Valentines Festivities

Whoops.....Way behind on blogging, once again!

Sadie working on her Valentine's for both of her pre-school classes:



She had an ice cream party at Kiddie Kollege (no pics), plus a party at her "friend" pre-school. It was a jam packed good time. She played BINGO and won a prize. Doesn't she look thrilled?



Decorated a Valentines' bag:



Made chocolates:



Decorated sugar cookies:



Made a Valentines magnet (no pic), and exchanged Valentines:



Jackson also had a Valentine's party. He came home telling me he needed to bring a decorated box to school the next day to hold all of his cards. I had to run an errand and told him I would help him when I got home, only to find that when I arrived home about 45 minutes later, he had done it himself:



Fabulous!

I have no pictures of Valentines Day :(. I wasn't extremely festive, however, I did manage to decorate the kids rooms and Eric's truck with love-note hearts, purchased and gave gifts, made heart shaped pancakes for breakfast, and went out to dinner with Eric. Good enough!

Everyday Life - Dish Pan Hands

Not only does Sade excel at ironing, she is also an expert dish rinser. She LOVES it. Every day she says to me in a panicked voice, "Don't do the dishes without me!" Often this means I have to wait to do the dishes until she is done with pre-school or after her nap. But of course I wait, because who am I to get in the way of joy?

Although her joy may be short lived. I am off to buy a dishwasher! Today. Hopefully. I am often too indecisive for my own good.

12 X 12 - February 2012

After my shower Sunday morning, I walked out to the living room to discover Megan sick on the couch with a sore throat and stomach ache. When I realized I was going to have to stay home with her during Sacrament meeting, my first thought was,  "I wish I would have known this before getting up this morning. I could have slept longer!" But I suppose it was good I was up for the day.

Megan didn't feel like eating, but Jackson and Sadie did. Jackson often sits on the table to eat his breakfast. I am inconsistent in making him sit in his chair, and chose to ignore it Sunday morning.



While blow drying my hair I continued my Bible reading. It's coming along. I think my kids would totally freak out if I read them the Old Testament. It is quite graphic, and full of sex and bloodshed! I struggle talking about Nephi chopping off Laban's head. I can't imagine if I had to discuss all of the ins and outs of the Old Testament. Maybe in a few years. For now we are reading bible stories out of a book geared towards children.



Jackson and I ready for church.



I am now a Primary worker, and feel like it is more work than Young Women's! I brought my camera, and managed to snap this blurry photo. I didn't have a lick of time to take a better one. I am crazy busy with the 7 year olds.



After getting home I noticed a pool of water coming out from underneath the sink. We have had a leak for some time, but it had gotten worse. Thank goodness Eric is handy. I can't imagine the money we would have to spend if he wasn't.



After lunch Jackson and Eric spent some time playing a new game that is akin to RISK on the phone. Megan and Sadie did their best to distract them.



Megan was feeling remarkably healthy after church. Unusual for her, since when she gets sick she is normally out for days. It almost made me believe she had been faking the earlier illness. But she really did look terrible that moring. The kids eventually went outside to play in the backyard. Eric and I joined them, and got quite a lot of jumping in ourselves.



After playing for a while, Eric and I went on a bike ride. Alone. We rode the wash trail, and finally made it to the end. The kids always get tired and want to turn back when we get to Centennial.



Dinner. I made a pasta dish for the first time and don't intend to make it again. It wasn't horrible, but not great either. I think out of every 10 dishes I cook, pasta dishes comprise 7 of them.



After dinner Sade worked on her Valentines. She insisted on having Dora Valentines with attached suckers. Have I mentioned that I buy my kids Valentines at the store every year, and feel absolutely no guilt that I don't do anything creative. Not one ounce of it. But I am impressed by those of who help your kids make creative homemade ones.



I was in charge of bringing a weaving Valentine craft basket (I'm sure that makes no sense) for Sadie's pre-school party the next day. I found the web-site that explained how to do it, and then put Eric in charge of it. He figured it out, and then explained it to me. It was complicated. Very complicated. I determined that there was absolutely no way a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds would be able to do it, so we simplified.



What would I do without my handy, game playing, trampoline jumping, bike riding, crafty, sexy husband? I hope I never find out.

The Power Of An Oreo

I would like you to picture in your mind where your garbage can resides on garbage day after the garbage collectors have come. Is it in front of your house? Is it upright? Has it carelessly been tossed, and subsequently upended? Has it blown down the road due to high winds? Well, before December, my garbage can could have been in any of those places. BUT NOT NOW. Now, after the garbage men collect my garbage, they lovingly place my garbage can right up by my garage. And they have been doing it for the past 2 months!

And all it took was a bag of Oreo's and a few thank you cards. I think it is the nicest and sweetest thing.

Schooling Update

Well what better way to get back into blogging after a week break than to brag a bit about my brilliant kids!

First little Meg. Although I had to miss her awards assembly (it tore my heart out) due to having to pick Eric up at the airport, she brought home her award for A/B Honor Roll for last quarter. I also received a super nice e-mail from her Science teacher letting me know how wonderful my Meggie is. I am not entirely sure that every middle school parent did not receive the same e-mail (let me know if you did too), but regardless, she is quite amazing. And he is a truly amazing teacher. My kids are so lucky.



Jackson. Although they do not give out awards for Elementary school, Jackson received all A's last quarter. In his report card Jackson's teacher said, "Jackson is a delight!" I couldn't agree more. We also received some excellent news about his reading scores. The past few months, Jackson has developed a voracious LOVE of reading. Be still my heart. And it has paid off. At the beginning of the year he was reading at a third grade level. After the first quarter he was reading at a 4th grade level. But now his reading score is 7.6 which is comparable to that of an average seventh grader after the sixth month of the school year. He scored greater than 99% of students nationally in the same grade!




Not to be outdone, Sade also demonstrated her brilliance by being the only student in Kiddie College that can write her own name. Way to go little Sade.



Lastly, Eric and I demonstrated our dedication to our kids schooling by attending Pastries with Parents last week. I didn't really want to go since it meant getting up earlier than usual, which is my most hated thing. But I did it. However, I didn't get up early enough to actually shower and make myself presentable, so I went like this:



I really need to look deep inside myself to find a way to become a morning person.

Sledding Nightmare

On Saturday I had a truly disastrous time sledding. Seriously. Our first clue that our day would not end well should have been the garbage cans full of broken sleds that we came across:

But we pressed on, and did have a little fun. At first. Jackson and Sadie attempted some snow angels. I say attempted because the snow was solid ice, and therefore did not yield well to snow angels:




Sade and Jackson also tried to throw a few snow balls, but again, found it difficult since the snow was SOLID ICE:



Last time we went sledding (2 years ago), Sadie LOVED it. Flying down the mountain all by herself. This time, not so much......




Lots of whining and crying.

Jackson actually had quite a bit of fun. Except for the one time he plowed down a 6 year old girl on his way down the mountain (she cried a bit, but was fine). In  his defense, she was playing right in the middle of where everyone was sledding! But other than that one mishap, he had a great, pain free time:



The same cannot be said for me. I originally did a little sledding on some minor hills, but then decided to change things up. I climbed to the top of a large hill, looked down and saw that it was riddled with bumps and jumps, thought to myself it was a bad idea, and then proceeded to go down anyway. I will now share with you an entirely unflattering picture of me, so you can see the impact after hurtling through the air:



(Enlarge to see Megan and Jackson's faces. Hilarious)

It felt like I had been in a car crash. I hurt my neck, back, butt, and elbow, and have the bruises to prove it! The kids, Megan especially, kept talking about how high I flew through the air.

Megan, had an encounter with a tree:



She came away uninjured, but obviously the same can't be said of the sled.

After a few more slides down the mountain, Eric, Megan and Jackson decided to make a train. The first attempt was loads of fun for everyone:



The second time down, everything started out fine:



But things soon changed. Eric broke away from the group, and Megan and Jackson came flying down the mountain at top speed:



And then, hit this giant ice snowball at the bottom of the mountain:



Megan's back took the brunt of the impact, and there were lots of tears. Eric mentioned that Megan's extreme ball attraction was at work once again. If there is a ball, even a giant snowball, anywhere near Megan it will hit her.



She recovered, but we decided to call it a day. Thank goodness.



We definitely wore Miss Sade out.