Annual Strawberry Picking

 As a summer tradition, we went to our local strawberry patch where we got to pick lots and lots of red ripe strawberries.  It is always a fun tradition for me and the kids!  This year, Kaylee was old enough to toddle around on her own a little bit, and I thought she'd love finding little red gems and popping them in her mouth, which she did!  However, the dirt was more exciting for her to sit in, dig in and every once in a while pop in a red strawberry covered in dirt into her mouth.... She was a filthy mess when we were done, but she had enjoyed every moment!  I would just plop her down in the dirt and go picking on my own while she played and dug in the dirt and leaves and found spiders and bugs with excitement!  The boys of course loved picking, and every year it seems to be a totally different experience when we go.  I always look back at last year, and remember how the boys' buckets were full of half eaten strawberries that were no longer edible by the time we got home.  This year though, they filled their buckets well, snatched a few for their bellies, but their contributions to our strawberry picking were great!!  It's fun to watch them grow up and mature and see them work hard in the fields!  What a fun day!!

 Here is our strawberry crop!  Yum yum!  A few days later we crushed them all up and made strawberry jam.  I messed up a little, so I decided to try cooking it, and I even lowered the sugar amount that it called for, which worried me, but I was trying to be healthy.  By cooking the jam and then canning it, it turned out to be the best strawberry jam I've ever made!  All my jars sealed even!  Super fun!  Now we have 6 or seven jars full of strawberry jam for us to use for the rest of the year.  Though its so yummy that it may not last that long!!  

Fort Wayne History Museum

The kids and I went to visit the Fort Wayne History Museum.  Surprisingly there are lots of hands on activities and things to touch and see that are pretty exciting.  It's fun to learn a little bit about our city and the people who were the first ones to live here.  One of the most fun parts was this train exhibit.  It was made to look like a real train track and showed the map where the train traveled through the midwest.  The kids could dress up like real train conductors (but the costumes were the size of an adult, so it was pretty funny when Cooper put on the conductor's shirt and it went down to his ankles).  The kids put the map puzzle together multiple times and pushed the button on the train light.  On the floor was a lever where the kids could manually "change" the track to turn right or left.  They had a lot of fun pulling on this lever.  

In another room were old instruments.  I came across this old flute.  It's a wooden version from the 1890's!  I wonder if a wooden flute would sound the same as a silver one?  It was really cool for me to see it!  

Down in the basement of the History Museum is the original jail that Fort Wayne used to use many years ago.  Criminals would come and get locked up in this very building!  Now they have preserved it and turned it into a museum for people like us to come see.  There were about 8 different cells and each one had benches on the sides and a gutter next to the wall, probably for them to go to the bathroom in.  The kids couldn't believe that's where these bad guys had to live!  There were scribbles all over the walls from the original criminals who were angry to be there.  On the far side, they had 1 other cell that was for females.  It had a little bathroom stall in it, which was unique.  The museum put a mannequin in  one of the cells that looked soooo real!  At first we all were taken by surprise that there was someone locked in the cell!  It scared us, till we realized it was fake.  The boys were a little bit concerned at first that this was the jail, especially Cooper, and he kept asking me whether bad guys still came here.  So I reassured him that they don't, but that bad guys go to a newer jail somewhere else now and this is safe for us to come visit.  It was fun!

Family Fun

One Friday evening, we thought it would be fun to try something new as a family.  So we went to a small Thai restaurant so the kids could experience Thai / Asian food.  The funnest part was finding the longest noodles and trying to slurp them down.  Of course we were almost the only visitors at the restaurant and so we probably were quite the scene for the employees :-).  Cooper slurped up his noodle and it got caught down his throat and he pulled it back up.  At first he was upset about how he was choking, till Nate told him that he used to do that all the time as a kid.  Then Cooper started trying harder to get the noodles caught down his throat.  :-)  The kids tried real hard to use chopsticks and we told them that the people in Thailand (they are familiar with China from movies) only use chopsticks and don't know how to use forks!  They thought that was pretty unique!  So they did their best with their sticks.  Even Kaylee enjoyed eating super long noodles!  We talked about Grandma in Utah and that she went on a mission to a Chinese place and had to eat with chopsticks.  She also had to eat weird foods like fish eyes and duck feet and the kids thought that was crazy!!  It was a fun evening!

After our yummy Thai experience, we went down to the Jefferson Pointe Mall where every Friday night they have a fun band playing.  Jaxton took Kaylee out to the middle where they danced and danced and had a ball!  It was a fun family evening!!

Jaxton's Preschool Graduation

Congratulations Jaxton!!  You finished preschool!  On to Kindergarten!! I can hardly believe it!  Where has the time gone?  Jaxton has loved every minute of his preschool this year at Creative Playschool.  He has loved his teacher and made some wonderful friends.  I have been able to see him blossom socially as well as intellectually this year.  He is more than ready for Kindergarten!  I have helped Jaxton learn how to read this year using a special book that works wonders!  And I can honestly say that he can read!!  It will be a great asset for him to already know how to read before going into Kindergarten.  He is definitely a smart fellow!!  He is counting too, adding and subtracting, and even multiplying (without really knowing it).  He is just bright and smart, and fun!  Good job on a great preschool year!

Our Graduate

                       

Jaxton was in preschool with one of his greatest friends, Gabe.  We are sort of neighbors and go to church together too.  They will both be in Kindergarten next year but at different schools.  It has been fun carpooling and spending time with Gabe.  They are good buddies. 

 All the preschool Pre-Kindergarten classes had a huge graduation event for all the parents.  There were about 5 or 6 classes of graduates and every child brought their entire family and grandparents, etc, so there were soooo many people there!  It had to have been a bit intimidating for the kids up on stage, but Jaxton was happy and fun as ever.  The lights, cameras and action, as well as the audience didn't seem to bother him a bit!  They sang songs and did rhymes from their Music Hour and Spanish Hour that they have learned over the course of the school year.

This is one of Jaxton's most favorite friends, Ella.  He just adored her and talked about her day after day.  She will be going to a different school for Kindergarten, so I'm not sure when we'll see her again after this school year.  But she definitely was one of Jaxton's favorite preschool friends!

This is Mrs. Kruse, Jaxton's Pre-K teacher.  She was absolutely wonderful!  Never raised her voice with the kids, but marvelous in her interactions with them.  Jaxton will remember her forever, I'm sure.  And we hope that Cooper will get her as his teacher next year for Pre-K.  

Here is Jaxton's Class:

Mrs. Kruse, Mrs. Carpenter (assistant), Bowen, Gabe

Gracyn, Adam, Carly, Ella

Jaxton, Lydia, Evan

Cooper's Preschool Yearbook

Congratulations Cooper on finishing Preschool!  This was Cooper's first year of formal preschool and he absolutely loved it!! His preschool teacher, Mrs. Jensen, happened to be our Bishop's wife from church and has been just wonderful!  I'm sure she has seen more of Cooper and his personality now than most people have :-).  Preschool was Mondays and Wednesday mornings and one of Cooper's favorite parts was Show & Tell.  He could bring anything he wanted to show his class and he loved picking out things that he thought the kids might like to see.  He also loved the music hour and would come home singing songs he learned at school.  It was great to see him actually know the songs by heart, from hearing them at school, when just a few months ago he struggled to hear (before his surgery).  What a blessing!

Here is his preschool class:

Mrs. Jensen, assistant teacher, Saige, Cooper, Dawson

Keagan, _______,_________, Brody, Justin

Orange Belt Decided

Jaxton & Cooper and excelling in Tae Kwon Do!  They have loved it, so we have kept up their classes.  It is a great opportunity for them to learn values, which they emphasize and teach weekly, and to learn to to respect and honor their instructors.  They also have to learn choreographed "forms" with different Taekwondo moves.  They are "Tiny Tigers," which is the classification for kids under 6, so each color belt takes them twice as long as a big kid since they are so young.  So, for each color belt, they have to learn that color's "form" or choreographed moves.  For Tiny Tigers, they break the entire "form" into two parts and the kids get tested on half of it the first time and then the entire form the second time to then earn the next color, yellow.  This testing was the first half of the orange belt form.  They performed well and felt so honored to be sitting with the black belts and other big kids who have earned things too.  They keep their orange belt color, but they received a tiger patch on the end of their belt, signifying that they have completed the first half of the orange belt form.  Next, they will work on the second half and at the next testing they will perform the entire orange belt choreography.  It is a very fun "sport" for them and allows them to compete against themselves more or less.  It does bring them confidence in knowing they have this "sport" they know and enjoy that is a bit unique amongst their friends!  

Mother's Day 2012

Mother's Day is always a fun day to remember what my calling in life is and to cherish the special children I have helped create and bring into this marvelous world.  It is an honor and a blessing to be a mother!  I feel very fortunate and grateful that I can be one and have the opportunity to teach my children and help them grow and learn.  

Mother's Day morning, I came out of my room to find the kitchen table covered in colors!  Daddy and the kids had gotten me all kinds of gardening things.  Our garden is our big exciting experiment this summer and I am very excited about it, so they helped complete our set of gardening tools and and plants for Mother's Day.  Nate picked up 3 tomato plants (since I absolutely love tomatoes but no one else does!) and he got some flowers to plant in pots on our front and back porches to dress up our yard. He added a gardening tool set, bench and wheelbarrow for me to carry everything (including Kaylee) to and from the garden!  Oh what fun! It will be a fun summer of gardening!! I can't wait! Thanks to my family!

Fun at the Zoo

We have had a zoo pass for about half the summer, and have enjoyed spending a morning here and an afternoon there at the zoo.  Each time we go we go visit a different section of the zoo and we have a had a really good time!  Even Kaylee has enjoyed our trips to the zoo and all the funny looking animals she has gotten to watch.  The Indonesian Rainforest is one of our favorite areas as we get to walk through a tropical rainforest, complete with banana trees!  And bananas grow how?  Upside down!  How unique!  There is a little tree house in the rain forest that the kids always love to play in!

Australia is another fun area where we see all kinds of kangaroos.  This summer there were 2 kangaroos that had babies in their pouches!  We learned that the baby grows in the kangaroo's pouch similar to how a baby grows in a human mother's uterus.  They stay in the pouch from the time of conception until the time they are big enough and strong enough and full grown.  Then, they hop on out!  Who knew?  That was very very interesting!  The kids always love to climb up on the giant animal statues in Australia too.

The zoo has this fun train that the kids can climb in and on and play with.  Of course my kids love to play at the train.  Kaylee had a ball climbing in and out of each of the train cars and peeking out all the windows at me and her brothers.  And Cooper, our climber, found the highest point he could to climb on top of. He asked if he could get on the train's roof, and I told him no....so he found the next highest point, the smokestack.  Fun times!

One of the most fun and exciting animals at the zoo are the peacocks.  They roam the zoo freely and are not afraid of the people.  They just wander the entire zoo all day long.  Every time we see one, the boys get so excited.  Today, this peacock showed off his feathers for us - beautiful!  The boys even found a lost peacock feather on the ground that we brought home.  Such a beautiful bird!  They make a funny loud squaking noise that the boys try to mimic and they actually sound exactly like a peacock when they do it!  Sometimes the peacocks with squak back at them!  I don't know if peacocks can fly, but they can certainly jump or fly short distances.  Sometimes we will hear them in the trees, and one time last year one was sitting on the giant tall fence that bordered the zoo.  We were afraid he hop down and out of the zoo, but he never did.  They truly are amazing creatures!!

It's always fun to go to the zoo with friends.  Here are the boys with their good friend Bruce.  They are in the Safari area of the zoo in a safari tent canopy that keeps out the mosquitos!  It's another fun area for the kids to run around and play, which is much needed in between looking through cages and windows at animals!

The kids always remember the ducks that live at the pond behind the zoo.  So this day we made sure we brought a loaf of old bread to feed them.  When those ducks saw what we had for them, they came by the hundreds!  There were so many ducks, this picture does not do any justice!  They swarmed us!  They closed in on us like a police squad, just quacking and squaking away!!  It was pretty funny! They were awfully hungry ducks!!

Preschool Fiesta Day

One of the things I love about the boys' preschool is the parent involvement.  I love being involved in what my kids are learning and doing when they are away from me.  And actually, the boys absolutely love that I get to be involved, which is a plus!!  When I told them that I was coming to Fiesta Day, they were thrilled and couldn't wait to come to my station!  

A unique trait about their preschool is that they have a Spanish hour once a week.  They get to learn basic words, sing Spanish songs, and do Spanish activities.  No other preschool that I've heard of has Spanish or another language within their curriculum.  The boys love to have us count in Spanish as they brush their teeth at night.  Now they are going all the way up to 20!  It's fun for Nate to speak in Spanish to them, they think it sounds hilarious!  But its fun when we can play around with Spanish words and they understand now that different people speak different languages.  

So the Spanish teacher, Senora Mandy, puts together an entire preschool day dedicated to the Spanish culture.  They call it Fiesta Day, and plan it near Cinco de Mayo.  The whole preschool building is split into stations and the kids rotate from room to room all throughout the building doing different Spanish activities at each location.  Parents come and run the stations based on what the teacher has planned.  So I got to be in the craft station.  Here, we made sombrero hats and bolaros.  These are little ball games that we made out of water bottles.  We connected a ball to the top with a string and the kids can try to hurl the little ball to fall into the open water bottle.  So they decorated them and then played with them.  The best part was when it was my kids' turn to come to my station!  Cooper's class came first, and he was thrilled that I was there!  Jaxton's class came next, and he too was pretty excited!  

Some of the other stations that I could tell were Spanish dancing, Spanish snacks, and Spanish game stations.  Here is Jaxton learning a Spanish traditional dance!! Fun Day!!!

YMCA Indoor Soccer

The boys played together on a YMCA indoor soccer league.  They were on the white "Mustangs" team with 5 other kids.  They really had a great time!  We were a little worried about putting them on the same team and having competition issues between them, but it wasn't too bad.  This was Cooper's first exposure to soccer, and he really enjoyed it!  He was really very good at it!  He had no fear about getting into the action and stealing the ball if he could.  He was always right in the middle of the action. Jaxton's favorite position is goalie!  He just wanted to be goalie every single game.  Of course the coach had to let all the kids take turns, but every chance he got, he would ask for that position!  And he is a great goalie too!  He stops that ball every single time it comes at him and I think he loves the fact that he is the only one on the team allowed to use his hands when he is goalie!!  The kids had about 30 minutes of practice with their team and then they would play a 30 minute game against another team (4 quarters of 5 minutes each).  We always enjoyed going and watching them play!!