Beginning of End of School Stuff

The end of the school year always brings lots of activities, field trips, and programs.  This week has been a little crazy, and we still have one more week to go!  Felicity went to the This is the Place State Park (her teacher took a picture of her next to the Burnett Cabin, our ancestor's cabin.) 

Joseph went to the Hogle Zoo.  Oh, the craziness that is the Kindergarten Trip to the Zoo!  I didn't get to go this year...I love going, but it's almost a relief that I had an excuse!  They both had fun, anyway.  Caleb had an All-Second Grade Kickball game that he was so excited about, it was boys against girls.  He's not sure who won, but he had much fun playing.

Another kindergarten tradition is the Kindergarten Store.  Each kid makes 10 things, labels them as $.05 each and brings fifty pennies.  Then they get to shop each others stuff and bring home ten new things and fifty new pennies.  I got an idea from the Parents magazine website and we made clothespin airplanes.

http://www.parents.com/fun/arts-crafts/kid/simple-wood-crafts/?page=4

I did the gluing (he tried to help but burnt his finger on the glue) and he painted.  It kept him busy for about an hour and a half and since he did it outside there wasn't much of a mess.  I have a feeling we're going to more of these projects

Felicity's class did the play "The Lion King" and Felicity was Nala.  She worked really hard memorizing her lines and was so excited when it was time to perform.  I painted her face before she left for school that day and she wouldn't wash it off the rest of the day. 

Getting a snuggle from Seth.  Every time one of the lionesses came on stage, he'd ask:  "Is that Sissy?"  He was pretty excited for her.

Joseph's Kindergarten Graduation.

He likes to pose for the camera, what a funny kid!  He's grown so much this past year, it's incredible. His teacher says he's so friendly with everyone, it doesn't matter what table she puts him at, he still finds someone to talk to.  Not sure if that's a good thing...  We've also been stopped at the grocery store with some little boy waving excitedly "MOM! That's Joseph!"  He's a major celebrity in the kindergarten world.

 His teacher did a marvelous job, we're so sad she's going to another school this next year. 

Here's our kindergartner!! Good job, Joseph!!

 Felicity's program was later in the day on Friday.  This year they learned about the history of Utah, starting with dinosaurs, moving up to the native tribes from this area, the pioneers and mountain men and then on to each individual county.  Felicity's favorite song?  The Beaver Song.  You'll have to ask her for a performance the next time you see her.

Lissy's teacher did a great job this year, too.  Thanks to all our wonderful teachers!

I realize this was a very Joseph and Lissy heavy post, but Caleb's program is next week, and he's having all his fun things next week, too (water day, PPPPP Party), plus his baptism is in just two weeks.  Here's the picture I took for his announcement:

Such a handsome kid!

  I seem to be only writing these posts about once a month...well, better than never!

Today I get to write as I listen to the kids and Farris make dinner and clean the kitchen for Mother's day.  Love it!

We had Stake Conference in the middle of April, and at the adult meeting on Saturday (by the way, the adult meetings are wonderful!) we were encouraged to take our children to the temple often.  We hadn't for awhile, so for FHE we took them to "touch" the temple.

Of course, they have to splash, err...enjoy the fountains.

Even Abigail got in on the action!

I do hope that they will grow up with the temple as an integral part in their lives, and I'm glad that we live close to so many so they have many chances to be touched back.

From 3rd grade to 6th grade (I think) the kids can do events in the Hersey's Track meet.  We've gone the last two years to cheer on Felicity.  This year she ran the 50 and 100 meter races and did the softball throw.  We were only able to watch the 50 and the throw, but Felicity was having fun. 

We're proud of our Lissy Lou!!

Abigail turned 9 months the other day, crickey! She's had a busy month.  Her first two teeth have popped out--we often see her rubbing her tounge back and forth over them.  She's gone from sort of crawling to a full fledged mover, inluding in Sacrement meeting.  Whoops. She's even started pulling herself up on everything, she is so determined to join the kids in their noisy games.  Her love of dancing is very entertaining, she even was rocking out to some people singing Happy Birthday in the park, and even joined in on the clapping at the end.  She does love music.   Her biggest adventure ended with my heart pounding and a carpet burn on one cheek:  she rolled all the way down our stairs.  We are so grateful that all she got was a red cheek, and we're all better at making sure the gate at the top is closed all the time.  She makes us giggle with her inquisitive personality and wiggly ways.  Love you sweet baby!

Warm weather, Easter and Abby's 8th

I'm getting a little behind, but hopefully I'll be doing better because we used some of the tax rebate for a laptop, so I won't be cranking this out on an ancient (I hate that tech stuff gets ancient in a few years.  Our computer is about 7 or 8 years old, so it's VERY ancient) computer.  The laptop is much faster which is good because this is a picture heavy post.  What can I say, my kids are cute!

With the warm weather, the kids have been out a lot, and were glad when we got some more chalk.  They filled the driveway with pictures and came inside looking like they had been at the Color  Festival.  I'm not sure what rolling around in their chalk pictures does for the composition, but apparently it was necessary.  So was changing in the laundry room and baths immediately after.

 Our school has a tradition for Easter, the Kindergarten Egg Drop. Basically, each kindergartener takes a hard boiled egg, wraps it in something and the custodian throws it from the roof of the school! It's actually really fun and Felicity and Caleb both enjoyed using their imaginations to protect their eggs (Felicity: used her bike helmet, egg cracked. Caleb: put eggs in egg carton, put in shoe box with packing peanuts, duct taped it closed, all 4 eggs safe!). Joseph originally wanted to use balloons, think: the Up House, but we never got into the store...so we moved on to using LOTS of toilet paper duct taped around the egg and then put it in a box that was duct taped shut. Yes, we like duct tape. But as you can see from the picture (sad face) to no avail, his egg cracked. He still had a lot of fun.

BYU had its first Cosmo's Easter Egg Hunt this year in the stadium.  Thousands of kids, more than enough candy and prizes for everyone and a wonderfully warm day.  We had so much fun.  The kids love Cosmo the Cougar already, and now I think he's one of  their favorite people.  Errr, or something.

Victorious after the hunt.

There were several of these football pad-ish things (I have no idea what they are called) set up like little tents all over the field.  Seth, who had stopped at the first pile of candy he found and happily ignored any other prizes around him, climbed inside one to enjoy his booty.  He was nice enough to share a twix with me.  Good kid.

With the BYU hunt on Saturday, and then regular Sunday stuff on Easter (they went through their baskets Sunday morning), we ended up having our family egg hunt on Monday for FHE.  We assigned each kid a color to find, hid ten of each and then Farris deviously hid them.  Can you see the green egg he hid for Caleb in the picture below? 

 

Abigail turned eight months on the 11th of April. Such a sweet little thing!  As I'm typing this she's giggling hysterically at Joseph, she loves her brothers and sister a lot.  She sits up very well by herself and rolls and scoots herself around enough that she can get to basically anywhere she wants. She does get so very mad when she gets stuck somewhere, under a bed, between the paino legs or just in a corner.  She's so close to crawling, just not quite there yet.  Once she gets that down, she'll be everywhere! Still no teeth, but Felicity says that she can bite pretty hard anyway.  She still growls a lot and recently entertained the entire Relief Society with her comments.   We love her big grins and chubby cheeks and can't believe that she's already 8 months old--even though it feels like she's been in our family forever!

Abigail's 7th month pix and...I won, I won, I won

This is Abigail modeling a pinafore and ruffle bum outfit I made for a neighbor's little baby. The pinafore--found on Pinterest, of course--is from Smashed Peas and Carrots
http://smashedpeasandcarrots.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/little-girls-crossover-pinafore-pattern.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+SmashedPeasAndCarrots+(Smashed+Peas+and+Carrots)
and is very cute and surprisingly easy. I made another one to auction off at our YW girls camp fundraiser dinner and hopefully will make one more that we can actually keep. The diaper cover is from MADE
http://www.danamadeit.com/2008/07/tutorial-the-perfect-diaper-cover.html
and then I added the ruffles. And is very cute and surprisingly got thrown on the floor and nearly sworn at a few times. It's the legs. And thefact I don't have a serger. You can do it! But if you sew like me, bring chocolate into your craft room and don't let the kids in, 'cause you might get grumpy.

Abby's 7th month picture.

Abby's still her smile-y little self and is getting closer to crawling all the time. She's not quite up on all four, but she did get up on three, precariously balanced, for a sec. She watches her older brothers and sister with a large amount of longing, she can't wait to be running around with them. It's amazing how much she loves them and gets so excited to see them even when they maul her. Always out of love, but still. No teeth yet, but she's constantly biting and drooling (that's been going on for months) and she's been really into growling. I think that's Seth "The Tiger"s influence.

And... I won! A Girl and A Glue Gun (a blog I read, see the sidebar. She's pretty entertaining.) did a drawing for soap. Yes, soap. Are you sitting there with that look on your face, similar to what Farris gave me when I said I won soap? Well, wipe it off and look at Rachel's Homemade soap etsy shop, because these are nice.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/RachaelsSoaps?ref=seller_info

So I'm excited.

And sleepy, Daylight Savings, bleh. I'll catch up on the rest later.

Flying, six months old, and Valentines Day

This is going to be a very picture heavy post, I'll try to keep it short on words! But a lot has happened, leaving me little time to catch up on here.
On February 1st, Felicity had her first Science Fair. When we found out it was coming up I handed her a how things work kind of book and within five minutes she knew she wanted to build a hot air balloon. It looked fairly simple, so we found a template online for the balloons panels (I found out they are called Gores, who knew?) and she started cutting and gluing tissue paper. It was a little iffy, I think it might be easier when she's a little older.

We tested it outside with my blow dryer, and after several trials, finding and gluing holes shut, and even putting a plastic garbage bag inside to hold the air better, we still could only get it to float a couple inches, and not for very long. But she had loads of fun making it and the boys loved to watch/help/hinder as the case may be.

Seth brought out his dinosaurs to play in the snow while we were trying to make the balloon fly. He didn't get my lame joke when I asked him if that was what killed off the last of the dinosaurs. We haven't had enough snow this winter to kill off much.

Felicity's creation! It turned out cute, anyway. And she got full points, and lots of practice for future science fairs. And we learned that we will not let them procrastinate at all.

Here is her display at the fair.

Then on the 11th, Abigail turned six months old. As you can see from my action shot, she's been rolling like crazy. She'll roll and scoot and turn herself around on our tile floors easily. She made it across the living room floor one day. She still doesn't have any teeth, but she's getting more and more hair all the time, I think she will turn into a redhead, with kind of a dark strawberry blond. She's now eaten rice, oatmeal and mixed grain cereals and even tried squash. She made some funny faces with the squash, but she ate it. We went to her six month appointment yesterday and Seth kept saying over and over that he didn't think Abby should get owies--Seth speak for shots. He told the nurses and the doctor the same thing, and when the nurses poked her and set her off crying he was pretty mad. "I said, don't give Abby owies!" he kept yelling at them. She's pretty good with shots and stopped crying quickly, but Seth might not let her get any more. She's got a good bodyguard.

On Saturday, our living room was invaded with the makings for Valentines for the kids to give to classmates. Nicki came up and helped out, there was always at least one of us telling Joseph to focus. Abigail can reach further than we are used to and she kept grabbing paper to eat. She thinks squash is gross, but pink paper? Yummy. For Valentine's Day this year we decided to make a boy one and a girl one for all the kids to take in. OK, OK, I decided it after I found these cool valentines on Pinterest:

For the girls, Hershey Kiss Rings:
http://www.momontimeout.com/2012/01/bring-on-bling-valentine-ring-craft.html

For the boys, Army Men with fun sayings:

http://jacolynmurphy.blogspot.com/2012/01/for-valentinesall-is-fair-in-love-and.html

Luckily the kids loved the idea, especially since they got the leftover army men and at least two kisses each. Seth, I believe, had more. For the Army Men, we had a couple sayings: "All is fair in love and war," "You dropped the bomb on me!" and "You're the BOMB!" which set off a whole slew of Cars 2 quotes.

Joseph showing off some of the rings we made. Oh, his faces make me laugh every day. Such a silly kid.

Farris usually gets a Mylar balloon for each of the kids for valentines day. They LOVE them and play with them for at least a month after. One dollar well worth it.

Caleb is such a sweetie.

His balloon floated up before I could get the picture, but again, I love the face.

I don't think Seth remembered his from last year, but anything to do with balloons is good.

Aww, love this picture. All together we had a fun Valentines Day. Farris got some tulips for me (favorite!) and I got to help out at Felicity's class party. I love helping out in their classes and wish I could do more. Maybe next year when Abigail is a little older.

We've also been potty training Seth. I think I've gone through a whole bottle of disinfectant wipes for every surface in the bathroom, and our number of laundry loads have gone up. Ugggghhh. But he's been dry every night since we started. Gotta take the good where I can.

My sis in law Tarilynn had been coming up every other week to play with the kids so I can have, sigh, a couple hours of quietness. Lovely. Thank you very, very much Tarilynn! The kids love it too, Joseph can't wait to kick me out when she gets here.

Whew, sorry for the long post, hopefully I'll get back to my once a week with shorter posts grove. Heh. We'll see!

Christmas 2011

Christmas was wonderful this year. Farris was able to take off the days that the kids were off of school so we had a lot of family time, which was wonderful. Too bad we didn't have any snow to enjoy! On Christmas Eve we decided to watch Puss in Boots at the theater here in town. Cute movie, but not a great movie. But the kids loved it and were quoting it the rest of the day. Our traditional Christmas Eve dinner isn't so traditional: we make Ebelskivers, danish pancake balls. My mom learned to make them from her grandma and I sort of learned from her...I still need a lot of practice flipping them! We made two batches and one with peaches and one with pineapple. Next year I think I'll find a recipe for a desert ebelskiver, yummy.
Another tradition that the kids love is the opening of Christmas Pajamas. This year I used our new baby as an excuse for not making them, much less stressful for me!

Abigail loved the gift wrap much more than her new pjs.

After baths we watched Joy to the World, which I love. So beautiful.
The kids decided they wanted to all sleep in the boys room together, thus the better to catch Santa, and had us bring the plate of cookies into the room with them. Santa must have hit our house late, because there was a lot of squirming and giggling for awhile after the lights were out.

We didn't have church until 11:00, so we decided to do stockings before breakfast, then presents, then church, then the long drive to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We decided to simplify presents this year, like Rocky and Stacey's family. Like the Wise Men, we gave three presents. Just not gold and oils. That wouldn't be quite the same in today's world. Instead it was clothes (church clothes for all of them this year), books, and a toy. It was nice to not have the pressure of making sure everyone has the same amount of stuff in their pile. Joseph got the Millennium Falcon, complete with a little Han Solo and Chewbecca.

Caleb is hitting his Lego craze age and was so excited with this set.

At a yard sale with year we found a huge bin of Littlest Pet Shop things. Felicity was so excited. And, yes, we sometimes shop for Christmas presents at yard sales. How cheap are we...

Abigail surrounded by presents. Again, she was more interested in the paper. The kids did a good job each picking out a present for her.

We only had Sacrament meeting for church and our Bishopric did a great job reminding us of Christ and what is really important. The kids behaved fairly well, considering they were keyed up to the extreme.

When church was over we threw everything into the van and headed out. We spent a few days at Grandma and Grandpa Newey's, playing with cousins and eating lots of yummy food. All the adult women (and Abby) hit the after Christmas sales. A lot less craziness than during the after Thanksgiving sales. It was fun to spend that day with some of my best friends, I love my family.

After a couple days we headed over to Farris' mom's house. His whole family was there, so it was great fun. The family party is always a little crazy with plenty of wrapping paper fights in the middle of much unwrapping and picture taking.

Joseph incognito.

Seth, too.

Mustaches seem to be a theme this year. I forgot my camera for my family's Christmas party, and everyone was going to send my pictures of the mustachio adventures from it...but it hasn't happened...yes, this is a hint...I will post them when I get some.

I love this picture of Great Grandma Larsen and Abigail. Abby smiled at just the right time. Rachel loved seeing all the kids being crazy around her. She gets more great grandkids every year, five or six last year alone I think?, but they all adore her.

We came home on New Year's Eve, we even managed to get home before too late so we wouldn't' have to worry about crazy partiers. The kids were excited to get back to their new toys. I was glad to get home to my own bed, even though we had to do the After Christmas Digout. So much stuff to find places for and get put together!

I love Christmas. We're still trying to find the perfect blend of traditions to keep and the ones to toss so that we're not overwhelmed and we don't lose sight of what we need to really have and be at Christmas. I do miss the specialness of the whole season and how excited the kids are about everything. I miss the fun and the music, but I am glad to slow down a little now. It's a nice feeling the day we take the tree down and get the last ornaments put away. It's almost a cleansing feeling to put everything back in it's everyday (hopefully better than) order and get back to the ordinary.
Well, as ordinary as can be at our house.