Happy 5th Birthday, Grant!

Happy Birthday Grant!

Five years old!  Wow!  Grant got to have two birthday celebrations this year- one on Friday with Scott and Jenni and family and one today, on his actually birthday.  I'll share the Friday ones when I do the Sherburne Larchar visit post soon.  Grant made things pretty easy on me this year- food wise.  He chose cold cereal for breakfast, which is what we usually have on Sunday anyway.  For lunch he wanted pizza- which we had leftover from Friday night's dinner.  And for dinner he wanted kettle corn and corn on the cob- same as last year.  I also made a salad, because we haven't had one in a while and I was craving one!  He wasn't too happy that we made him eat some of that.  Grant got a wooden frog from us on Friday and painted that today.  While we was working on a painting project, the girls also worked on painting some plaster horses that Emma had received for her birthday back in May and had not yet painted.  That was a fun activity for them this afternoon while I made dinner.  It was a nice day. 

The Birthday Caterpillar!  Grant requested that it be all red since it is so hot!

Can't remember what he was so excited about, but he's sure cute!

Mom and the kids at Breakfast- holding up his Birthday letter from Grandma Pilz

With Dad- Dad had a meeting to go to pretty soon hereafter.

$5 from Grandma

Arianna picked out this little mailbox for Grant at the thrift store yesterday- 10 cents!  Nice!  It is going to be a house for Little Lion, so he says.

Painting the frog

Fun painting together.

Dinner time!

The 'cake'.  The volcano is coconut cream Larabar type stuff and the dirt is chocolate peppermint patty stuff.  Lava=raspberry sauce.  The trees are Pirrouettes with green construction paper.

He was so excited to come into see the cake

Wow!  Bitty is excited, too!

Blowing out the candles

Emma bought Grant the fawn to go with the Buck he got on Friday and the doe we already had.

Here is the Birthday Interview:
 
Do you have a nick name?  No.  None?  Yes.  What is it?  I don't know.  Are you sure? 
Emma: He has a nickname - Ant.  Is that correct?  No.  I don't have a nickname.
What do you enjoy doing most?  I don't know.  Oh yeah, greaaat.  Playing with Dad.  Yeah, playing with Dad.
What is your favorite book?  Ahhhh, I need to go look.  [Grant gets down form the the couch and walks to the book box on hearth] This one - Cowardly Clyde.  Why do you like that one so much?  Because it is fun.  I love all Bill Pete Books.

What is your favorite animal?  Horse.

     Why?  Because I like them.. they're fun.

What is your favorite color?  I don't know, red - no actually, blue.

What is your favorite food? Ahh, Corn on the cob.

Arianna: What are we having for dinner?  Corn on the cob and kettle corn.

What is your favorite treat?  Ice cream.

     Any particular kind of ice cream?  Ahh, mm-mmuh-mint.

What is your favorite song?  I am a Child of God [and continues to sing most of the first verse]

What is your favorite movie or show?  Mooovie, mooovies - its - I don't know...I like - I can't chose.  Ah, Max and ruby.

What is your favorite thing to do?  You already asked that.  It's to play baseball with Dad.

Arianna and Emma: Yeah he really loves his Dad.  [Grant then breaks into singing families can be together for ever].

This is boring bumbalows.

Where is your favorite place to go?  To the fishing.

Have you ever caught a fish?  Yes, a blue gill.

How did you catch the blue gill?  With a worm.

What is your favorite toy?  My Favorite Toy!  I don't know, umm, it is - everything.  Yeah, everything.

Can you tell what I'm typing?  Everything.  You're an everything catcher.

What is your favorite sport?  Soccer

Emma: Except when you fall down and scream

What is your favorite time of the day?  It's the evening.

     Why? Because I'm having my birthday.

Who is your best friend?  Daddy.

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A Dad, umm no, an animal.  No, actually a Dad.

Who is going to pay for your college education?  [Points to Dad]

Who loves you the most?  [Pointing to Dad]  Dad does.

Emma: That's not correct.  Grant: Oh yeah, Jesus

What have you learned in your years of experience so far?  That a horn worm turns into a butterfly thing-a-ma-doodle. 

Anything else?  No.

Have you started school yet?  Yes.

What grade are you in?  Five Grade, four Grade.  I'm in four grade.

How is school going for you?  Not good.

Why?  Because its not fun.  I have to do everything wrong.

Are you a mammal, an amphibian or a reptile?  [chuckling] A mammal

How many marbles have you eaten this week?  None
How soon will you seek employment to help pay the family bills and fund this operation?  I don't know.  That's a hard question.
On what day of the week were you born?  In the middle of the night.

Mom: no, you weren't in the middle of the night.

Grant: Oh yeah, I was born in the afternoon.

What day of the week?  [Singing like Olaf] Summer. 

If you encountered a predator crossing the road, please describe what you would do first:  Stay to the side.  If it is a coyote, I'd stay to the side.  If it was a wolf, I'd stay inside.

What are you going to do for your special day today?  [singing] Happy birthday to you...

Is that it?  Yeah, and that's all the poems.  Can we please?  I'm going to get my mailbox.

What are you expecting to receive as presents today?  Oh just a mailbox.

What does Dad do for work?  Just work on combines.. That's it. Being lazy.

What does Mom do for work?  Does the dishes.

Do you treat your sisters well?  Sometimes.

Do you love them?  Yes.

Grant, how would you describe yourself?  Ahh, I don't know.  Funny.

Any last words for your Birthday interview?  Are these pennies?  My teacher said to give three pennies.  I gave five pennies.

Monkey See, Monkey Do II

I'm pretty sure I already have written a blog post with such a title, hence the II.  But, as it is such a common theme around here it is no surprise!  This one really cracked me up, because it really shows Kate's 'go get 'em!' personality!

The kids like to do this sort of thing (Heck- I recall liking to do this sort of things even in the dorms at BYU!)

Kate watches everything they do. .  .

So, should I even be surprised when I see this!

The kids also LOVE to play with animals (or BE animals) anytime they can.  Yesterday they got out plates and made watering holes for the animals and had an entire set up on the counter.  When Kate got up form her nap she noticed the towel with all kids of fun animals drying out and she spent quite a bit of time playing with them herself!

It gets quite elaborate, let me tell you!

Just like sisters!

Arianna with Charly.

Kate taking a turn holding a chicken!

 Here are just some bonus pictures of Grant playing with his food (with animals, of course):

Rhino stabbing a grape

This came next, which made us all chuckle!

Kate is also really good at helping in her small way.  She puts her sippy in the fridge after each meal when I ask her to and also loves to put the diaper in the trash after a diaper change.  I attribute this to her seeing her siblings doing jobs all the time.  Now, that's a nice way to have 'Monkey see, monkey do" work!

First Day of School 2014

Well, we survived the first day of school!  Last week sometime, I cried to Kenneth, in the midst of feeling so overwhelmed, that I didn't know how I was going to do it this year.  How was I to teach all these children and keep Kate happy?  Well, we have one day under our belts and it actually went pretty well!  Grant got up on the wrong side of the bed, and was a little difficult all morning (as you will see in the pictures), but I prayed really hard and utilized breathing techniques to maintain calm even with his difficulty.  I did have to send him outside to the backyard once when he was being loud and obnoxious, but I kept my cool and did it very calmly and he came back in happy a little while later. 
We even started Latin this morning!  I chose a very basic curriculum that just gives a gentle introduction, but I am looking forward to learning with the children!  Our first lesson consisted of learning the word 'nauta' which means sailor.  We also talked about a couple of English words which were derived from this Latin word: nautical and astronaut.  That's it!  I'm looking forward to the learning we will all do. 
The kids' favorite part of the day was Animal Science.  They love to learn about different animals.  I learn something new each time we study our book together.  It is quite fascinating!  The girls did great with all their math, language, reading and writing this morning.  Emma, and Arianna (who never likes to be left behind), started memorizing all the American Presidents this morning.

I'm not sure where the kids got the idea, but they asked for raisin bread this afternoon, so I whipped up a couple of loaves of cinnamon raisin bread which we had this evening in celebration of the first day of school and as a Family Home Evening Treat.  (I even made it with no refined sugar- just honey and date purre.)  It was delicious. 
Without further ado, here are the pictures:

The school room last night when we had it all cleaned up for today.



The family room portion of the basement

Another view of the schoolroom.  My bookshelf is still a mess, but it's good enough for today!

View from the family room.

Here are the morning shots before Dad went to work.  I tell you Grant was not digging the pictures!

Emma- 3rd Grade

Boy, do they ever look alike!  Arianna calls Kate, herself and me 'the blue-eyed girls'

Sisters

The children

Mom with the kids- Grant in Kindergarten, Emma in 3rd grade and Arianna in 1st grade

Trying to get Grant to smile.

Daddy with crabby Grant

She's growing up too fast!

So is she!

He's kind of smiling!

How do you like this face?

He's thrilled with the picture taking, can't you tell?

Emma is such a good big sister to Kate.

This picture makes me happy!

Emma reading to Kate at one point this morning while I was working with Arianna.

hard at work

Arianna drew a tree with aphids and ants on it.  We learned about them during animal science.

Emma chose to draw and write about the honeypot ant.

Grant was most interested in the millipedes and centipedes.

And last but not least, the girls making the overnight oats.  They really enjoy this job!

Here's to a great school year!  I love you kiddos!

Horsin' around

This post is a little bit of everything that's been going on the last week or so- and some of my ponderings.  Tomorrow is the first day of school, so I wanted to get all caught up before that goes down. 
I am so happy in my life right now.  For years, I felt like I never had time for myself and felt frustrated at that.  Now, I have tried to schedule my priorities and enjoy the time that I do have.  In addition, I ever strive to enjoy the time with these precious children.  I don't always succeed; I am often frustrated, but I am trying!  A big change I made in the past year is to get up before the children.  I always joked before that I had 4 live little alarm clocks, so why would I set an electronic one?  But, in the past year as I literally took a step in the dark and have been getting up 5 days a week at 5:30 am, I have really felt a difference in my life.  I feel great physically as I exercise each morning and also get a chance to be re-centered mentally, emotionally and spiritually as I think and ponder- especially on the days that I run outside in the quiet of the morning.  I LOVE THE MORNING!!!!!!!  If you are missing the time of day when the sun is putting forth it's first rays, you are really missing out.  It is glorious!  It fills my whole soul with joy!  There is also something great about being all showered and ready for the day before the children are up.  So, even though it is a sacrifice to get up so early, I am reaping great dividends and I wouldn't have it any other way.
For the past year and a half or so, I have also been playing the piano each night after I snuggle the children.  I have really improved, which is exciting!  (I am still not to the point where I could really play for anyone or at church or anything).  I feel good knowing that I am working on a talent that I've wanted to have for years.  I quit when I was little.  I should never have quit; it's been one of my biggest regrets.  So, I'm trying to rectify that now. 
Okay, on to the pictures. . .
I love how much a part of everything we do Kate is nowadays.  She is really growing up!  In fact, she got frustrated with Grant today and roared out her disapproval and then proceeded to grab his shirt and bite him!  Wowza!  Watch out, world, she's a wild one!  Luckily, she just got shirt in her teeth, so Grant just thought it was funny. 
Here are the kids all trying to stand on their heads, even Kitty Bitty:

I love these kids!!

Jason, Kenneth's brother, came to visit spur of the moment this past weekend.  It was fun to have him!  He and Kenneth worked on the unfinished bedroom and bathroom in the basement.  They also had the chance to go with a friend to herd up cattle on a ranch Saturday morning.  Kenneth said he felt like the man from Snowy River.  Here are some pretty awesome shots Kenneth got on his phone from that adventure:

Gorgeous early morning sky

Hello cows!

Look!  They're real live cowboys!  (And Jason, too!  He's in the bright red shirt and white baseball hat)

Kenneth's view from the horse

Corraling them up to get them on the truck to take them to a feed lot in Texas.

Lookie there, there are some hills in Kansas!

Here are the three little ones and I sitting on the porch rocker I painted black:

I love these children!

 We've not only been horsing around, we've been productive, too.  I canned just a few pints of dill pickles.  I used regular slicing pickles because that's what I've got from the garden, so I'm not sure how they'll turn out, so I didn't do too many.  I also canned salsa this past week.  Yum!!!  I used our tomatoes, green peppers and onions to do it. 

My small batch of salsa.  Fellow canners will likely understand:  isn't that 'plink!' noise of the jar sealing one of the most satisfying noises?  I love it!

Here are Jason, Kenneth and Grant working on the basement:

My little chocolate-faced man pounding with his plastic hammer!

Kenneth framing the bedroom with 2 little helpers.  It will be cool to have another finished room down there!

Jason was such a great help moving this project, which sat largely untouched the last year, forward.  Hooray!

The girls had a Sharing Time lesson at church about Family Home Evening and they were very excited about preparing for Family Home Evening all by themselves.  Here is their planning sheet:


Emma and Arianna did this all by themselves!

Clues for the scavenger hunt they orchestrated.

A friend of mine was curious about our daily chore schedule and our new month long rotating menu plan.  I have put it off for years, folks, but I've finally done it!  We will still tweak it I am sure (and change it for other times of the year), but here it is as it stands right now.  Not very fancy, but there you have it.  We've really been working on healthifying our diet and I feel great about it.  We've found lots of new dishes- full of plants- that we have been enjoying!  The girls make overnight oats on Monday for 2 of our breakfasts during the week, which they love to do and really simplifies, not to mention healthifies mornings around here!  And we all enjoy eating it, so it's a win-win!

My breakfast menu is there an the bottom on the piece of paper.

 Here are Emma and Kate out with the chickens:

Kate insisted on wearing the sunglasses.

Like how Emma uses the dump truck to take the waterers to be filled?

Sweet, funny little Kate!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post: The first day of school 2014.