Flashback Friday -- the spring break edition

Wow.  It's been a while.  And truth be told, they're hasn't been anything all that blog worthy to write home about.  Following rapidly on the heels of day lights savings a couple of weeks ago was spring break for the kids.  So, basically, our efforts to get on the right time schedule for bedtime and waking up purposes were thwarted almost from the start!  Throw in a snow day this past Monday and a three day weekend for Easter starting today and I don't think we're ever going to get back on schedule.

But this is a flashback post, so before too much more time goes by, I'd like to go back and recap the LAZIEST (and possibly best) spring break ever.  It was the ultimate in the art of stay-cation.  For the first time in the three years that we've lived here, Scott was actually in town for the entire week and even took a couple of days off to chill with us at home.  So, last Tuesday and Wednesday we hung out at home letting the kids do pretty much whatever they wanted around the house while Scott and I spent several hours cleaning out and organizing our kitchen cupboards and then rewarded ourselves by lounging on the couch and doing absolutely nothing other than catch up on dvr'd shows until duty and responsibilty called and we had to take care of the kids.  Hahahaha.  It was actually really awesome.  I kind of loved not having to go anywhere or do anything.  All good things must come to an end, though, and Scott eventually had to go back to work.  Luckily, we had a visit from the cousins to look forward to, and we welcomed Kristin and her younger kids on Thursday and got to play with them until Sunday.


For some reason, my kids decided to prep for the cousins' visit by getting the basement set up for a fashion show.  On Thursday morning I came down to the following scene:

Alex dressed up like a super hero frog...



and a "curtain" set up with a dressing changing station on the side.



With "headshots" printed up and hanging on the basement wall.  {All their own doing, of course -- from the taking of the pictures, to the uploading, to the printing them out, and to the hanging them on the wall.  They certainly don't lack for creativity.}



And Ethan was the emcee of the event.  He even changed into his church clothes for the occasion. 

Once the cousins arrived, however, they had already tired of their activity and opted to engage in pure pandemonium instead.  Hahaha.  Over the next few days, a lot of video games were played, movies were watched, and fun was had all around as the kids played and went crazy and completely destroyed the basement.  {With several ceiling tiles being victimized in the process.}  It wasn't quite "Lord of the Flies" down there, but it was close.  Hahahaha. 

On the last day everyone was here, they discovered a fun, new mode of transportation in the form of sledding down the basement stairs on a twin-sized mattress.  LOTS of fun, let me tell you. 





The knowledge that the cousins had to leave on Sunday afternoon was tempered by the fact that the snow was still steadily falling, and a snow day was being predicted for the following day.  By the time we woke up on Monday morning, there was at least a foot of snow on the ground and more was still falling.  It was actually really beautiful and we all had fun playing in the snow and sledding in the backyard -- that is, until everyone got too cold and then it was back inside for some more Just Dance 4.  

{Just as an FYI -- Having proper snow gear makes all the difference in the world when it comes to enjoying the fluffy white stuff.}

All in all it was a pretty successful Spring Break!  And since it didn't quite break us, we decided we should probably prolong the fun a little longer.  With a 3-day weekend opportunity in our midst, we extended our vacation festivities with a last minute planned, cancelled, then re-planned trip to see the cousins once again and arrived in Indiana around midnight last night.  The kids have been in heaven all day long and isn't that what it's all about?  I'm all about making memories -- even {especially?} when it involves family craziness and fun.  Hashtag memory maker for life!  Hahahaha.  Happy early Easter!

Daylight Savings is Losing -- Big Time

I don't know what in the world is going on this week, but the time change for daylight savings is KILLING us.  And not so softly.  Hahaha.  How's this for things you never want to hear at 3 in the morning -- 

Scott:  "They're all downstairs watching TV!"

Wait, what??? Hahaha.  True story.  In the wee hours of Monday morning, when Jane came stumbling in a little after 2, Scott went to go put her back in bed and had to lay down with her till she fell back asleep.  When he came back to our room about 45 minutes later he informed me what the oldest 3 were up to.  Grace had headed downstairs to "her chair" before we even went to bed, but apparently her middle of the night insomnia led to TV watching which woke up Ethan who came down to join her and Sophie soon followed suit.  Nothing is quite as ridiculous as going downstairs in the middle of the night and meeting resistance from your children when you tell them they need to go to bed.  "Dad's so mean!!!" was the exact quote from Ethan as he stomped angrily up the stairs when Scott told them to turn off the TV and go up and Sophie just refused to budge.  Scott had to carry her up to bed and we decided it was probably best to just leave Grace put on the chair where -- according to Ethan -- she was faking sleep.  Fun times.

I'd like to say that things got easier as the week went on and they adjusted to the time change, but unfortunately that was not the case.  The problems with going to sleep {and staying asleep} contributed to many late mornings and Grace has now added 3 more tardies to her outstanding record.  We are winning family of the year.  

In addition to all our usual problems, we are also dealing with Jane who has now decided that she "doesn't like sleeping!" and has thrown massive knock-down screaming fits the last two nights at bedtime.  Grace has gone back to falling asleep on the rocking chair in our bedroom, and to really knock things out of the sleeping park Alex is now giving us problems as well.   This afternoon, when I went to put him down for his nap, the crib {that we got second-hand from some people in our ward before Ethan was born and has lasted through each of the kids so far} totally broke to pieces when I tried to put the side rail down.  BOO!!!

{And yes, my first thought after this happened was that I needed to get a picture for documentation sake.}

After trying in vain to fix the slats, I finally gave up and just put him down for his nap in the Pack n Play.  The end result?  Alex is now FREAKED out about sleeping.  He was tired enough at nap time that he didn't cry TOO much, but at bedtime tonight he screamed for about an hour straight before I finally had to go and rescue him.  We seriously need sleep rehab over here.  :(

In other news, there have been some major changes in the air around here.  A couple of weeks ago at Stake Conference, a huge boundary switch-up was announced and we are now in a new ward.  Our old ward has always been on the small side, but it has shrunk even more over the last year or so.  The ward we share a building with has always been huge and there have been rumors for years that the boundaries were going to be re-drawn and we would get part of their ward in ours.  Well, what happened instead is that the line was completely changed.  Instead of a north ward and a south ward, there is now an east ward and a west ward.  The result?  We basically have half the people from our old ward and half the people from the other old ward.  It has been quite a shocker, but I definitely feel like this was an inspired decision.  Our new ward seems really great, and it's not like we'll never see our friends from the other ward ever again, so all in all I think this change will be a good one.

My visiting teachers in the "old ward."  Natalie (left) will still be in the new one, but Leia (right) will be in the other new one.  

Karissa was my first visiting teacher in the "old ward" and now she's in the other one.  

More of my good friends who are now in the other ward.  :(  

{L to R -- Karissa, Miranda, Jen, Me, April}

It will be sad not to see all of our good friends at church every Sunday, but I am so grateful that we've gotten to know them while we were here.  We are lucky indeed.  :)  

And now, I'm off to get some sleep.  Wish me luck for tonight!!!  

a slice of life

Today has been a day.  It started out rather horribly and has ended on a much more normal note.  Lack of sleep and the constant surrounding of sick germs has finally caught up with me and I am feeling slightly under the weather.  And even though I went to bed early last night and managed to get a solid night's sleep {a small miracle}, I was still feeling less than my best this morning and had a 2 hour delayed start to deal with as well.  BOO!!!  Let's just say that I was a bit of an ogre this morning. 

Once I managed to get the kids off to school and drop off an overdue book at the library, I came on home and was able to start settling down into our normal daily routine.  Which is what has inspired tonight's blog post.  I thought I should document a little slice of our daily life.  Not all of the following pictures are from today, but they're all representative of some aspect of our life these days...

 Toys in the fridge.  Apparently Alex thought Ariel and Rapunzel needed to cool off this morning.  

 Knit headbands and ponytails.  This "look" has become Grace's signature style.  She so graciously allowed Sophie to copy off of her one morning last week.

 Posing for pictures.  Me and Jane are twins.  She wanted to take a picture of me so I thought I'd do her patented Princess Sophia pose.

TV and Jane.  Sophia the First is seriously her favorite show right now.  She's watched this one episode on demand about a million times and for some reason, each time she watches it she gets the biggest kick out of a certain scene where Sophia is leaning her head on her hand and smiling.  She has to stop and act it out for me and explain what she's doing AS she's doing it each and every time.  Each and every time.  "Look, her is going like this.  Her is putting her hand right here and her is smiling.  Like this."  Hahahaha.

 Notes coming home from school.  Hmmmm.

 Un-expectations.  Someone sent us these books in the mail from Amazon today!  It was such a fun surprise and the kids were so excited.  Sophie's comment when she got home from school was "They're so pretty!  And not damaged!"  Hahaha.  I've already read them SEVERAL times to Alex, Jane, and Sophie.  So thank you, thank you, thank you whoever you are that sent them!

 Even more picture taking.  More evidence that Jane and I are twins.  I tried to get Scott to take a picture of me to document my birthday, but I didn't really like any of the results.  As I was uploading more pictures today, I saw  one of Jane doing the exact same head-tilt-smile-pose and I had to include it for comparison. 

 Go-to poses.  This is Jane's signature look when taking pictures 9 times out of 10.  I guess now I see where she gets it from.  Hahaha.

 Art Projects and Service Projects.  This painting scene was from yesterday after school and it was definitely one of the highlights of the day {and week}.  The girls were painting happily and quietly together at the table, Alex was enjoying just hanging with the big kids, and ETHAN surprised us all by working on some signs to put on Sophie's bed in an effort to increase the love he has for her in his heart.  {You never know when a mother's words of wisdom will sink deep into a child's soul.  In this case I told him when you serve people, your love for them grows.}  The signs said "I like Sophie" and "Sophie is Awesome"  and "I love Sophie."

 Messes galore.  Jane still loves her some rainbow colors.

 Second suppers.  Kids claiming they're hungry right at bedtime is a regular occurrence around here.  Grace enjoyed a second dinner tonight of granola and whole milk.  She really LOVES whole milk.

 Stalling at bedtime.  While Grace was finishing up her second supper, Ethan was hunting around the house for markers and a big bowl to put a bunch of reading suggestions in.  Apparently he's having a hard time deciding what to read next so he thinks this will help him.  Keep in mind that it was already half an hour past their bedtime and neither one was anywhere near ready to start the process of going to bed AND I was all on my own because Scott was at church for Mutual.

 Jack-in-the-Box syndrome at bedtime.  Did I mention that Sophie was still awake, too?  And it was now an HOUR past her bedtime?  Well she was, and it was partially my fault.  I started reading a new chapter book to her tonight -- one of the rainbow magic fairies books -- and when I was done I told her if she wanted to try and read some on her own she could.  Well, I was just heading up with Grace to finally start reading to HER when Sophie almost collided with me on the stairs to come and tell me that she had finished the book.  What???  After some more questioning she admitted that she did skip some of the pages when she didn't know all the words, but overall I think she still managed to get the gist of the story because she was excited to tell me all about it and show me the pictures.  Getting in and out of bed and going up and down the stairs, unfortunately is not an isolated incident around these parts. 

And as always, a little lagniappe.  Ethan solved his problem of finding something to read tonight by whipping out the newest blog book that I had ordered and printed up a couple of weeks ago.  I've heard him chuckling out loud at several parts while he's been reading it and that pretty much makes my life.  I always appreciate it when others appreciate my humor.  Hahahaha.  For the record, I went with Blog2Print this time instead of Blurb and I have to say that I'm conflicted by the results.  On the one hand, Blog2Print was SOOOOOO much easier.  You essentially slurp your blog over to their site and then choose the layout where everything appears exactly the way it was on the blog when you posted it.  The major downfall, however, is that there is absolutely no way to modify or format things afterward.  Or at least I couldn't figure out how to do it.  I would have liked to been able to make the pictures larger but couldn't find a way to make that happen.  I think I prefer the way my Blurb books LOOK, but the hassle of formatting them and editing them in that program is definitely not worth the massive amounts of my time it took get those books ready to print.  Are there other options out there that I don't know about?  Or that would work better?  Please let me know if you have any input! 

And that is basically that.  Other things going on in life right now include the trying of more new recipes, navigating ward boundary changes, delivering Girl Scout cookies {which I have finally managed to get picked up so the girls can start distributing their orders and collecting their money}, and getting excited for the approach of Spring Break.  We were really hoping to be able to utilize that week for a house-hunting trip this year, but it's not looking likely that we'll be able to make it happen that soon.  Hopefully, we'll at least be able to make it to the cousins' house so we can all have a much needed break!  And that really is that.  Until next time!

Bookworms

I think that it's been pretty well-documented on here that I love to read.  Like a lot.  So, of course, whenever I see my kids getting bit by the reading bug I'm pretty much over the moon happy about it.  While all my kids enjoy books and being read TO, not all of them have always enjoyed doing the actual reading themselves {ahem GRACE}.  Even though they are all pretty good readers.  

A couple of books that I've read recently that have really hit home to me the importance of reading out loud to your children are The Reading Promise and The Read Aloud Handbook.  It's really made me think a lot about the quantity and quality of my read aloud sessions with the kids.  I think research has shown that it's never too early to begin reading -- even to an infant -- but I've never been that hardcore {sorry kids}, and it's usually not until they're toddlers already that I've made any real concerted effort to read out loud to them from actual children's books. 

Imagine my surprise, then -- and delight -- when over the last couple of weeks Alex has begun taking the initiative himself to come and bring books to me that he wants me to read to him.  {Over and over and over again}.  He has turned into a regular bookworm and it's adorable.

He really got into the act of reading while he was sick for those couple of weeks there.

This is from his favorite book -- "Oops!"  He really identifies with Diaper David.  Hahahaha.  And they even look alike we think.  :)

Grace got this set of board books from a book order several months ago because she thought Alex would like it.  She was right.  Hahaha.  We have read these books over and over again over the last few weeks.

As I mentioned before, Grace has not always enjoyed reading all that much.  She loves a story and she's always enjoyed being read to, but she just didn't like to do the reading herself.  {Perhaps she inherited that lazy gene of mine.  Hahaha.}  For the last year or so now she has routinely hijacked my evening at bedtime by insisting that she can't go to sleep without a story.  Since the school year has started, she's supposed to read for 20 minutes on her own each night for homework, but she still can't manage unless I read to her first.  And I will be honest -- it was a major nuisance at first {and still can be when it's late and she's wound up and I'm trying to get all the other kids in bed, too.}  Because I have to let you in on a little secret (which I think I've shared on here before) -- I really don't like reading out loud.  I don't know why exactly that is the case, but I just don't.  I don't mind reading picture books to little ones -- so long as they're GOOD picture books {and there are some REALLY dumb children's books out there} -- but anything else can be slightly torturous depending on my mood.  Hahaha.  Every now and then I'll enjoy reading a chapter book to the older ones, but I've decided the key there is the same as with the picture books -- they have to be GOOD books.  Or at least entertaining ones.  

For awhile, Grace was really into the Puppy Place series of books.  Right up HER alley, but DEFINITELY not mine.  Reading to her on those nights were the worst -- anytime I could pawn it off on Scott I would.  Hahahaha.  A few months ago, however, we started the Ramona series and it was a huge hit.  I actually really enjoyed reading these with her!  AND, even better, it finally flipped the switch for Grace.  She actually started reading for pleasure!  There were so many nights that she stayed up really late -- and way past her required 20 minutes of reading -- to finish up the last few chapters of one of the books because she just had to find out what happened next.  I LOVE that.  As one who has stayed up COUNTLESS late nights to finish a book because I just couldn't put it down, my heart couldn't be warmer.  Plain and simple. 

Over the course of the last few months we read straight through from "Beezus and Ramona" to "Ramona's World."

While Grace was tied up in Ramona's world, Ethan braved Hogwarts one more time.  After finishing the first 4 books last year (or maybe a year and half ago), Ethan kind of took a break from Harry Potter.  He had really wanted to watch the 4th movie, so we told him if he read the book first he could watch the movie.  Mostly because the series starts to get a bit darker and scarier with Book 4.  Once he earned his reward of watching the movie, I think he was a bit burned out.  He hasn't really shown much interest in finishing the series or even moving on to the next book until last month.  And then in a marathon of reading he finished it all up by the end of February in order to finally watch the 5th movie!  He was pulling some pretty late nights himself in order to read his requisite 2 chapters a night towards the end so that he could finish by his goal.  

I'm really surprised and impressed that he did it so quickly!  This book is LONG and to be honest it's my least favorite one in the series.  {Harry is just a bit too angsty and moody for my liking in this installment.  But perhaps that's what appealed to Ethan this time around.  Hahahaha.}  Now that he's done, he's already moved on to Book 6 and he's making progress on that one as well.

Sophie and Jane continue to love books as well, although since they always want Scott to read to them these days, I'm not quite as sure what they're into right now.  Reading aloud is definitely a time-consuming event.  And it can be REALLY difficult when I'm trying to get all the kids in bed by myself.  However, I'm convinced that it really is one of the best things I can do for my kids.  Not only when they're little, but as they grow older as well.  Thanks to The Reading Promise and The Read Aloud Handbook, I've decided that I'm going to start reading to Ethan again, too.  Our first book?  The Westing Game.  We'll see how this goes!