He’s a Full Timer!

Today was Matthew’s first day of first grade. He has been pretty nervous about the whole thing, but once he met his teacher yesterday his fear ebbed and this morning he was just super excited. So he was off to school decked out in his Ironman t-shirt with a brand new Ironman backpack, a new Ironman lunch box and a new Ironman water bottle. Looks like Ironman is starting first grade to…

Celebrating Freedom

 Malia was pleased as punch about her "bows."

 

Matthew was nearly bursting with excitement.

As always, the boys love to play with fire.

This is how Malia felt about all the loud noises. I kept telling her it was okay so she crawled up in my lap and repeated, "Otay, otay, otay..." in a panicky voice.
 

After awhile Malia calmed down...and then she got bored so she got out the bubbles hoping someone would blow them with her.

 

 But the boys were too busy...

 

Once she got brave enough to give the sparklers a try, Malia was thrilled...until she grabbed one too high and burned her hand. Then she was just done and told me, "Inside. House."

The boys were not done when the fireworks ran out. What can I say. They love sparklers.

Family Resemblance

Malia

June 2013

Matthew

April 2004

At least I know how Matthew got stuck in there now since I actually watched Malia try to sit down on the thing. :-)

One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Blue Fish

Nathan got a new fish tank for his birthday. He also got a bunch of new fish to put in it. Unfortunately, our skill with fish does not seem to have improved since the great fish blight of  ’08. It has been just over 24 hours since we actually put the fish in and we have already lost four. Matthew has been keeping track:

For those of you not fluent in reading phonetic spelling, here is the translation:

Cichlid in pineapple

Cichlid in castle (the pineapple and the castle are little fishy hideouts in the new tank)

3 tiger barbs dead

1 cory (I think this line was a mistake)

1 cory cat dead

3 African rainbows

1 plecostomus

We'll see if we can keep the rest alive...

E-i-e-i-o

We have a really great book of Old Macdonald Had a Farm. It has cutouts on the pages that reveal a new animal on each page while allowing all the previous animals to be seen as well. Malia discovered this particular book earlier this week and it has quickly become a favorite. She loves when we sing the song and she will sing the e-i-e-i-o part with us.

Tonight she was paging through the book while we were reading scriptures. As we were talking about what we read, she kept saying, “Yi-yo! Yi-yo!” I asked her if we needed to sing the song and when she assured me that was what she wanted, I told her we would sing the song after we said prayers. She “Yi-yo”ed a couple more times and the rest of us prepared to pray. We all folded our arms and bowed our heads and then Matthew began to pray: “Old Macdonald…”

It was a full five minutes before we got the laughter under control enough to actually pray. I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my face. We had to reassure Matthew that my eyes were watering because I was laughing so hard and not because he was in trouble. And it was a much needed laugh.

I sure hope the Lord has a sense of humor. If he doesn’t, my whole family is in a boatload of trouble. Of course, heaven is going to be pretty boring if all the awesomely funny people like Matthew aren’t there, so I’ve going to assume that being hilarious is not a bad quality.

He Remembered to Feed It

As part of our zoo trip tradition, we usually let each of our kids choose something from the gift shop before we head home. They almost always choose a stuffed animal.  This year both Daniel and Matthew chose a snowy leopard. As we were getting ready for dinner, Matthew asked what snowy leopards eat.  After learning that they eat meat, he made sure that Snowy had a little something for dinner as well:

(FYI: that is a mouse drawn on the piece of paper.)

Double Digits

Nathan is turning ten tomorrow. As per usual, his birthday party for friends was the weekend before Memorial Day. He decided that he wanted to have dinner and watch “Spiderman,” so planning was pretty easy. He printed all kinds of pictures to hang on the walls, hung up balloons and made white slime to give as spiderwebbing party favors. We had a pretty small group of kids this time, but he had a great time.

Yesterday we celebrated at my parents’ house. Nathan wanted to a Spiderman cake and once again I was grateful for the existence of gel food colors since making red and black frosting takes A LOT of food coloring. I was pleased with how it turned out and Nathan was pretty darn excited.

As is our tradition, we headed to the zoo today. We were joined by Kevin’s parents and his sister Connie and her family. We had a great time.

 “Malia was especially impressed with the “ephent.”

The Merry Month of May

Even though my boys don’t get done with school until the beginning of July, May has still been full of end-of-year activities. That coupled with the fact that this month has been pretty bad headache wise has made for a pretty crazy month. So get ready, there is going to be lots of info packed into this post.

Daniel has been learning square dancing all year. On May 2 the sixth grade celebrated their year with a hoedown. They had dance cards and everything. I guess this probably counts as Daniel’s first boy/girl dance. He has really enjoyed the square dancing and has anticipated the hoedown with enthusiasm. He borrowed my dad’s cowboy boots and hat and had a great time. His favorite dance is the Virginia Reel. (Look for the kid in a red and white striped shirt.)

The morning after the hoedown, I got to attend Mom and Me with Matthew. We did some activities in his classroom, got our picture taken and ate muffins. As soon as we were done, we dashed over to the gym to see Daniel and Nathan in their choir concert. We were lucky enough to have a teacher volunteer to do a school choir this year, so for the past three months Daniel and Nathan have been going to school early twice a week and singing with the choir. They enjoyed it and Nathan was pretty bummed when choir was over for the year. The program was songs from the 1940’s and when they sang “Back in the Saddle Again” the sixth graders got to show off their rockin’ square dance skills.

The following week was Matthew’s kindergarten program. As part of the program, they held a fashion show and each child got to wear their favorite outfit. There were no rules about what to wear except that they needed to have some kind of clothes on, so each child got to choose. I was in no way surprised by Matthew’s choice. Here is his favorite song from the program:

A few days after his program, Matthew got to ride the school bus and go on a field trip to the zoo. He was all hyped up for days beforehand. Kevin went with him so he would have an “in the know” adult with him at lunch time. Matthew had a wonderful time and was mightily pleased by the fact that he got to see the new section of the zoo before the rest of us.

On May 17, Daniel participated in an art show with his class. He took some of his favorite paper models to show. Daniel really likes modeling and a few years ago he discovered that people create models made out of paper and then post them on the internet for the enjoyment of anyone who wants them. It has been a great thing for him because it was getting expensive to keep him in plastic models and with the paper ones all he needs is cardstock, a printer, scissors, toothpicks (to glue small parts) and some glue. And honestly, some of the stuff he has created is amazing.

I think the most impressive of his models is Ironman. There were about twenty printed pages of pieces and it has taken him about six months to complete. The head moves. The shoulders, knees and hips move and the elbows bend as well as rotate like a real elbow. Each finger is individually formed. The thing is seriously impressive.

Yesterday Nathan had a pioneer day at school. My dad’s hat and boots got worn again as Nathan learned how to make butter, made a button pull, played pioneer games and ate lunch outside.

In addition to that, Daniel and Nathan have both completed their standardized testing this week and Matthew had his kindergarten assessment which assured us that he is totally ready for first grade. So yeah, it has been a busy month. Next up, Nathan’s birthday.