Science Fair

 Bracken helped Hayes come up with a topic for the science fair. It may or may not have been picked because A. It required us to buy zero materials and B. He could do it mostly on his own.  You can call that lazy parenting, I choose to call it "teaching independence". In the end, it helped reinforce the learning of the scientific method, he enjoyed teaching classmates and parent visitors about his experiment and he brought home a certificate stating he was the second grade-grade level winner.

My favorite part of visiting him at the science fair was the girl two booths down that told me that "when school first started I thought Hayes was cute....and I still do!" Then asked for a picture with him. She gave him a big hug and then I took the picture and this is what I got.

As much as his face is trying to say otherwise, I think he liked the hug.

Elementary School Arts Night

Hayes & Kamri participated in the talent show for their school's Arts Night. Kamri sung "There is a Castle on a Cloud" from Les Mes. She had no fear and sang beautifully. She was also excited to use her old dance costume and I was happy to get more use out of it!

Hayes told three jokes and got some good laughs. His three jokes (that he found and chose himself) were:

What do you call four bull fighters in quick sand? Cuatro Cinco

What make-up do girl pirates wear? Ship-gloss

and I don't remember the third one, I'll have to add it when I do.

Big Brother

I love that Hayes doesn't leave his baby brother, Dane, out. Especially when it is morbidly hilarious...

    This worksheet also served as a rebuke that I am on my phone too much.
Also, Lina is our cat and Sugar was our fish...

Pre-Sleep Confession

"I am closing my eyes but I am not going to be asleep"
-Kamri, every night, minutes before she falls asleep.

Shhhh......

The monster is sleeping.......

Gymnas-tickers

I thought it would be fun for us to go to the SUU Gymnast's preview meet for Family Home Evening.  I also tried to help that motivate the kids to get their chores done. When they got home from school I told them the plan of getting all chores done quick so we could go. Kamri went ballistic. No gymnastics and No Chores!! I gave her the option of her staying home with dad and the rest of us going to gymnastics but she didn't like that either, she wanted us to all stay home.

She moped all through doing chores but not about doing chores, about going to the meet!  She was the one I thought would be excited to go, not the one I was forcing.  I knew she would love it once we got there.

We found our seats and the gymnasts were warming up on the vault. One gymnast flipped over and landed. Kamri's eyes went huge as her mouth turned into an 'O'.  "WOW!" and she was hooked.

"Are these famous gymnas-tickers?"

She watched happily and when we got home she put on her gymnastic outfit and started doing cartwheels around the house.

It's nice to know I was right.....even if she won't admit it.

2014

I'm back on the blogging wagon.  Since I only posted once last year I am confident I will post more this year but I am not ambitious enough for everyday.

This year I want to focus on being grateful, hopeful and joyful. These attributes radiate from the people I want to emulate. Hopefully recording some of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences this year will help me focus.

Today I am grateful for warm sun and a family that supports my spontaneity. We have been cooped up inside because of sickness and cold weather. I needed sun so we headed down to St. George. 

We ate at Brick Oven, then headed to the park. Hayes rode circles around the field, Kamri scootered around and tested out the playground equipment. Lyla swung and tricycled and Hansen tried to crawl in the grass without the grass touching his hands, all with a smile. We played tag, I took a lap on Kamri's scooter and Bracken got Hansen to take a nap in the sun. We stopped on the way home for smoothies and soft pretzels. It was simple but those few hours in the warm sun were perfect.

I forgot my phone and camera but Bracken did take a picture of Hansen and I on the swing. Hansen was giggling away as we swung.