First Week of Preschool

I've been working to set up a coop preschool with some other moms so that K could have a preschool experience without me having to take out a loan or stop buying groceries.  This week was the first week.  I taught this week.  There are 6 kids in our group but when it is at my house there are 7 because I have A who is involved in everything.  Tuesday we learned about the letter "P", our bodies, circles and pink.  We had a "P" treasure hunt, made "ME" paper bag puppets, ate peaches and pears for snack, named a pink bird and other preschooly things.  By the time the kids left 2.5 hours later I was wiped out.  Good thing I got to do it again on Thursday!

 Thursday we were still working on the same concepts.  The best activity was our Build a Body snack.  Here's K working on her body. 

 And here's her body.  It's pretty much genius and I expect Harvard to be calling soon.



Guess who's happy to have his cast off?

He hasn't been able to do this for 6 weeks, so even though it is barely 70 degrees outside he is soaked and loving it!

Tales from a domestic diva

Today for the first time in, oh... 18 years, I mowed the lawn.  I had three younger brothers.  One of whom is only 2 years younger than me.  So mowing the lawn was not one of my chores.  Good thing I've had lots of vacuuming experience so I knew just what to do -- back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  Just kidding.  Okay, maybe I started out like that before it came to me that no one mows their lawn that way.  Actually I was rather proud of myself for getting the mower started.  Roy makes it look so easy.  I think I may need to ice my sholder tonight.  Also, my hands may never stop vibrating.  I think I have discovered the cure for Parkinsons... stop mowing the lawn. 

All this is just a long story to illustrate the great lengths some people will go through to procrastinate canning.

Another great procrastination mechanism: blog about procrastination.

*just so you know, I did 13 quarts of pears yesterday people.  by.my.self.  except for the kids.  who did not help.  unless you call eating the pears so I didn't have to peel them helping which was helpful.  sort of.

Making Progress

Today we went from this:

To this: 

That's right folks.  He is not officially out of a cast and into a splint.  He can now shower on his own (YEA!!)  I just have to say that after wearing that last cast for 3 weeks his arm smelled something like a crypt.  Ewww....

Family Photos

We had our family photos taken Friday night.  A friend from our ward, Marissa Gifford, is starting a business and wanted more experience taking family portraits.  When she asked to use our family my response was "YES PLEASE!!!"
I am so excited to get them back but she just sent me the link to this sneak peak.  Check it out!
marissagiffordphotography.blogspot.com

First day of 1st Grade

 Don't be fooled by the mug shot.  He was really excited this morning!  I drove him to school along with one of the other little boys in our new carpool.  Roy followed in his car.  He was really excited for D to go to 1st grade.  I dropped the boys off and Roy walked them to where their class waits for the teacher to come get them and walk them to class.  The girls and I stayed for a PTA breakfast before heading home to our first day of D being is school. 
Tonight we had a special "Back to School" dinner inspired from this cool blog.

 I had the pencil tags and large poster printed at Office Depot.  I ordered an 8x10 of the poster.  I have an empty frame I was going to put it in.  When I got their the woman had printed it off in the 16x20 size the picture was created to be.  I tried to explain but she wasn't paying attention so I just took my poster home to figure out what to do with it.  It think it turned out all right.

The candy crayons in the left corner are from Our Best Bites.  Yum.  Chocolate dipped pretzels that look like crayons!

 

D loved his first day.  He said it felt like he was only in school from 8:30 to 10:30.  It didn't feel like all day.  He has a few friends already and has a great teacher.  It's been a good day.

It's been so busy

I feel like I haven't had time to do the regular house stuff.  I feel like I'm constantly running around playing catch up.  So, here's the low down:

Monday I bottled tomatoes.  I bought a pressure canner from my neighbor's garage sale but had never used one before.  There was a bit of a learning curve but I think I've got it down.  We ate some of the tomatoes tonight in the dinner I made and so far we are all still botulism free.  That's a good sign.  I got 22 pints done.  My tomatoes are still producing and it is a hot week so hopefully I'll be able to do some more early next week.

Monday was also D's birthday so we had a little family party.  He got to pick dinner.  We had bbq chicken legs.  He likes the novelty of eathing the meat off the bone.  Then we opened presents.  Finally!

As you can see, K was with him every step of the way!  She was pretty excited for him to open the gifts but was a little sad that none of them were for her.  Poor little a was sent off to bed without joining the festivities.  She was too tired.

One of D's gifts was an ice cream ball from Grandpa and Grandma Bishop.  Roy was really excited for this gift.  Of course we had to try it out that night.  I had bought the stuff we would need (rock salt and cream).  We filled it with ice in the bottom and cream in the top.  We sat in the living room and rolled it around for 15 minutes before checking it.  I was really happy to see it was working.  The kids and I ran next door to collect more ice since we'd used ours all up on the first 15 minutes.  After another 15 minutes of rolling around we had ice cream!

D requested a train cake.  After planning on an eel cake all.year.long he changed at the last minute.  I've done train cakes twice.  This year I cheated and used a cupcake mold thingy I bought a few years ago.  Viola!  Train cupcake cake!

Monday was also the last night for the kids to sleep out.  D and K have been camping out in the backyard since we got home from vacation.  With school starting this week, Monday was the final campout. 

Tuesday was another busy day fraught with last minute school shopping, grocery shopping, a late meeting for Roy and a play date for the kids.  I dropped D off at his friend's house and picked up another little girl to go play at this awesome fountain in the park downtown.  They had a great time.

I love A's face in this picture.  She is sitting right in the middle of the waterfall.  All the water is now going up her back and around her little bum!

Yea!  School starts tomorrow.  I CAN'T WAIT!!

My boy is 7!!

It took him 7 years to go from this:

To this:

My D-man.  He is such a great kid.  He is super smart, handsome, happy (most of the time), helpful, loving and compassionate.  He loves trains, Legos, Monopoly, outer space, reading, imagining and learning.  He is a picky eater with a very small list of acceptable foods.  In fact, he will probably be eating a PB&H every day in his school lunch.  Fortunately there are a lot of fruits and vegetables on his short list!

I'm very proud of the little man child he is becoming and look forward to the man he will be.

This is what I call "Fun in a Box"

This box has been making frequent appearances lately.  It has served as a couch, bulldozer, hiding place, lazy-boy recliner, cargo carrier and whoknowwhatelse.

It's killing him!

Tomorrow it D's birthday.  This is what greeted him when he came down for breakfast:

Did I mention his birthday is TOMORROW?!