Random Tidbits

Here we go...

Tidbit #1. Up first is Ethan's school Carnival, of course. I have now discovered that my children respond quite favorably when a bribe is dangled in front of their noses. As in, I was able to get ALL of the kids to clean up and do their chores for most of the week last week by telling them that they couldn't go to the Carnival (or "festival" as Grace kept calling it) unless they did. Grace has surprised me lately with her external motivation levels and actually put up LESS of a fight than Ethan when it came down to getting the work done. The big day finally arrived and after waiting for Scott to get back from a Scout camp-out, we were finally on our way to the school with the whole family in tow. The poor little muppet was not feeling very well, and had been running a fever the day before, so in the end Scott took her home for a nap while I stayed with Ethan and Grace for a couple of hours, and then attempted to run a booth while Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum sat on the floor next to me asking me every other minute if they could have another sucker from the "Lollipop Pull" I was in charge of. In the end, the kids had a TON of fun and ate way too much junk -- although, if I do say so myself, this carnival had NOTHING on the Lusher Annual Crawfish Boil of my elementary school days. Oh how I wish we could have gone down there this year. *sigh* Oh well, maybe next year.

Of course, we had to hit up the Bake Sale first. Do you like how spaced out Sophie looks? And how fantastic her wardrobe choices have become now that she is able to dictate to me what she wants to wear?

Getting really excited to make the rounds.

Really loving her "goodies."


Ready to go home and take a nap.


Waiting in line


Striking a pose


Possibly my favorite shot from the whole day. Look at what responsible young citizens these two are. Hahahaha. They really look like a couple of road workers, don't you think?


Sophie didn't want to be left out of the picture taking, so she forced me to take her picture in front of the daffodils. She is quite the little despot when she's sick.

Tidbit #2. Grace gave her very first talk in Primary the next day. I have to say I was very skeptical as to whether her enthusiasm for giving the talk would continue once she was actually up there in front of everybody, but she surprised me once again, and after an initial bout of shyness she managed to repeat each line I whispered to her -- although I doubt anyone in the room could hear what she was saying because she was so quiet. Oh well, I was just happy to hear that she's absorbing things we've talked about in Family Home Evening, because she had no problem helping me write the talk on the topic of "Family members have important responsibilities." Now if only she would always follow through on HER responsibility of "doing chores" and "quickly I'll obey" when I tell her what she needs to do...

In case you can't tell, Grace picked out her outfit this morning. It was actually really cute because when she saw me dressed first, she decided that she wanted to wear a striped shirt just like me. So there you go. Here is my mini-me. Hahaha.


The girlie bugs before church -- Scott had to stay home with Sophie who was still running a slight fever and consequently had to miss Grace's talk


Superfluous shot of the Supermuppet.

Tidbit #3. I know all of you have been waiting impatiently to hear the results of March's Read-a-thon. So, here you go:

Ethan did indeed manage to kick it into high gear and ended up beating out Grace by the narrowest of margins. His special choice of date for winning, you ask? Oh, you know -- playing Super Nintendo with Dad down in the basement. It is his current obsession. Nothing compares to Super Mario World in his young eyes, and I can't say I blame him. Hahaha.


Tidbit #4. Grace was NOT happy about being beaten and not getting a date, but was quickly appeased when I reminded her that she had finally finished her whole month of no thumb sucking and could get her ears pierced that very day if she wanted. And boy did she want to. I've never seen her get dressed and ready to go so quickly. Below you will see the anatomy of an ear piercing...

• First off, you need a still sick little sister to throw a meltdown fit because she wants to get her ears pierced, too, and the answer is NO.

• Next head for the mecca of mall ear piercing.

• Don't forget to bring along some moral support in the form of one of your favorite junks.

• Sit nervously and wait as the lady swabs and marks your ears.

• Laugh at Sophie as she plays dress-up in Claire's and pulls everything within reach from the stroller down from the walls and makes a huge mess for mom to clean up while she's trying to listen to the instructions on how to take care of your newly pierced ears.

• And finally, enjoy your complimentary sucker at the end of your ordeal.

Grace has become my child of surprises these days in that she didn't cry or freak out at all as her ears were being pierced. And she has been more diligent than I have in remembering to clean her ears and twist the earrings everyday. I still cannot really believe that she has actually stopped sucking her thumb. I thought that day would NEVER come!


Tidbit #5. And just so Ethan doesn't get left out of this post, here he is with a crown he made on the 100th day of school for this year (2009):


He literally would not take it off at ALL on Friday -- not even when he went to bed. They did all kinds of counting to 100 activities during the day apparently, and he LOVED that. And while his reading efforts have taken a little bit longer to get off the ground, it has become apparent to us that his heart belongs to mathematics. I hesitated to post this picture, but in the end I figured it made me laugh, so I'm guessing it will make some other family members laugh as well.

"Fraction Action"

THIS is what Ethan does at school during his free time. What a weird kid, right? Of course I mean that very lovingly, and by weird I mean funny, but please rest assured that they are not learning about fractions like this in his Kindergarten. The story behind this is that when I take the kids to the library to pick out new books, I seldom have the chance to look through what they're picking out because I'm too busy doing damage control with Sophie, and trying to prevent runaways from happening. As a result, there are usually a few duds in each batch of check-outs. Grace is actually VERY good, usually, at picking out books that are very appealing to her and appropriate -- comprehension-level-wise. Last time around, however, she picked up a book called "Fraction Action," that was clearly written for a much higher age level. But of course, the kids still made me read it to them over and over again. It was a pretty basic introduction of what fractions are, but still, definitely much more than they will cover in Kindergarten. However, Ethan was really intrigued by them, and as a way to keep him quiet during sacrament meeting one Sunday when he was making Grace scream and throw fits because he was trying to steal her crayons and markers, I started drawing fractions and having him represent it in numbers. It took a few tries before he got the hang of it, but after awhile he had it down well enough. Anyway, long story not-so-short, the next day at school, when he was at one of the tables where they could work on any projects they wanted, he made up his own fractions and labeled each one. When I asked him what his teacher said when she saw it, he just ducked his head and shyly said that she was impressed. Please understand that I am NOT trying to say that Ethan is some kind of math genius, here. Because he's not -- I just thought it was really funny that he got such a kick out of fractions. Simple pleasures, right?


Tidbit #6. In other news, I think we are 99% settled on the baby's name. Apparently our criteria for names is a bit limiting, because after narrowing down all the girl's names in the whole world, we came up with exactly 2 1/2 that both Scott and I liked -- Jane, Kirsten, and Liesl. (In case you were wondering, I was the half that liked Liesl). In the end, I think we've decided that this little girl is going to be a baby Jane. Basically because it would take a whole lot of convincing for the kids otherwise. They've been referring to this baby as "Baby Alex or Baby Jane" since they found out I was pregnant, so I guess it would be a little difficult for them to switch gears now. The only problem left is to find a middle name. The difficulty I'm having is that Jane is so much more commonly used as a middle name that a lot of names sound weird when Jane is first. For example -- Jane Abigail sounds a little off, while Abigail Jane flows so much more nicely. Any suggestions will be warmly welcomed.


Tidbit #7. And finally, I'll close with what Scott and I have now lovingly dubbed "The Color of Love" -- or in other words Grace's now-painted bedroom walls. Because really, how else could we spend a whole Saturday morning painting our daughter's room this color, if we didn't really love her? After all, this is the color she REALLY wanted. Now, that's a whole lot of love, wouldn't you say? And boy was Grace excited. She was literally flitting and floating around the room while we were painting saying "this is so beautiful!" and "I will keep it so clean!" Hmmmm. We'll see about that.

The Before (notice Ethan once again wearing his 100 crown)...

and After of painting.

All right folks, that's about all that's been happening with us over the last couple of weeks. It is now very late and I am very tired. So, until next time, good-night!