Showing our Team Spirit

We've got BYU team spirit!

Mostly from Conrad.

In October, he had this great idea that what the fort needed was to be painted. Blue. With BYU on it. It is football season, after all.

Grace and Millie quickly agreed.



In honor of today's bowl game, I thought I'd share how deep the blue runs here.

Go Cougars!!!

Christmas Cheer

Argh! My Christmas Cheer has been depleted by my children. And that is not right, I tell you. Because Christmas is a wonderful, magical, holy season magnified by the innocence and sweet joy of children. Its not supposed to be dampened by ONE trip to the store with three kids. (As a rule, I avoid holiday shoppers as much as possible--I even try not to drive past the mall.) I should enjoy the kids playing with the nativity (out just for them) and how they play "decorate the tree" and "Christmas Day" ("wrapping" and giving gifts to one another) instead of grumbling about the mess they are strewing throughout the house. I'm supposed to look forward to Christmas morning, not pine for them to be tucked in their beds with visions of sugar plums. And then there's the noise. The noise, noise, noise, noise!

The trip to the store did it to me. I got desperate. I didn't think I'd ever resort to this. Mostly because I don't remember my mom ever putting out The Threat.

At Sam's Club, yesterday, as we were trying to check out, I had had it! I ordered Conrad to sing a song to Grace. And explain the meaning to her. Both for her benefit and as a reminder to him. Hoping it might trickle down to Millie, as well. Thank-you Polar Express for searing it into Con's memory.

It was the classic, "You Better Watch Out." That's right, kids. Santa is coming. And he is watching. And keeping a list. And you want to be on the Nice list, not the Naughty one.

After Conrad explained it, he and Grace literally put their heads together and whispered. Then they shared with me, in hushed tones, so not to hurt Millie's feelings, that they had determined that Millie is not nice and she must be on Santa's Naughty List. I started to explain that she is two and impulsive and that Santa understands that, then changed it to a Lets Help Her Get on the Nice List campaign.

Friends, it was magical!

Conrad is now on his BEST behavior. No tackling, no wrestling, no accidentally knocking sisters over.

Grace suddenly stopped crying.

And they are both coaching Millie on how to be Nice.

Why didn't I bring up this whole thing before? Can this work for next year, starting January 1st? Am I a bad parent for resorting to a legend to elicit the desired behavior from my children? Do I even care?

Merry, merry Christmas to everyone, everywhere!

Chuck E Cheeses

We celebrated Millie's actual birthday a couple weeks early. (It was convenient, and, in my defense, she is two and can't read a calendar yet.) Her actual birthday rolled around and Conrad insisted we celebrate on her Real Birthday. Tyler was working out of town, and we tend to do super fun stuff so that his absence isn't noticed as much, so I thought, lets pull out all the stops:

Chuck E Cheeses.

That is what the commercial calls it. That is what my kids call it :).







We ate pizza. We played games. We rode rides. And slides. And used the tickets to buy all sorts of junk. We even got sodas instead of water!

We were high rollers that day.

And made some great memories.

For the record, if asked whether they'd rather go to Chuck E Cheeses or have Tyler home, my kids wouldn't hesitate. They love their dad more than Anything!

100 Kisses

Can you think of a yummier way to practice the number 100?

Come on! This is impressive! Not only did Con count one by one to 100, but I had him organize the kisses into rows of 10. He counted by ones and we counted by 10's many times.

We are building the foundation for a good understanding of base 10, people!

And, I love making Christmas cookies!!!

The Gingerbread Man

Sorry about my recent lack of posting. We're still alive. We've just been a little busy, combined with different little colds, coughs and stomach bugs for the last month, not at the same time, just taking turns.

I do want to go back and chronicle the past month and a half, but had to get today shared today.

This morning we attended Conrad's class performance of The Gingerbread Man. Too cute! The Kinders were the chorus, the Firsts had specific parts. The narrators read and the rest of the class sang. And did hand actions. And (the firsts) chased the gingerbread man around and around the bridge.

Conrad was quite happy with his performance. And he can't wait until next year when he gets to have a part.
He hopes to be the gingerbread man.
'Cause he runs the most.

Silly boy.

Jog-a-thon

At the beginning of October, the PTC hosted a jog-a-thon as a healthy, 100% revenue for the school fundraiser. The kids thought it was great! They love the t-shirts which they'll wear for the rest of the year on Fridays (wish I'd known about that one before getting that other spirit shirt). And it was so fun to cheer the kids on as they ran and ran and ran. Some of the kids in our ward even won their grade level and got prizes! (Conrad didn't, but we'll blame the mass confusion that was the kindergardeners).

They kept track of how many laps they'd run by getting a silly band each time they ran through the balloon "gate." (The K kids were lined up to get the silly bands from the first mom with silly bands instead of running to the other parents lined up--so Kindergarden--so cute! And lets be honest, they all kept cutting corners in a major way. Hilarious!) With the older kids, the competition part was serious buisness.



After getting to run and run and run as part of school, they got water and popsicles. Does it get any better than this?

Yes! Yes it does! I got to go for the first half of the day and spray kids with water as they ran by, without chasing down Millie and Grace (who I'll definately bring next year, but it was a nice little break this year). And the PTC announced that they reached their $10,000 goal (all profit, people) and there will be no more PTC fundraisers this year! No wrapping paper. No candy sales. No magazine subscriptions. Yay! Yay! Yay!

Go Cougars!

Teeth

What is the BEST Chuck E Cheese prize ever?

Seriously. They had so much fun with these little pieces of plastic! And they glow.in.the.dark!

My favorite is that they are actually too big for either mouth, yet somehow Grace and Conrad have crammed those dientes in. Love it!

Grace's Flip Flops

Check out the shoes on our little fashionista:

Lil' Cougar

Millie loves anything Conrad loves, including his helmet.

You should hear her cheer on the BYU Football Team: Go Cougs! Woo-hoo!

What Does He Do?

I got to go to the dry pack cannery this morning. By myself. No kids. That wouldn't be practical. Tyler stayed home with the kids. Way easy for me! And he had a list of things he wanted to get done that the kids could "help" with.

I love going to the cannery.

Not that its exciting or fun. At all. But what I do there isn't undone two minutes or even two days later. What I get canned is there for up to 30 years! And its easy to see what I've accomplished. Its sitting there in the back of the car.

So this morning, I went. I canned. I enjoyed the mindless labor without interruption. When I was done, I went to pay for it. Right as the people who were there on stake assignment for the wet pack salsa were trying to pay for their salsa. So I stood in line.

For quite a while.

And chatted with a nice ol'guy.

He asked about what I do. He asked about what my husband does. We chatted about his kids, his first marriage, his wife's long disease and what that entailed for his family. We chatted about his second marriage and how much more easy going he is with his 2nd batch of kids. And then he asked about what Tyler does again.

I repeated that he is a computer consultant.

He said, "No, what does he Do?"

Um. Work. And play with three active kids.

I think he was looking for "play basketball" (which he does sometimes at the church--he loves church ball), or "fish," or "bike," or "garden." But really, what Tyler does, especially as of late, is work, come home for dinner, help bathe and put the kids to bed, then work some more. Saturdays he plays with the kids, helps clean the church, mows the lawn, tries to get this or that fixed (we have ACTIVE kids) or help me clean, then often sneaks in some more work.

Of course, we pause for the weekly football game. He somehow works in a Psych episode. And there is always one more story to be read, one more wrestling match or ten more minutes of football with the kids that he seems to squeeze into the mix. But that is what he Does.

He doesn't have any extensive hobbies or sports. Most of the way home, I was feeling a bit guilty about that. 'Cause there is a lot he Likes to do.

Then I realized that there is a lot I'd like to do, too. But most of my days are overflowing with fixing food, cleaning up food, cleaning floors and bathrooms and mopping up milk, laundry, the unexpected laundry from potty-training, wiping down walls and appliances and counter tops, putting away laundry, and toys and markers and crayons and play dough, cleaning up where a two year old tried to get her own snack or a three year old tried to pour her own milk, getting kids down for naps, reading stories, helping with homework, inventing little girl homework, art projects and cooking projects, piano "lessons," throwing around a football, holding batting practice in the backyard, helping girls get on dress ups and helping girls get off dress ups and imagining with them, snuggles and songs, attempts at getting them in clothes that are okay to leave the house in (and usually giving up), doing the same with hair, baths and drying out after baths....

What do we do?

We work (at home or at the office)and take care of our kids.

That is the phase of life we are in right now.

And I think we quite enjoy(most of)it.

Conrad's Non-Party

This year, the plan was for Conrad to have a friend party for his birthday. A football and sports party. With a football cake (again) and all his buddies and a sports birthday banner and everything.

And I have been preparing accordingly.

Until two weeks ago.

It was time to make and send out the invitations, so Con and I were going over the guest list one last time. Thats when he said, "And don't forget to invite the dads."

"The dads don't have to come, buddy," I said.

"Yes, they do," Conrad insisted and then explained, "or we won't have enough players for two full teams."

What followed was a discussion about how he thought a football party meant you'd have a football game--a REAL football game--how I had to veto that, how no one else has a helmet (and pads he's expecting from grandmas that'll get him what his mom won't {with my blessing}) and how our back yard has too much cement for a real football game, being October how we couldn't count on a clear day for a park birthday and if it rained how would you handle it, and how some of the moms would not want their little boys to get tackled, how Con doesn't even know the meaning of touch football.....It went on. The result was a broken heart.

Oh, it was so sad.

So sad.

I almost relented. I almost went against my mom judgement and gut feeling for the compassion in my heart. I considered what cute flags I could make for a game of flag football (thank-you PE375 for the tutorial and assignment 12 years ago--yes it was seriously part of my grade for that class). I thought about all the goodie bags stuff and decos I have collected over the last year. I thought about all these little boys who have invited Con to their parties. I thought about how this is what Conrad had planned and schemed and talked about for a whole year. And I saw the sad tears and quiet, heaving of silent sobs of such a tough little man who had convinced himself that the only way to have a true football party was to play football. A real game.

And thats when I had a reality check that it would be a real football game. No flag football. No two-hand-touch. But tackles. And belly bumps. And tackles. Because that is Con's reality. His life. At 5 almost 6, that is how he lives. And if he's going to tackle a two-year-old and try to take down a 6'4'' uncle, how is he going to not attack a peer running with a pig skin. That would not not happen. And even though the dads would be on board, there were the conversations with a few moms that I just couldn't purposely start: We'd love to have your son come, but please know that there will be full on tackle football. Do you want to send your pediatrician's phone number or copy of your health insurance, just in case?

In a moment of not knowing what else to do, inspiration: I thought about a recent invite to a tail-gate party from one of Tyler's clients in Oregon. Yup. And so....

This year's a football game birthday. And an airplane ride. To Corvalis. With his dad. Wearing the Cougar blue.

This kid is a fan!

The only consolation to the heartache of not playing his favorite sport was to watch his favorite sport, after throwing around a ball in a parkinglot in the middle of Oregon. Crazy kid!

Goals

Now that our turn is over for having Joy School at our house (sniff--I sure had fun!), I've taken a few days to evaluate. Folks, some things need to be done. Such as cleaning my house more than the floors and bathrooms. You know. The closets, the cupboards, the drawers, dusting the up-highs, cleaning walls that chronicle what my kids have or have not eaten for the last month or so, my car, the weeds taking over the front yard...

And then there are the upcoming holidays: Halloween decorations and costumes which have been planned by cute little girls (aren't they too young to have such definate opinions!?!) and Christmas! I usually have most of my Christmas shopping done by Halloween. This year I haven't even begun. Except for what Grace found one morning after I hastily threw it in the closet.

But what I keep coming back to in my inspections are things that need cleaning up and adjusting that are deeper than the grime we call the back seat of the van. I have exhausted, crying screaming , loud children. And I keep forgetting to put in the earplugs Ann gave me for Millie's 2nd birthday until the headache has already set in. I have no patience for them or Tyler right now. None. We've forgotten how to go to the store and Sacrament Meeting. And they've forgotten how to listen and do what Mom says.

Frustration.

And this is what really counts, right?

So, I'm using this venue to organize a few informal goals, keeping in mind my "circle of influence" :
-I bought a lil' blue Book of Mormon a year ago to mark any parental advise I could find and never got past 1 Nephi 1:1 (which is marked up, by the way). I'm going to attack it with colored pencils!
-I am going to get softer instead of louder when I talk to the kids.
-I am going to be consistent about removing Millie and Grace from the situation when the screaming and crying starts. Consistency!!!
-Less TV, more playing with them--come on guided learning! We adopted Screen Time Tokens from a friend's blog post a while ago, but I've been lazy about it as of late. And it is so easy--the kids keeping track of their own screen time--I just need to be better about turning on the timer for them, since I "forget" to set it, just to finish one. more. thing.
or two.
-When I check on them before I go to bed, I will not just check for wet diapers and warm blankets, I will stop and gaze at those angelic, sleeping, sweet faces and remember how this time is so fleeting.
-I will start telling myself, "When they are all in school..." again. It helps me not be frustrated about messes and unfinished projects and poopy diapers as we are loading into the car. (What is with that timing!?!)
-I'm going to get out my tools and fix what I know how to do and get on the internet for a few more things instead of stepping around this or that or trying to tell a very, very busy Tyler when he should take care of that piano bench or shower handle. Then if I get to it, fine, and if I don't, well, I'm not expecting him to.
-Why didn't we do soccer this season? I'm signing Con and Grace up for winter soccer. Actually, I just did. Yay me! Already meeting a goal!
-Classical music. Not just in my earphones. I'm thinking we'll blast it through the house. Softly. Its gotta help our house be calmer!
-To-do Lists! I need 'em. Or else I bounce back and forth between what is urgent and what I forgot and that thing I started and didn't finish. A set schedule (like I enjoyed at school) has been hard for me with young kids and all the "variables" that would mess.it.up. But some well-grounded routines and a To-Do List lets me be flexible and focused. And I have been floating and forgetful since coming back from Brazil. Time to fix that!

My hope in posting this is that it keeps me from putting off the changes I NEED--you know, if its more than just in my head, I'll actually do it. Today. Yay mortalitiy and the chance to learn and grow!

Update on What I Learned Last Week

Salt.

Of all the suggestions on the internets, salt was the one that took care of the diaper gel and got it out of the clothes the best as I rewashed them in smaller loads.

And salt was my third try.

No permanent damage. Not to the clothes or the washer or dryer. Not that I know of.

Whew! The cost of this knowledge was just stress and time. Re: It took me all weekend to catch up on laundry. Now I'll check twice for pull-ups and diapers.

What I've Learned this Week

1. Make sure you check before having your 5-year-old slide into bed after the two-year-old was jumping on his bed between bath and pjs.

2. Never, never miss a diaper or pull-up that has been "helped" into the laundry as you load the washer. Especially with three of your own shirts and one pair of pants of your limited wardrobe in that load. Never.

I Like Gracie Because...

-she "reads" her favorite books
-she calls them her "favowites"
-she is careful and light on her feet, had her first skinned knee just yesterday
-and she can wrestle with Con with force
-she sings and sings and sings (We recently pulled out the ol'cd player and some kid cds and she is often found, laying in front of it, playing her favowite songs, singing along)
-I can take her ANYWHERE
-she loves her school and her fwiends
-she helps me cook, clean and fold laundry
-she takes such good care of her babies
-she picks up on non-verbal subtleties really well
-she is 3 going on 15
-she is a pink princess
-she is tenderhearted and cuddly

I Like Millie Because...

-she has recently come up with a fake laugh for use when the kids are telling jokes
-she has her own, much repeated, version of a knock-knock joke
-she asks for "more kickles"
-has this quick transition from a piercing scream to a soft, sweet "Mommy" down pact, when prompted
-she is fearless and makes all the parents at Kindergarden Pick Up cringe with concern at her stair climbing and flip-flop running
-everything is fixed by a "Holl-ju"
-she always requests number 9, whichever song that might be, when we are listening to music in the car
-of her singing
-she loves to "cowor"
-of her lisp
-she is in the hoarding stage with great gusto
-of those curls (not pictured)
-she is the most entertaining, go, go, go two-year old I know

B is for Bugs

For Joy School, we have the letter B. B is for Bugs. I have wanted to have a sensory bin for years, but needed a good excuse for the effort and the mess. This is the excuse. And it is a mess!

Green rice is everywhere! The rule is, if you dump it on the floor on purpose, we put it away. And, if rice gets off the sheet that is under the bin, we vacume it up and have less rice. Luckily, the tile and pergo floors are easy to vacume up. Sadly, those same floors make rice easy to scatter. We find rice everywhere! Vacume and find and vacume some more.

Like I said, a mess! But, sooooo fun, too!

Fashion, By Millie

This girl, like her big sis, has her own sense of style:
Yes, those are denim capris underneath the pink 3-layer skirt with a jammie shirt and American Flag flip-flops. Yes, we did go in public like that. No, there was no convincing her to wear anything else.

Grace's First Day of Joy School

We started Joy School with Grace right after school started for the big kids. Grace LOVES it! She loves that she goes to school. With her fwiends. And a backpack. And they have snack and do school work and sing songs and learn the days of the week and numbers and letters. Plus all the different, fun activities they did each day! She is loving it!

Millie was so sad that she didn't get to stay the first day, even though she was ready with a backpack. Luckily, it turns out that she'd be a great only child and loves her Just Mommy and Millie Time.

An Elephant and Piggie Party

Are you in love with Mo Willems, too? I love the Knuffle Bunny books, the Pigeon books and the Elephant and Piggie Series. Love, love, love them! They are humorous for kids and adults. And readable for the little guys! Its the combo of witty, easy reading dialog and expressive illustrations. Its brilliant. I love them!

So, at the beginning of the summer, Conrad, Grace and I planned out an Elephant and Piggie Party. Complete with games, goodie bag ideas and foods. And two guests lists. There were so many friends they wanted to invite, it was going to take two parties.

Maybe thats why it never happened.

Until this month!

'Cause Millie was turning two and we had already bought some supplies for the games.

And we really needed to bring these fun ideas to life.






Masks for costumes, beads and rings for fancy and swimsuits and a pool for a Fancy Pool Costume Party, from I'm Invited to a Party!










We threw eggs into a nest hat, worn by Drew--Thanks buddy!--inspired by There's a Bird on your Head




A snake toss, from Can I Play, Too?





Lunch was Millie's favorites, and we were going to have pigs in a blanket, but in the end simplified to regular buns. Simple, better, done:


Singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles (for a looooong time) (this is also where I decided that although I might bark at the kids for trying to blow out the little girl's candles, it is a mother's right to help the process along when she isn't getting it):


Eating Piggie cupcakes:


And, lastly, there is nothing like a two-year-old opening presents:










Thank-you for the fun gifts (especially the ear plugs for me) and for the long drive for some to get here!

So, Millie has had the biggest birthday party of our family ever. Turning TWO. People, I just don't do that. But it was totally worth it!

Lost Tooth

Conrad lost his second tooth, and he didn't swallow this one! AND it was so exciting to try to wait up to catch the tooth fairy!

I'm pulling his lip down 'cause he was so smiley about his dollar from the tooth fairy that he couldn't show off the gap to his satisfaction. "Let me see (the picture), Mom. That one works." That kid!