own pool will have to wait for another few months, I think.

The nicely heated dump bucket pool, however, is open for business!

Crazy Sunday!

I feel like yesterday was a seriously crazy Sunday for us, ie, me.  It started off very early in the morning and involved cleaning up Jordan's throw-up.  Poor kid!  That meant I was on my own for church today with the other kids since Jared would need to stay home with Jordan and James, who had thrown up a few times as well.  So I ended up staying awake to finish prepping primary stuff, lay out church clothes, and take a shower myself.  We headed to church half an hour early so I could practice a special musical number with my sister that we were singing in church that day.  I had about 15 minutes after that to set up a fairly elaborate crossword puzzle I had made up for Senior primary's singing time.

We popped into sacrament meeting right after the prayer when I realized I forgot to take JD's bread to the sacrament boys.  Sigh.  Can't win 'em all.  Kristen and I sang "Song of Testimony", and I thought it sounded pretty good-we sound very similar!  Off to junior primary we went where the kids learned the 3rd verse of If the Savior Stood Beside Me and then played the Pass the Egg game-it was so fun and I was pleased they learned that song so well.  

In between junior and senior primary, I ran in to nursery to do the music with them and then ran out to the parking lot.  Jared had brought James to me since James was part of a Relief Society object lesson. I ran James in, just praying he wouldn't throw up on the floor.  He did great--he just had to walk up and down the aisle in the RS room to demonstrate overcoming obstacles and learning in this life.  I ran him back to Jared in the car, and Jared informed me he had burned a CD of the special musical number Kristen and I did.  I listened to it and felt pretty good about how we did.  I love that Jared didn't have to miss it.  Thank goodness for webcasts of our sacrament meetings!  

After that, I bid them goodbye and ran back in to do Senior primary singing time.  The kids did wonderfully with the crossword puzzle I made up-I wish I had an extra half hour with them!  They sang so very well too, and that's always a comfort for a senior primary of 10 kids.  After church we tracked down a member of the bishopric to pay our tithing, confirmed that temple recommend interviews were being held that afternoon for Jared, and then headed back to clean up the primary room.

So after such a crazy morning, I knew I was going to be wiped out for the afternoon-and sure enough, I was.  I got the worst tension headache and prob caught some of Jordan's stomach flu as I had terrible nausea and all kinds of body aches. I broke down crying because I felt so bad that evening when I tried to clean up a mess in the living room and realized I thought my head was about to explode.  Needless to say, Jared took over most of the night, and I took some Excedrin to great effects.  Jared was a hero in that he washed out our bathtub so I could take a steaming hot bubble bath to calm my body aches.  It worked wonderfully and I managed to sleep away the gross symptoms of being sick.

So today, I feel much better and am hopeful it will stay that way.  We have a new dryer getting delivered today and the kids are back at school after a very fun spring break.  We are planning to go to the Easter Pageant this week, the preschool kids have spring pictures tomorrow, and Kariana will do ELP testing at the end of the week. JD should have his book order books today-he has been into this book series called "Who Will Win?"  They give facts about two types of animals to help you figure out who would win in a fight-he's going to be so excited to see I got 4 of them for him, all for the retail price of 1!  I think we should also have JD and Karianna's school pictures in today too.  Bunch of tidbits that don't truly matter, but there you go!

Daddy Went to the Beauty Salon

These are not the best pictures of Jared.  However, we had to document this trip to Karianna and JD's beauty salon.  Jared is so good at donating his hair for their whims!  They used very single bow/flower.

First Swim of the Season

With temps soaring at 94 degrees, we decided to hit the pool today-not our pool, but the dump bucket pool, which is heated.  The water was absolutely perfect...I was shocked.  Usually, when they say it's "heated", it is still pretty cold. Not today, though!  The water was wonderful, the kids thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was a great afternoon together for the tail end of spring break.  Just a few shots of the water play!

Wood Chips

...were thankfully not dinner for James!  

 We spent the morning at the Barn Park today. It was seriously hot!  The boys' hair was plastered to their heads and James and Sara were both flushed.  I knew it would be warm, but this was a definite sign that summer is upon us!  We all found ourselves wishing the pool was in swim condition!  Alas, the main filter is being repaired so we don't even have the option.  Thank heavens for the covered nature of the barn park-its the only reason this worked today!

 Karianna tried these monkey bars 12 times before she made it all the way across.  She got 4 blisters on her hands as a result!

 JD and Jordan spent a lot of time at the top of this climbing structure-scared me to pieces.  I'm such a worrywart!

 James just wandered around the entire time-he was too cute!  As previously mentioned, he did not try to eat the wood chips once, which was such an awesome feat for him!

We are coming to the end of spring break, and I can't even believe it is spring-we are so on the precipice of summer!  I'm already thinking of what our summer days will be like-how to rearrange my work schedule, how to schedule kid activities, and staying sane in the heat! :)  We have one more quarter of school to go before the kids get older.  

Karianna is testing for ELP next week--we are not sure if we want her to do it, but we'll test to see if it is an option for her.  She did a practice packet just to expose her to the types of questions on the CoAg test, and she sailed through it...we'll see though, she tends to get testing anxiety already as an 8-year-old! 

 JD is super close to being in the 100 book club in his class and to passing his 1st-grade math blasters....he is seriously excited for both!  He has been very insistent about practicing anything and everything physical every day-he has gotten great at making basketball shots and hitting baseballs.  

Jordan and Sara are missing preschool!  Sara asked every day this spring break when she could go to preschool, and I think that's so funny!  Jordan has been spending his free time coloring, writing on the whiteboard, playing legos, and just trying to behave.  Sara has gotten into legos oddly enough as well!  She's all about writing letters these days.  They don't always look like real letters but they are to her and that's an awesome step.  She has gotten very good at cleaning her room and Jordan, bless his heart, has gotten so good at helping me with cleaning jobs, especially wiping down all the appliances in the kitchen.  

And James is James!  Super happy and learning new things every day!  If you ask him where his owie is, he'll gently rub his head-he has fallen so many times since mastering walking!  He still likes his milk warmed up, so when I pour it into his cup, he rushes over to the microwave and points at it.  I put it in for 20 seconds, and when it beeps, James will yell out "whoa!" and point again.  He'll immediately walk back to the counter where the lid is, as if he knows its the last step.  And then, without waiting for me, he'll half walk/half run over to the run because he knows that's usually where he drinks it.  It seems so simple, but his understanding of our routines astounds me all the time!

That was an unexpected kid update!  We love our kids to pieces, they are so wonderful and make our family so complete!

Spring Break So Far

We are midway through spring break and I was just telling Jared that I can't believe how fast this school year has gone!!!!  One quarter left and my kids just feel a whole year older.  Just crazy.

I made a goal this week to spend either the morning or the afternoon completely focused on the kids.  That can be hard with my work schedule, but I managed to rearrange some things to make it work.  On Monday we did a ton of bike riding, practiced basketball and baseball, and took a ride to Grandma Erickson's house.  JD finally mastered his bike with no training wheels and got really confident at it.  Jordan surprised me by being fairly adept at riding JD's bike with no training wheels--he's not great at turning yet or controlling his handlebars, but he's well on his way!  I also put the training wheels onto Karianna's old bike, lowered the seat, and started working with Sara on it.  She tends to pedal backward and is trying to figure out how to make that NOT happen.  She's great on her trike-this big girl bike will take some practice.

On Tuesday, we headed to the park to do some more bike riding, drawing with chalk, and hanging out with cousins.  We also made ice cream sundaes, which was a pretty awesome treat!  JD and Karianna shocked me during quiet time by playing multiple board games together WITHOUT fighting and even making up a math fact game with dominoes!  That morning all the kids made up this crazy game called "Chase the Bride".  That one had them racing through the house, out to the backyard--all over the place!  I just had to sit back and laugh.

On Wednesday, we went to see "Rise of the Guardians" at the dollar theater.  The kids loved it-I loved it-James didn't really care.  He just wanted to get up and walk around, thus I spent a decent chunk of the movie at the back of the theater so he could wander around.  He is full out walking everywhere now with no fear and no longer resorts to crawling when he wants to go fast--he's figured out crawling really is more work.  I was proud of him, he ignored all the pieces of gross popcorn on the floor.

I have no idea yet what we will do Thursday, and on Friday we are going to go swimming at the dump bucket pool in Chandler-first swim of the season!  It's going to be freezing cold, but that's okay!  We have a fun game night planned for Friday evening as well.  Saturday, I think we will head to Usery pass to hike a bit.

Can't believe how quick March is going-nearly Easter!

Happy Rachie Day

I got done with teaching this morning and was super surprised when all the kids plus Jared traipsed into my room carrying a tray of breakfast foods, flowers, and love notes.  Where did that come from???  Apparently, Karianna has been planning this for the last 4 days!  What a sweet girl!  Such a nice treat to start my morning, I sure do love my family!

Little Updates

Just a few updates that didn't necessarily need their own posts:

1. Karianna passed her 5th grad mathblasters!  Woohoo!  Next up is 6th grade-200 add/sub/div/mult problems in 6 1/2 minutes.  She's pretty confident about that one, and completely sure she won't be able to pass 7th grade since it's all in 5 minutes AND the problems are mixed up....
2. Sara got to wear a diaper this weekend!!!!!  I know, you are wondering why that's exciting.  Well, because, she tested our fits=babies=diapers rules, as we knew she would, and now she knows we are utterly serious.  Wow, did she hate that diaper. But she sat quietly for the few minutes we had her wear it, and we had a great discussion about being a big girl and doing big girl things.  I think the memory will really sit with her-tentatively assuming her fits are over.  
3. JD wrote a super long story today-4 pages of single-spaced composition paper.  His punctuation and sentence fluency need work, but his ideas and voice were FANTASTIC!  Want to know what it was about? The time he took a wad of gum and stuck it straight on his eyeball.  True story-his eyelashes were a disaster.
4. All the kids had a good talk with Jared last night about me.  I have been feeling extremely frustrated about how messy the kids can get and how frequently I feel I am cleaning--only to have the mess return a few hours later.  We are talking kids leaving empty goghurts in the middle of the living room, dirty clothes on the kitchen floor, spilled milk on the table without a second thought about cleaning it, and dirty paper plates strewn all over the counter right next to the garbage.  Apparently, he told them I was crying in our bathroom for hours the other night because it was stressing me out so much that the kids don't try and keep our house clean.  I wasn't crying for the record, but didn't really matter-I noticed a huge change in them today, especially Karianna.  They have been much more diligent about taking care of their messes, and have responded much better to my requests for help cleaning.  I'll take it, fake tears and all.  
5. James is trying out some new things with his walking skills. He has figured out how to turn and walk in the opposite direction, he is learning how to maneuver around obstacles, and he no longer just resorts to crawling when he falls-he is starting to just stand himself back up and continue walking.  He still has many moments in the day where he just crawls because it is obviously faster to him, but he's definitely progressing!  He has also figured out how to walk in shoes, which is really a major accomplishment-those things are heavy!
6. Jordan has officially mastered monkey bars!  He's been working on that for a long time and has just figured out how to tap into his upper body strength and he is very proud of himself for that.  He likes to show me his "tricks"  at the park, and I love seeing his confidence.  We have been hitting a park pretty much every day-the weather is nice and it helps me feel I'm really connecting with the kids.

That's it! 

Quick Snow Run

 Well, we have contended for a while that our car could not handle any trips in its current state, including a run up to the snow.  We threw caution to the wind this last weekend though and decided very last minute to push the car to its limits and drive up to Clint's Well in the hope of playing in some snow.  We had just taken the car to the mechanic, and there would be no better time in terms of the vehicle.  We also both felt quite stressed out by life in general and had a true "Wanna get away?" moment-minus the snickers.  So off we went with a small pile of food, the jackets and mittens I managed to throw together, and 5 excited kids.

Sure enough, the farther we got from home, the more relaxed Jared and I felt.  We played some car games, sang every track on our Wicked CD, and played I Spy-the snow version.  Jared and I were a little worried when we reached Payson and couldn't see much snow up on the rim.  We prepped the kids for potentially skipping snow and just hiking in the forest.  Thankfully, we started seeing some good patches once we got up to 6800 feet, and by the time we started hitting Jones Crossing, everything was pretty much covered in white.  We found a great little pull off around Clint's Well-no one around, and a perfect blanket of white.  The kids had a blast running around, building a snow alien, throwing snowballs, and hiking around the mountainside.  It honestly wasn't all that cold-Jared and I both had on light jackets, and we were perfectly fine.  The kids lasted about an hour before their feet started to get cold, at which point we threw on some dry clothes, packed up a couple of great pieces of wood to burn at home, and headed back to town.  We had so much fun being sporadic and just enjoying our family.  Sometimes it is necessary to rejuvenate and remember that the stresses of life are really not as important as they sometimes seem.

James' first look at snow-he was intrigued, but didn't seem to care all that much.  I don't think he really smiled the entire time!

 Sara was being resistant to her gloves and her jacket (which came off at some point).  She was the first to complain about cold feet.

 As always, Jordan is the crazy one to just flop down and try out a snow angel.

 Throwing snowballs!

 Building the snowman that would become an alien and was creepily watching us as we packed up the car.....

 This is my photo-op of the day.

 hiking higher up on the hill where there wasn't as much snow-but  love the footprints!

 The scenery here is beautiful!!!!

 Not sure what to do when I sat him down in the snow-yes he is shoe-less, that was the one thing I forgot in my impromptu packing.

 Look, my new buddy, the snow alien!

Climber

My camera battery is dead and I haven't thought to charge it for a week now.  That's really weird for me.  Nonetheless, I had to just post real quick that James is a climber-I'll have to add a montage of pics later that really depict this.  The other day at the park, he climbed up the small staircase and started to roam the playground equipment   I didn't know he could do that.  He pushed a small kid chair over to the ottoman and used that to climb up onto the ottoman.  Didn't know he could do that either.  He regularly climbs onto JD's bed, which is a bit lower, but the other day, he climbed up onto Sara's custom-made toddler bed...except he didn't stop there.  Her bed has a headboard that is a little shelf....He climbed onto that too and was just balancing there, looking out her window.  He looked like a bird ready to fall--er, fly.  REALLY didn't know he could do that.  Today he has been up on all the little kid chairs, he repeatedly climbed up onto the playhouses until someone rescued him, he climbed a series of 3 chairs and eventually made it onto the kid table--where does it end????  I forget this detail about boys all the time:  they climb.  See, this is why I kept saying I was okay with James being a late walker.  Mayhem always ensues.  Good thing mayhem in this case is a cutie pie.

On Patience

Sometimes being a teacher and a mom doesn't coincide as nicely as I would like.

As a teacher, it is very easy for me to be patient and understanding of different learning styles and levels of support.  I do it every day-it comes naturally to me.  As a mom, I completely know that I have a tendency to expect more of my kids.  Perhaps it's because I feel like I know what they are capable of, or perhaps it's because I have high hopes for them to be capable.  Regardless, I know when teaching my own kids, it is easy for me to fall into the trap of losing my patience.  I have worked on this quite a bit over the last several years, and I think I have gotten much better at staying calm and relaxed when teaching my kids.

I got my mommy-feelings hurt the other day when working with Karianna.  Her teacher has asked everyone to do some extra credit to prepare for AIMS testing using a program called acuity, with which I am very familiar.  I logged into the program with Karianna on Monday to see what lessons her teacher had assigned her based on what she needed.  The first math lesson on her screen was functions and equations.

??????

A bit surprising, it was literally algebra.  Karianna is pretty good at math (though she will tell you she hates it), and she actually understood the concepts in the lesson.  The only red flag was a few of her flippant comments, ie, "Just let me do it, mom, I could have done like 4 already".  I couldn't tell if it was because this was way above her level, or if she was just being somewhat belligerent.  So after finishing that first lesson, I pulled up something more relevant that she has already started a bit-long division with no remainders.  She immediately said this would be easy, and I agreed-very much in her realm of understanding.

I was somewhat dismayed 10 minutes later when Karianna had completed the lesson with me successfully, yet she was struggling to not cry, and her voice was quavering the whole time. I did a quick analysis given what I know about myself:  did I get frustrated?  No.  Did I lose my patience? No.  Did I seem to any degree to be displeased with her progress? No.  Just in case I was missing something, I asked Karianna if she felt like I had gotten frustrated with her.  She said no.  Okay--then what is it?  I asked Karianna why she was upset.  Her response was what I assumed:  she said she didn't like it when things were hard for her.  I told her I understood that, and emphasized that's what learning is, and she actually did quite well-there's no need to be sad about letting others help you.  I showed her everything she had gotten right, and praised her.

But still, she was sad, and I obviously wasn't understanding why.  I really thought this was just her not being able to let go of that distaste for conquering new/hard things.  So I thought I might help her really hone in on what she was feeling so we could remedy it.  I said to her, "Okay, think about why you are sad.  Here are 2 multiple choice answers. A:  you are sad because you just don't like working with me on stuff.  And B: you don't like it when things are hard.  What is your answer?"

I wasn't expecting her to say "both".  Feelings=hurt.

Of course, hurt-mom feelings don't ever get to win, they just have to be swallowed up so we moms can help their children before we help ourselves.  I asked Karianna what she meant and she told me she just wanted to be done with this so she could do things she wanted to do and when things were hard it just took up a ton of time and she didn't like spending her time not understanding.  I tried to ignore the fact that she basically just told me she didn't want to spend time with me, and just talked her through things.  The conversation ended well for Karianna, but I was pretty listless the rest of the day.

It's hard to figure out what your child needs the most. Especially daughters.  I want to give everything to Karianna to help her succeed, and in a moment when I thought I was doing that, I wasn't.  Or at least something was malfunctioning.  Perhaps it is just Karianna's view of conquering hard things-perhaps it has nothing to do with me.  More than likely, she really DOES want to spend time with me-just not on school stuff.  And at the end of the day, I do think that's it.  It's just hard to reconcile that one of the most valuable things I have to offer my children-my background in teaching-backfired.

So after all that is said and done, we just keep moving forward and try to do a little better each day.  Jared did talk with Karianna about the importance of respect in moments when I was working with her as a teacher.  I know I need to continue maintaining patience in all things and realize Karianna is not intentionally out to hurt my feelings-she's just a young woman growing up much too fast for my taste and she needs as much love and support as possible.  Karianna and I continued working on some acuity lessons yesterday-figurative language and more long division with remainders this time.  She did much better and I could tell she was trying to be more respectful.  It's a work in progress, that's for sure, and it is my goal to always have that kind of relationship with my kids where we can trust each other and rely on each other to help us through the hard stuff.  With patience.

He Walks!

At the ripe old age of 14 1/2 months, James is officially a walker-yea!  He took his first series of steps back in January and didn't do much more than that until this week.  He started doing 4-6 steps on his own before slowly sitting down, but always with someone prompting him.

The last few days, Karianna has been insistent on giving him walking lessons-she uses an exercise ball for him to stand up on, then she rolls it away, and he walks after it.  It was pretty ingenious, honestly!

Today he started taking some steps unassisted-I'd catch him letting go of something and walking a few steps into the middle of the room before sitting and crawling the rest of the way.

Thus, I decided to press him. Under the temptation of empty go-squeeze pouches, he took 10 steps on his own, then 15, then 20.  Ah man, we were mean-continually backing up when he reached his goal (which incidentally was empty!).  He would wobble, get distracted, and halfway lower himself until we started saying, NO, stand James! Each time, we managed to keep him going.  It was looking promising.

  The deciding factor came moments ago.  James was standing at the kids' table near the kitchen, and he saw me coming out of the hall from the bedrooms.  He smiled a huge grin at me, let go and just started toddling over to me-must have been upwards of 25 or so baby steps.  No encouragement from anyone, he saw something he wanted and was determined to get it.

I'm a hot commodity, apparently.

So we can officially say James is a walker!  I'm sure it will be a few days before he is solely walking, but he's definitely on his way.  Guess I better dig up some shoes for this buddy....