2012 – Page 17 – Andelin Adventures

Jeremy’s Kindergarten Animal Report

Every year the kindergartners do an animal project. I think the project has kind of evolved over the years, or maybe the teachers just change it up each year for the fun of it. But I remember when Ethan was in kindergarten his class did their reports on dinosaurs. One of the other classes did whales and the third class did penguins (or something like that). I kind of thought it was about the same when Tyra was in kindergarten, but this year the kids in Jeremy’s class had a much wider variety of animals that they did their projects on. And this year they invited all the parents to come in the evening to check out all the different models that the kids made.

It’s always funny to me to see the projects that the kids turn in. The instructions have always clearly stated that we are to let our child build their model on their own as much as possible. So I’ve always tried not to interfere, maybe give some ideas, but let my kids build their models on their own. THEN we get to school on the day that they are due, and there are ALWAYS projects that it’s pretty obvious the parent did most of the work.

Jeremy chose to research bats for his project. I have no idea why, aside from maybe because Ethan did a report on bats last year. But Ethan had chosen to do his report on bats because Lego Batman was our newest lego video game at the time and Ethan was totally on a Batman kick. Jeremy plays Lego Batman, as well, but he doesn’t seem as obsessed with Batman as Ethan was.

Jeremy was very excited for us to go to the school to see his project on display.

Spring Break

We went to Granny’s house for dinner on Easter. Karen had prepared ham and turkey, and some other things. The kids had a great time playing with cousins, as usual, while the adults just hung out. When it got late and was time to leave, Laurel threw out the idea of taking one of our kids for a couple of days, just for the fun of it. She thought it would be fun to take one of our girls so that Sylvia could have a sister for a couple of days, and Dinah came up as the girl of choice (mainly because she is no longer in diapers, and also is not a bedwetter). Sylvia would have preferred Chloe, but turned up her nose at the thought, when she was reminded that Chloe still wears diapers and that she (Sylvia) would have to change her the whole time she was there. Kyle and I threw out that we had thought that it would be a good idea for Ethan to spend some time at cousins house, just because it seems that no matter what I make for dinner, he “doesn’t like it”. We’ve told him about how creative Aunt Laurel and Uncle Roine can get in the kitchen and that what I make for dinner is really not bad or scary, and Kyle felt that maybe spending a few days at cousin’s house eating what they were expected to eat might make him more appreciative about the food I make and serve. As we were plotting Karen kept reminding us that Laurel’s house still needs smoke detectors. We could be talking about whatever plans for several minutes at a time and she would just throw out that Laurel needs to finish putting up her smoke detectors. I don’t know if she thought that maybe my kids might try to set fire to the house while they were there, or if she wasn’t so concerned about Laurel & Roine’s kids being there, but was absolutely terrified thinking about what could happen to OUR kids if a fire started and there weren’t any smoke detectors to warn them. I don’t know what it was that caused her to keep coming back to the smoke detector thing, but she just kept bringing it up out of nowhere. In the end it was decided that Ethan and Dinah would both go, and we would decide later exactly how long they would stay.

Having them gone over the next couple of days, things just didn’t feel right. I felt odd, not having everyone together. I knew that Ethan and Dinah were perfectly fine, but our home just didn’t seem right without them.

Monday afternoon I went with my Girl Scouts to the Utah Water Conservation Gardens. We have been working on the journey about water, and thought it would be a good place to take the girls. We were given a tour of the gardens and were told about many drought resistant plants that we can plant in our yards, that would flourish, here in Utah without using a lot of water.

Kyle worked on putting training wheels on the bike that Ethan has outgrown so that Jeremy would have a bigger bike to ride. His legs look super long on the tiny bike he has been riding.

Monday evening Kyle and I took the few kids that were home, to go buy some compost and mulch so that we could get the fruit trees that we bought before Easter, planted, and we ended up buying a few more fruit trees while we were out. 🙂

Tuesday morning we got most of our new trees planted, while the kids played around us in the backyard. After planting the trees we spent the rest of the morning just kind of hanging out. Laurel sent us an email to let us know that everything was great at their place. Dinah and Ethan were being good and Dinah hadn’t tried running away at all. But she did want to let us know that Dinah had thrown up during the night, most likely due to anxiety.

Tuesday afternoon we went to pick Ethan and Dinah up so that we could go grocery shopping (Ethan needed to go with to get that signed off in his scout book). They were happy to see us, I think. But they weren’t so happy at the thought that we were planning on taking them home with us. Ethan kept asking us if he could stay one more night. Honestly I was rather anxious to get my family all back together again, and we asked him when we were supposed to go to the zoo, if he was at cousin’s house all week long? It was decided that we would take our munchkins home with us, and that cousins would meet us at the zoo the next day.

So Wednesday we spent at the zoo:

I don’t know why Ethan wasn’t cooperating in that picture. Like how Dinah and Chloe, in the wagon, look like they are pouring out their water to play with it?

Dinah saw the elephant reaching up for her treat, and asked “Is that their pinata?” it was so funny.

A whole section of the zoo was roped off for construction. I guess they are creating a home for a panda bear, and some seals and sea lions and things of that nature, and also some grizzly bears. We’ll have to come back and check that out when it opens.

Wednesday evening, Kyle and Ethan had the cub scout pack meeting trip to the DI to go to, so we made sure to leave the zoo with plenty of time to get home so they could go to that. Kyle was going because he volunteered to drive so that they would have our large van to transport boys and leaders.

We had talked about going on a day trip to the Dinosaur National Monument on the Utah/Colorado border, a trip that was Laurel’s idea. But as the week progressed and we looked into it more, it was decided that that trip can wait for another time. Kyle and I are thinking that it would be better to make it a weekend trip, instead of a day trip though.

The rest of the week we just spent hanging out and working around the house. We had a good week, and I’m glad that we got to have some fun and also get some work done. And now it’s back to the daily grind.

20 Weeks- The Half Way Point!

I had another prenatal visit with Valerie this morning. I am up 8 pounds since my last visit, which made Valerie VERY happy. Baby’s heart beat sounds great and everything is looking good. I asked about some varicose veins on my leg. They don’t hurt me or anything, I just think they are ugly, and they seem to be getting worse in appearance. Honestly the only reason I am worried about that is because I know that varicose veins are hereditary, and my mom has a terrible case (her whole leg and foot are covered in them). For now the veins that I am worried about are in one cluster about the size of a quarter, on my leg, and I would kind of like to keep it from spreading if I can. Valerie told me to duct tape it. She told me that she knows I think she’s crazy, but if I put duct tape on it in the morning before I get out of bed (while it’s properly drained and hasn’t had a chance to fill with fresh blood for the day) that the duct tape will help support the veins to prevent them from getting worse, and that I won’t have to wear support hose all summer long. So I’ll give that a try and see how it goes.

Oh and I’ve still got the green light to run *as long as I keep gaining weight*. 🙂 So I am going to take that to mean that I can run more than once a week, just as long as I keep packing away some weight. SO HAPPY for that!

Easter Sunday

Easter morning started out super early, as it always does. Before letting the kids loose to go find eggs or look at their Easter baskets though, I insisted they get dressed for church first. Chloe was trying her hardest to collect all the eggs that she found in her room, while we were getting everyone dressed:

We have a rule that nobody gets to go out and see their baskets (and it’s same rule for Christmas for checking their stockings) until Mommy and Daddy say it’s time, and everyone goes out together. Dinah was a bit of a stinker and dashed out to look while I was getting someone else dressed. I immediately went after her, and brought her back down the hall, and she was crying. Crying that everyone got a toy EXCEPT HER! To back up and explain a bit, last night Dinah had set her basket at Kyle’s place on the table. And she put his basket, in her place. I saw this and after we put the kids to bed, I switched them back to where they should be. So when she came running out on her own this morning, she was looking at Kyle’s basket, thinking it was hers. Kyle didn’t get a toy, just plenty of chocolate. She threw quite the fit, bawling the whole time I was helping her dress. Once we had everyone dressed, and had the cameras ready we let them out to the living room and dining room. That’s when I got to show Dinah that there really was a toy in her basket and that she was just looking at Daddy’s basket. And suddenly that horrible fit, completely vanished, and Dinah was all smiles after that.

The kids also had fun finding the eggs that had been hidden by the Easter Bunny. The bunny hid plastic eggs with goodies inside them, this year. I think Kyle and I have decided that we like this better than the bunny hiding hard boiled eggs, simply because if the kids don’t find them all first thing in the morning, but find an egg hours later (or even days later) we know the goodies will still be ok. That just wouldn’t be the case with a hard boiled egg. Lydia found 2 eggs during the egg hunt, and was perfectly content with those. She just sat there banging them together (another good reason that they were plastic and not hard boiled 😉 ).

After the kids were done hunting eggs we had a very happy breakfast before going to church (which started at 9am):

The day didn’t end there though. After church we headed out to go to Granny’s house for dinner. She had made ham and turkey, and the kids got to play with their cousins while the adults just hung out.

Easter Weekend

This weekend has been super long and crazy. Saturday morning we got the kids up nice and early to get them dressed and fed so that we could be at Home Depot at 9 am for their kids workshop. I have been looking forward to this workshop because they were making bird feeders and that is one of the requirements in Ethan’s bear scout book. So all the kids got to make their own bird feeder and when they finished they got their pin to put on their aprons and they were given a small baggie of bird seed, and an Easter egg with a treat in it. Then because I’m crazy, and Home Depot had fruit trees, I picked some out and got the kids loaded back in the car while Kyle went to go pay for the trees.

After the workshop we booked it back home to get to the park for the Girl Scout activity on time. Since I’m the leader of the troop and had to bring the orange juice and chocolate milk we really needed to be there on time. We went home, unloaded the trees, let the kids go potty (since there are no bathrooms at the park) and then we got back in the car to go down to the park.

Thankfully, Amy (one of the co-leaders) got there a bit early and got all the eggs scattered in the grass, so that was done. We waited until everyone was there and then we let the kids go hunt all the eggs first.

Then we had donuts and juice or milk for refreshments, and before we let anybody leave we passed out the patches and awards that the girls have earned over the last couple of months. Lydia just hung out in the stroller, watching everybody:

By the time we got home after the Girl Scout activity it was pretty much lunch time and nap time. So we fed the kids lunch, but then instead of making them take naps we decided it was time to color our Easter eggs or we just weren’t going to have time to get that done.

We decided to have a cup of dye in front of each kid and after they got to dye an egg in that color, the cups rotated around the table. That prevented the kids from fighting over which color they wanted to dye the eggs. 🙂

That stamp set that Ethan is using, is a set that my parents had for us to use when I was young. I’ve never pulled it out to use it before this, but Ethan was begging to use it and I decided that I might as well see if it still works or not, and if not it was time to get rid of it. Amazingly the ink pads worked!

While we were dying eggs, this is what Lydia was doing:

After we got all the eggs dyed and got all the mess cleaned up, it was time to go to the ward activity that just happened to be at the same park that we had the Girl Scout activity earlier in the morning. The ward was having a neighborhood cleanup activity, so everyone showed up and went around with trash bags to either pick up garbage at the park, or to go down the streets of our ward to pick up garbage.

I think the idea for this activity was inspired by the Monday morning a couple of weeks ago when we had REALLY bad wind. Monday is trash day in our neighborhood, and this REALLY bad wind that we had was seriously blowing trash cans over, and then down the street. One house down the street from us had a whole bunch of trash cans blown into their yard. It was just really bad.

So we spent the first half of the activity gathering garbage, and then for the second half of the activity there were games and relays to play with eggs. Thankfully, they boiled the eggs first. Otherwise I think we would have just turned around and made a huge mess with broken eggs in the park that we just cleaned up! I think the kids had lots of fun and hopefully are properly worn out. Tomorrow is Easter, and it’s time to let the kids pick their Easter baskets and grass, and get them off to bed. 😉