First day of preschool

I love this little preschool. They do all the usual preschool stuff, but it has such a sweet vibe, and they also take care of farm animals, and get to ride ponies on Fridays, and they grow a vegetable garden and make their own snacks. It's great. And she loves it.

Here she is being shy for the first five minutes of the first day, and she hasn't been shy since. Everyday she loves it.

I can't believe she's four and starting preschool, and yet, she's been four for years. I think I miss Erilyn's babyhood the most.

I love this girl! She's sweet, and surprising, and social, and smart, and girly, and fun. I miss you already, preschool girl!

I love this outfit on him. There's a little tie that goes with it, and some cute shoes, but apparently he's deathly afraid of ties and shoes.

2nd grade

Anthon's first day of second grade. I almost forgot to take his picture, and then at the very last second he pulled this face. Typical. I love this kid!

First day of ballet

She's in heaven. I personally believe she's a natural born dancer, though I'll admit I know nothing about dancing. She just loves it and it's adorable. Worth the sacrifice of having to take two babies and a restless 7 year old to the studio and wait for an hour for her class...most of the time, at least:)

Tanner's first birthday and sweet baby bathtime

He was thrilled, of course, with his cake. I can't believe my baby is one. (Cliche, I know, but true.) I love, LOVE this adorable little boy! He's cuddly, and sweet, and playful, and easy going. The perfect baby.

Bathtime is one of his favorite things to do. He loves to unplug the water, and then try to plug it up again. Which he almost never can do. So we're constantly re-filling the tub, which he also loves, because then he fills up his cup and gets lots of drinks. Adorable!

Naked Baby

How cute are naked babies?! I just love that squishy bum! And that curly hair!

Tanner at the splash park

Just thought I'd share these fun pics. We went to a splash park the other night after dinner, thinking we'd just let the kids get some energy out. Tanner was already in his pjs and I was just going to push him in the swing or something, but as soon as we got there, he made a beeline for the water. He crawled around getting sprayed for over half an hour and loved every second of it! He'd get really surprised when he'd get sprayed and then just smile and giggle like crazy. So cute!

Summer Projects

Any of you who know me know I'm not a naturally crafty person. I enjoy it on occassion, but if I were to choose an activity as a creative outlet, it would NOT be arts or crafts. That said, the kids and I have been trying to incorporate more arts and crafts this summer and here are two of our most fun projects:

Bean Bags

The kids loved picking out material from my scraps and helping me sew and fill them so much that I promised to take them to an actual fabric store so they can pick out their own fabric for another one.

Since completing this project I've been "killed" by bean bag guns and cannons more times than I care to admit.




Glossy Painting

This project took forever to dry, and had to be closely supervised, but turned out really beautiful. You just mix food coloring with corn syrup and have at it. I drew a picture with a wax crayon on photo paper, and put a paint brush into each of the four colors I made, and the kids did the rest. As is typical, Erilyn didn't really want to do it at first, but after watching Anthon and two friends paint for a while, she finally decided to participate. Anthon whipped out six paintings (two I didn't even try to hang up considering how much goo, I mean, "glossy paint" was on the paper and would surely drip off onto the floor), while Erilyn did her one flower pot. But they both ended up feeling really proud of their work, so that's what counts, right?! And all the other kids (we had friends over) praised Erilyn on their own for her flower pot painting. They thought hers was really pretty, which made her smile and me glad.

You can see Anthon's rainbow painting starting to slide downward already. I ended up having to take them down because even though they were basicly "dry," they'd still kind of drip.

They were really pretty though. The colors were very vivid and shiny.

Overall, I consider it a success because Erilyn painted. The end.

Some things we're trying...

With our easy summer schedule (and the heat, which--aside from going to the pool nearly every day--generally leaves us finding things to do indoors, since I'm a heat wimp), I think we've all started getting on each other's nerves a little. In an effort to keep the peace, we've been trying a few things this summer:

Experiment #1

I put this jar and all these little pom poms on a tray on our coffee table, and told them that every time we did something nice for someone in our family, or even someone outside of our family, we could put a "warm fuzzy" in the jar. We talked about how serving makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside, and how it helps our family grow closer together and closer to God. I specified that being obedient to the rules of the house, while admirable and desirable, did not earn them a warm fuzzy. They had to do something above and beyond.

For a while, they were constantly looking for ways to earn a warm fuzzy and they did really well at being self-motivated. But after a week or two, they started to lose interest and I had to be much more active in looking for things they were doing that deserved a warm fuzzy. I found that if I watched, they were helping and serving all the time! What a great opportunity for me to practice positive praise and for me to get better at serving as well.

Overall, a successful experiment. And now that we've filled our jar, we're going to celebrate by spending a day at a nearby lake, swimming, playing in the sand, and picnicking. Fun fun!




Experiment #2

To help us all to remember to use kind words AND voices when we speak to each other, I put five candies in each of our little cups every morning. I told the kids that they could eat all five of their candies during our nightly scripture reading if they used sweet words and voices all day long. But, if they yelled, or whined, or said something not sweet, they had to give one of their candies to the person they yelled, whined, or weren't sweet to. The first several days, we were all giving away lots of candies. And one day, Anthon ended up with 11, which, I decided at the end of the day, was more of a testament to what a pill he was, than to the rest of us losing our cool. But, besides that, it's gone really well. And in the last day or so, I've really noticed that hardly any of us are giving our candies away! We're learning to be sweet, even when frustrated!

Ah, sweet success.

hee hee...I couldn't resist the pun:)

Homemade

The kids and I have been busy in the kitchen the last few days. We made strawberry jam, three batches of homemade bread with accompanying bread letters, granola, and granola bars.



The kids were a huge help and were thrilled that I let them help hull the strawberries. I taught them how to hold and handle a knife, and they were surprisingly careful and effective.


And I'm happy to report no cuts!



Good work, kiddos!