Teddy

It's always interesting how toys move in and out of favor with the kids.  Over a year ago, around Christmas of 2014, Joanna took the kids to Toys 'R Us to get them Christmas gifts.  The landscaper kit that Joshua chose was an instant favorite and is still a staple of our back yard toys.  Crocky, which Hannah chose, quickly fell out of favor and never regained it.  The Care Bear that Clara chose was something she liked at first, but then she lost interest.  It remained in our arsenal of toys though, and a few months ago, Clara suddenly decided it was the greatest thing ever.  Since he is, at his most basic level, a teddy bear, she decided his name was Teddy.  And she fell in love with him.  He's not at the level that Chicken Baby is for Hannah (though Chicken is starting to show some decline), but Teddy is far and away Clara's favorite toy, to the point that she's not okay with going to sleep unless Teddy is there.  Every night.  So thanks to Aunt Josie's shopping trip with Clara 14 months ago, and even though it took awhile to happen, Clara has a toy that she loves more than any she's ever had.

Mixed-Up Monday

This week at school is a themed week.  Today is Mixed-Up Monday in which the kids were encouraged to wear mixed-up clothing, meaning regular clothing but in a mixed-up way.  Meghan and I split up duties for the week, and this one was one of mine.  I took it as a challenge to do the best I could (much like with last year's Crazy Hair Day), with the goal of my kids being the most mixed-up of everyone, even though it isn't an actual competition.  But everything is a competition to me.  They needed to be able to function at school, so I couldn't go so far as to have them wear pants on their head, for example, but I figured I could do pretty well with turning things inside out and backwards.  I chose a pajama top for Joshua and turned it inside out, because the white piece of cloth that's on the inside of kids' embroidered shirts would look blatantly inside out.  I also had him wear a pair of his sport pants inside out.  For Clara, I found a sweater that had an embroidered pattern that would be obvious that it was reversed, and then I had her wear a pair of jeans both inside out and backward.  The resulting look was, in my opinion, pretty darn mixed-up.  Meghan dropped off and picked up the kids and reported back to me that no other kids were anywhere close to being as mixed-up as ours.  So it's not as if it was a competition, or even that everyone was trying, but I still feel like we went all out.  And also, you know, that we won.  :)

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Today I took the kids to fly a kite.  None of them had ever done it before, and I haven't done it for, I don't know, a really long time.  It wasn't as easy as I'd hoped.  We had a nice kite and a cheap kite, and for our first day of kite flying I decided to start with the cheap kite, which was a Minions one that cost like $8 or something.  In retrospect, maybe I should have used the better kite, because we spent the vast majority of our time with the kite on the ground, like you see here.  It was pretty hard to get it up in the air.  And when it was in the air, it wasn't very high and wasn't there for very long.  Even though most of the rest of the pictures are of the kite in the air, those were the rare moments, for the most part.
When I finally got it in the air for a bit, the kids were really excited and tried to chase it and catch it.

The wind picked up a bit, and I started to improve my technique somewhat, so I was able to give each kid a chance to fly the kite.

                  This is the highest we got the kite, which is actually a pretty decent altitude.

The funniest moment was when Hannah was chasing it when it was flying low, and the wind changed directions and blew it right on her face.  She thought it was hilarious.  The kids had a lot of fun overall, but hopefully next time we do it, we'll have better overall experience at least in terms of the percentage of time the kite is in the air.  We'll use the b

Meghan and Jason are Teachers

Meghan and I have been going to Kaw Prairie for awhile now (a year and a half?), and we've decided we are going to start getting involved more with the volunteer work that is necessary for any church to run.  Meghan is now a teacher for one of the the Pre-K classes (which is Joshua's age group), and also took over as coordinator for the program when there was a vacancy.  She recognized it as an area in which she could contribute and, I'll brag on her behalf because she would never say it, but she's doing an amazing job.  It plays to her strengths of planning, organization, and execution.  She bases the lessons on the general curriculum but plans out what each class will do, including thinking up creative but relevant activities and crafts for the kids to do that will reinforce the lesson.  She then sends out the lesson plans and instructions to the teachers prior to Sunday.  She also buys necessary supplies and on Saturday (usually) will go to the church to get everything set up so the classes will be all ready to go starting on Sunday morning.  It's a lot of work, but because she's so efficient at everything she does, she's able to fit it in to her weekly schedule.  The coordinator position is an ongoing one, but she serves as one of the teachers only every third month.  This month was a month in which she was a teacher.  There are also assistant teachers in each class, and at least for this month, I am her assistant teacher.  So it's been kind of fun, although it's pretty easy for me.  She's done all the prep and planning, and I just help her execute her good plan.  But it's been fun for us to do it together.

Finally Facing Forward

(From 2/27/16)

Joshua and Clara have been front-facing in their car seats for awhile now.  We wanted Hannah to stay rear-facing for as long as we could, but after she turned three we felt she was big enough, and she was also asking to change.  So in Meghan's car we switched her to face forward, since she's in that car most of the time.  I hadn't changed the car seat in my car to face forward because I hadn't had the time and because it wasn't really that important to me to do so.  But it quickly became important to her, and she somewhat badgered me to switch her car seat.  It got to the point where she asked me every single day if I had changed her car seat yet, even if we weren't going to be in my car.  So I had some time this morning, and I went ahead and switched hers to be facing front.  She was very excited, and now she's a happy girl, although this picture doesn't show it, but she really was.

Playing Ball on the Infield

I wanted to take the kids out today to go do something fun.  I decided to get lunch for us at Chick-fil-A and then go eat it at the park and then stay and play.  It was a super windy day, so we struggled to eat our food without everything blowing away, but we got it done.  I thought the kids might like to play with balls, so I brought a few and we took them out to a baseball field.
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The kids loved throwing or kicking the balls into the wind and then watching the wind blow the balls right back to them.

The gravely/sandy infield gave the kids a canvas, and they used their fingers and sticks to draw pictures and letters.

                                                                        Me with my little guys

Before we left, we spent a little time on the playground equipment.  I was really proud of Hannah, because she wanted to do the zipline thing that previously she had been too scared to do.  She even wanted to do it by herself.

Hair Curtain

After the girls take baths, I usually try to comb their hair to reduce the chances of tangles.  I'm not particularly experienced with combing long hair due to my failure to have a hippie phase at some point in my life, so the only way I know to get a part in the middle (which is how I do Hannah's hair), is to comb it all forward and then use the comb to find the exact middle.  When I first started to do this, Hannah protested, as she didn't like the hair in front of her eyes, even temporarily.  So I tried to make it fun by telling her it was a hair curtain and then joking about how she couldn't even see anything, and then playing a modified peek-a-boo game.  From then on, she liked it, and now she giggles every time I do it and excitedly says, "I have a hair curtain!"  So here Hannah is, with and without her hair curtain.

Hannah Loves Dora

(From 2/24/16)

The kids have had their different interests in shows as they have grown.  Some have been short-lived (Dinosaur Train was one that Joshua liked for only a week or two, and Blaze enjoyed a very brief run for Clara), and some have been longer (Sheriff Callie's Wild West has been a favorite of all the kids, but especially Clara).  Miles From Tomorrowland had a good run for all the kids, especially Joshua and Clara.  PJ Masks is a new one that they all like, probably only for now.  Hannah had Barney as her favorite for quite awhile and would choose if it it was her turn to choose, but the other two had little interest in it.  But the preference that has lasted the longest, and the strongest, has definitely been Dora the Explorer for Hannah.  She loves Dora so much.  The other kids were fine with it, Clara more so than Joshua, but they wouldn't choose it.  But Hannah loves it more than any kid has loved any show.  For the past few months, since at least last fall, if given the chance to choose a show she has always chosen Dora.  And she'll choose it excitedly.  "Hannah, it's your turn to choose a show.  Which one would you like?"  "Dora!!!"  We know what she'll choose, but we'll ask anyway.  We don't know how long this will last, but it shows no signs of stopping.

Electric Hannah

The kids jumped in the bounce house "the jumping house" today, which always results in a bit of static electricity, but I've never seen it more apparent than today. Look closely at the picture, and you'll see Hannah's hair sticking out all the way to the top edge and to the right edge of this picture.

Finally Final for our Friends

Our friends the Hansons have had a very long journey with their foster children.  From starting with a couple, to having more added, to other trials and travails along the way.  But today was a huge day for them, as they were able to finalize the adoption of four foster children to add to their family of three biological children.  Tonight they had a celebration and reception to celebrate the end of that long journey and the beginning of their lives as a family of nine.  We have been friends with them for a very long time (11 years?), so we've been with them on their journey, as they've been with us on our adoption journeys as well.  We are so happy for them to have completed this process, and we look forward to watching their family grow and flourish without all the doubts and uncertainties that come with the foster-to-adoption roller coaster.

Pomegranate Chef

 I had a New Year's Resolution this year to cook more.  That will be an easy one to accomplish, because I basically never cook (aside from grilling).  So tonight was my first foray into it this year.  I chose:  Sweet-Potato Mash With Pomegranate and Maple-Balsamic Drizzle.  Sounds fancy, doesn't it?  I also made a pomegranate seed salad to go with it.  It all turned out pretty good, although there ended up being too much oil in the salad, though that's what the recipe called for.  But the sweet potato mash was quite good, especially the maple balsamic drizzle.  I could happily drink that.

Meghan and I liked it, but what about the kids?  They surely liked it, but let's take a look:




Hm, okay.  Maybe not.  But hey, that's okay.  They're not exactly known for their refined palates, so the success of my meal was not contingent upon getting their approval, fortunately.

The Many Faces of Hannah

Hannah was looking super cute in her Sunday clothes (and accessories) today, so I wanted to take a picture.  As usual in these situations, I end up taking way more pictures than I'd like to take in order to get one usable one.  As I looked through the results, I noticed that even though I didn't ask for anything more than "Say cheese!" or ""Smile!", I got a wide variety of facial expressions.  And because she's a cute kid, most of them are cute expressions, so I decided to collect some of them here.

Swimsuit Biking

It's February, but that's no reason not to ride your bike in your swimsuit!  Hannah changed out of her church clothes as soon as I let her, and then immediately put on one of her swimsuits, as she almost always does.  We had some time this afternoon, so we rode bikes in the cul-de-sac.  The kids had a fun time, as they always do, because riding bikes is pretty much the best thing ever in their minds.

This Week at School

This week was super nice at the end so the kids had their first park day of the year and Hannah's first ever.  Besides some extra time to play on the playground, they had a fun time on the trails. That trail has a bridge that was washed away from a trail a long time ago so now it's just a neat structure to explore. The class found a geocache there.

They did some art on the "ceiling" of the table for a change in perspective. 

February sensory table

One thing I love about this preschool is they provide healthy snacks. Not only do I never have to bring any snacks, but they are only whole foods so good for them. They are usually not this elaborate, but these were cute.

Joshua, not surprisingly, loved this fun station that involved hammering golf tees into styrofoam.