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.

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 because 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!

Lent

I know that as Mormons we don't celebrate Lent.  But I have always wanted too.  I am kind of a sucker for self denial and constantly striving to find ways to continue to perfect myself.  I understand the concept of Lent is flawed.  If there is something in your life that you should give up - you should give it up forever, not just for a few weeks.  However, it has always appealed to me as a way of "testing the waters" of my weaknesses and seeing what I really can go with out.

Well this year I decided I really wanted to give it a try.  I have a good friend a few houses down from me who is a strong Catholic and she was trying to come up with something to do for Lent - and it was the motivation I needed to come up with something myself.  I had a few things on my mind that I wanted to try going with out and as my mind began to ponder them the Spirit told me almost instantly what I needed to give up... Facebook.  I get the most important Facebook things sent to my email (posts from the groups I am in, posts I am tagged in, etc) - the rest are just time fillers - and honestly I don't have a lot of time I need filled.

I do like Facebook to see what is going on in the lives of people I truly love - but don't see or talk to as much as I like - and when it comes to using Facebook this way I do not have any problem with it being in my life.  And the truth is I don't spend too much time on Facebook.  I don't have a smart phone, tablet, or laptop - so it is only when I am up on our desktop computer - so in all reality it is only for maybe for 5 - 10 minutes a couple of times a day.  But the REAL problem with Facebook was the articles that I was reading.

I have several very smart, educated, spiritual, intelligent, informed, thoughtful friends from all walks of life who "like" and "share" all sorts of interesting articles... and ones not so interesting.  But I wanted to read them all, and in the end - most were not uplifting and left me in a depressed mood.  I had noticed that it was really starting to get to me a few weeks ago - all the articles about the church, and feminism, and 50 Shades of Grey, and apostasy, and mommy-wars, and modesty, and politics, and, and, and.  It was TOO much.  Too much to think about, too much to read about, too much to try to fix.  They were like weights weighing me down. I tried to make a goal to just not READ them, but many of them are about topics I care about and want to be informed about - but even just the titles themselves led my brain down paths that I either didn't have time for or places that I didn't wanted to be.  Even the uplifting ones I found didn't really uplift me and in the end I knew I would be more "uplifted" by reading my scriptures or a good old conference talk.

So in the end I decided to give up Facebook for Lent.  And so far - it's been great.

No more nursery

I remember the day our last child went into nursery.  And now... she has gone into primary.  It is weird not have any more children in nursery.  I feel like I am in a different "group" in the ward now.  I no longer have young kids, or babies, just a bunch of kids in primary.  While it feels a little weird, and I often forget, I am ok with that.  Madison loves primary.  It took a few weeks, but now she is a rock star.  Mostly because her teacher is a rock star.  My children have excellent primary teachers whom I love and truly respect.  They love my children and magnify their callings in ways that I know I would struggle to do in Primary (at least right now).  Madison, and the rest of her class, were a love-bugs today at church and delivered Valentines to all the ward members. 

Valentines

Grandma Hanna sent the kids (and Jason and I) a Valentines package with our favorite candies and some Valentines.  The kids LOVE getting packages!

Megan's surgery was on the 13th - so we knew we were not going anywhere or doing anything special for Valentines day.  I absolutely LOVE chocolate dipped strawberries.  So after the kids went to bed Jason and I dipped some strawberries and watched our show, "The West Wing" (highly recommend it).

Don't they look wonderful!  I am one lucky lady, he knows me so well.  AND he got good chocolate too - not just Bakers chocolate.  To quote him exactly, "I got the best kind of chocolate Walmart had."  That was the quote of the day for sure, "best kind... Walmart had."  But he was right... it was amazing.

I think this might have been one of my favorite Valentines.

Well, except for this one.  That one was better - it also had chocolate dipped strawberries.

Megan's Surgery

When Megan was 2 and a half we noticed she was starting to go cross-eyed.  We took her into an ophthalmologist who told us that she was not only cross-eyed - but had horrible vision.  She was very far-sided.  Her prescription is about a +7.  The hope was the glasses would help straiten her eyes.  We tried for about a year and a half and while the glasses helped - they weren't helping enough.  So last week Megan went in to have her eyes surgically fixed.  

It was difficulty to really explain to her the purpose of the surgery.  She wasn't cross eyed with her glasses on, and when they were off she couldn't tell a difference, and after the surgery she wouldn't be able to see any better and would still have to wear glasses all the time.  So she never really totally grasped the reason for the surgery, but she trusted us enough, I guess.  Because on the day of she was ready and brave. 

On the night before the surgery we had a family meeting and talked everything over.  Megan can't rough house, jump, run, swim, or get hit in the head for several weeks, and since that is 90% of what we do around here - we knew it was going to take a family effort to keep her safe.  Everyone had a lot of questions and concerns, then Jason gave Megan a blessing, then we put the other kids to bed and stayed up and talked with Megan for a little while longer.  She had a lot of good questions, and then at the end she said, "well, I don't have any more questions, but I am still a little scared, but I think I will be ok."  When I went upstairs  I found that Brock was very nervous about Megan's surgery and was crying saying his nightly prayers, when I talked to him about it he said, "I was ok with the surgery, until dad said they were going to use a knife, and now I think it is too dangerous."  This is just like Brock, he thinks he is responsible for everyone in the house, he is a very caring big brother.  We talked about the surgery for a while and then he went to bed. 

We had to wake Megan up at 6:30 to go to the hospital.  My good friend Krista, came over and stayed with the kids all morning - it is so great to be away from family and have friends who will step in and fill that void.  She was so happy and bubbly all morning waiting for her surgery.

They told us one of us could go in with her until she fell asleep.  She really wanted Jason to - and Jason is VERY protective in hospital environments, so it was natural that he was the one to go in.

Then right before they wheeled her back they told us that I could go in also.  So I got all dressed up and we were both able to be with her.  It wasn't a long surgery - only 45 minutes or so.  But when it was over, no one had prepared us for her waking up.  She was screaming and inconsolable.  It was heart breaking - I have never seen a child act like that before.  Jason picked her up and put her in his lap.  It helped a little - but she was so confused and so out of it that she just cried and screamed.  She wanted him to sing "If Praying were Horses" from the musical "Civil War".  So he did, over and over again.  Until she fell asleep.  We unhooked her from the IV, got her dressed, and took her home all while she was still asleep.  She must remember her dad taking care of her in the post-op room, because she hasn't wanted to leave his side since we got home.  That night she told me, "I love you, but it is just that I love dad more."  Awesome!  I said, "It's ok - I love him too."  She has been very responsible and happy about her recovery, except for her medicine, she has to put this gel in her eyes every morning and night.  And she would not! (it makes her eyes blurry and she hates that)  She was so upset about it - we had to force it every time - with screaming and fits.  Then on Sunday morning she came into our room at 6:15 am and said, "I want my medicine now so I can go back to my room and close my eyes so they don't have to blurry."  What a smart and sensible girl - I hope she always stays that way.

It took a few days for her eyes to become completely blood shot.  This was everyone's favorite part.  especially Madison.  On the days leading up to the surgery Madison would say in her prayers, "please bless that Megan will love her red eyes".  And as soon as we came home from the hospital Madison said, "I want to see Megan's red eyes."

Valentines Cookies

Last Monday the girls and I were trying to come up with something to do in the morning.  We decided to make some Valentine cookies and then go deliver them to their primary teachers.  Lest you are impressed with my awesomeness (as you should be) you should know 2  things: 1)This is the first gift my children have given their primary teachers... ever... including Christmas, end of year, or birthdays; and 2)I have not made cut out/frost sugar cookies with the kids since we have moved to Denver, we used to do it every holiday in Utah - but not having an island in the kitchen has drastically cut down on my desire to cook with my kids.  

So today, I was clearly feeling ambitious - so I googled "no-chill sugar cookies" and found what appeared to be a good recipe (it was).  And off we went to the kitchen to make some sugar cookie.

It turns out the the girls are old enough to do most of this very independently, correctly, and not overly messily.  I guess we have crossed that threshold and we can do stuff like this with out total chaos.  It was a lot of fun to work alongside them rather than "for" them.

We whipped up some frosting while they were baking - luckily I had some valentines sprinkles that I had brought with us from Utah

While the girls had a ton of fun - they couldn't help but feel guilty that Brock and Noah were not with us.  They kept talking about how they would love this.  Well... it was Madison's turn to pick the activity for Family Home Evening that night - and it didn't take long for her to put two and two together... during lunch time she announced that her activity for FHE would be make valentines cookies as a family.  I had previously planned on deep cleaning my kitchen during nap time - but, like I said earlier, I was feeling ambitions - so I agreed, and I spent nap time making more sugar cookie dough and more frosting.  (I would like to say that I waited and deep cleaned my kitchen during nap time on Tuesday, or Wednesday, but here I am a week later, and still haven't cleaned it.)


Just for a little humor, I will tell you that while I was getting everything out for us to start rolling out the dough for the cookies, Maddie said, "I change my mind, for my activity I don't want to make sugar cookie, I want to play Duck, Duck, Goose."  Seriously?  :)  Too bad - we are making sugar cookies!

Things like this make Jason's head want to explode - see, he is a little ocd and tried desperately to teach the boys how to correctly cut cookies out of dough by placing the shapes together as closely as possible.  They weren't really buying it.

Our creations: