Week of July 1 - 4

Blogging just isn't happening lately.  It makes me sad.  I try everyday to find time and it just isn't there.  I'm trying to get a few things written down.  Something is better than nothing. Here's a quick recap of the first week of July....

July 1st --

With Max and his medicine you never know what you are going to get.  This morning I asked Lily to get Max out of his crib while I took the dog out.  She came screaming outside, "There's poop and its everywhere!!!"  We always are excited for poops because it means his medicine is working, but this time his medicine worked a little too well.  And Lily was right...it was EVERYWHERE!

We also have been tasked with watching for unusual bumps/leasions/rashes on Max.  How is one supposed to tell if this is one of those or if it is a bug bite.  Oh well, I'll document it anyway.

 

I wanted to take a picture of me and Max.  Max just wanted to see if he could get a hold of my phone.  Little stinker!

 

July 3rd -

Russ came up with a scam for us to get rich quick.  Charge people to come see Jesus who appeared on our water dispenser.  Hmmm...time to clean that think I think. (For those of you who don't know Russ and his sense of humor he would NEVER actually do something like that.  He is just witty and likes to joke around.)

July 4th -

The bishopric was in charge of a pancake breakfast.  I offered to come early and help but Russ assured me that he would be fine going by himself so I didn't have to stress about the kids.  Russ and Bro Coon were in charge of the "specialty" pancakes...chocolate chip or apples. They all were yummy and it was a lot fun to get together with the ward on the 4th.  Lily was excited because she got to help make some pancakes.  She has now declared anytime that we have pancakes she should be the one to make them.

Charlotte will randomly ask for me to take a picture of her.  Who can resist taking a picture of this sweet girl?

 

Breanne still is up to mischief.  She steals my phone on a daily basis to take her own photos.  She captured this one of her feet today.  This girl loves shoes.  She is particularly attached to her slippers right now.  We had to sneakily throw away a pair that was too small for in order to get her to wear these.  She wasn't happy about for a few days but now we rarely see her without these Minnie ones on her feet.

 

It wouldn't be the 4th of July without some carmel popcorn to munch on.  This is a pot of ooey gooey goodness!  

 

I also made some rice crispy treats and some pecan bars.  Russ made some stuffed jalepenos.  All these yummy treats went with is to our neighbors house, The Wilcox's.  They had invited us and the Coon's over for a BBQ.  I really enjoyed being able to sit back and enjoy good food and company.  We don't get out and socialize enough, so this was really nice.

Before heading off to the fireworks I snapped the standard group picture of the kids. 

To keep the girls occupied while we waited for the fireworks to start we gave lit up some glow sticks.  They enjoyed making them into bracelets, necklaces, and earrings.  Max could care less.  He was tired and just wanted to sleep.  Breanne freaked out at the loud booming of the fireworks when they started and covered her ears and eyes.  I got her to look at the pretty fireworks while I covered her ears.  Eventually she realized the fireworks weren't going to get her and I could put my hands down.  Poor girl is terrified of loud noises!  The fireworks were nice and we enjoyed them.  The local police finally figured out how to control traffic this year.  Instead of waiting in traffic for an hour we  only waited five minutes!  Thank goodness!

Sunday Ramblings

Daylight Savings time....it isn't my favorite time of the year, but this year it isn't too bad either.

Last night Allie went to bed at 5:00 complaining of tummy ache. I wasn't sure if we would be making it to church or not because of this. I was nervous that she had that nasty 24 hour flu bug again. This morning I went and woke her up to see how she was feeling.  She was tired but felt better. I jokingly told Russ later that her body must have known it would need the extra sleep because of daylight savings so it "faked" sick on her.

The morning was rough. We pulled into the church lot at 8:55. I was stressed that we hadn't gotten their early enough to claim our seat Russ had saved for us.  Apparently whoever fixed the church clocks for Daylight Savings doesn't use an apple device because I looked over at the clock when we sat down and it was 8:50! Phew!  Church went rather smoothly. It still feels like I am running from one thing to the next at church and barely get "spiritually refueled" there. I try to remind myself that this is just the season of life we are in and there will come days in the future where I will long to have my kiddos back and keeping me crazy busy.  That pep talk works....a little.

We were able to spend most of the afternoon resting before Russ had to head back to the church. He had a baptism to attend to. I probably should have went I'm just too worn out anymore to go places once I'm home.  Lily volunteered to help make dinner while Russ was gone. I think she was trying to get out of cleaning up the living room, but whatever.  She helped me with a few things before I assigned her the task of feeding Max. I finally felt like he had the hang of eating, so she could go ahead and feed him.  She was so excited to do this and actually did a rather decent job. Towards the end her interest was waning and she started to shove it all over Max's face but that's ok.

After dinner Russ did chore money with the girls.  They were so excited to count their piggy banks, spending money, and tithing. Normally we don't count all of it, but we had extra time tonight so Russ helped the girls with that.  Everyone went to bed. Max even went to sleep in his own room for the 2nd night in a row! It's been hard letting him go into his own room, but I guess it's time to start letting my little man grow up.

School woes

Lily brought home some papers that she had completed at school.  Most of them were practice tests for the upcoming STAAR test (State exam).  I won't get into my views on STAAR testing other than to say I don't like the way the kids are prepared for them. One thing I like to do as a parent is to go over Lily's work with her so she can see what she missed and I can explain why to her.

Today I began looking over the tests.  At first I was confused.  But the more I looked at them I went from confused to frustrated.  Lily missed some questions and again I don't care that she did, I care that she learns from her mistakes so she can do better next time.  But as I looked at the questions and saw how ambiguous the questions were I knew that I would never be able to explain to Lily why she got them wrong.  In fact there are some questions I feel like she DIDN'T get wrong. 

Russ has been at a conference out of town all week so i sent him pictures of the questions to ask what his answers were.  He agreed with me that Lily had them right. Here are a few samplings of the questions...

This one Lily's teacher made her go back and change the answer from C to B.  When we reread the passage together it was obvious that B was the correct answer.

Math questions...

Usually I let things like this go, but this time I felt that it needed to be pointed out to the teacher that these questions were indeed right.  Since it was open house tonight I took Lily's papers with me. I explained to the teacher about how I like to work through these problems with Lily but I can't because the answers were marked wrong and/or the questions were ambiguous.  I pointed the questions out to the teacher to which she responded, "Well I don't know the answers to those questions.  I'll have to get the answer key." I just stared at the teacher for a few moments.  Did she just say that?! was running through my mind.  At this point in time Bree and Char were down with their stroller and I decided to just give up and go home.  I was floored that a teacher would admit that she didn't understand the problem to know the correct answer.

I understand things have changed since I was a teacher, and teachers are under incredible amounts of pressure to teach the test to the kids.  However, if a teacher can't explain to a child how to do the work what business does a teacher have teaching?! 

Rant over...sorry :)

Quarterly Interview -- Lily

Age: 7
Favorite Color:  My really best color? Blue.

Favorite Song:  I Love to See the Temple
Favorite Movie:  Mermadia
Favorite TV Show: Phineas and Ferb
Favorite Game: Shadow Tag
Favorite Toy:  My marina, my La-La-Loopsy Marina
Scared of:  Snakes
Favorite Food: Chicken pizza
Pet Peeves:When Allie teases me she gets the pink cup.
Favorite Things to Do:  Play with Charlotte, play Barbies, play with Stripey
Bad Habits:  Che on fingernails
Good Habits: Give presents to my family.  Because when I give you something I feel real happy inside.
Favorite Thing to Say:  I love you
What I Do That Make My Mommy Laugh the Hardest: I don't even know...When I put that purple thing on your back and go up and down that looks like an alien.
What Does Daddy Do at Work: He does hard math on the computer at power plants
What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up:  Be a popstar
Who's Your Best Friend:  Kaitlynn
What was your favorite thing in 2012? Swimming Lessons
What do you want to learn this year? How to write congratulation in cursive

Goal: Get baptized

Lily's classroom party

I volunteered to go in and help with Lily's class party today.  Sadly their wasn't much for me to do.  I helped pass out some food and that was about it.  I was happy though that I got to spend a little bit of time with Lily. 

Jacob K's mom had come in earlier and helped the kids make Christmas trees out of waffle cones, icing, and candy.  Lily was so excited when I gave her permission to eat hers.

I couldn't believe the amount food and goodies the kids had.  Lily took a bite of everything and then brought a huge goodie bag home to share with the family.  We also got to bring home all 24 cupcakes they had asked me to bring for the party.  Anyone want a cupcake?!

2nd Grade Program

A few weeks ago Lily brought home information about the 2nd Grade program.  I was super excited to hear that they would be putting on a program.  Lily was excited because she was trying out for a speaking part.  She of course got one, along with every other child who tried out for one. She was assigned to be Vixen the Reindeer.    We spent a lot of time finding her a brown shirt for her part only to finally have to settle on a boy's sweatshirt turned inside out.  Apparently all the other girl reindeer beat us to the brown shirts!

We wanted to make the program a special occasion for Lily.  We opted to get a babysitter for Allie and Charlotte so that way our full attention would be on Lily and not what our wiggly and loud children were doing next to us.  Bree went along with us, but you know how infants are....super sweet, and sleep through most of it.

The program was about 30 minutes and it was cute little story about how Santa had got lost.  When everyone finally found him he had lost his memory.  The penguins and reindeer helped him regain his memory of who he was.  I missed getting Lily's speaking part recorded, which makes me so sad. Oh well!

And of course here are some pictures from the event.

Getting ready for her speaking part.   Doesn't she make a cute reindeer?

 Singing one of the songs...

I couldn't resist getting this cute picture of Santa {aka Mason }

 

Standing by some of the penguins.

 

Pyper{a friend from class} and Lily

Lily and Mrs. Geislan the music teacher

Lily with her teacher Mrs. Hatthorn

It was fun night and Lily did great!  I'm so glad we could have a little time alone with her!

Old School

Lily has wanted to play Nintendo for quite some time.  Russ got the old machine working today.  Together they sat down and played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It was fun watching them play the old games.  I got quite a kick out of watching Lily jerk the controller around to try and move her turtle.  Apparently she forgot that this isn't like the Wii and moving around doesn't help your turtle move : )

 

Red Ribbon Week: Pajama and Slipper Day

When I saw the newsletter about there being a pajama and slipper day for Red Ribbon Week, I groaned inside.  I knew that Lily didn't have any pajamas that she could where to school.  Hers were all to little and worn out.  I'm completely embarrassed that she was even wearing them around the house.  So of course I had to go shopping for some new ones.  Not the easiest task with a newborn.  But we all made a quick trip to the store last night and found these cute Hello Kitty jammies.  Lily was super excited to wear them today.  We even had to convince her not to wear them last night so they would be clean for today.  It was kinda funny watching her change out of her pajamas into another pair of pajamas this morning!

She has begun to do this tilted head thing every time I take a picture.  It is cute, but sometimes I wish she wouldn't do that.

And a few head shots because she is so beautiful and I love taking pictures of her!

Red Ribbon Week: Crazy Hair Day

It was Red Ribbon week at Lily's school this week.  Lily is the type of girl that wants to participate in the activities every day.  Monday she wore a red shirt, Tuesday was her soccer jersey for Team day, and today was....CRAZY HAIR DAY.  I meant to talk to her about this last night so we could plan something super fun, but I forgot.  That is how it goes when you have a newborn in the house.  But everything worked out because Lily had some ideas of her own.  She wanted a bunch of braids in her hair.  Because of how frizzy/curly her hair has been lately the craziness was at an extreme!  She loved it and apparently a few kids in her class thought it was "cool!"

Swim Lessons: Session 1

Swim lesson time is here again!  They ran June 4 - June 14 this time. The girls were very excited to take their swim lessons this year.  Probably because we've been going to the pool quite often on weekends and they have learned to love the water even more than they already did.  Lily is a fish in the water, Allie loves the water but is very hesitant to swim on her own.  She doesn't like putting her face in the water.  I was interested to see how swim lessons would go for her.  I got to sit on deck by myself while Charlotte went in the daycare at the Rec Center.  That was a relief considering she get extremely unhappy when someone else is swimming and she's not.

Lily was signed up for the Snapper class{Level 3} in the 6+ age group.  She was in class with a lot of kids much older than her, not unusual since that tends to be how all her swim classes have been.  Her class was in a very awkward position to take pictures of her, which was sad, but I did get a few.

 Working on the dead float....20 secs. 

 That's a long time!

Waiting on the side of the pool for her turn.  

This was practically the only time I saw her 

waiting appropriately and had to capture it.

 Backstroke, probably needed the most work for Lily.

Hard to see, but this is a picture of Lily doing the front crawl and side breathing.  

Her teacher told me multiple times throughout the week that she was a really good side breather.  

When I finally saw her swim I was quite impressed with how well she did it.

 Last day of swim lessons the kids got to go down the "big purple slide".  

Lily was so excited because she got to go down by herself, 

and she didn't have to have anyone catch her at the end!

 Lily passed with flying colors.  Her teacher recommended she move up to the Level 4 class which would be in the lap pool.  Deep water...hmmm....I don't think Lily is quite mature enough for that yet.  I'll have to think on it, as of now she is signed up for Level 3 again.

Allie was signed up for the Level 1 class in the 3 - 5 year olds to begin with.  After the first day the teacher came over to me and said she had to bump Allie up to Level 2 because she was too advanced.  I was confused and asked about her putting her head under the water to which the teacher replied that she had done it a ton of times all by herself. I was surprised but agreed to have Allie moved up.  AS I watched her in the Level 2 calss the next day I was glad she had moved up.  It did seem more on her level.

 Waiting to get in the pool.

Life jackets were used several different days.

Apparently teaching life saving skills at this level is high on the agenda.

One of my favorite pictures of Allie waiting for her turn to jump in and swim.

Blowing bubbles while swimming.

Hmmm...why isn't her head in the water?

Just another fun picture of her waiting her turn.

Swimming with her head in the water!  Wahoo!

Look how proud of herself she was for doing it!

Seriously how cute is this?!  

This tactic worked amazingly well to free 

the kids arms up to practice swimming.

Back float

 At one point the teacher took the kids over into the lap pool to practice swimming.  

Scared me {and Allie} to death that they were in the deep water.  

Just look at the nervousness on Allie's face.  

Once she was in she did really well though.

On the last day of swim lessons she got the same treat as Lily.

She went down the big slide with her teacher though.

They also dived for rings on the last day.  

Allie's teacher helped her stay under long enough 

to get it because she doesn't have enough weight to get herself down.  

Take notice how far her teacher is leaning over in the picture.  

Because she was leaning over like that she got a good wop on the nose

 when Allie excitedly popped up real fast with the ring.  Poor teacher!

I was quite surprised when Allie handed me her report card and she had passed as well.  I went and asked the teacher about Level 3.  She assured me that Allie should do fine, but that it would be a harder class for me.  So I know have her signed up for Level 3.

I'm glad session one is over.  It has been hard to spend our whole morning getting ready, being their, and cleaning up afterwards.  The days seemed to fly by without much more getting done.  However, I'm super glad they have the opportunity to take these lessons.  They both learned a lot and I saw them both improve immensely!