Learning New Things

 For this week's activity, we went to the library, checked out some books and learned some fun new things.  After last week, it was about all I was up to.

Hannah got a book called How to be the Best at Everything.  It had instructions for doing all sorts of things like: how to do the splits, how to keep your shoes from being stinky, and how to make an egg head.  Hannah made hers into a shrunken head.

Hannah's shrunken head.

Maggie got craft book with knitting in it.  She is working on making a doll/stuffed animal thing called "Fred."  It's bright orange.  When she finishes that one, she's going to make another called "George."  She also made an egg head with Hannah.

Maggie making a golden egg.  

Sophie got an interesting book about moths.  She learned that moths can look like butterflies.  They have at least a little bit of fuzz.  

Sophie liked this picture of a moth.  The moth is the black and white thing that looks like a leaf.
Sophie says it looks like a dress.  

Caleb got a book about swords.  It had lots of pictures, so it was more of a picture book of swords, but there were so many super cool ones.   

Caleb does a cool sword move with his ninja sword.  

Katrina had a very special book request.  She wanted a book about cute bunnies, not ugly bunnies.

Katrina hugs her bunny "Bedtime."  She has very interesting names for her stuffed animals.  

Aaron also got into the learning action, though I don't think he did it just for this week.  His boss at work suggested that he get an iPad so he could be familiar with the technology that all the people in courtrooms are using.  

Aaron and his new iPad.  

And finally me, I didn't take a picture because a picture of me reading is rather boring.  I read an interesting book called Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family--How to Eat, How to Raise Good Eaters, How to Cook.  My favorite part of the author's philosophy is that food and eating should be joyful and pleasurable.  I also liked that she says that no food should be off limits.  Her main point, though, is that food should be enjoyed as part of a dinner experience with your family.  Dinner isn't just about the food, but about the time spent with family, enjoying each other's company.

Next week's Badge of Fun is Family Night.  They suggest two games; first, a tabletop soccer game with cotton balls and straws, then a game where you have to work together stacking cans with a rubber band and string.  They also suggest making a crazy family craft with a photo of yourselves and craft supplies.  I think we may get out some games and play.  Maybe we can work on the Farming game that we started and kept out on the table for almost a week.  We would sit down and play for every meal, and we ate a lot of meals outside as they were not "game friendly."  We finally broke it up because we were going camping.  Maybe you want to read a good book together.  We just finished Mr. and Mrs. Bunny--Detectives Extraordinaire.  It's a funny story about a girl whose parents get kidnapped by foxes.  She teams up with Mr. and Mrs. Bunny to find them.  Hold on to your garlic bread, there may be marmots about.   Hopefully, in addition to FHE, you will be inspired to do something fun together.  Let us know what you thought of!

 

Road Trip

I hardly know where to begin to tell you about our road trip.  I guess I'll start at the beginning and when I come to the end, hopefully, I'll stop.  Aaron has a convention that he goes to every year called Infocomm.  It alternates between Las Vegas and Orlando.  The kids were asking me when we were going to go to Las Vegas again.  Apparently, the last time we went, they had a fabulous time swimming in the hotel pool.  We invited my Mom and Dad to come with us to baby sit the kids because some of the companies hold parties in the evening that are a lot of fun, but not family friendly.  Aaron flew down on Tuesday and I caravaned down with my parents on Wednesday.  We got in pretty late, but I was pretty proud of myself for driving the whole way, thanks to diet Coke and an audiobook. 

Thursday morning dawned clear and hot.  The kids had plans to spend the whole day in the swimming pool, so we proceeded there after Caleb threw up on the hotel bed, locked his sister's favorite pillow in the safe and forgot the number he put in, and breakfast.  The throwing up was not unexpected, my sister had a stomach bug a few days before, and we watched her little girl for her.  Actually, Caleb did most of the watching.  He played with her so nicely and when we praised him for it, he told us the reason why--he was earning money for Lego sets.  That boy seriously needs a part-time job so he can buy all the Lego sets he wants.  But, Caleb seemed fine after he threw up, he even ate breakfast and was happy, so I figured we had got off easy.  After spending three hours in the pool, we had lunch and went shopping at the outlet malls.  On the way back to the hotel, the air conditioning went out in our car.  Then, as my mom was dropping of me and the kids at the front of the hotel, the car stopped working altogether.  The hotel had its own rescue car, so they gave me a jump and I was able to park the car next to my Dad's, so he could give me a jump in the morning when we would have time to sort this out.  

That night my Mom took the kids to Madagascar 3.  Caleb was so excited!  He kept asking us all day if it was dinner time, because we told him we would go to the movie after dinner.  The kids thought it was a fun movie.  Aaron and I went to Crestron's company party.  There was a yummy poolside buffet, featuring cheesecake pops.  Then they had a performance by a group called Quixotic--sort of a modern dance-acrobatic type show.  Afterwards the comedian Sinbad performed.  He was really funny.  Apparently, he had done the show last year, and everyone liked him so much that they invited him back.   

We ate our dinner sitting on these fun seats that were in the water.
I took off my sandals and kept cool with my feet in the water.  

The party always features dancing girls and this time there were girls performing in large balls on the water.  

Friday we woke up early so we could get to fixing my car.  I suspected that it was a bad battery.  My Dad was going to drive it to an auto parts store and have them fix it.  The kids wanted to go swimming again, so we took them out to the pool again.

Caleb and Katrina posing pool side.  I hardly saw the big girls.
They played in the big pool the whole time.

You can never have too many floaties.

I love this picture of Caleb.  What a silly pose!

I hadn't been there very long when I got a phone call from my Dad that my car had made it two blocks and completely died.  We called for a tow truck and my Dad had a 45+ minute wait in the hot Las Vegas sun.  I cannot thank him enough for this.  If he hadn't been there, I would have been out there stranded with the kids and that would brought new meaning to the word hell.  Much anxiety and worry later, he had the car at a repair shop where they were doing an emergency replacement of the alternator, battery, and belt.  We decided to meet him at a local McDonald's for lunch.  Just as we arrived, they had a fire in the restaurant and Caleb threw up again.  We ended up at In-N-Out.  Caleb laid down on my lap and fell asleep.  He was not feeling well.  

Alien eyes require two pairs of sun glasses. 

We drove to St. George to buy groceries for the second half of our trip.  We were going camping for my Dad's family reunion.  But, by this time, Katrina had a raging fever, Caleb had diarrhea, and I was just done with this whole trip.  We were trying to decide what to do and when we asked Caleb, he said he wanted to go home.  The big girls, though, wanted to go camping--some of them were in tears.  My Mom and Dad offered to take them on to the camping while we went home.  We got in at 1:30 am and spent a peaceful night in our beds.  Everyone dragged through Saturday, but by Sunday, we were all feeling much better.  

The big girls had a lot of fun with Grandma and Grandpa.  They slept in a tent, went exploring, played with cousins, and won prizes in the raffle.  Maggie had her camera and took pictures for us.  

They found a Sego Lilly.  It's a very pretty flower.
 I wonder how the bulb tastes. 

Here's Maggie's horse, Brownie, looking fancy. 

Now it's Maggie's turn.

Hannah made a hat out of the tinfoil they used to wrap toys to play with on the trip.

They also found a horny-toad lizard.  I remember catching those as a kid.
They named him Squirmin because he squirmed when you held him upside down.

They got home this afternoon, hot, tired, and dirty.  But, they really had fun thanks to Grandma and Grandpa.  

This next week the Badge of Fun is Learn Something New.  Here are the suggested activities--Explore your world-find out more about static electricity, Solve science puzzles-experiment with angular momentum, and Play with the alphabet-find letters in unexpected places, ie pavement cracks or telephone lines.  Last summer, I had my kids pick out a non-fiction book from the library every time we went.  We learned how to make clay figures and how to knit, not to mention Caleb's ever expanding knowledge of animals.  I would love to hear what you decided to learn about.

Backyard Fun

As I predicted, my kids picked all the activities for Backyard Fun.  I talked to them about it Monday morning;  I had barely finished speaking when they were out the door with paints in hand to make some yard art.  They decided to paint the stones that we have lining the driveway in the back.  They had a blast and the art turned out really good too.  

Everyone painting happily--except Maggie--she's giving me a dirty look.

Art is hard!  Gotta stick that tongue out.

Maggie's sun stone.

One of the many fantastic art works we now have lining our driveway.

Then Friday night we had a camp out in the backyard.  My aunt brought her grandson for the fun too.  We had hobo dinners and Hershey's Kisses for dinner.  Then we were going to play twilight games, but my aunt brought water guns for a water fight, and the kids ran around squirting each other with abandon.  My aunt and Aaron got in the fun too.  Probably the funniest thing was when Aaron got out our big water guns.  My aunt's grandson took two small guns over to him and wanted to trade.  He said, "How 'bout you give me that one and you can have these ones.  They're better."  We laughed and laughed.  Aaron, Hannah and my Dad put up the tent together.  My Dad did the directing and Aaron and Hannah the work.  The kids were so excited to sleep in the tent.  We usually have one or more kids come in in the middle of the night to sleep inside.  When I woke up in the morning and looked around, I didn't see any kids in their beds, so I figured they had all stayed outside.  Later Maggie told me that Caleb had woken up in the middle of the night and she had brought him in.  When I looked again, there he was, over in a corner of the bed, tangled in bed sheets.

My Aunt, her grandson, and Caleb fight it out in the water gun fight.

Aaron gets out the big guns.  He's pretty cut-throat in a water fight.  

Don't shoot Mom, Maggie!

Setting up the tent.

Grandpa teaching Hannah how to set up the tent.
I may have set up my last tent.  I can just have her do it from now on.  

The activity for next week's Badge of Fun, June 11-16, is Hit the Road.  Luckily, we are actually going on a road trip this week.  That's just one of life's happy coincidences.  Here's the suggested activities--1. Stock your car--a lap desk, backseat peacekeeper or car organizer.  2.  Make the miles go by--make surprise balls or car games.  3.  Pack easy-to-eat snacks--cookie and milk bars, homemade granola bars, or chocolate-drizzled trail mix.  Here's some suggestions if you don't happen to be going on a road trip this week--you could go on a day trip to some place fun in your area, or you could have an imaginary trip to somewhere else--get books or DVD's about a place you would like to visit, make food from there, or try a game or tradition.  I think I will print up Family Fun's On-the Go packet.  I already bought travel treats (Katrina talked me into the chocolate covered pretzels--yum!).  But, as we're going camping, I have to drag out all the camp equipment and make sure it works before we leave, not to mention all the stuff we normally do--that seems like enough fun for the two days I have before go time.  Maybe I'll put Hannah in charge of this badge of fun.  She'll do a great job.

Summer Plans

We have some exciting summer plans I wanted to share with you.  First off, last year as we were going to the last days of our season pass at This is the Place, Hannah asked if we could volunteer there.  I had never heard of such a thing, but checked into it.  Turns out you can. This is the Place is a state run park that has pioneer homes and demonstrations of pioneer activities.  It's a living history type site. The Smalleys and my parents have joined us in this adventure.  I took some pictures of the kids in their pioneer clothes.  They are all so cute.  My kids have had them on as much as possible since we got them.  In order to view the grown-ups, you will have to actually come to Utah and see us.  We're there Wednesday mornings all summer long.  The Smalleys are in a house where they will be demonstrating pioneer cooking.  My parents and I are in a house that has pioneer parlor games--pick up sticks and checkers.  My Dad's going to work at the fireman's hall, too.

All the kids in their pioneer clothes. 

You will also have to come to Utah to see the super cute pictures I took of the girls posing as fashionable pioneers and the guys pretending to smell cow poop.  Allison has threatened me not to post her picture on my blog.  Sorry, she knows where I will be every Wednesday.

I told the kids to give me their best pioneer faces.  I had no idea pioneers liked to stick their tongues out like that.

Our other big summer plans come from Family Fun magazine.  Those of you who get it know that this last year they have had a feature every month called Badges of Fun.  Each month there was a theme, a badge you could earn to put on your chart, and suggestions of three activities to do.  I thought it sounded like fun, but never had enough energy to do it.  When I was planning out this summer, I was trying to think of easy, fun, inexpensive things to do with the kids.  The badges of fun fit the bill perfectly.  I thought it would be fun to post them here and give you the opportunity to play along.  If you do decide to do something, let us know what you did.  Part of the fun of doing this will be hearing what everyone else decided to do.

The first badge of fun is scheduled for this coming week June 3-9.  It is Backyard Fun.   The suggested activities are a backyard camp out, yard art, and twilight games.  I'm sure there are specifics on Family Fun's website or you can just be creative.  Also, if you're interested, you may be able to download the chart and the badges from the Family Fun website, too.  I'm not sure which activity we're going to do, we'll decide tomorrow, but knowing my kids, we'll probably do all of them.  

So sweet! 

Mother's Day

I have to do a little bragging about my Mother's Day.  It was pretty awesome.  Aaron made me breakfast in bed--a Mother's Day tradition.  It was yummy.  Hannah made me a card.  On the back were coupons for a spa day.  When I finally made it downstairs (Aaron was bathing the kids, no way was I making an appearance until that was over.), Hannah had transformed the backyard into my own personal spa.  First she did an oatmeal face mask.  There was a lot of giggling as she put it on.  Nothing like Mom with breakfast on her face.  Then there was a foot soak with marbles in the bottom for massaging.  Next she gave me a manicure.  She had all the nail polish out and some new nail stickers.  I choose yellow nail polish to match my yellow and pink flower skirt.  Hannah recruited Maggie to do the pedicure.  I decided on a much more muted light pink for my toes.  After this was done, they had prepared me a delicious spa lunch of a cucumber sandwich and chocolate dipped strawberries.  I was really impressed with Hannah's forethought.  Apparently she planned this whole thing back in April.  She made a list of the spa activities, a shopping list for supplies, and even drew a diagram of how she was going to set up the spa outside.  Aaron took her shopping for nail polish for her Daddy date the day before Mother's Day, and she whipped out her spa shopping list so they could get that stuff too.  My day ended with a delicious chicken Caesar salad and strawberry shortcake.  It was a great day.

I Told You So

Last Saturday was a beautiful spring day--sunny, warm--gorgeous. So, I got out the bikes I had stored for the last few years in our shed. Our kids were pretty sure that riding bikes was scary, stupid, etc. But, I told them it was a skill they needed to have, whether they wanted it or not. I spent most of the day fixing up the bikes. This mostly entailed checking the tubes for leaks (none), my dad greasing up the chains, and adjusting the bikes to fit the various kids. When we were done, every kid had a working bike. Then we went out to the driveway for a little bike riding lesson. After a while, they seemed to be getting it, so we loaded up the bikes and headed over to the local elementary for a little larger biking area. Aaron had to ride his bike over as he and my brother Chris were busy trying to adjust the seat (it was frozen), and cutting off the lock which we couldn't find the key for. When we got to the school, I was prepared for tears, more running after kid's bikes holding them up, etc. But lo, and behold, all of them took off on their own. They rode around like old pros for about an hour. "Bike riding is fun!" they said, "This is great!" We went to Chuck-A-Rama for a delicious and well deserved buffet dinner afterwards. It's been great weather this week and every available minute they've been outside riding their bikes. The most exciting part of the day yesterday was PE. We went out to the trail at the park with our cousins and friends and the kids rode their bikes together. It was awesome.

Weird Science

A while ago, Hannah had to disect a chicken wing for science. She was supposed to observe the joint structure. I think a video would have been helpful here, because neither of us could figure out what we were supposed to do. Anyway, after she grossed herself out, barely touching the chicken at all, Maggie stepped in.

Maggie and Sophie dissecting.

Maggie had no problem touching, cutting and dissecting the chicken wing. She dissected and kept dissecting. Sophie wanted to get into the action too. They had a grand time cutting and moving parts. They must have been at it for more than half an hour.

Who knew you could be this excited about chicken?

Maggie's chicken wing. Note the neat piles of meat/fat and bones.

Sophie's looked the same.

After all the carnage was over, I threw away the carefully dissected parts and made stock from the left over chicken wings. The next day we had chicken noodle soup. Hannah wouldn't touch any of the chicken, though I assured her that none of the meat in the soup came from the dissecting melee.