Home School

Another draft: (The pictures are from the draft - but there were no words - so the words are written now about back then.)

One of my favorite years was the year Brock was in Kindergarten.  I seemed to have 4 children that were all about preschool age and capable of doing fun preschool things.  We were in a year round school so we often had Brock home for 3 weeks.  I have always wanted to home school (and hope to do it in some form at one point in our life).  So when Brock was off track I would do a mock-home-school.  It was a lot of fun.  

Madsion

AHH - this is a post about Madison that I wrote LAST YEAR that I never posted.  So sad!!  This is Madison in March of 2014.

A nice detailed post about Madison is a long time coming.  I keep putting it off because I want a wonderful picture capturing the very essence of the things I want to remember about her.  But after months of pretending I am going to do it... I realize I just need to write the post before I forget all the cute things she does as a two year old.

These pictures come from an afternoon when it was just me and Madison and we got a package in the mail (from Grandma Herbert).  She was THRILLED to be the only one home because that meant she got to pop all the bubble wrap by herself.  She had a blast.

Notice the baby in her arms.  That is one thing about Madison that I am loving right now.  She loves her babies.  Megan liked them ok at 2 and would kind of play with them a few times a week.  But I think Madison actually thinks she is the mother to these dolls that she is constantly taking care of.  I am actually not always aware of her constant care of these baby dolls.  She has a whole schedule with them.  She puts them to bed, for naps, feeds them, etc all through her day and  they are all intertwined with her life.  I don't know if that makes sense.  But for example we will be watching a show and Madison will remember it is time to feed her baby and she will run in to the dolls room, wake her up, and feed her, then put her back to bed.  It is so funny.  She also named all of her babies - which Megan never did or has.  She has a set of twins and their names are Vanessa and "the other Vanessa" haha.  Another is Clifford and the other is Emily - but NOT Emily Elisabeth, as you might think.

Wow - sorry for the overload.  But I think they are all unique and necessary.

She also is in love with Minnie and Micky mouse.  This has been going on for several months now.  She found a Minnie mouse stuffed animal at my mom s house when we were there for Thanksgiving and she decided that is was hers.  My mom let her keep it of course - but she had determined that long before my mom ever gave her approval. She ran up to me and said, "mom look what grandma gave me!"  She loves her mini and takes it all around the house with her.  If it is not with her - about 5 minutes later she says, "ooo, wheres my Minnie"

She also loves to sing.  She breaks out into song most of the day.  Right now it is one of the songs from Doc McStuffens.  But it is anything from primary songs to songs she makes up. 

She says thank you to everything.  Even when it doesn't really make sense or something she probably really isn't grateful for.



*** I think I never posted it because I wanted to keep adding to the list and I never did.  And now she is three - and I will never remember the things I was going to add.  Sad.

Sleeping

More stuff from my draft folder.  These are from back when we lived in Utah.  I went to check no my children one night and felt such a sense of love and happiness watching them sleep.  I decided to take a picture - I put the flash on - so it looks like day - but it was actually dark and late at night.

Crib

I was going through my "draft" file and found that I never posted this.  This was originally written in January of 2014.  It was supposed to be an elaborate post about my internal feelings of having my last baby out of her crib and knowing, that most likely, we were done having babies.  The post never got past two paragraphs - and now that I am more than a year away from it - I can say that there was an ache - but it was minimal.  It comes back sometimes - but mostly I am at peace.  I will have always wanted 12 kids - but I know that this is our family.  However, I can cry in one second if I think about those first 3 or 4 years of having babies.  They were sacred and can never be replaced and would relive them in a heart beat if I could.  I would have absolutely done nothing different.

Below is what I wrote a year ago:

Many friends knew me well enough to send me this link.  It is a beautiful blog post from a mother who just took her last babies crib down.  She talks about how she has to learn to live with the ache of knowing there are no more babies coming.  While most mothers can relate to that feeling - I felt very loved when about 5 different people sent it to me over the course of a week - each stating that they thought of me when they read it.  It made me feel like there ARE people out there who KNOW me.  Especially since being far away from all friends and family - I have struggled to feel like anyone truly KNOWS me here - yet. 

As fate would have it, the week that everyone was sending me the article we were in fact in the process of taking down Madison's crib and transitioning her into a toddler bed.  And there it is - waiting for the garbage man to come pick it up.  And I feel an ache.

Eating Out

During Christmas time we were going to go look at the lights at temple square and then go out to dinner as a family (something we do about twice a year).  Well, if you remember, about 5 minutes into temple square Noah fell into the fountain and we had to go home.  Everyone was bummed.  We promised that we would go out to dinner when we got back to Colorado.

We finally made good on our promise.  We went to Texas Roadhouse on Tuesday - turns out they do 99 cent kids meal on Tuesday (all 4 - not just per paying adult!)  AND free ice cream Sunday bar.  They also had free face painting and free balloon animals.  Fun had by all!

things go faster

My kids have reached a perfect balance of independence, speed, and predictability.

It used to take me a good hour to get the boys ready for school.  Just the boys - not even me and the girls.

On Sunday mornings it would take Jason and I, working together, about 2 hours to get all 6 of us completely ready for church - from showers to shoes on.

In the last month things are speeding up.  The kids can, and will do most things on their own with out fighting, whining, needing help, or being reminded a hundred times.

I can now get me, the girls, and the boys ready every morning before school in about 15 minutes!

Last week Jason and I got all 6 of us ready for church in 33 minutes!!

I am finding that we are having so much more time to do things now that all my kids can do things like: put on their own shoes, get totally dressed (including picking out their clothes), brushing their teeth, going to the bathroom, buckling their seat belts, etc.  All these things were my jobs and many of them were my jobs for 4 children at one time.  But now they can all do all these things by themselves, and are fast at it now.

I figure the next level we will reach is doing homework, making food, and arranging their own social calendar independently.  I am not too eager for that level.  I happy to park here for the next few years.

School project

Brock had a play in school where he was a Cactus.  He had a few lines and had to sing a song.

He had to make a diarama of Colorado's Alpine Tundra.  He wanted to do it all in fabric.  I took him to the fabric store to find "tundra" looking facric (I wa thinking a green shag carpet) and he saw some green moss in the floral department - we went with a fabric sky, clouds, and mountains, and green moss for the ground.  He was REALLY proud of it.  He did almost all the hot gluing all by himself.

Noah was really proud of it too and wanted a picture with him as well.  It was kind of a whole family project.

Basketball

Brock just finished up his second basketball season.  He had a great time.  Several of the players he played with last season were on his team and they are starting to work together really well.  He really advanced his skills from last year.  On his first game he made 4 baskets.  He is an aggressive player with great rebounds, blocks and steals. He prefers zone defense rather than man to man. He is always active and "in" the game - even when on the sidelines he stands up next to the coach and cheers on his teammates and yells out to them what to do.  In soccer and basketball last year Brock loves to "take a fall" (he got it from his Uncle Michael) - we always have to tell him to "stay on your feet" - but this season he did a great job and by half way through the season he never fell during any of his games (lets hope it carries through to soccer).  Brock's height is his big disadvantage many player were a whole head (if not two) taller than him. This frustrated him at his second and third game where he never made a basket because they were always blocked.  His coach taught him how to fake a shot and then shoot after the blocker comes back down.  He mastered the trick and started making baskets like crazy again.  Brock had a great season.

I would feel un-authentic if I didn't add that I absolutely love watching Brock play basketball.  So for selfish reasons I hope that he continues to want to play (or if/when my other kids decide to play).  I like watching them do any sports and enjoy going to their practices and games - but I found that basketball is kind of my happy place.  I think because it reminds me of my mom.

sledding

We love to go sledding. YOu wouldn't know it by this picture - they all look pretty sad - but it is just a bad picture becasue they were all saying cheese and very excited to go down.

This one is just a second later and looks a little happier.  We often go right after school - the girls and I will pick up the boys and we will head straight to a hill.  We only stay for half an hour to an hour.

This day their was a great jump.  Sometimes the jumps are a little too... I think they might die... level.  But this one just just perfect enough for them to think it was awesome and for me not to think they  might die.

And just to drive home the point a little harder about Brock (from my last post).  When they all go down the hill together - when they get to the bottom the younger three just turn around and run back up and Brock gets the sled and brings it up.  No one has ever talked about this - I have never said anything - it is just assumed.  I don't love it - it kind of bothers me because it shows a lot of entitlement and laziness in the younger three - but it is kind of sweet.  

And just because she is adorable!

tooth

Noah has lost his two front teeth - and it is adorable!  He loves his "lisp" and loves to smile with his toothless grin.  

The sad thing is that our tooth fairy is not very reliable.  She often doesn't come for 3 or 4 days after they lost the tooth.  It is really frustrating (we have threatened to fire her lots of times - I don't really know what her problem is!).  Brock has born the brunt of this tooth fairy's flakiness because he lost all of his teeth before first grade - but Noah (now well into first grade has only lost 4).  Well, we were on night 3 of our tooth fairy not showing up.  Noah had woken up to go to the bathroom and hadn't checked yet to see if the tooth fairy came.  I heard him get up and suddenly remembered that the tooth fairy was supposed to come - so I, of course, run into his room to check to see if she came - and I saw Brock over at Noah's bed with his piggy bank putting a dollar under Noah's pillow - I asked Brock what he was doing and he said, "I checked to see if the tooth fairy came and she didn't and I didn't want Noah to be sad again, so I am pretending to be the tooth fairy.".

Sometimes you think you are failing as a parent or you wonder what kind of people they are growing up to be... and every once and a while you get a glimpse and know that they are doing all right.

Brock was truly born to be a big brother. 

And to be a tooth fairy - our tooth fairy has never given us a whole dollar for a tooth!