Feeling Loved

Got many warm birthday wishes today as I enter the fourth decade of my life (sounds old doesn't it). I even got delicious gifts of chocolate from friends in the ward. And when Emma came home from school and found out it was my birthday she disappeared for hours as she poured her tender little heart into homemade treats and gifts. She created this delicacy allowing her to employ her newly found microwave skills- crackers with pb, almonds and marshmallows (some mallows are melted inside)...

She constructed this magnificent crown so no one could deny my power and specialness...

And here's the sweet book she put together. Sorry this makes for a long post but I've heard a lot of talk about teenagers this last week so I want to keep this on record so I can read it every week when my lil girl enters the dreaded years.

"30 reasons I love you By Emma steed Illustrated by Emma Steed"

"1. Your Lovely Looks - I love your brown eyes, your wavy hair and most of all the warm smile. [arrow pointing to drawing of me] you should be in a magazine"


"3. Thank you for bringing us to the temple. It will lead us through darkness"- I like how she included the stain glass tree windows from the San Antonio temple.

Emma discovered the "I'm a Mormon" cards

Emma soon figured out her mom's too old to write a page per year, so this is reasons 5-45 (because apparently I'm 45 now). "The love I have for you is so real I can't describe it!"

Don't know how I got this girl but she's mine, you'll have to go find your own. And if that ain't sweet look what showed up on my doorstop this afternoon while Jamie was home bringing me lunch. This beats the nap and house cleaning I suggested for the birthday gift. I am spoiled, very very spoiled.

Adventures in Parenting- Part 32

I was getting ready to head over to the church to set up for the Relief Society Birthday Celebration (I'm 1st couns in the RS pres now- leaving my comfort zone in YW) and came down to find Andrew dressed but covered in stamps. He tried to wash it off while I got my shoes but ended up with a pink face and red bangs. He even stamped his toes but I could laugh because he did not stamp walls or carpet. And that is why he is still allowed to live with us in all his crazy awesome Enderness.

When I got home from the church after setting up there was a message on my machine from Weston's teacher telling me Weston got in a fight with another boy at recess and "they were basically slugging each other." Weston tells me his friend didn't want to play with him and was running away which made him "get tears in his eyes" so Weston kept chasing down the friend to get him to play with him until the friend finally turned around and smacked him and Weston tried to push him away but his hand was too close to friend's mouth so friend bit Weston's fingers. Weston went to the nurse, friend went to the office. Both friends got shamed by being on red the rest of the day. Apparently Weston gets this troubled side from his Pop who did time in the Assistant Principal's office in Jr. High. I told him to try playing with other friend's who wouldn't hurt him and got tears in my eyes when he asked what to do if no one wants to play with him.

Speaking of the trouble with kindergarten, last week Weston came home with a note reporting Weston had said "the f word." Hoping maybe the teacher was referring to actual potty humor I asked Weston what the"f word" was. Sure enough it was the big one. I asked him where he heard it and he said a girl in his class whispered the spelling in his ear and he (being the good spelling/reader that he is) said it out loud and the teacher heard him. I told him it was an inappropraite word that we don't use and although he wasn't in trouble this time because he didn't know I never wanted to hear him say it, whisper it or spell it to anyone. I told him that if he hears a word that he's never heard in our home it's probably not worth repeating and that he should ask me about it before saying it. Then we checked out this book at the library that I think does such a great job at addressing the issue.

Wednesday I spent the day on the couch feeling achy and weird and hoppped up ready to go again the next morning (thankfully since the weston and Andrew incidents were that day). Friday Emma came home from school and told me she threw up on the bus (that poor bus driver, I will have to do something nice for the poor man). She slept fine that night, laid around a little Saturday and was ready to eat dinner with us and play with her brothers by Saturday night. we did have to cancel with our friends who were going to bring there kids over so they could go to the temple. Emma has not been very considerate of our social engagements lately.

The Compromise

I mentioned in my last post that we had to cancel our trip to the cousins due to Emma's "head condition." So there was much sadness in both homes but we settled on a compromise and agreed to meet halfway, literally. We found a great park in Waco to spend our Saturday together. So all the wackos in Waco. And Nate, Angie, and Maisy joined us too. Each of these pictures comes with a great story and I was tempted to caption them all but you get the idea, we all love each other and had a grand ol day of outdoor fun. We celebrated Josh and Weston's birthdays, scootered, flew Weston's kite, ate deliciousness, hit some balls (well, Jesse's kids did, mine mostly flailed a bat around), hiked, canoed/kayaked, and spent a lot of time laughing, talking and hugging. The weather was lovely and the company was lovelier. Best win I've gotten from any compromise I've ever made. Glad my family loves us!

Brushy Creek Letterboxing

Last week was Spring Break here. We slept in, played together at home, went to the Big Bounce and had a Star Wars family party for Weston's birthday, checked out an awesome new park and planned a fun visit to see cousins in Dallas. Thursday we were supposed to head out when I found what looked like lice in Emma's hair. After holding back from a freak out session and taking her to my nurse friend's home to make sure I wasn't just being paranoid we bought the kit did the treatment and spent the rest of the day washing everything in the house and combing through her hair every couple hours to make sure we were thouroughly clean. Amazingly, no one else got them but it was decided that we could not go sleep on my brother's beds and risk contaminating their children. It was a sad day. The next day we needed to get out for some adventuring. I had read about letterboxing so we decided to go try it out at Brushy Creek a pretty little trail just 5 minutes from us.
 

Bluebonnets are in bloom.

The post I had read about letterboxing had a link to a site with places to find the hidden boxes and directions how to locate them, like a scavenger hunt. We got to use the compass on Jamie's iPhone and found the two tupperwares containing the stamp and visitor's notes/logs. The kids came up with our own alias, "horse heroes" to leave behind.

I love to share nature with my kids. They loved feeling the waterfall and moss, finding little friends on the path (Andrew- "I like him"), discovering faces on trees, and blowing "daddy shake mountains" (the name Emma gave dandelions when hiking as a toddler, it stuck). There was this duck at the lake that looked like a mix between a turkey and a duck and was huge too. I said it was ugly. Emma apologized to the duck for me and told him everyone knew he was beautiful. It was a sweet lie.

Yee-haw

To finish their Texas unit the second graders went to the Texas History museum and Naumann had a Rodeo for the K-2 classes. I went down to volunteer and helped at the obstacle course. Glad you gave us those cowboy hats Nana so my kids could fit in.
 

And after they finished the course they got branded

Yep, Longhorns. One kindergarten girl hesitated to get stamped because as her friends told me, she's an Aggie fan. Texans are so funny.

Yee-haw! 

 

Boys will be boys

Having a boy in school has been an entirely different experience than our girl. I hear they make better teenagers though (if they make it that far).