End of School Fun

We were pretty darn busy toward the end of the school year. The calendar was booked almost every single day with fun things that were going on. Here are a few of them:

END OF THE YEAR PROJECTS

Of course there's always the final projects that need to be done.  I hate these projects because I feel like it's more homework for the parents than the kids most the time.  So, when Aiden brought home a paper explaining that he had to write a paper and make a diorama about the Nile Crocodile, I was not amused.  I felt like I barely had enough hours in the day to help my kiddos with their regular homework.  How was I going to help him do this huge project?  But, that's when I got the brilliant idea to have Connor help Aiden do it.  First of all, Connor loves animals & is constantly trying to learn more about that (Animal Planet & Discovery Channel are on in our house ALL.THE.TIME).  Secondly, Connor had done a similar paper & diorama the previous year about Kimono Dragons.  I had helped him with some of the research & then taught him how to put that research into a research paper, but he had done the diorama all by himself & it turned out great.  So, I asked him if he would be willing to help Aiden, and he said YES!  He helped Aiden do some research online.  Connor would read & Aiden would take some "guided" notes.  By that I mean, Connor would read the info and then stop every once in awhile to say, "Aiden, write that down in your notes.  That's important."  It reminded me of how I had helped him with his Kimono Dragon project the year before, except this time he was the one doing the helping.  It was great.  After they had done some research & taken notes, I helped Aiden get the information that was in his notes into a little research paper (that was probably only 5 or 6 sentence long).  He decided what things he wanted to put in the paper & then I told him what to write, but he did all the writing himself.  Then, Connor & Aiden worked together on the diorama.  They used construction paper for the land and then found a bunch of plastic tress & rocks from our basement o' toys to glue onto the land, and used a little plastic crocodile as their Nile Crocodile.  I think it turned out pretty great, and they did it all by themselves...

This picture was taken at Aiden's class "Animal Showcase."  That's where parents could come see all the dioramas and have the students teach us a little bit about their animal.  Aiden's favorite part that he kept sharing with everyone was that, "Nile Crocodiles eat all kinds of meat.  They will even eat other crocodiles sometimes!"  He thought it was pretty cool that they can turn into cannibals if they are desperate enough.  Such a boy!

END OF SCHOOL PROGRAMS

I've been to a lot of school programs where the kids showcase everything they have learned throughout the year.  But, I've never been to a program that was as fun & awesome as Connor's 3rd Grade Program this year.  This program had rapping, soul music, and air guitars.  Does it get any better than that?  It was quite the little production.  The kids had to audition for speaking parts in the program.  There were only 15 parts...and over 120 3rd graders.  But, Connor auditioned & got a speaking part.  Here are some (grainy) pictures that I took with my phone...

Here's Connor saying one of his lines...

And singing with all the other students...

It was a lot of fun and all the students did a great job.

DANCE FESTIVAL

Every year when I was growing up, we did a Dance Festival where each grade would learn a dance & perform it for the rest of the school & the parents.  I thought it was just something that my elementary school did, but my kids' school does it too.  All the parents gather on the hill & watch the kids perform their dances.  Here's Aiden & the rest of the Kindergartners doing "The Chicken Dance."  Aiden is in the circle of kids that have white shirts on.  He's right next to the teacher on her left side (just to the right of her in this picture)...

Now he's in front of the teacher attempting to skip.  I say "attempting" because my kids have absolutely no coordination.  Just another awesome trait that I passed on to them...

Here's Connor & the 3rd Graders.  They did a combination of dances:  YMCA, The Macarena, Thriller, etc.  It was so cute.  And I'm glad he knows how to do all these classic dances from my era now!  Connor is in the line of kids that are wearing yellow shirts.  He's 5th from the right if you have really great eyesight...

FIELD DAY

Another thing I always looked forward to as a kid was Field Day.  Actually, I think my school called it Carnival Day, but it's basically the same thing.  You get to spend the whole day outside playing games & doing fun things.  One really cool thing that my kids' school does is that they have the fire department come out with the fire truck & spray all the kids.  They are all soaked by the end, as you can probably imagine, but they love every second of it...

END-OF-SCHOOL-YEAR TEACHER GIFTS

I have been giving a bouquet of bright spring flowers to my kids' teachers for the past couple of years & I love doing it (and they always seem really excited about them too).  But, this year, my sister sent me a link to some really cute personalized notepads that say "From the desk of..." and then have the teacher's name.  I thought they were so cute (and cheap to boot) that I decided to do these as teacher gifts this year...

I just bought some really nice red (homework correcting) pens and tied them on with some tulle.  Voila!  Such a cute gift.  All the teachers went crazy over them, and talked about how cute they will be to use if they need to send a note home to a parent about something...

I love personalized things.  If I ever have the chance to have something personalized with names or initials, I do it.  I think it makes whatever it is that much more special.  If you're interested for next year, the website is www.lexiphilia.com.

WE LOVE OUR TEACHERS!!!

Here are my kiddos with their great teachers.  Here's Cohen with Mrs. Covington...

And here's Cohen again with Mrs. Covington dressed up like a clown for Circus Day on the last day of school...

We absolutely adore Mrs. Covington!!!  She is such a great teacher & has been able to bring Cohen out of his shell quite a bit over the past year.  I love her to pieces!  Cohen will get to be in her class again next year & I know he's going to love having her for another year.

Here's Connor & his awesome teacher Miss Funk...

Miss Funk rocks!  Plain & simple--she just rocks.  You can tell that she absolutely loves her job & each one of her students.  She makes learning fun & gets the kids to enjoy school.  Connor has learned & grown so much this year because of her.  I hope she gets to teach my other kids when they are in 3rd grade.

Here's Aiden & his teacher Mrs. Parsons...

Mrs. Parsons is leaps & bounds ahead of me on the patience scale.  I don't know how she took care of 30 Kindergartners all morning long, and then did it all over again in the afternoon with 30 different Kindergartners.  That's something I could never, in a million years, do.  I have a hard time taking care of just my 4 kids most days.  Aiden really liked her & said that she made Kindergarten fun.

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

Last year, one of the cute mamas in my neighborhood suggested that we meet our kids at the front of our neighborhood with popsicles as they walked home from their last day of school.  The kids (and the moms) loved it so much, that we did it again this year...

Here's my future 1st grader with his popsicle...

And my future 4th grader (after he had already gobbled up his popsicle)...

We (all the mamas) have decided that this will become a tradition we do for years to come.  It is such a fun way to celebrate the end of the school year & the beginning of summer!

Speaking of summer, we left for our summer vacation to Disneyland about 3 hours after school got out for the year.  I'll post all our fun vacation pictures next time.  --Lindsay

May Dates

Yes, I'm finally blogging about our May dates...in the middle of June. And, it's been so long since these dates happened that we can't remember very many details.  So, this may be a very short post.  But, I wanted to make sure we put up a few pictures about what we did.  All three kids decided to go to the fun center, and everyone had a good time.

Connor went on his date with Mike last month. They hit up the bumper boats...

The miniature golf course...

And the go carts...

Aiden went out with me this month.  Aiden climbed the rock wall several times.  He's quite the little rock climber...

Then went on a few rides...

And then forced me to go on the dreaded bumper boats.  We got in line shortly after they had taken a group of people out on the water, so they asked if we wanted to wait for the next round, or if we just wanted to jump in with the ride that had just started.  Aiden just wanted to jump in, and I was fine with that because it meant less time to get drenched.  Well, that plan didn't work.  I thought I got soaked when I went with Cohen, but that was nothing compared to the beating I got when I went with Aiden.  Aiden seriously had a death wish & went after any boat that was anywhere remotely near us.  So, what did the other boaters do?  You guessed it--they took sweet revenge on us (including me--the innocent hostage).  They all ganged up on us.  There was water coming from every direction.  When our turn on the boats was over, one of the other boaters jokingly said, "Everyone was having a great time & being nice until you two showed up!"  Here's a picture of us afterwards, but it doesn't do us justice as to just how soaked we were.  The back of my head & back were drenched.  Aiden loved every minute of it...

Cohen went on his date with Mike this month.  They started with some rides...

Then on to some mini golf...

And finished up with Cohen's favorite--"the froggy ride."  He's apparently getting brave on it.  He had his hands in the air the entire time...

So those were our dates for the month of May.  Kind of funny that I'm just blogging about them now when we've already done most our dates for the month of June already.  Hopefully it won't take me quite as long to post about those.  --Lindsay

An Update on Vivvie Girl

Before we left on vacation, Vivvie had her 15-month checkup.  She is still a tiny little thing.  In fact, she's barely on the growth chart.  Here are her stats:

Length: 28.75 in" (8th percentile)

Weight: 18 lbs. 4 oz. (1st percentile)

Head Circumference: 44.5 cm (13th percentile)

Yep, she's the size of your average nine-month-old...at 15-months-old.  People are always surprised when they find out how old she is because she is just so tiny.  But, you know what they say...good things come in small packages.  And Viv is one of the best!  We just love her to pieces.  Since I'm not writing her letters anymore, I thought maybe I should do an update on her & all the fun little things she's started doing lately.

First of all, she's still not walking.  Well, I guess a more accurate description would be that she doesn't *want* to walk.  Technically, she has taken her first steps.  I witnessed them when I bribed her with Trix cereal a few weeks ago.  So, I know she *can* do it...she just doesn't *want* to do it.  And, if there's one thing I've learned with Vivvie, it's that you can't force her to do anything.  She is one of the most independent & opinionated people I have ever met.  Hummm...I have no idea where she could have gotten that trait?!?  Haha!

Secondly, she is quite the little chatterbox.  She talks constantly.  Of course, we can't understand most of it because it's in Viviennese (that's what I've started calling her baby talk).  The reason I've named her baby talk is because she has great inflection, so it really does sound like she's talking like an adult...just in another language...hence the term "Viviennese."  There are a few words that we understand though--of course there's the basics like Mom, Dad, Nana, etc.--but there are also some really fun (and not-so-fun...you'll see what I mean) words and phrases that she's started to say lately.  Here are some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head...

A-ya (Aiden)

Pho (Phone)

Shoosh (Shoes)

Pu-shush (Princess)

Look dat (Look at that!)

See dat (Do you see that?)

Watt dat (What is that?)

and, my personal favorite...

Oh sh!%!

Yep, my baby has a potty mouth.  She says "the S word"...well a version of "the S word" (she doesn't say the T at the end...so it's more "Shi" then the actual word) at least 273 times a day.  I have no clue what she thinks she is saying because she says it at the most random times and about the most random things.  There's no rhyme or reason to it.  And, before you ask--no...she didn't pick it up from me.  I'll admit that I am a "hell" and "damn" kind of girl from time-to-time, but I rarely say anything other than those couple of words.  And, I can count on 2 fingers the number of times I have said "the S word" in my life.  Mike has never sworn that I can think of.  It's kind of annoying sometimes.  I'm pretty sure the only way I'm getting into heaven is if I grab onto his coat tails right as he's being translated.  But, I digress.  Back to my baby's potty mouth.  "Oh sh!%" is truly her favorite thing to say.  It probably doesn't help that her brothers think it's hilarious & bust up laughing every time she says it.  Okay, her Mom & Dad may break down from time-to-time as well.  And, being the little ham that she is, she loves the attention & laughter she gets when she says it.  I'm just waiting for her to belt it out in the middle of church sometime.  That is going to be a great day!  Sigh...

But, despite her not-very-ladylike mouth, Vivvie is proving to be quite the girly girl.  This surprises me because she's always preferred her brothers' toys to her own...up until a month or two ago.  That's when things began to change a little bit.  She is in love with all things girly lately.

For example, she loves to have her mullet  uhhhh, I mean hair done.  She is at that weird stage where her hair is all different lengths and just looks crazy.  It's really long on top and really long in the back, but then it's really short on the sides.  So, it's basically a mullet.  Lovely, just lovely.  I was at a loss with what to do with it.  I thought about cutting it so it was all the same length, but I felt like she would be nearly bald again if I did that.  So, I decided to just let it grow.  But, that brought more problems...like what to do with it to make it look a little less mullety.  Yes, I just made that word up.  My sister decided to put Viv's hair in piggy tails one day last month when she was at my house.  And, it turned out so cute...

And, to our surprise, Vivvie loved having her hair done.  She just sat on the bathroom counter and watched patiently while Tata did her hair.  Since then, I've been experimenting with different ponies & every time, she just sits & watches patiently with a big smile on her face...

It is so fun to do her hair each day because it makes her so happy.  Hum, wonder who she gets that trait from as well?!?

She is also in love with the Disney princesses (or pu-shush, as she says) lately.  We gave her some little princess figurines for her birthday a few months ago & she didn't really care about them much at the time.  But, lately, she's been playing with them a lot.  When we were in Disneyland, my Mom found these cute little squeaky princesses & decided Viv had to have them.  Vivvie loves those things to pieces and is constantly playing with them...

And eating them...

And giving them hugs...

And taking them for walks...

She also loves baby dolls too.  Here she is trying to put her baby doll in her stroller...

And then shoving her baby doll in there by pushing on her head until she stays.  So motherly...

Then off they go.  This is truly the only way that Viv will walk.  She uses this stroller like an old lady uses a walker...

Here she is giving her baby a hug.  I love how lovey she is with all her dolls, except I'm pretty sure she was saying "Oh sh!%" as she was giving this hug...

Another way that she is showing her girly side is that she loves to "accessorize" with anything she can get her hands on.  Here she is turning rubber bands into bracelets...

This is becoming a familiar sight in our house...

Of course, she wears normal bracelets too.  Here is one that Nana bought for her a few months ago.  She wears it quite a bit & loves it...

But of course, she has to add her own spin (a.k.a. rubber bands) on it as well...

She also has quite the little obsession with cell phones (or "pho" as she says).  She'll punch buttons for awhile...

Then do this...

And have a conversation (in Viviennese, mind you) for several minutes with whoever she's talking to.  I shudder to think what my cell phone bill will be when she's a teenager...

She also loves the iPad, and is already better at working it then her mama...

Vivvie loves shoes (or shoosh in Viviennese).  She's loved them for as long as I can remember.  When she was younger, she would always be squirmy when I was trying to change her diaper, so I started giving her shoes to hold while I cleaned her up.  They fascinated her & allowed me to get the job done.  Well, that obsession is still continuing.  She wears shoes all the time.  And, when she's not wearing shoes, she's usually trying to put a pair on...

Unfortunately, she's usually not very successful at getting them on her feet, so she sticks them on her hands instead like this...

And then crawls around like this...

Weird?  Yes.  But totally cute & funny?  Yes as well.

But, the way in which Vivvie shows her girly side the most is through her emotions.  This girl can whip out the tears faster than anyone I've ever seen before.  DRAMA!!!  She will cry if you even look at her the wrong way.  And, she's learned that when her brothers are bugging her, a quick cry will bring Mom or Dad over to stop to whatever "injustice" is being done.  She is also, as mentioned above, quite opinionated & independent.  She wants to do everything herself, and she wants to do it her way.  Can you say "diva?"  Let's just say that Heavenly Father definitely knew what he was doing when he only gave me one girl, and saved her for last.

So, I'd say she's got this girl thing down to a science lately.  And, we are loving every second of it...potty mouth & all!  --Lindsay

Memorial Day

Yes, I am alive. I'm sure you were beginning to wonder since it's been several weeks since my last post. We went to Disneyland for a week and a half, and I've been trying to get caught up on life ever since. That means some things, like the blog, have gone on the back burner. I can't wait to blog about Disneyland. It was such a great trip & all of us had a great time. But, before I blog about that, there are several posts from May that I still haven't written yet. So, I'm going to try to get caught up on those over the next few days (or weeks, depending on how life goes) & then blog about the Disneyland trip. I figured I would start with Memorial Day. It seemed like the easiest of all the posts I need to write about, and I need something easy to slowly get me back into the blogging mood.

On Memorial Day morning, Mike got up bright and early and went on a bike ride with my Dad.  This wasn't just any ordinary bike ride.  It was his first "century" or, in other words, 100 mile ride.  Mike is training to do LOTOJA with my dad in the fall.  For those of you that don't know, LOTOJA is a 207 mile ride from Logan to Jackson Hole.  It's basically the Ironman of cycling.  My Dad has done it for the past 10 years.  After getting his 10 year award this year, he decided that he was done doing LOTOJA...but only by himself.  He said that he would continue to do the race as part of a relay team if one of his son-in-laws would do it with him.  So, Mike has become a cyclist.  He has been training for the race since the weather warmed up this past spring.  Their Memorial Day century ride was his first big test of how he may do on the LOTOJA course.  He passed with flying colors.  He completed the 100 mile ride in good time, felt great while doing it, and had a blast.  I am unsure how someone could have a good time riding a bike for 100 miles.  I don't have a good time riding in the car for 100 miles, so I can't even imagine doing it on a bike.  But, regardless, Mike & my Dad had a lot of fun.  They rode from Orem down to Mona Lake and back.  Here are some pictures my Dad snapped of Mike while on their ride...

Now Mike & my Dad will continue to train throughout the summer and then compete in LOTOJA this upcoming September.

After the boys got back from their ride, they still had enough energy to take the three boys--plus Uncle Dan--to see this movie...

And the most impressive part...they didn't even fall asleep!  They all loved the movie & said it was one of their favorites.

While all the boys were at the movie, my mom, Vivvie & I went to the cemetery to visit my grandparents' grave.  These are the same grandparents whose temple work we had done just a few days before.  It had been awhile since I had been up there to visit their grave & after doing all their temple work, I really wanted to go visit it again.  Being that it was Memorial Day, we weren't the only ones trying to make it to the cemetery.  Everyone...and their dog...and their cousin...and their cousin's dog...and cat too...were also trying to go to the cemetery.  Which created quite the little traffic jam.  We're talking I-15-through-the-Utah-County-Core-Project-on-the-Friday-afternoon-before-a-holiday-weekend traffic jam.  Oh my heavens!  It was ridiculous!  We sat & sat and sat some more.  But, eventually (as in probably 45 minutes later), we made it into the cemetery.  We put flowers & a veterans cross on their headstone...

As you can see, Viv had a great time crawling all over their headstone.  She couldn't get enough of it.  She loved feeling the engravings.  Not exactly the most respectful thing to be crawling on a headstone, but I'm pretty sure my grandparents would just laugh & tell her to keep doing it.  I finally got her to sit still for one minute, so I could take a picture--but she absolutely refused to look at the camera.  That little gal is just about as stubborn as they get (more on her in a future post)...

After our visit to the cemetery, and once the boys' movie got over, we all went back to my parents' house for a good ol' fashioned summer barbecue.  We ate burgers, hot dogs, ribs, and brats.  It was heavenly...

And that's the only picture we took the entire evening.  Haha!  Oops.  Thanks to my sister, Kristin, for taking our one & only picture of the barbecue.  But, regardless, it was a fun night.  We ate, we chatted, and we even watched some old home movies of when we were little girls.  It was a lot of fun.

So, that was our Memorial Day in a nutshell.  Look for other catch-up posts to come over the next few days.  --Lindsay