Have to remember this moment

I have yet to blog about almost a year's worth of our life and haven't even touched Jackson's recent birthday...but I just had to capture this moment that just happened.

Jackson had a RED LETTER DAY today. He finally finished his Edmark Reading Program Level 1 on the computer and earned his much anticipated Lego Plo Koon Starfighter.  He immediately opened it and began putting it all together while I made lunch.

After working on it for about an hour (while eating his lunch) Jackson said, "oh, I see how that works now!  Hey mom sometimes I don't understand an instruction, but I still follow it and then I see later how it all fits together." (He then showed me the instruction he was referring to and how he didn't realize initially that following that step would make the "flaggy part at the back" flip out.

I said, "You know Jax, it's that way with God too.  He gives us instructions and sometimes we don't understand them, or we don't know where they are taking us, but in the end we always see that His directions make everything fit just right and work out the best for us."

Jax then said, "Oh, yeah! Like how daddy talked about that basketball thing and that at the time he thought he was giving up his dreams, but it turns out he wasn't.  And he wouldn't have been there for you when you needed him if he'd done it."

(At this point I am getting teary-eyed with the pride of a mother. So I will now clue you all in why.)

About a month ago, Andy gave a talk in church.  He shared an experience we had at Central Michigan University.  The college had offered Andy a student assistant basketball coaching position.  It was a paid position and he would travel with the team etc.  Coaching basketball is always the direction he thought he would take in life, which is why he graduated with a coaching minor and PE minor etc.

We traveled out to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan early so Andy could hook up with the team and begin practices. But once we got there, he just did not feel like it was the right thing for him to do.  He couldn't explain why he felt that way-at the time it was exactly opposite of what he wanted to do.  But after we prayed and fasted as a couple, he turned the position down and then struck out again and again trying to find a job in the local town!!

Again, we didn't understand why he could not find work anywhere...months later because he didn't have a job he was able to jump on a grad assistantship opportunity with the College's Athletic Compliance Dept.  A job which subsequently led to his first two jobs and his current position at the NCAA.   "Looking back,"  Andy shared in his talk, "I saw that if I had accepted the position with the basketball team, I would have been on the road a great deal at the same time Alli had to have a personal procedure done, and also almost lost her father!  It would have been the wrong decision for our family. I am so grateful I trusted in God even though I thought at the time, that I was giving up my dreams."

DON'T EVER DOUBT THAT YOUR KIDS ARE LISTENING.  

You could have blown me over with the fan of a feather when Jackson shared that out of the blue with me today! I had no idea we was tuned in so intently during Andy's talk.

It made me grateful to be a mom and grateful that I have been homeschooling this year.  I know these "aha" moments happen to everyone regardless of where your kids are schooled!  But I feel like the setting we have existed in this past year with school has made the learning process so family based and so faith based-that we all get to share these "aha" learning moments together.  I have loved being a part of their learning process this year. Absolutely loved it.

Have you ever seen such flexibility?!

So I haven't posted since last spring (obviously).  Each year from about May till August I get sucked into what I call the "Youth Program Abyss", usually followed by the "Out of Town Visiting Families Abyss".  I find it takes me about a month to catch up, then another month to move forward! As October quickly approaches, I am thinking it is about time to start "back blogging" again. 

Today I offer a token of good faith that more will follow!

At the end of August, our ward had it's 3rd Annual "Avon's Got Talent".  It is one of the funnest evenings, and so cool to see the various talents in the ward family.  Jackson has been asking me to be in the talent show ever since last year!  Despite the fact that I was in full swing of "catch up month", and that our family doesn't necessarily have a "distinct talent"...how could I deny such an earnest request! 

So we took one family Home Evening and came up with the below skit.  It's titled "How Our Family Stays Healthy and Has Fun Together".  Jax did such a stellar job narrating, my personal favorite part is at the very end when he says, "Hit it Stew!" to cue the guy incharge of the music!!

Thankfully Jacki Daley caught it on tape-I always appreciate other people documenting my life, as I am not that good at it!

Bumblebee and the little Bee

Bumblebee Transformer arrived at our local Children's Museum a couple of months ago and within days I had people emailing me and calling me "Did you hear what is at the museum?!"  It is no secret to anyone who knows Jax that he has been obsessed with Transformers for a couple of years now.  He's never seen (what he calls) "the real Transformers movies"- but loves the cartoons and at times has INSISTED that people call him Bumblebee instead of Jackson!

                                                 
                                  We were not disappointed!  He was massive and so cool!



"Bunblebee and the Little Bee"

  His arrival coincided with the "Famous Costumes" exhibit and since I rarely get to pick what I want to see, I made the kids go there with me first.  And I made them stay there until I had admired and read about every Star Wars costume and read every word by the Super Woman costume display!! It was really neat.  And they also had a little area for the kids to dress up and pretend to be actors.  The castle below was a curtain and could be pulled to the side to reveal other backdrops! Got to love our Children's Museum!!

Going to the museum with older kids has been such a treat this year.  I don't have to take diaper bags, hassle with bottles or nap times...heck I don't even take a stroller anymore.  It is soo relaxing and I never thought I'd say that about a trip to this Museum!!  We have a plus 2 pass and I just love to "kidnap" a friends' kid to come be our special guest for the day...Grant (or as Eliza calls him sometimes "Granty Grant" is always a  favorite pick with our fam.

Happy Birthday Lou!

I LOVE the Canal Walk Downtown and Andy works right on it.  We've been planning on kidnapping Andy for his birthday forever, and the chilly forecast was not about to deter us!  Lucky for us it was sunny, unlucky for us I didn't think to bring gloves for the kids or a stroller for that matter-so "put your hands into your pockets" was repeated frequently and piggyback rides dealt out in copious amounts on the trip back!!

On my way to the Children's Museum one day a couple of weeks ago I saw this restaurant on 10th Street and the canal. I had no idea what the name of it was, what kind of food they served or what the prices were like...but I saw it was open for lunch...PERFECT!  As we passed block after block along the canal, Andy asked me a couple of times, "Are you sure the restaurant is on the canal?!" 
45 min walk later..."TA DA!" I was right!
"Creation Cafe" was it's name and it was worth the walk! Cool place, good food.

 

I totally loved the eclectic vibe at the restraunt.  All the tablecloths were handpainted canvas.

I talked Jax out of buying Andy a new Transformer for his birthday, though his argument that it really was for daddy..."because he loves playing Transformers with me!" was almost convincing! I also talked Eliza out of buying him a Disney princess doll.  In the end, what more could a dad ask for than NERF guns from the kids?!

Thought we'd just "shoot the breeze" to conclude the special birthday day! 

YW Broadcast: We S.E.E.K. After These Things

The Worldwide Youth Theme for 2011 is the 13th Article of Faith.  For the YW Broadcast at the end of March, we chose to coin the phrase "We S.E.E.K. After These Things" and make it our own.

The whole night was service oriented and S.E.E.K. became an acronym for "Serving Everyone Everywhere with Kindness".  I somehow drew the short straw when divvying up assignments for the night and got to do the decor for the event!!  I've never considered myself talented at cool "frou frou", but aren't callings all about stretching us beyond what we think we can do?!

I am pretty proud of my young woman "seeking" kindness! 

And Shawna's mother in law pitched in to make our ginormous banner.

Because we were putting together church hygiene kits I went with "serving everyone worldwide" as inspiration for the decor.  Lucky for me our presidency rocks and everyone pitched in to make my decoration ideas actually work!     

I made setting up into a family affair.  Jackson didn't seem to mind putting up a few Chinese lanterns!

Each table had a heart bouquet and pictures of children in 3rd world countries...I was hoping it might help the young women see where there hygiene kits could go and how needed they were. It was sooo hard finding pictures that weren't too depressing! In fact, I admit I shed a couple of tears looking for pictures of children online in such pitiful conditions!
Before we assembled hygeine kits we showed a clip from the LDS video about Sierra Leone refugee Mariama Kallon and how she literally used every aspect of her church issued hygiene kit.
If you ever have a chance to listen to her speak or check out that video it is well worth your time!! Here is a link to a summary of her story.
http://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/humanitarian-services/news-features/hygiene-kit-helped-african.html



Assembling hygiene kits.



Gisa, Lindsay, Abby, Kayla, Kiersten, Grace and Sarah-just a few cuties from my home ward!

                                             

Emma and Janet



So we had 2 service projects that evening.  Before we served everyone dinner, we divided up and helped create pages for Quiet Books to donate to a local Women's Shelter.



Emily Melton, Terri Turner, Pres. Shawna Taylor and Me!

In retrospect we should have taken a picture of ourselves at the beginning of the night before we'd run ourselves ragged and been on our feet for 5 hours! Ah well-at least I took a picture right!?  We'd planned for about 60 people and over 100 showed!!  We were enthralled as we hurried and set up more tables for dinner, but were a little worried the food might not stretch. We literally witnessed a miracle of the loaves as the bread just seemed to multiply and we even had some left over!  Neat night and neat broadcast.  That is also definitely worth seeing if you missed it as well!
http://lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2011/04?lang=eng

Two Random Mornings

Jackson insisted on sleeping in his sleeping bag in the same room as Papi Jack when the Louthains visited.  He insisted on sleeping in it a few days after as well.  One morning Eliza got up and went to Jax's room to join him. I walked into Jax's room to find this...they looked so cute, I said, "Freeze!" and ran and got my camera.

You just can't fake that kind of love!

I am sure I am not the only one that holds the day "SATURDAY" as most sacred-second only to Sundays!!  Andy and I both LOVE love our callings, but it makes for some marathon Sundays-starting at 5:30am with Andy heading off to morning meetings and ending around 9:00pm with me coming home from meetings or firesides etc.  (Our secret to success: preparing everything from laying out church clothes to prepping Sunday's meal on Saturdays, as well as, taking turns crashing at some point Sunday afternoon!) 

Marathon Sundays means Saturdays are the day we have to get everything done and it usually fills up fast! But once in awhile, when all the stars align, there will be a lazy Saturday.  There's nothing on the to do list, no place we need to be at, and Andy and I tend to "try" to stay in bed for as long as the kids will let us.  Lazy mornings usually involve the kids coming in and us wrestling around in bed for awhile. 

I absolutely LOVE mornings like this! 



"Mommy, Daddy...it's time to wake up!"



"Watch out for the TICKLE MONSTER!"

 It takes a very confident woman to post pictures of herself without sleep and without makeup, looking like "death warmed over"...as you can see below-I AM a confident woman!! But I couldn't pass up the chance to document one of the highlights of my last month-the three components that complete my life.

I call Andy "my breathe of life".  I need him like the air I breathe.



I call Jackson "the joy of my life".  I'll say "Where is the joy of my life?" And he knows I am looking for him!





I call Eliza "the music of my life", I can't imagine a world without music or without my Liza lou!



Hope you enjoy many a "random morning", too!

MAPP: A Modge Podge of Lessons

Now that I've been more diligent (comparatively!) in blogging, it kills me when I don't take a picture to document the cuteness.  Around Valentine's we were doing a whole "Arts" unit and I had "Dance". 

It was one of the most active days I've taught by far and it was such a blast.  We were on the move so much that I forgot to take any pictures and, oh my-there were some cute moments!

WHAT IS DANCING?

Dance expresses how people feel…without saying a word! You show happiness, anger, love, humor, sadness, beauty, fun…all by the way you move your feet, move your arms, your hips or any part of your body and by the expressions on your face. Most of the time people dance to music or a specific beat.

There are many different types of dance…(I had the kids draw various dances out of a bowl. I'd do (my best attempt) at a dance step and then they'd imitate for exercise time.)

Ballet
Hip Hop: breakdancing, popping, krunchin, jerkin,
Tap
Folk Dancing: Cultural dances
Belly Dancing
Modern (act like the wind, the ocean etc)
Swing Dancing (Charleston)
Latin Dancing (cha cha esk move)

My goals for the day were have the kids experience how fun dancing is and introduce them to various genres of dance.  Little did they know they were just warming up for more to come!!
 
I read them a couple of books about ballet and some about fictional characters that danced.  (Personal favorite "Giraffes Can't Dance" by Giles Andreae.)
 
We did snack, and worksheets etc but the highlight of the day was going upstairs and showing them clips of real dancers on the computer, then letting them practice!

Ballet/Polina Seminova: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2Gp7a38DM&feature=email

Hip Hop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o8we0lJptM&feature=email

                     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FX_NFOgQEU&feature=email

Tap Dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBb9hTyLjfM&feature=email

Modern/SYTYCD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe4-ZNcP14E&feature=email

Swing Dancing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAy0cYbPi18

Cultural/Haka (PCC): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAIJNKRajTc&feature=email

Cultural/Native American Hoops Dancer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqNRLIH4vZk&feature=email

The kids could not get enough of the Polina Seminova one (it IS a really neat number!)-they'd line up and take turns running and leaping through the air. They also requested encores of swing dancing.  Easton made the comment (referring to Swing), "I wish I were bigger so I could throw people up in the air and stuff!" 

Just picture-Grant and Eliza, Jackson and Colista and Easton and Taya swingin their little hearts out! That is the moment I wish I had my video camera. They were adorable. 

I showed the haka clip very last and taught the boys a couple of lines from it. (It was really hard finding a clip that wasn't too scary). Picture me shouting "Ka mate, ka mate Ka ora, ka ora. Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru.

Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra. Upane, upane. Upane kaupane. Whiti te ra!!" and the three boys wearing their kuikui nut necklaces, slapping their arms and chests! 

Then I taught the girls a hula from a couple of lines from IZ's "Over the Rainbow".  The girls enjoyed putting on the hula skirts and leis. The boys performed for the girls then the girls performed for the boys. (I wanted to teach the kids how they should act when watching a performance and what to do after a performance ie Clap and shout "Bravo!")

What I will not do for preschool-I tell ya what!  I was exhausted by the end of the day, but what fun!!

The week of St. Patrick's Day I had the letter Z and Cars (transportation unit).  So it was all about how Cars go ZOOM! My favorite part of that day was watching the kids following steps to drawing their own sports cars. They really loved that, and did a great job. 

On St. Patty's we had a party, complete with streamers. It was rather hard to get them to settle down for circle time, but I couldn't blame them since I had bagpipes blaring in the background!! 

We read about St. Patrick and how he overcame the adversity of being a slave (try explaining "slave" to a bunch of 3-5year olds!) and returned to Ireland to spread Christianity.  Side note: Did you know he used the shamrock as a symbol of the godhead? (I just love learning new things when I teach!)

We also read "“Tim O’Toole and the Wee Folk” as well as a poem about leprechaun's and their lucky shamrocks. A leprechaun turned our vanilla pudding green, so in return we followed clues and found his

hidden pot of gold! 

 I changed the game "Duck Duck Goose" to "Clover Clover Shamrock".  We also played "Ring Around the Shamrock"-The kids took turns being the Shamrock in the center..."Ring around the shamrock, everybody kick your sock..." (Hey- I was ad libbing! The kids rather enjoyed kicking at the person in the center...we kept it soft I promise!!)

Rachel (Colista's mom) and I took the group to the St. Patty's Day parade downtown.  We arrived at the end of the route right as the beginning was approaching. It was fun, though some of the groups were "done" by the time they got to us and the most of the candy had been distributed prior to us.  But the kids didn't know the difference and had a blast.  (Until it was time to walk back the the car; they were kind of done by that point...and we forgot which street we parked on and walked a little more than we needed to...and I was pushing three kids in a 2 kid stroller so they could take turns walking/being pushed...and it got a little hot...and...I'D DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN NEXT YEAR!!) 

Taya, Grant, Jax, Colista and Liza-Easton was sick.

On a personal note: Jackson wasn't about to be tricked by ol mom.  It was my first attempt to "trick" the kids and I failed miserably. I had the green tablecloth out and had put a dot of green food dye in a glass so when I poured their milk for breakfast it would "change before their eyes"...Jax was like, "Mom there is a dot of green food dye here...why did you do that?!"  And at preschool, he made sure the kids knew it was me who changed the pudding and hid the chocolate gold pieces..."Jax! We are just having fun-Shhh!"

Actually, it was probably good he kept letting the cat out of the bag, because Eliza did NOT like the idea of a guy walking around our house playing tricks on us.  She kept saying, "I DO NOT like that leprechaun man!"  What cracked me up even more was a couple of days after St. Patty's, after Jax had pondered on things a little he said, "Mom, I knew it was you turning everything green because real leprechauns only live in Ireland!" (Oh good, he is still a kid after all! :)

Louthains' March Visit

We are always excited for visits from friends and family, but there is just something special about grandparents! My kids LOVE the attention and love they get from both of their grandparents and talk about "when we get to see them" for months!!  Last month was no exception, and the Louthain Grandparents did not disappoint!  Grandma Leslie always brings "a grandma bag" that magically holds something new in it every morning...below the kids are anxiously closing their eyes waiting for Papi (pronounced "Poppy") Jack to get the camera ready and Grandma Leslie to shout "ready"!

I think it is as much the anticipation as it is the small fun various things she brings!

 

Oooo...what's inside today?

                                                                  Princess socks!

What would a visit to Indianapolis be without a trip to the Children's Museum?! (I can not get enough of this place...good thing we have a pass...hey it is a "plus 2"...call me if you ever want to come too!)



Digging for dinasaur bones.



"Barbie? Yes, I'd love to come and do a modeling show with you!"

                                    

On the Runway...Jax is the photographer in the background there.

 

In the Construction Zone with Papi Jack. WATCH OUT-comin through!



No matter how many times we've been there we always manage to do something new!



 

But we'll ALWAYS take time to go on the carousel, don't worry Liza!



 The kids absolutely love bowling-it might just have to be a tradition when hangin with the grandparents! (I do not mind the bumper bowling myself thank ya very much!)

 I captured all these fun shots of ALL of us taking turns "jumping for joy", but alas perhaps my camera deemed them unsuitable for showing...for they mysteriously became blanks with "error" across them instead! I guess it's your lucky day Jack and Leslie-no blackmail photos today! Jackson's all turned out though... 

 Eliza doing her victory dance which involved "shakin it".

Jax was so proud of his score that he wanted his picture taken with it!

We packed a lot in, in a short amount of time-thank you Louthains for coming down and spoiling us!

We love you!!