Having Little Boys

I love the evidence I find everywhere of having boys.  I found a batman toy on my nightstand when going to bed one night. 

I love seeing my boys with Snoopy.  I have come to believe that little boys should have a dog (and little girls too).

Boys do the grossest things too.  When I was growing up, one of my brothers would turn his eyelids inside out and chase me around.  It was totally disgusting.  Recently, Westley learned to do the same.

And I love how they pick up sticks and things when they're out walking, just to hold.  You can't see the stick in this picture very well, but Jonah has a stick in his hand.

I love having little boys!

Parent Teacher Conferences

We had parent teacher conferences last week.  The kids made me so proud.  They are all doing so well in school. 

Westley has had his ups and downs this year, but he came through this term with flying colors and made the Honor Roll!  I was bursting with pride! He  has struggled with his grades, mostly because he either fails to do the work or refuses to do the make-up work.  Most of the time when he needs to make up work it's because he got lazy with the work and didn't check his answers or didn't finish.  When he truly doesn't understand, he has a chance to relearn it and often refuses.  But we have been working with him to put a stop to that attitude and realize that he can do better and he did!

Caleb almost made the Honor Roll.  To make the Honor Roll, one must have straight A's and all E's (excellents) in behavior.  Caleb got one "S" (satisfactory) in behavior because he sometimes has a hard time controlling his emotions when things don't go his way.  Something he can work on.  Hopefully, he can do better and make the Honor Roll for his final term.  He does really excellent work and tries hard.  He is also very close to graduating from speech, and that will be wonderful for him!

Travis' teacher had nothing but praise.  He has improved so much in behavior this term.  He is really motivated by her system of tokens.  He went without earning enough tokens one week and didn't get the reward at the end of the week and that completely motivated him.  In his academics, he's doing extremely well.

Eliza is doing very well academically.  She has a little trouble with math, getting some of the concepts mixed up.  However, I think with a little more practice she will really do a lot better.  Her reading is very good--highest in her class.  AND her teacher told me that Eliza is a social butterfly and the heartthrob of her kindergarten class.  Guess having brothers worked out well for her!

I hope my kids can keep enjoying school.  I am very nervous about them changing schools this next year because of a boundary change.  I hope they like it as much at their new school!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day was a Friday this year.  Since I usually work on Fridays at the school, I was fully expecting that to be a work day for me.  I found out the week before that we had it off because all the classes were having Valentine's parties and there wouldn't be time for PLC's (the teacher collaboration time during which we teach values and art).  Since Corey had already scheduled himself to have the day off and work the night shift, I decided to go ahead and volunteer to help out in the class parties.  I was able to help in all four of my kids' classes because fortunately, they were all happening at different times.  I went in at 10 am and got done when the school day was over at 1:25 pm.  I really enjoyed it.

Westley and I created a Star Wars Valentine's box.  He is really into Star Wars right now and came up with the idea to do R2-D2 for his box.  Of course, he saved it until Thursday, at which time, he almost gave up because it was hard.  But, Mom to the rescue!  I came up with a way to make the R2-D2.  You can't tell that there is a sideways shoebox in there, but there is.  We will definitely be saving this one for future use!

For a Valentine's Day date, Corey and I had to go out on Saturday, the 15th because  he was working Friday night.  We walked over to Kneader's in the morning for breakfast.  Then we spent the morning doing our usual Saturday cleaning and errands.  Then Corey and I went to the temple to do sealings.  After the temple, we went to Ruth's Chris steakhouse in downtown SLC.  It was an enjoyable day.

Decorating Sugar Cookies

For a Family Home Evening activity, the kids decorated sugar cookies.  They looked forward to it all day and were very happy to finally be able to do it.  I got out every single container of sprinkles we owned and the kids just went to town.

Funny back story...Travis and I made the sugar cookie dough several days before.  I put in way too much sugar and the cookies tasted terrible, like pucker up the lips terrible.  I had to remake the dough before we could decorate cookies. 

 This is Jonah helping Annmarie lick the frosting from the bowl

Skating Adventures

After doing some research on fun things to do indoors that don't cost an arm and a leg (well, that's not exactly what I typed into Google search, but you get the idea), I learned that a local roller rink had a dollar day once a week, every Thursday.  Admission for $1/person and skate rental for $1/person.  They also had rentals for in-line skates and scooters for an additional fee.  So I decided to take the kids roller skating.

The first time we went, I took Jonah along.  He really didn't do very well.  Eliza was about that age when she first went and she loved it.  But Jonah was scared of the blinking lights, the loud music, and all the people.  He also was scared of the skates. I wish I had a toddler scooter for  him, I think it would have been more fun for him.  The older kids didn't want skates, so I told them that they could rent their own scooters if they brought the difference (skates were $1, scooters $3, so they paid $2).  Eliza was brave and tried the skates.

We had a blast.  We had so much fun the first time that we went twice more during their off-track time in January.  Later in January, we even tried ice skating, which Eliza also loved and seemed to take to quite naturally.

Snow Day Fun

We have had quite a few snowy days this winter.  The kids did not go back to school after the Christmas break because they went off track at that time, so they were off the whole month of January.  I really wanted to take them south to warmer weather to visit family, but our car just didn't work and we couldn't afford to get it fixed.  So, we spent time playing around the house.  The kids loved playing outside in the snow, especially Jonah.  The snow really isn't so bad as long as I don't have to drive in it and can see it from my inside my warm house.

Snowman Pancakes

I was making pancakes and decided to make them a little fun.  I was going to try to do letter shapes or even animals, but then I just started making snowmen (because they were easier).  On a whim, I added chocolate chips for the face and buttons.  The kids loved them.  They added powdered sugar to make them seem snowy.  It was a fun way to start the day.