Swimming Lessons

The weather has started to warm up a little bit.  The snow has given way to rain (and an oft flooded backyard) and the kids are playing outside more.  I decided to sign the kids up for swim lessons at a local pool.  I would like them all to improve in their swimming and they were all excited to have lessons.  And luckily, since its getting warmer, the kids don't completely freeze while going in and out of the facility in swim clothes.  So that's a plus.  Here we are waiting for lessons to begin.  

This pool is a large wave pool that's normally outdoors but they cover it with a big bubble in the winter.  And it is nice and warm in there.

Emma is in a beginner preschool class.

She's loving it!

Grant's head is poking out of the water with goggles on

John in a blue and white rash guard by his teacher

John again

Emma's preschool class is only 30 minutes and the older kids have a 45 minute lesson each day.  So she gets to sit with me for a few minutes after she gets done.

All the kids think they need goggles and nose plugs.  

Anna got a new swim suit.  Last years is already too small.

Emma with her towel turban.

I'm hoping we can make some progress on our swimming skills this spring.

Ice Skating

The kids had an administrative day off school this past week so I took them all ice skating at a local skating rink.  Anna had been ice skating once this past year with her friends but none of the other kids have ever ice skated.  I like ice skating and can get by pretty well but am not super good at it.  But we gave it a try anyway.  We rented these plastic walkers to help some of the new skaters.  I only got two because Matthew and Anna insisted they wouldn't need one since they can rollerblade pretty well.  And Anna said she'd take Emma around.

Here we are watching the Zamboni

When we first got out there hardly anyone else was there.  Here's Grant using the walker.

He wasn't afraid and had a lot of fun.  Matthew going around on the wall.

We had the whole place to ourselves for a short while.

Right away John and Emma were really scared to go on the ice.  They tried it and then cried and wanted to get off.  So they sat in the stands and watched for a long time.  I had to take their skates off so they could sit in the metal stands.

After watching everyone for over an hour, John decided he would give it another try.  Anna helped him maneuver around with the walker.  He had a lot of fun after trying again.

Hooray for second chances.

Emma saw that John was having fun and gave it another try with the walker also.  I skated her around and she did have some fun there at the end.  Matthew and Anna kept taking the walkers from the younger kids, so I wished I had rented more of them.  Grant was a good sport and would always give his up when someone needed it, even though he couldn't skate very well without it.  We had a good time and by the end were all tired and ready to go.  The skating session was two hours long and we were there the whole time.

Afterward we went to Dairy Queen to get some blizzards to go along with our ice skating day.

It was lots of fun.  Maybe we can get Scott to come with us next time.

Grant at the Grizzlies Game

Grant's school class got the opportunity to sing the National Anthem at a hockey game for the local minor league team, the Grizzlies.  Grant's class had learned the National Anthem and some other patriotic songs for a recent patriotic school performance.  We also were able to get tickets to see the game for a reduced price.  I love ice hockey so I was excited to go to the game.  Here we are waiting for the game to start.

Grant's group out on the ice.  They sang the anthem to start the game and got to sing God Bless the USA between periods 1 and 2.

Here they are for their second song.

Grant is wearing a gray shirt with an American flag about in the middle.

Grant is just to the left of the adult in black in the middle.  They did a great job singing and we all enjoyed the game.  All the kids thought it was too loud so I ended up going out to buy earplugs for them at the concession stand.  That helped.  Also we were all alarmed with how much fighting there was.  There were a lot of fights, even for a hockey game.  Maybe the minor league goes a little more crazy than the NHL?  I've been watching women's Olympic hockey and they don't fight that much.  :). Anyway, it was fun to go to the game.  The Grizzlies started pretty slow but rallied later in the game.  We left after the 2nd period 'cause everyone was tired but it was still lots of fun.  And good job Grant for singing and making it all possible.

Happy Birthday Scott

We had a little celebration for Scott's birthday a few weeks ago.  Scott requested spicy chicken sandwiches and homemade onion rings, so I worked on those.  Homemade onion rings are so good!

We had cupcakes

And some presents that the kids helped deliver.

Happy Birthday Scott/Dad.

Scott and I went out to dinner (just us) for his birthday also.  We went to the Brazilian place, Tucanos, and saw Captain Marvel, and later in the week we went to Outback Steakhouse for Scott's off day.  John and Emma were with us that time, but it was still fun.  It's been kind of busy but hopefully Scott had a fun birthday!

Matthew is 12!

Matthew (our oldest) turned 12 years old last month.  Scott and I have been parents for quite a long time now apparently.  Here is Matthew on his birthday (looking very serious).  He had scouts that night so was wearing his scout shirt.   Our stake has already separated from Boy Scouts (they were chosen to pilot the new church program) so the troop is run by the community now.  So he has Young Men one night and then Scouts another night each week.  Some boys from the ward are in the troop too.  At first he wasn't sure he wanted to do Scouts but then he decided he'd give it a try and really likes it now.  We had to stop doing Aikido because it interfered with scouts.  He has been in four different BSA councils since he's been in scouts - Lewis and Clark Council in Illinois, National Parks (I think?) in Lehi, Monterey Bay/Silicon Valley Council in CA and now Trapper Trails Council in Northern Utah.  He recently went on his first big hike with the scouts.  They hiked Frary Peak on Antelope Island.  Antelope Island is so close to us.  The hike was 7 miles long and Matthew was pretty beat but made it to the top in spite of mud, snow and general exhaustion.  Good job Matthew!  We also registered him for junior high recently.  Matthew and I got to go over to the junior high, which is very nice and new looking, to register.  He choose some different electives including band and a STEM class.  I also signed him up for a summer school P.E. class that is highly recommended by all our neighbors as a funner and more varied alternative to P.E. during the school year.  So Matthew will start his first junior high class in June.  Matthew is also a deacon now and because of the church changes, has been since the beginning of the year.  He requested a suit, which he didn't have before, so he would look nice while passing the sacrament.

Here he is in his new church suit.

This was back at Christmas time.

On his birthday he requested crepes for breakfast.  I got up early to make them.  Here are our leftover crepes plus his cheesecake!

Singing happy birthday!

We had burgers and fries for dinner and cheesecake for dessert.

I think there were actually 12 pieces of cake.  How perfect.

I purchased this cheesecake and Scott made his famous blueberry compote topping that everyone loves.

Anna was sad about something on the birthday evening - possibly the birthday treasure hunt.  That often makes someone cry which makes me wonder why I still do it.  But I feel like the kids should be able to cooperate on a task without fighting with each other.  Matthew is usually very sympathetic to Anna.  I snuck a picture of him trying to comfort her.  What a nice brother.  You can also see the famous blueberry topping. Yum!

Matthew got some Magic cards as a present along with some other things.

He enjoys playing that game with some of his school friends.

We had a friend party for Matthew with some of his friends.  He had about five school friends over to hang out, have pizza and watch a movie.  I think they had fun.  Here they are playing the Portal board game.  Portal is a computer/video game Matthew played to completion.  He wanted and received the board game version for his birthday. 

On the weekend after his birthday we went out to lunch at Freddy's - one of our favorite birthday places.  There is one in Ogden so we drove up there.  It was kind of far, but we enjoyed our lunch.  Here are the boys eating.  Then we went to see Lego Movie 2.  It was a lot of fun.  Happy Birthday Matthew!!

Here are a couple more pics of Matthew.

Recently Matthew had a school presentation where each member of his class dressed up as a famous person.  The requirements were that the person not be American (or not born in America), must have been influential on the world in a positive way and be deceased.  His classmates chose people like Nicola Tesla, Mother Theresa, Galileo, Nelson Mandela etc. Matthew chose Satoru Iwata.  He is a former president of Nintendo.  I felt a little embarrassed at his choice since it seemed somewhat frivolous compared to all the people he could have done - he really wanted to do someone Japanese since he is interested in Japanese culture...and video games.  So I didn't make any effort early on to influence his decision but wondering if I should have.   I do think its important for kids to do their own work and come up with their own ideas for projects like this, so I don't know. Each class member got up and read a biographical poem they had written about their person.  Matthew delivered his poem with much animation and spirit.  Here he is reading his poem.

Here he is with his poster board about his person.

He did a good job.

Matthew was also involved in his school play recently.  They did the play Alice in Wonderland and it was very cute - the musical Disney version - they paid for the rights to use it.  Matthew chose to be on stage crew rather than act in the play.  The stage crew was in charge of making all the sets so the first few weeks they were painting a lot.  They had parents supervise but the kids did most of the work.  Here is Matthew with some of the sets.  We went to see his play this past weekend and the kids were excited to see him moving all the props and sets.  Good work Matthew!

Matthew is a great big brother and puts up with a lot from his younger siblings. 

 We love you Matthew!!

The Bleak Midwinter

"snow on snow, snow on snow"

Since Christmas things have felt a little crazy.  Kids have new activities - Matthew has started Boy Scouts.  Our stake has already broken with scouts (they were chosen to pilot the new church program) and the scout troop is run by the community - one of the stake presidency has taken it over.  Matthew likes it so far and they have a campout every month, so he's looking forward to that.  But now Matthew has young men's every week AND Boy Scouts on a separate night.  Same thing for Grant.  He has activity boys in addition to cub scouts.  And scouts is the same night and time as Aikido.  Both boys chose scouts over Aikido and John has lost interest once a girl at Aikido started harassing him.  So we might be done with Aikido for now.  I'm ok with it.  We've had a bunch of sick kids.  The whole family got sick except Matthew and I.  I think we both had a light version of the flu or cold that came through.  Scott even got it and was sick during a work trip to California.  Being sick at home is one thing - sick in a dreary hotel while you're traveling is another.  Here I am with John, one early morning, at the doctor.  He looks awfully perky for a sick boy!  He had a double ear infection.  So he went on antibiotics.  

Later in the day (after the doc appointment) he got pink eye, so I rushed back in and the doctor helped us out and gave him a broader antibiotic and some probiotics.  He got better and was able to go back to school after a few days.  But he was miserable there for a while.

Anna also got sick and had trouble getting better.  We ended up at the doctor for her when her cold symptoms just wouldn't go away.  The docs best guess was that she had a sinus infection.  He gave her an antibiotic also and she got better pretty quickly after she started on that.  Here she is at the doctor having a breathing treatment/test.  So she and John both went through a full round of antibiotics and probiotics and are feeling lots better.

I've had several doctors appointments and check ups as well lately.   I had some blood tests and found that I had pretty low iron.  My doctor said I had "a touch of anemia" so I've been taking iron supplements and feeling lots better.  Noticing I don't feel quite so wiped out after a run.  So that's good.

Valentine's Day came and went.  The kids all had to decorate special boxes at home.  Except Grant's class - they did theirs in school - which makes Grant's teacher my Valentine hero this year!!  I am not too crafty - or rather I don't value doing crafts so I don't like to invest a lot of time and effort into it.  Especially when I have a full schedule already.  So John and I printed a bunch of Mario pictures from the internet and taped them to a yogurt box.  We spelled his name with some stickers and I thought that was pretty good.  Here is his Mario box.

Anna is crafty, but sometimes I feel exhausted by her craft ambitions.  She made this hot air balloon Valentine container 100% on her own.  I thought it was cute.  Sometimes I have guilt that I don't do more crafty things - then I could have been more helpful with her projects.  I'm trying to accept my limitations.  Matthew made a mail box out of paper and boxes.  It looked nice too but I didn't get a picture.

One day near Valentine's Day Anna came home sad from school so I tasked her with decorating this image of Scott from high school.  I told her to digitally put hearts on it or something so we could send it Scott.  I think the task did distract her and make her feel a little better. We all thought Scott looks a little like Matthew in this picture.  Minus all the kissy lips of course.

Speaking of my limitations -  I've been making the girls let me practice on their hair.  Usually they are willing participants.  Here's Anna with a fishtail braid.

And Emma with some crazy thing.

Maybe I can learn a few quick hairstyles.

Scott had to go out of town for work for a few days and it happened to coincide with a lot of craziness at home.  I've been taking an electrical engineering class online - the class in on semiconductor physics.  I'm testing the waters a little bit for taking more classes, but I felt like the first few weeks of class have lead to a full on crisis of confidence.  I felt so rusty, particularly with the math part.  I've been out of school for a while.  I had to look up how to do Fourier transforms and some of the vector algebra.   It took me A LONG TIME to do my first homework assignment, which was only one problem.  And I took my first test.  After spending so long on the assignment I almost didn't turn it in because I felt so rusty and the homework part was to be graded by other class members.  Scott encouraged me to turn it in so I finally did.

Homework question - if you know much physics or engineering you can see that this is not even a very hard question.  But I had to take a quick refresher on dot products and cross products.

I was almost too embarrassed to submit my answer (which was four pages long) for fear of being totally wrong, but I'm glad I did 'cause I ended up getting 6/6 on the assignment as graded by my peers.  I also struggled through the first quiz of the class which was only about 10 questions long.  The answers were mostly calculations of some kind.    And some of them seemed deceptively straightforward, which always makes me second guess things.  I was genuinely shocked when I got a 90% on the quiz!  I only missed one question and it was one it seemed most of the class had missed.  I spent a long afternoon working on this portion of the class and felt very emotionally taxed afterward.  It was also weird to finish all that up and then go back to doing mom stuff.  Like making dinner, admiring Lego creations and wiping noses.  Definitely switching gears!

The kids all wanted to show me their Lego creations after I had been attempting physics all day.

And John wanted special toast.  Being a stay at home mom is hard - and no one ever gives you a 90% on it. It is pretty much always self assessed and probably most moms think they are doing worse than they are.  So I guess it was nice getting an A on something.  I'm not even sure I want to continue with the class - I feel so rusty at all this.  And even after doing well on the assessments I feel dumb 'cause it took me so long to figure some of it out.  :(  I don't know.

John did like his special toast though

Emma has been asking to play board games with me a lot.  On this day we played headbands while I did some dinner prep.  I try to stop what I'm doing and play with her, but other times I just can't take a break.  This morning Scott was playing Candy Land with her (one of her favorites) so he's doing his part. :)

Scott finally came home from his trip just in time to see Grant in his special patriotic performance put on by all the 2nd graders.  Grant was very cute.  Can you spot him in the American flag shirt?

We got to go see his class after the performance and have a few cookies.

We got haircuts for all the kids except Anna.  John is looking so grown up.

Progress on the basement is inching along.  We have the drywall up and the walls are mudded (not shown in this picture).  So we're getting closer.

We turned off the furnace in the basement while the workers were cutting drywall and mudding 'cause it was really dusty.  One morning I came down to a very cold living room 'cause I had forgotten to turn the furnace on overnight.  No one died, but it was cold.  So I turned the furnace on and then it was warm and dusty.  This is how cold the basement is when the furnace is on.  Brr!!

We got to visit cute cousin Clark.  Matthew thinks he is so cute!  And he is!

He's growing so big!

I'm in winter denial.  All my neighbors have decidedly wintery decorations up.  But I've moved on to Easter/spring.  Emma found this HUGE bunny decoration at the store - it's hard to miss.  I can't begin to imagine where you would put this?  Outside your house to scare passersby?  And how would you store it?  In you basement and every time you go down there you are startled by a monster bunny?  So we didn't buy it, but we did get a nice sensible spring wreath for the front door.  We've had a few balmy days in the mid 40s.  Maybe spring is just around the corner.  Fingers crossed!