Arianna - Happy 6th Birthday

Happy Birthday Arianna!  You're simply adorable (when in a good mood).  You remind us of that Mother Goose rhyme about the girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead.  She told us she couldn't wait be six because people would finally respect her.  (smile)

What a sweet baby

Here is our sweet, crazy, smart, funny girl nowadays:

Sweet Arianna

Funny Arianna

Thoughtful Arianna

Crazy Arianna!

Happy Arianna!

Arianna made her own Birthday sign this year.  Mostly on her own.  I helped her back the signs and hang them, but she wrote all the letters on her own.  She made them with snowflakes on them for the Winter Birthday girls.  (Emma made a Birthday sign almost 4 years ago and we have used that sign for each birthday since then, but Arianna must have wanted something different this year.)

The kids get to plan out the menu for their birthday.  Arianna has been all over the place with her menu over the last couple of weeks.  At one point she wanted cold cereal for breakfast (that is something we only eat on Sundays normally around here) but she finally settled on cinnamon rolls and the birthday caterpillar, of course.  For lunch she chose tomato soup, grilled cheese and broccoli.  For dinner she first told me she wanted chicken and green eggs.  Funny girl!  She finally settled on Crepes (we had them 2 Sundays before her birthday).  She chose brownies instead of a cake and wanted them to have a horse on them.
Here are some pictures of her big day:

Arianna before breakfast

Birthday girl gets to lick the beaters used to make the cream cheese frosting for the cinnamon rolls

Time for breakfast!

Birthday Caterpillar and cinnamon rolls!  Kate wants food!

Opening up gifts.  There is the sign Arianna made.

 Emma actually spent her own money and bought Arianna a bracelet and some chapstick.  She was so excited to give it to Arianna.  Such sweet sisters.

Gifts from Emma

Yahoo!!!  Legos!

Here they are working on putting it together.  Thy worked on it a long time yesterday and today and they still aren't done!

The horse pasture brownie 'birthday cake'.  Kenneth designed the pasture and fence and I made the horses and flowers.

The girls' piano teacher and her husband came for dinner and 'cake'

Here is the Birthday Interview:
How old are you today?  Six.

Do you have a nick name?  Yes, Anna.

Who gave you that nickname?  Emma.

Why?  Because she couldn't call me [pronounce] Arianna when I was born.

What is your favorite animal?  A Horse.

What color?  Black.

Why?  Because they are beautiful.

What is your favorite color?  Pink.  

I thought it was yellow?  No, not yellow.  I like pink.

What is your favorite treat?  Ice cream.  [w/ the biggest grin and chuckle] 

Any particular kind of ice cream?  Yeah, chocolate.

What is your favorite food?  Cinnamon rolls.

What is your favorite song?  When Daddy comes home.

What is your favorite movie or show?  I don't know.

Just think for a minute.  I don't know.  Oh, Tangled

Who is your best friend?  Emma. [without hesitation]

What is your favorite book?  I don't know

Think about it for a minute.  I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!

Is it Little House on the Prairie?  No.

Is it Chronicles of Narnia?  No.

Is it The Mouse and Motorcycle?  No!  I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!

Okay, Maybe we'll come back.

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A mom with a horse.  
Dad: Wait, Do you want to be a Mom with a horse or the Mom of a Horse?  A Mom with a Horse.  

I thought you didn't want to be a mom - it was too much work?  I want to be a mom.  I have to.

Mom:  You have to?  I don't really have to, but it's the easiest thing to do.
Mom:  The easiest thing to do?!?!  What do you mean by that? Everything else is even harder.

What?  You don't get to play anything if you have a farm - not even checkers.

Who loves you the most?  God. 

What is your favorite thing to do?  I don't know.

Let's think about it.  Think about your days.  Is it sleeping?  No.

Is it playing?  No.

It used to be sleeping.  No.

Is it learning?  No.

Okay, maybe we'll come back.

Where is your favorite place to go?  I don't know.  I don't know lots of things.

Ha Ha Ha.

What is your favorite toy?  Horses and Magna-Tiles and girl Legos.

You don't have any girl Legos - how do you know you like them?  Because I saw them once and played with them.

Where?  At Emily and Sydney's house.

Note: Mom and Dad were interested in this response because Arianna had not yet opened her gift (girl Legos)

What is your favorite time of the day?  Thinking [and then stopped herself from saying something]

Were you going to say the middle of the night? When you come into Mom and Dad's room and sneak into our bed?  No.  No. No.  Watching movies - that's it.

Why?  Because it is fun.

What have you learned in your five years of experience?  To be kind to everyone.

That's really awesome, Arianna.  Very cool.

You've had a very busy year (2013).  You've learned so much.  You've learned to read, to spell, [Arianna interrupts] I don't really learn...I'm just practicing writing...I don't really learn.

But you learned to read.  Oh yeah!!!

Arianna, oh wise woman, what words of wisdom do you have for us today?  Nothing.

Arianna, is there anything you would like to say on your Birthday?  No.  Can we go open gifts now?

Science Friday

"It will rise when you yeast expect it"

Oh how the children look forward to Science Friday!  We observed yeast today.  We use the book More Mudpies to Magnets.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Little Kate is developing quite the personality.  She is such a joy!!  Even though babies are such hard work, it is SO WORTH IT!  She makes me so happy (as each and every one of my children has and does).  I love children!!  Don't get me wrong, we definitely have our days, but I believe in the Old Testament Scripture that says, "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.  As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are the children of the youth.  Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them"

(Psalm 127:3-5).

Kate has learned to go up and down the stairs safely, so we were able to remove all the gates and she now has free reign of the house.  It is so nice!  During the transition, she fell twice down the entire flight of stairs, but was just fine after a minute or so of crying.  My cousin-in-law recently told me of a study she read about children and falls down stairs.  She said it is highly unlikely that a child would be injured by a fall down the stairs, so that made me be less worried.  Babies tend to just let their muscles relax if they fall and they are really flexible and bouncy anyway, so they don't usually get hurt.  Adults, on the other hand, would tend to tense up and cause themselves more injuries.  Both our flights of stairs are carpeted with carpet on the bottom, so no worries!

Kate has taken 8 steps!  She is going to be walking all around by her first Birthday, I think.  Way earlier than any of the other children.  This week I also had to move her into the booster seat at the table because I can strap her in.  I don't know where the high chair straps are and she was climbing out at every meal.  None of the other children ever did that!!  And Grant was in the high chair until he was 3 years old!

Kate was providing us all with quality entertainment this afternoon.  We were all sitting on the couch except for her and she was crawling around the circle from our family room into the front hall and then into the living room, which connects back to the family room.  She crawled back and forth playing peek-a-boo and laughing and smiling and rolling around on the floor.  She is so sweet.  

Here is a video of Grant teaching Kate to be a crazy person:

December

I have really enjoyed December.  I love having the tree and lights up.  I have enjoyed pondering on the birth of our Savior.  I love the carols and the joy of the season.  

Kate and I are usually the first ones awake in the mornings, so I take her into the family room to nurse her with just the Christmas lights on.  I love the quiet, dark room with just the twinkle from the Christmas lights.  Kate nurses peacefully and I read my scriptures on the phone.  It is wonderful.  

We had some visitors this December and the kids have loved to have the playmates and Kenneth and I have enjoyed the time with family.   When we decided not to travel anywhere this holiday season, we had no idea we would get so many visitors!  We really lucked out!

How do you like this crew?  Kenneth's cousin stayed with us with their children.  Here we have a 7,6,5,5,4,4,2,1,and 10 1/2 month old.  Wow!

These girls had so much fun together!

My nephew and his family.

This was the first year we have ever been alone for the Christmas break in our own home.  We started a couple of new traditions and repeated another couple (all of which involve food!):

Raclette Grill for Christmas Eve Dinner:

Emma with the Raclette makings: boiled potatoes, french bread, salami, cheese, asparagus, mushrooms, zucchini, peppers, little smokies

Here we are at the table.  Kate ate faster than I could feed her at this meal, so squawked at me the whole time.

Manning the grill

Cheese Fondue for New Year's Eve:

We made it a picnic in the basement (that is where the DVD player is), the kids got in their pajamas and we watched Home Alone 2.  We watched Home Alone last week.

The food- not a great picture, but you can see what we ate: shrimp, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, ham and crusty bread cubes and the cheddar cheese fondue, of course.

Here is a video of our fondue party.  You've got to watch it and see little Diddy dance to the music of the movie.  I love that little pig tail waggling in the air!

Last year, we started the tradition of making a Christmas picture with fruit and also having smoked salmon (Kenneth loves that more than any of the rest of us) for Christmas breakfast.

Snowmen out of hard-boiled eggs.  Kenneth's fun idea.

Christmas breakfast- what can I say?  We like to play with our food!

Last year we had a Santa.  This year the kids requested a reindeer.

The kids were happy!

Here are some Christmas morning pictures:

Arianna was the first one up (no surprise there).  This is how I found her when I came down.  Poor dear was almost in tears 2 HOURS later when she finally got to look in her stocking when Grant got up!

Getting ready to peek in those stockings

Kate's first stocking

Playing with gifts from Santa: Suspend for Emma, new markers for Arianna and a car carrier for Grant

A couple of days later, Dad took the kids out to fly the remote controlled helicopter they got:

The thing died after the fifth or so time they flew it, so we returned it.  It was cool while it lasted!

Some other hightlights of the season:

• Reading a scripture, singing a song, and reading a Christmas story each night in December (24 Days of Christmas)
• Kenneth had over two weeks of vacation!!!  He worked a little on the bathroom in the basement.
• Watching the Christmas Devotional 
• Finding the Elf on the Shelf every morning (when I remembered to move it!)  Thanks, Grandma!
• Watching the kids work for weeks like little elves making gifts for each other.  Emma was particularly thoughtful with her gifts.  Grant and Arianna were very creative with the toilet paper rolls.  So cute!

  

  Grant with his spy-glass from Emma

  

  Emma knew Kate loves balloons, so she wrapped one up for her.  Sure enough, she loves it and was happy as a clam!

  

  Part of Emma's gift to Dad was a drawing

  

  Part of my gift from Emma.  The other part was a 'wreath' with little pieces of paper where she wrote all the reasons she loves me.  I was so touched.  It was my most favorite gift!

• Caroling on our street with the missionaries and other friends from church
• Attending Kenneth's work party.  We actually paid a babysitter!  (Too bad I had to come home in the middle (5 minute drive) and put Kate to bed.  She wouldn't go down for the babysitter)
• In preparation for the work party, I actually painted my toenails!  The first time in over 2 years!  Which, of course, precipitated the girls *needing* theirs painted as well.  
• Caroling with our homeschooling group at a nursing home
• Going with some friends to feed the cattle and ride horses.  Our friend helps run a ranch with his father and brothers.  

  

  Our kids and our friends' kids all lined up on the fence.

  

  Arianna was so happy. She made sure she brought her cowgirl hat for this excursion.

  

  Emma told me before her turn that she wanted to trot all on her own.  Sorry, Emma, not this time.

  

  Grant loved it and did great!

  

  All the children got to help lead Old Sally back to the pasture.

• Making and handing out treats (and eating them, of course!)  This year I made: pecan toffee, cranberry white chocolate bliss bars, date balls, and mint brownies.  Yum, yum and yum. 
• Having a white Christmas!  Hooray for snow!

  

  Arianna, Kate and I enjoying the snow

  

  Arianna eating snow, Grant pushing the shovel all around the yard- good times!

  

  Happy Arianna!

  

  We liked the snow, but the chickens sure didn't.  She would not leave Emma's arms!

  

  Arianna giving Kate a ride.  We bought that little sled last summer at a garage sale; I'm glad we did!

• Attending the Christmas Eve Church Service at our neighbor's Church (our Church had been cancelled due to snow the Sunday before Christmas, so it was nice to sing the songs and see the children's program)
• Having Kenneth's cousin and his family over for Christmas dinner

  

  Unfortunately, Jeff's wife was sick, so she stayed home to rest.

• Building snowmen



One for each member of the family (Kate is in my arms!)



The girls had so much fun!

• Having a snowball war with the snowball maker from Santa

  

  Ready for the snowball fight

  

  It didn't last too long; the girls wimped out because Daddy and Grant whooped them.

• Making a trip to Kansas City, MO to attend the temple and visit the Liberty Jail, where the Prophet Joseph Smith was wrongfully imprisoned for 5 months.  Kids loved staying in the hotel and swimming!

  

  Look at Arianna's face- she is a crack-up!

  

  The visitor's center was built around the original jail site.

  

  Kansas City Missouri Temple

  

Whew!  It was a busy, full, wonderful month!  And I am all caught up with my blogging!!!  Hooray!  Now, if I can only get a Christmas letter sent out.  (Which is now going to be a New Year's Letter)

Homeschool Update

Let me tell you, I was glad for the break to come!!!  Homeschooling is wonderful and fun, but also hard and stressful.  (For me and my children, anyway)  We have very good days and then very difficult days where nobody seems to want to cooperate or do anything happily.  I was showing my nephew (who is grown-up and has children of his own, one of which is older than my oldest child) our school area and talking to him a little bit about what we do for 'school' and I told him how excited the children were for the break.  His response was, "That's good!  That means you must be doing it right!"  It definitely made be feel better because my thought was:  How wonderful, the children hate school.  What am I doing to them?!?!  I will be the first to say there is no *right* way to Homeschool and I definitely do NOT think I have it all figured out.  But, what happened this morning made my day, no my week.  Maybe even my year.

Emma came to me after breakfast and said, "Mom, I want to do school again."
Me:  Really?  Why?
Emma: I'm tired of waking up and not having anything to do.
So maybe she really does secretly like school!
Last night Grant was also telling us he wanted to do History.  But, he did not want to 'do school'.  We told him History was school and he did not want to believe it.  He doesn't like 'school' because I have to spend time helping Emma and Arianna and am not spending enough time with him one-on-one.  Oh I wish that I could multiply myself!

Emma is making great progress with her math- she has been really working hard at Multiplication and Division and fractions.  She is really getting good!  The curriculum we use (Singapore Math/ Primary Mathematics) really encourages mental math and Emma is doing fantastic with that.
Emma is reading more and more on her own.  She flies through chapter books now.  She is really enjoying Magic Treehouse books and will read most anything else she can get her hands on.  She is reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle, by Beverly Cleary right now. (Grant actually got it in his stocking).  She has read Black Beauty about 3 times, loves the other Beverly Cleary books about Ramona and also read Pollyanna.  We have a great Language cirriculum (First Language Lessons) as well, and I am so proud Emma with how well she is memorizing poems (I think she is up to nine now!), learning the parts of speech and the basics of grammar.  She gets 100% on her spelling test each Friday.  She is also writing cursive very well.

Arianna is reading like a pro these days!  She has watched her big sister enjoying Chapter books and has started to read the Magic Treehouse books as well.  She is on her second one.  We are always impressed when she reads her verse of scripture at breakfast.  She is really doing great.  She also enjoys addition and subtraction and writes very well.  She is a smart little cookie.  Arianna asked to do spelling just like Emma, so I bought her the first Spelling Workout Book.  She complains sometimes about doing it (go figure, she is the one who asked for it.  I wasn't going to start her on it until next year!)  She also gets 100% on her spelling tests on Fridays.  She has also memorized almost the same number of poems as Emma.

Arianna in her princess dress-up playing a math game with me.

She figured it out!

Grant can write his name if he wants to.  He is getting great at saying the alphabet.  Other than that, I don't push him a whole lot.  It is cool to hear him recite poems that he has learned just by being in the same room with Emma as we do language.  He absorbs a lot just by being with us.  I try to read to just him everyday, but wish I could do it more.  He LOVES being read to.  

Kate is a great napper, for the most part, so that is when we do most of our school work; math, language and reading during her morning nap and history, science, and art during her afternoon nap.    She is growing and learning more everyday.  She can stand for a good few seconds on her own now, goes up and down the stairs on her own and says Mama and Dada all the time.

Playing with a crawfish at the creek near our home.  (Can you tell I let the kids wear anything they want?  Another plus of homeschooling!)

They got a real kick out of seeing the thing grab onto the stick!

We love playing with living things!

A cool moth we saw outside in our yard on the flowers Emma planted in the Spring

So, homeschooling is definitely a challenge for me and some days I wonder why I make my life so difficult by homeschooling in the first place.  But, I know that I felt strongly that this is what I needed to do.  Why?  I am not sure at this point.  I know I learn something new everyday.  I adore reading to the children and know I will cherish that time forever.  I am so glad the children get to spend so much time with Kate and get to know her so well.  Hopefully with this new year, we will be able to improve in areas that will make our lives better and more enjoyable.  (Like patience for me)  (Listening and obeying for the children)