St. Patty's Day

This was the only one out of 20 where they were all looking and sort of smiling.  It's hopeless!

Since St. Patrick's was on a Saturday and Justin, the principal instigator of crazy Saturdays filled with activities, was out of town, I had to come up with my own. After the classic green milk that the kids wouldn't drink and downing a few Chocolate coins left by the Leprechauns, (actually from the giant box of left over Christmas candy that doesn't exist) we...

Made potato stamps with shamrocks and hearts that you can use to make a bigger shamrock

Then we made a couple hundred of these little darlings.  The kids frosted and decorated them all by themselves. We used green licorice for the shamrocks, rainbow sour candy and golden jelly bellies for the pot of gold. 

The best part of the day was watching Henry and Jake ding-dong-ditch people as they delivered the cupcakes.  They snuck around the neighborhood, hiding behind bushes and trees, tiptoeing along with Leprechaunish faces, leaving behind special treats.

When they got home I fed them green pasta and...

Pot O' Gold jello jigglers for dessert.

I paid special attention to my clover that is growing in my orchid plant.  I love my baby clover!

He likes his sheltered home

The kids also ate Lucky Charms all day long, which I have NEVER bought for them.  You can guess how long those lasted.  After all the fun, we drove down to Provo to eat dinner with my mom and swim in the indoor pool and hot tub.  The kids had a blast swimming.  We finally got home at 9pm and threw the kids into bed.  Phew! What a fun day.

What did this owl eat!!??

Henry and his Rat

  Henry and I finished putting the rodent skeleton together that we took out of the owl pellet we got from the museum of Natural History.  It is huge.  My dad thinks it's a squirrel.  I think it looks like a rat.  We'll probably never know.  Dissecting an owl pellet was one of my few memories of Elementary School that I look back on with fondness so I wanted to recreate the experience with Henry.  He really loved gluing the bones back together today to see the finished product.  And guess why we now have time for such fun activities? Chore chart!

Miracle Chore Chart (If you read one post this year, this should be the one)

I found this sticky white board at the supermarket.  It works extremely well and I can change it whenever I want

Tonight for Family Home Evening we went around telling each other what we loved/liked about one another.  Henry told me that he loved me because I go skiing with him and because I made a chore chart for him!  I couldn't have anticipated the effect this amazing little chart and system would have on my son.  He truly loves it and it works better than I could have imagined.  I got the idea from the parenting class I'm taking.  If you can take one of these classes, do it.  Don't be ashamed.  You don't have to be out of control to finally take a class.  

These are our poker chips.  The Black are 10 points, the blue are 5, the red and green are both 1point each. 

The whole idea behind this is this: Kids tend to feel entitled.  They have high expectations for being able to watch the shows they want to watch, play video games, eat special treats, have play dates, get McDonalds whenever mom is running late, and that's just the little kids.  Fast forward a few years and some kids all have laptop computers, ipods, ipads, bikes, scooters, endless designer clothes and activities galore.  And as one of my wealthy neighbors put it, "What do you get kids who have everything"(Talking about Christmas) Do they work for these amazing privileges? I can tell you that most do not.  I didn't grow up with opulence, but I hardly worked at all for what I did have.  Justin, on the other hand, worked a lot and it paid off big time. If my kids are going to grow up on a farm, they need to be able to work hard!

I bought him a little safe box to keep his chips in.  He loves locking and unlocking it to put his chips in

 This is a system that is kind of like Chuck-E-Cheese for ages 4 and up.  Your kids do a chore, they get a chip right away.  They earn enough points, they get to spend their points on things they want to do.  They save up some of their points for bigger weekly prizes and an even bigger monthly prize.  All of these things, except for new LEGOS which require insane amounts of chores to get, are things I allow my son to have anyway, but now he's just working for them.  I don't even have to remind him most days to get his chores done.  He just does them and he's going strong for 2 weeks now.  And in his words as he clutches his chips, "This is so much fun!!" In the chore column he has to do the first set of chores to be able to use any points.  He has the option to do more chores down below for more points and then there are the bedtime points at the bottom which he only gets if he does them without me asking him after I make the initial announcement that we're getting ready for bed.  The things that are hard for him to do or remember are worth more points.  Combing his hair is really hard, but he'll do it for 5 points!  Also, he is required to use his points for one daily and weekly prize.  He can't just save them up and not do anything fun all day long.  The last thing is that you have to give your kids chips for having a good attitude and you just have to do it at random without any set point value each time.  This way it inspires them to always do everything with a smile on their face just in case they earn an extra few points. 

This chart makes Henry Happy

Since this began, I have almost stopped having to parent Henry.  He's doing it all by himself.  He loves this system and so do I.  We've become even better friends and now that he's basically cleaning my whole house, we have more time to do fun stuff together and mom doesn't sit around all day long cleaning up messes and nagging him to get his chores done!  If any of you are having trouble getting your kids to do their chores, this is a great system that doesn't use candy, bribes, real money, and won't cost you a penny if you don't want it to.  If you want the official instructions I will scan them and email them to you. Let me know if it works for you!

Wild Warm Weekend #2

My little Grown Up

On Saturday morning the kids helped me clean the house and then we took Henry skiing in 65 degree weather.  Justin rode his bike up to the resort and was actually too hot in his long spandex.  It really was that warm up there. 

Just a boy and his mountain

The only girlfriend I will encourage him to have until he's 21

Tiny Tiger was the route we chose to take

 Henry went down a really fun black diamond run multiple times, each time pointing out the melty powder from the lift he wanted to hit next. It was one of the best ski days we had all year. His thin, old school skis got stuck in the thick mushy powder.  He definitely needs some fat powder skis for next year. 

Squinty Henry at the bottom.  The sun was really bright!

 
 Henry got a hold of the camera and took some photos of his surroundings. 

Snowboarder Mom

Henry loves riding the shuttle bus up to the lodge to get candy.  It's part of the whole experience for him.

After skiing we headed out to my Mom's place in Provo for a delicious dinner with swimming and hot tubbing afterward.  We finally arrived home around 9pm, I fell asleep around 11pm and didn't wake up until 10am the next day.  I was exhausted!  We certainly play hard in this family!

Wild Warm Weekend #1

I don't know about you, but I get hyper and overzealous when the weather gets warm.  I feel like I can't waste one moment inside.  Result: messy house, dirty kids, too much planned and extra tired mom and kids.

Here is our Friday in photos

Went to the zoo with Henry's friend Nathan.  I was alone with 5 kids.  They were suprisingly very well behaved.  This train, I have to say, is really lame in the winter.  Not worth the money. 

 Then it was off to the park I grew up going to, Lindsay Gardens.  Henry climbed trees, rolled down the steep hills, and just played and played.  It was fun to be back. 

Henry swinging at the park on the exact same swing I broke my arm on when I was 7 years old by jumping out of it. 

The kids getting sick of the merry go round

The kids riding the same ol' dilapidated merry-go-round that I used to ride when I was tiny.  Must be like 40 years old

We went on a house tour of my childhood. House #1 408 L street

House #2 733 9th Avenue

House #3 484 H street.  This is kiddie corner from where my friend, Candice, now lives.  Small world!

Last and coolest house: 860 1st Avenue.  I like the new landscaping.  Henry thought it was cool to see my old houses.

Then it was off to meet Justin at our favorite pizzaria

Then gelato next door at CAPO - The best gelato in town

Here it is.  The best flavor is yogurt with berries.  Tart and perfect!

Then I went to GLEEK, a musical that my cute little nanny, Latycia was a cheerleader in.  Justin took the kids home and put them to bed all by himself.  I can't believe he did it! Thank-you Justin!

Phew! That was just Friday.  Stay tuned for Saturday. 

Kindergarten going on 3rd grade

I bought Henry this owl pellet that we're are still in the process of dissecting. He LOVED finding the skull and figuring out what animal it was.  We're going to glue it to the paper as a full skeleton when we're done finding the bones.

 Excuse me as I brag for a moment about Henry.  Since this is his life journal I have to record this for posterity.  Justin and I just went to parent teacher conference and we found out that Henry is pretty much a genius!  He's reading at a 3rd grade level!  I thought maybe he was approaching a 2nd grade level with his reading, but he's apparently way past that! He's also off the charts with everything else from math to science and the penguin that he drew was the most life like looking one of the whole class! He is polite and helps the other children with their reading.  He is kind to all the kids and he participates well in all activities.  I have to say that I feel really good about trying to home school him next year.  Even if I crash and burn, he will still be ahead of his class, AND doing what I've been doing to get him to this point of excellence was really fun and easy for me.  I enjoy teaching him and he is a little sponge and listens to everything I say.  I'm really looking forward to it:)

Still working on that smile.  lol! This was way better than the shot with the strawberry. 

The two things he needs to work on are being quiet while his teacher, Mrs. Genesi, is talking.  He has a tendency to talk to his neighbor, talk to himself, and make clicking noises with the back of his throat.  I don't blame him for making clicking noises because I remember being young and trying to figure out just how many sounds I could make.  It's so fun when you're a kid! 

When my mom went in to my Kindergarten parent teacher conference, she said my teacher, Mrs.  Barriger, who was also my brother's friends' mom, and said, "there's a big problem".  My mom sat there with her heart pounding in her chest, wondering what could be so wrong.  Finally she took a deep breath and sighed, "Annie just uses way too much glue".  Hahaha!  My mom was like, "um, that's not really a big problem".  I do remember pouring glue all over my hand, letting it dry and then carefully trying to peel it off so I had a life-sized glue hand with all it's lines and prints.  What's more fun than that?  It took a lot of patience and intricate peeling to get that thing off, skills that I appreciate to this day.  I frequently have to carefully peel stickers off of church pews, kitchen chairs, the floor without ripping them with a tearful Bea peaking over my shoulder.  I also need all the patience training I can get.  I am debating about even teaching Henry how to do it.  And don't try to even tell me that every single one of you didn't rub glue all over your hands at one point in your childhood. 

It's the thought that counts

This is a drawing of Bea with pigtails and a crown

 Yesterday Henry and Bea got in a little fight and to apologize Henry decided to get on PBSkids.org and print Bea out a photo of Valarie Velociraptor from her favorite show, Dinosaur Train, then he drew a picture of herself with a crown on, colored everything, cut it out, taped it together, wrapped it all up in a construction paper bow(that doubled as two bracelets) with a heart on top.  He brought it up to her and she opened it up with a huge smile on her face, saying that she loved it.  She put her bracelets on and we pinned it to her cork board in her room.  He has turned into the most thoughtful little guy and I'm so proud of him!

I also wanted to say that I have written 200 posts on Henry's blog since he was 1 year old.  This is a milestone and probably about 1 volume of the many he will have of his life when I get it all printed off someday.

Bea loves Dinosaur Train and this is her favorite dinosaur, Valarie Velociraptor

Day after Cleaning Day

Thanks for playing with me

 My favorite day is the day after our house cleaners come because the house is perfect, no one has to waste time in the morning cleaning up their rooms, putting toys away, doing dishes, which slowly eats up our time, especially when you're trying to be a good mom and make your kids take care of their own stuff and not do it all yourself. 

Clemmie helped too

Yesterday we played Henry's new game he got for his Birthday, Number Ninjas, made a giant snowman outside and ate giant strawberries before school even started.  We had so much fun! I was just thinking that when I home school him next year for half the day, I'm going to have to just put all the cleaning aside and just play and do school and I need to be ok with the house not being perfect sometimes. 

best buddies

This morning I woke up and Henry and Bea had already gotten themselves breakfast and were all dressed in their snow clothes and playing outside in the snow.  I'm so grateful for kids that like to play outside and for kids that think up things to do and do them without me having to come up with an activity.  Hooray for big kids!

Henry still doesn't know how to smile for a photo.  He did 5 different faces for this shot and this was the best one! haha.

I told Henry that if we have an awesome snow day next year I would take him up the mountain and we would do school on the ski lift, memorizing addition and subtraction problems, Chinese characters and  practicing spelling.  I figure with all the time that is wasted during the regular public school day, why not use that precious time to go skiing! He got so excited when I told him that idea.  I wish they had a home school ski program.  I would totally go for that!