Fish and Ducks

Rhianna's unit in school this month has been about fish. They read, write, and do activities about fish. Today was a busy day. All the 2nd graders had to do a fish presentation. Rhianna chose to do the Leafy Sea Dragon. Rand and Seth and I got to go see Rhianna and a few of the others present. It was great to see all the different posters and Rhianna did a wonderful job.

They also made the paper aquariums and wrote stories about them earlier in the unit. Today they made the water aquariums in the jars with plastic fish, shells, plants, etc. They look cool.

As for the ducks...well we were busy today too. After I dropped Rhianna off at school, we went to the YMCA for exercise. Then back home for a quick shower. Then back to the school to watch the presentations. Then off to Reid Park to play. On Fridays we meet up with our cousins (really very distant cousins...our great-grandmas were sisters) and play. After a while on the playground we went over to the pond to feed the ducks.

The ducks were CRAZY today. They were out of the water and all over us. Rachelle had tortillas and I had bread, so they should have been broken up to feed to the animals. But those ducks wanted the food. Rand just threw a whole tortilla on the ground and the ducks were scrambling to get it from each other. I couldn't believe it when Seth had about a 1/4 piece of bread left in his hands, holding it with 2 hands and trying to rip it, one duck just snapped right between his hands and took it. You may remember the horse taking the grass out of Seth's hand in the summer...well he was nearly as sad and mad about the duck stealing the bread out of his hands. He was crying and saying they were mean and needed to go away.

We then got distracted playing in the small stream running out of the pond because of the rain we have gotten lately. Then we ate snacks and headed for home. A busy day but fun - and we will keep our distance from the ducks next time.

Rand's Secret Plan

A few years ago for Rhianna's birthday we gave her a ton of books and had her do a treasure hunt around the house to find them. Rand loved it. Ever since then he wants to make maps and do treasure hunts at random times.

So again as Rhianna headed back to school he said he wanted to buy her books and do a treasure hunt for her. We went to Bookman's and got her a chapter book and also a book on fish and on insects since she will be doing reports on them this semester. Then Rand and Seth each made maps.

When Rhianna got home they were so excited for her to find the treasure. Just a nice, loving, fun thing Rand wanted to do on his own for his sister.

What happens when Seth takes a 3 hour nap...

This was around 9:30 the other night.

New Year's Eve

We were sad one set of friends got sick just before New Years - but we had another set of friends over. We ate dinner and good desserts and then just played with games and toys. We got out the horns and pop-its and had our little celebration at approximately 7:30.

After friends left the kids did want to try to make it until midnight. First we watched a Planet Earth movie - awesome - and that got Seth to relax and fall asleep at about 8:30. Then Rhianna taught me how to do iris folding cards - not too difficult just takes a lot of tape and time, but makes cool designs. Rand did mazes while we worked. Then he joined Steve watching some football and fell asleep.

So this was our house at approximately 10:30 pm:
(I can't get the picture of Seth to flip...)

I actually went into bed and I was reading and nearly asleep at midnight. Rhianna barely made it staying up with Steve. Happy New Year!

Christmas 2009

We have had a nice Christmas vacation. Rhianna returns to school on Monday and so we will return to setting the alarm and having a schedule. But it has been a very relaxing few weeks. Even Christmas was pretty relaxed.



Christmas Eve was actually a kind of rough day. I think the day before had been too exciting and we were having mini breakdowns all the time with all of the kids. We also had so much food left over we decided not to even cook the ham and have our bigger dinner but instead eat leftovers. We did act out the Nativity and read from both the Bible and Book of Mormon about Christ's birth. This year we switched parts: Steve was the donkey, Stephanie was Mary, Seth was Joseph, Rand was the shepherd, and Rhianna was the angel. That evening ended on a happy note. Even though the kids were expecting to get new pajamas, they were so excited and happy and thankful for what we had picked for them.



Christmas morning started at 7 am. We looked at our stockings and Seth started eating chocolates immediately as expected (and that is why he only got 2 in his stocking). We then ate breakfast - cheesy eggs and toast - so we could take time opening presents. After being good and waiting to open presents, Seth thought he should open them all. Rhianna and Rand are good to him and he really did help open every present. Thank you to our family and friends who sent gifts - The rest of the day was just spent slowly playing with all of them. A few of our favorites include: workbooks and coloring supplies, scooter, little kitchen, gift cards to movies/restaurants, Planet Earth DVD, Bop-it...



We like to end our day on Christmas coming back to remember Christ along with all the nice things we enjoyed that day. So this year we read a little more from the Bible about the wise men finding Jesus and then watched the movie "Joy to the World" that portrays all these accounts of His birth.


(This is the famous "Ru-off" book that Seth loves. This book became Seth's guide to Christmas, including of course Rudolph and Santa as the only one allowed to say Ho-ho-ho)

And we have just enjoyed the days since. We went as a whole family to The Princess and the Frog - our first movie all together since Seth was super tiny. Rhianna and Rand have created games together and one day played for 6 hours straight, only stopping when I said they needed to eat lunch. We played with friends and went to the Children's Museum and then had a nice end to 2009 and good start to the New Year - 2010.

Christmas Adam

I'm not exactly sure when, but a number of years ago on December 23rd I joked that we should call the day "Christmas Adam" because it is the day before Christmas Eve and Adam came before Eve. Since then I have always joked that one of my life goals is to popularize Christmas Adam across the world. My hope is that someday someone who I have never told about it will ask me what I am doing for Christmas Adam. Then I will know my life has had meaning.

To help with the cause, a few years ago Stephanie and I decided to have a small party each year on Christmas Adam. It works out especially great here in Tucson, because Dec 23rd is also the birthday of our good friend Bob Neumiller, so each year our Christmas Adam party is also a birthday party for him.

This year our party was a lot of fun. We decided to have finger food. We had chips and 7-layer dip, bulgogi kebabs, potstickers, egg rolls, fruit, veggies and more. Everything was delicious.

After the food we played Jumanji. Rand's team (including Bob and Corine) won.

Stephanie decided that it would be fun to decorate cupcakes to look like Christmas ornaments. Everyone really had a great time decorating.

Here are some pictures of the results.

Everyone had a great time and we hope that next year everyone who reads this blog will remember and celebrate Christmas Adam.

December Fun

Just thought I would do a quick post showing you some pictures of our fun December. This has been a very nice Christmas season for us. Stephanie and I had all of our Christmas shopping done by Dec 1, so December has been relaxed and enjoyable.

Here is Seth enjoying our Lego advent calendar. He really loved to stand on a chair and play with it.

Because today is Christmas Eve, we finished the Lego advent calendar. The last pieces were a Santa figure and pieces to make a fireplace with stockings. The whole calendar made a winter town scene and was very fun. Here are pictures of all of the pieces.

Here is a picture of the kids standing by the Christmas tree. Seth was very excited this year to help decorate. He has done a great job of containing his enthusiasm with the tree and the ornaments. We only have to tell him a couple of times a day not to play with the tree, or the presents.

This December has shown us that Seth is definitely a strong-willed two year old. One thing he loves to do is to sneak the little Clementine oranges.

Finally, here is a picture of Rand with his gingerbread (really Graham cracker) house that he made at the library.

I am going to let Rand describe it in his own words. "One bear is climbing a big rock. Two baby bears are resting in the sun. The mama bear is walking home from the grocery store. Two bears are in the Christmas graveyard. One girl bear and one boy bear are playing in the back yard. Another boy bear is doing a handstand by the fence. Two girl bears are playing in the sand box."