Father's Day and half birthdays

A lot of celebrating has been going on around here.  We've had Father's Day, Anna's half birthday, Cyrena's half birthday and our 9th anniversary.  Whew!

Father's Day started out with the annual dogpile, followed by a requested breakfast

This dad sure loves his girls and they love him LOTS.  He is so so good to them.

Anna is now halfway through her first year of life.  It's very bittersweet because I love watching her grow and change, but it is definitely going by too quickly.  

Anna's favorite things:

*any dangling toy...especially rings and including mom's curls

*pureed squash 

*oatmeal

*her sippy cup and any cup of water that we drink out of

*tangling her fingers in her sisters' hair

*her blankie

Anna's 6 month stats:

weight- 19 lbs

height- 27 inches

head- 17 inches

And this little girl turned 5 1/2 today.  She's pretty darn excited.  I had ordered piano books for her and saved them for today.  She was very happy!  I can't believe she goes to kindergarten in just over a month.

Up North We Go

Last weekend our amazing realtor whom we love offered us the use of her cabin up north.  It was so generous of her and we politely accepted. :)  It was great to be among the large pines and for it to actually be chilly in the morning and evening.  We still didn't need pants or jackets though.  The cabin was AMAZING and we really relaxed, it was wonderful. 

Checking out her sliver

The girls had a blast and got along very well

In the main room there were two very comfortable recliners where David and I spent most of our free time.

We headed out for a morning walk and within 50 feet Natalie tripped and scraped both knees, both palms and both forearms.  Luckily we have a first aid kit in the car for these occasions. 

After our walk, we had a Cheez-its and strawberries picnic in the loft while we watched a movie and Anna napped.  Can anyone guess what movie it is?  (hint: it's about a brown-haired princess who loves to read and a figurine of her is on the floor next to Natalie).  Behind where I'm taking a picture is a really comfy futon that the girls slept on.

We went on a picnic for lunch at a local park.  There were several elderly motorcycle gangs there and their conversations were funny to listen to.  By the way, this little girl is heading down the road of daddy-worship...

That afternoon David, Cyrena and I played our favorite card game...Skip bo Jr.  You have got to check it out!  We play it a few times a week and it's perfect for Cyrena's age.  She got it for her birthday from Grandma Barb.  Again, we broke out the Cheez-its and added some chocolate to the mix.  Cyrena had yet to be initiated into the 'eat candy while you play games' routine....she was pretty darn happy about it!

That night we drove 25 miles further north to Snowflake to see some of our favorite friends- the Ordyna's!!  On the way in, we stopped to check out the Snowflake temple.  It is gorgeous and sits on a large hill overlooking a beautiful valley.  It looked busy; it's always great to see a busy temple.

It was wonderful to see the Ordyna's.  We hadn't seen their kids in almost 4 years!  It was fun for us all to reconnect.  Cyrena and Jarom were born just weeks apart and they picked right back off where they left off when they were 18 months!

David and Jake have always enjoyed each other's company.  They worked for the same company for a few years when we first moved to Arizona.  We call him the gentle giant, we're big fans!

Alyssa has always been a role model for me.  So many times, when I'm having a hard time with something, I ask myself, "what would Alyssa do?"  I'm not kidding, I really do!!  She's the mother of 5 great kids, and look she even gave me a break and held my chubalub! 

We had a great weekend.  Thankfully time went slowly so we got to enjoy every single minute.

David's favorite quote of the weekend (recorded for journaling purposes):

As we were walking into the park for a picnic, some people had started BBQing.  

Natalie:  "Wuss that fells, dad?  Cokgogs?"

translated:  "what's that smell dad?  Hot Dogs?"

She says "wuss that fells?" very often, especially near the meat department in the grocery store.  She's got quite the sense of smell I guess.  And it really really makes us laugh.

Summer so far

The local dairy has a farmers market every Thursday evening during the summer.  We decided to go before the hot hot hot weather hit.  We headed over with the Spencers and there were several vendors to watch and samples to be eaten.  There was a $1 hay ride/tour of the dairy and a petting zoo.  All in all, a great way to spend an evening-especially since it wasn't too hot!

Heading out on the hay ride

Natalie was very eager to feed the goats and they were very eager to oblige.  Cyrena just observed/threw feed through the holes in the fence.

They had stacked hay bales to climb.  The girls got very dirty and didn't want to leave. 

Cyrena and Natalie just finished up a round of swimming lessons.  I did not realize when I signed Natalie up that her class required parents to be in the water with them.  Ummm...I have an infant to take care of too....so I was a little unsure of how it was going to work.  Luckily I have a great friend, Alison, who was willing to help me out!  She's 7 months pregnant and said it sounded great to her to get in the water.  So we suited Anna up and Alison and I were in the water with both Anna and Natalie most days.  Some of the days Alison was kind enough to watch Anna at her house.  I don't know what I would have done without her!!  

Both girls did great and progressed well.  By the end, I had Natalie jumping into the water to me (going under and coming back up) and Cyrena had  perfected her back float.  Cyrena is now taking private lessons from a 15 year old girl in our neighborhood. 

And just so you know we really do have a baby around here, enjoy this little video of her latest trick.

Memorial Day 2011

This past weekend we had a great time!  On Friday, we went swimming with the Cox family.  The girls had fun and worked hard on their swimming skills (armed with major flotation devices of course).

Natalie refused to come out of the pool for lunch, she wanted to swim "a 'lil bit more mom"

On Monday we packed a picnic and went to Falcon Hill Park where they actually had a tire swing!  The girls loved that.  Then we went on a little hike up the hill.  We couldn't really find a trail so we just wandered up.  We didn't make it to the top since it was close to nap time.  

Here David is defining the word 'steep' for Cyrena since she was using it to exaggerate the climb.  

After naps we broke out the slip 'n slide and had a BBQ with the McKays.  Great food and great company.  What a way to kick off the summer.  

Earlier in the day we were talking to Cyrena about Memorial Day and what it means, why we have it, etc.  She talked about soldiers on 'our team' fighting for our freedom.  Then she talked about how lucky we are to be on 'Nephi's team' and fight for Jesus and Heavenly Father.  I love this girl.

In other news, the chore chart goes on strong.....

Chores, Chores, Chores

I think we've finally done it.  We've implemented a chore plan in our house.  In the past we've had a lot of failures when it came to a system that actually worked.  Usually it was my fault because I had a hard time being consistent with it.  

It's been 2 weeks and we're still going strong--that's a record!  I've seen so many awesome chore plans out there but I chose this one for now.  It could very well change in the next little while but for now, we're sticking with it. 

I have looked at that chore plan on Confessions of a Homeschooler for awhile but I changed it a bit to work for us. 

I printed off a bunch of the chore cards and picked and chose which ones my family would use.  I laminated them and also a few blank cards so I could write in some of my own. 

So here's what we do:  Every night before I go to bed, I decide what chores I need the girls to do the next day.  I really like the flexibility of this since we don't run the dishwasher or do laundry everyday but when we do I can add in those chores: empty the dishwasher, fold and put away laundry, dust, etc.  Each girl has a few chores that stay the same everyday then they usually get 1-2 more that changes daily:

Natalie: make bed, take a nap, pick up dirty clothes, pick up family room

Cyrena: make bed, read for 20 minutes, pick up playroom, wipe the kitchen table

As they finish their chores, they move the card to the ALL DONE! row.  

 Then right before bed, we check to see which chores are done and if they are ALL done they pick a sticker to put on their reward card (what Natalie is holding).  If they haven't completed all their chores, they do not get a sticker for the day. The reward card has 6 spots and when it is full they get to pick a prize ($1 store items, gum for Cyrena, etc).  

There are also "Best-'bee'havior cards." For our family, you can trade in 3 full reward cards for a bee card.  The bee card gets them things like: ice cream with dad, a playdate, cooking with mom, etc.  They can also earn a bee card if they meet their goal which I will explain below.

Another thing that we started are GOALS.  It's hard for them to hear, "just be good, ok?" They need something more specific than that.  So for Cyrena we picked a behavior she really needed to work on.  She was constantly 'roaring' at Natalie and making her scream.  It was becoming a bad (and not to mention annoying!!) habit.  So her goal this past week has been, "I will not roar at Natalie"  She's been amazing and has met her goal as of right now.  We're going to officially evaluate tonight.  She is so excited to earn her bee card! 

Natalie's goal was "I will poop on the potty" since that's been her biggest struggle lately.  And she's done really well! It's so funny because sometimes while she's playing I will hear her repeating "I will poop on the potty....I will poop on the potty"  

It's been great to have a visual reminder of their goals, we refer to them very often. 

The third and final thing we started are screentime tickets (the pink tickets next to their names).  It's been hard for me to keep track of how much screentime (t.v. and computer) they are getting.  It's harder for Cyrena since she is home all day and doesn't nap.  I figure she is awake and home for about 13 hours a day and it's hard to keep a 5 year old entertained that long!  The tickets are in 30 minute increments so as they watch a show (or Cyrena plays computer) we just move a ticket down to 'all done'.  I also purchased a small digital timer so Cyrena can set it while she's on the computer.  That has made a huge difference!  She uses it for her reading time as well.  And she also uses it when I say, "I'll play with you in 5 minutes"......it can work against me. :)

Ok, does that sound overwhelming??  It's really a lot simpler than it sounds but it's hard to get it all out of my head into comprehensible text. :)  I know most of you already have an awesome plan in place.  For right now my girls need something tangible and broken down like this but I'm sure eventually we can go to some kind of checklist.  

How do you handle chores at your house? 

Nature, FHE, and Potty Power

Nature:

We've been overrun with bird nests this spring.  We're renting so the handyman usually takes care of the nests.  However, he's been out of town for family emergencies. As a result we've had a few baby birds to observe.  Here's a video of one trying to learn how to fly, but actually just running away from us.  You have to listen to how Natalie talks to the bird toward the end of the video. 

Also anytime we're in a hurry and we tell her to 'grab shoes' she picks these ruby red slippers...she loves them and they fit her personality well. 

 

Family Home Evening:

I love my new primary chorister calling, it's so much fun.  This past Sunday I had an activity for the kids to do that involved hiding magnetic letters in a bucket of rice.  They dug out each letter, put it on the board then we sang a song about a corresponding gospel topic.  For example. r=reverence.  For senior primary I had them tell me what the song taught them about that specific gospel topic.  Then when all the letters were on the board we unscrambled the letters to make a word that had to do with the monthly primary theme ("restored") and had a quick mini-lesson.  It was a fun activity. 

Since I am basically a pretty lazy person I wanted to get more mileage out of this activity.  So we used it for FHE the next night.  The topic was prayer because we've been feeling like the girls are using a lot of 'vain repetitions'  We didn't expect Natalie to really understand too much, and she didn't.  But digging out the letters kept her engaged.  

Potty Power:

   Well I guess the third time's the charm in our house.  Anna is a wonderful third baby, David loves his third job out of college, and our third attempt at potty training Natalie has been successful.  She's proud to wear panties and has been very good with few accidents.  Oh but those accidents can be doozies....I won't go into detail.  I think it's been successful this time for two reasons.  First, her obsession with princesses has grown exponentially so princess panties are a huge hit.  And second, this video that was recommended by a friend:

Natalie loves movies and music so this was perfect.  It had catchy songs that she memorized quickly, real kids sitting on a real potty, and a fun princess fairytale at the end.  She related and has done amazing well.  Pass on the Potty Power!  I checked it out from the library. 

Big Girls and Baseball

Our firstborn is sure growing up!  It's a bit overwhelming at times.  

Cyrena just finished her first season of coach pitch baseball.  Of course she loved every minute of it, even sliding into home plate just to get her pants dirty. Cyrena had great coaches and if they coach again they're going to let us know so she can be on their team again.  She was the only girl with about 8 boys.  They accepted her as 'one of the guys' and always made sure they said good-bye to her after each game.  Too cute.

In line to bat

This coach was so darn cute with her.  He was always cheering her on and calling her 'sweetheart'

Cyrena was one of the only kids that was always in the 'ready' position.  The coaches used her as an example often.

Here she is in the outfield talking

We all spent the majority of the time in the shade of a tree or under an umbrella.  We lucked out that we had a beautiful spring so it wasn't unbearable

Playing first base

Cyrena always got a hit and loved running the bases.  She has a long way to go on catching and she definitely throws like a girl.  She's so technical and doesn't allow herself to follow her instincts. She's so much like me!  So even though the boys were more natural baseball players, I think she had the most heart.

Yesterday Cyrena had her preschool graduation.  David was able to slip away from the office for the 20 minute program.  She has loved the independence of going to preschool.

I will willingly admit that I teared up when she walked out with the cap on...I'm weak when it comes to things like that!  Many times this girl and I butt heads so it's good for me to see her in a different light sometimes.

We're so proud of our little graduate

Cyrena's teacher, Miss Tawna.  She was a great influence on Cyrena's confidence and made her feel safe enough to head off to Kindergarten!  Miss Tawna let all the kids have a swim party which was so nice of her!  The girls enjoyed every minute of the morning.