Brian’s Update

1st day of 2nd grade

Brian is now 7 years old and today started the 2nd grade at Stephens Elementary.  In second grade he will switch between 2 teachers, one for english and history and one for math and science.  Fortunately for us, we know both of his teachers very well.  One was his 1st grade teacher, and the other was Aaron’s 2nd grade teacher.  Both are excellent and we are looking forward to another great year!

Riding his bike while camping over spring break

This past year hasn’t been very momentous for Brian, but he’s done a lot of fun stuff.  We tried to include him in many of the fun things Aaron was doing homeschooling and allowed him to miss school occasionally to do so.  He got to go to the Toyota Factory with us and the Zoo and Children’s Museum and even took a day to try out homeschooling himself. 

Inside the tram to the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis

Brian is quite the social butterfly.  He loves to talk and makes friends easily.  He often got reprimanded at school for talking too much, but all the teachers love him and he still hugs them all (all the time!)  He has lots of friends, mostly girls, but is completely friendly to everyone he meets, adults and kids alike. 

Chatting with Tom Sawyer on a Riverboat ride in Hannibal, Missouri

The week or so before Christmas he was hanging out at our neighbors house when he fell out of their hammock and lost his front 2 top teeth which were both very loose.  We teased him a lot about the song “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth.”  He has lost other teeth since then, but now, 8 months later, those top two teeth are FINALLY coming in!  He has had the cutest little toothless grin for a while now. 

Toothless at Christmas in Utah

Brian enjoys reading, and has read all the reading list books I’ve gotten him for the 2nd and 3rd grades this summer.  He has recently gotten into comic books and super heroes. Similarly, he has become interested in super hero cartoons, and watches Iron Man and Spider Man and many others.  He also still thoroughly enjoys video games and plays on the computer and Wii a lot.  I’ve tried to limit the video game time this summer, and we’ve done “school” this summer and he’s had lots of chores he’s completed, but he’s still played way too many video games!

In a parade in Nauvoo, Illinois

Brian went on his first real amusement park rides this summer when we were at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri.  He was scared of a lot of them, but still went on them anyway!

       

One of the cartoons he started watching on Netflix this summer was BeyBlades, which is a Japanese animation show about these toys which are basically tops you spin by launching them with a ripcord.  He and his brothers watched all the episodes of BeyBlades they could and he decided for his birthday to have a BeyBlade party.  We bought 2 stadiums and enough BeyBlades for all the kids to play and battle against each other.

 

It was a great party and I think everyone had a great time.  My boys are still battling with their Bey’s everyday and I get to host a new BeyBlade House Party next month and will get even more of their new favorite toy!

My cute little boy is growing up so much and I’m so proud of what a great kid he is becoming.  I look forward to watching him continue to learn and grow.  I love you Brian!

Bearing his testimony in the Seventies Hall in Nauvoo, Illinois

Aaron’s update

Evidently I can’t claim that the reason I haven’t blogged is because I was homeschooling like I said in my last entry in June.  Summer time ended up being really busy too!  School started today and I want to get back in the blogging habit!

Let’s start by discussing each kid separately!

1st day of 4th grade

Aaron is 9 years old and is awesome!  He started the 4th grade at Stephens Elementary today and I’m hopeful he has great teachers that can really challenge him and meet all his educational and social needs. 

Christmas in Utah

Last year I homeschooled him and had a great time! In addition to the typical English, spelling, history, writing, math and science stuff I taught, one day a week we focused on other topics, somewhat of his own choice.  We ended up doing a lot of lapbooks to focus our attention.  One of the units we studied was cars.  We read books about the history of cars, watched documentaries about how cars were made and a friend of ours took an hour to show Aaron everything under the hood and explain how cars work.  We even took a field trip to San Antonio to the Toyota Truck Manufacturing plant. 

It was fun getting to learn about other things we were interested in such as “The Little House in the Big Woods”, The 12 days of Christmas, The Zoo, How chocolate is made, and more.  Here are a few pics of Aaron at the zoo.

 

He has a great ear for music and has been taking piano lessons this year from Debbie Siebert.  She has been awesome and Aaron has learned a lot.  He enjoys his lessons and even enjoys practicing (almost) every day.  I look forward to him continuing this talent and seeing how he progresses.

St. Louis Arch

Aaron is a Bear in the Cub Scout program and has a lot of fun working on advancement and awards with his dad.  He won first place at the Pinewood derby in January and then went on to the district derby.  Paul was recently made the Cub Master and is very invested in making our Cub pack excel. The whole family gets involved in the cub scout activities and helping Aaron earn pins, belt loops, arrow points etc.

  

In April and May, Aaron entered two 1 mile races and ran the entire time (The Blue Bell one with free ice cream was his favorite!)  I was surprised at how fast he is.  He loves being outside (when it’s not too hot) and rides his bike and runs often.  I see a future track star in the family!

Aaron got to have a birthday party this year when he turned 9.  He invited 9 friends and they played 9 games.  They were all “minute to win it” style games that each took about one minute to play.  We made tic tac toe shirts and the kids got an X on a square for each challenge they completed.  It was a lot of fun!

He had a great summer playing games, reading books, watching TV, playing video games, playing on the computer and hanging out with his family.  Now on to greater learning in 4th grade!

 

Pictures from Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri

Back to business (I hope)

I’m going to claim that the reason I didn’t blog much in the past year was because I was homeschooling Aaron.  I’m not sure if that is exactly why, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 

It looks like back in October I finished blogging about the summer and then in November I jumped into some of the things I was thankful for, but other than that I’ve been totally MIA for this past year.  I’m sure most of you don’t really care about everything we did, but these pictures are how I keep caught up with my journaling and saving pictures for our yearly calendar. 

Here are the things I want to blog about in the next few weeks:

• Paul’s Birthday
• field trip to toyota plant
• halloween
• david’s tubes in his ears
• christian’s birthday
• 10 yr anniversary
• zoo
• trip to utah for christmas
• marcia in town
• pauls trips to washington and utah
• camping over spring break
• aaron’s birthday party
• easter
• running 5k
• my birthday
• 7 acre wood
• memorial day
• summary of each kid
• summer vacation

I’m certainly not promising to post about each of these, we’ll see how I do.  And since no one wants to read a blog without any pictures, here’s a recent one of my cute kiddos!

  

Last Day of School

School is out and Summer Break has officially started.

Here are the first day and last day of school pictures for a comparison of how my kids have grown over the past 9 months.

Before 3rd grade and 1st grade

After 3rd grade and 1st grade.  (They don’t look that different to me!)

Brian had a great 1st grade teacher in Mrs. Kelly. 

I’m not sure how much she tamed his craziness versus how much he matured, but he did great in school and by the end of the year wasn’t getting any disciplinary marks at all.  At his awards presentation he was the only student in his class to get the “Gold Academics Award” for getting straight A’s all year long. 

He also got an award for having an “Awesome Attitude” and was obviously the biggest class clown during the awards presentation.  Mrs. Kelly is moving on to 2nd grade so he might get her again this next year too.

Aaron’s teacher was me all year and we had a great year.  We finished the 3rd grade grammar book which had him diagramming sentences and memorizing poems and I think it was a great program.  We went through several spelling book (he knows how to spell amazingly well) and almost 2 full history books.  We started a writing program mid year and will continue to work on it and the history during the summer.  He also memorized scriptures, did typing lessons and learned to write in cursive.  He took swimming lessons and piano lessons and read innumerable books.  Science was also a lot of fun and we did lots of experiments. 

 

Math, of course, was where he excelled.  We have a few more weeks to finish this summer, but then he will have finished 3rd, 4th and 5th grade math books.  We are actively working with the local elementary school to determine what teacher to put him with next year and how we can work on allowing him to continue to excel in math at his own pace in class.  We are sending him back to Stephens Elementary in the Fall but I am so glad I got to homeschool him this year.  I loved it and hope to be able to do it again with my other children. 

Now on to summer!

Gratitude Thursday 3

1. Paul working from home

This week I was able to chaperone Brian’s field trip, all because Paul was able to work from home in the morning.  Paul typically works from home one day a week and it is so nice.  Nice to get to have lunch with him.  Nice to be able to quickly run to the store while the littles are napping.  Nice to just have him around.  I like him! 

2. Doctors

Today Christian had his 3yo check-up.  He does have an ear infection and is now on antibiotics, plus we’ve been giving him breathing treatments for a week or so when he’s been coughing and wheezing (he probably has asthma like Brian and I).  We love our pediatrician (and her nurse that goes to our church!) and today I’m grateful for access to such great medical technology. 

3.  Social Media (Facebook, Pinterest, etc.)

I know this is a silly thing to be grateful for, and I know I spend way too much time on my computer, but it very helpful to me in many ways.  Whether it is getting support from fellow moms on facebook, keeping in touch with friends from high school or college, or finding new recipes online, I utilize social media a lot.  I’m grateful for the technology and all that it enables me to do in my life.

4.  My SmartPhone

I only got my smartphone in February, and I love it!  I love being able to keep in contact with my e-mail or facebook wherever I am.  I love being able to read my scriptures or my Sunday School lesson while waiting for the bus stop.  I love being able to unwind with a good book in 30 seconds whenever I need it.  And I talk on the phone a lot too!  I’m grateful for this technology as well.

5. My Family

I have the best family.  I know, I know, you think yours is pretty good too, but mine is the best!  I have the cutest and smartest kids.  The nicest and most handsome husband.  The best brother and sister and in-laws around.  And my mother and father (although I miss him a lot) are the most awesome.  I am so grateful for my family and especially the fact that I am sealed to them for eternity!  I’m glad you’re mine!

Gratitude Thursday 2

Um, Actually, it’s Saturday.  Man, I am just not in the habit of blogging again!  I do have lots of posts that are needed, Paul’s birthday, Christian’s birthday, other fun things we’ve done lately.  But before I get overwhelmed with that, here are 5 more things I’m grateful for this week. 

1. Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

This week I have single handedly eaten 2 large pumpkins worth of roasted pumpkin seeds.  I can’t even imagine how much Halloween candy I might have eaten had I not grabbed a handful of these instead.  I roasted them in the oven with garlic salt on them and they were heavenly.  I still have one more pumpkin to cook and I look forward to more seeds (since I finished the last of my stash yesterday!)

2. Bountiful Baskets

Every other week I order my Bountiful Basket which is filled with fruit and vegetables.  Sometimes I get some fruits or vegetables that I don’t know what I’m going to do with, but then I experiment with new recipes and often find new favorites.  I often plan my meals around what produce I got and I think it has helped my kids be healthier too.  It costs $15 to order my baskets and it has about $25 full of great produce.  I am a backup volunteer site coordinator, meaning I can help run our local site and volunteering is fun.  Anyone who has more questions about it is welcome to ask.

3. Stephens Elementary

We have a great local elementary school.  Brian is attending 1st grade there right now and loves it.  We have had wonderful experiences with all the teachers we’ve come in contact with.  I’ve been homeroom mom, taught Junior Achievement, chaperoned field trips, and volunteered in other ways too.  Paul has been a watch dog on campus and helped in the classroom too.  Even my mom has been able to go in and read to the kids.  We are so lucky to have such great educators around who care for our kids and do their best to teach them.  I’m grateful that public school is a viable option in my area. 

4. Freedom

 

I am very grateful to live in a country with so much freedom.  I’m grateful for democracy and that we get to choose our leaders.  While not all the candidates I voted for won their races, at least I got the opportunity to vote.  I know many people in this world do not have that freedom, women especially.  I know that I live in a promised land and that I am very blessed to have the rights and opportunities and freedoms that come with living here. 

5. Friends

I don’t have a picture to post here, but I am grateful for the friends I have in my life.  Friends from my childhood who I have re-connected with on Facebook.  Friends in college who have kept in touch despite how different our lives have turned out.  Friends I have made in my neighborhood.  And especially friends from church.  Whether hanging out at playgroup, commenting on each others Facebook posts or talking on the phone, I know I have a lot of support.  Even my siblings and my siblings-in-law have turned out to be great friends for me and I am very grateful for all those who help me and love me in my life.  I truly hope I am as good of a friend to all of them as they are to me. 

Just writing these things down helps me have a good start to my day!  I read a great article this morning on Counting Your Blessings.  We should all do it more often!

Gratitude Thursday 1

I can’t believe it’s already November!  Like last year, I want to post 5 things I’m grateful for each Thursday in November.  Here goes:

1.  Health – Someone might notice that I posted this on Friday and not Thursday.  That’s because I wasn’t feeling well on Thursday.  Luckily I think it was just a 24-hour bug or something, because I’m feeling better now.  I am very grateful for my health and the health of the rest of my family.  We may get sick from time to time, and I have to give occasional breathing treatments to my kids for asthma, but we are generally healthy and I know how lucky we are for that and I hope not to take it too much for granted.

2.  Avocados

Yesterday I threw a HouseParty sponsored by Avocados from Mexico.  I didn’t grow up eating avocados as neither of my parents liked them and wasn’t really introduced to them until after I got married.  I now love them!  They are a super food and are so yummy.  I’m very grateful we get avocados in season year round!

3.  My jogging stroller

Even before David was born I started looking for a double jogging stroller.  I finally found what I wanted when he was about 6 months old.  Then my mom bought it for me for a birthday present.  And I love it!  I use it almost every day as I take Brian to and from the bus stop.  I haven’t gotten into jogging much because it was too hot this summer, but now that the weather is finally turning nice I’m ready to start jogging more. 

4.  Homeschooling Aaron

I am very grateful that I have the opportunity this year to spend extra time with my oldest son.  He is awesome.  He loves to learn and I love to teach him.  I am grateful for my education, the educational resources that abound, and the opportunity to stay home with my kids so that I can teach him. 

5.  Visiting Teaching

In our church we have the opportunity to learn how to love each other like the Savior does, by being assigned as visiting teachers.  I have 2 great visiting teachers who visit with me every month to check on me and find out if there is anything I need.  Likewise I have 3 sisters I’m assigned to check on.  As I reach out to these women each month I feel the love of the Lord for each one of them and my understanding of Heavenly Father’s love and plan grow.  I am very grateful for this inspired program in our church.

I’m already starting to make my list for next week!  I love this exercise!