June 24th -29th

     Since cleaning up our flooded basement on Thursday after we came back from our mini vacation in Minnesota, I've not been feeling very good. I had sinus surgery about a year and a half ago, and yet I still get sinus infections and blockage. So, I haven't had my camera out that much or been very interested in writing. Still I wanted to capture some memories from this week, so here goes...

~ making fudge with Steve and Jared late one night after Alexa had gone to sleep. We used the quickie recipe off the back of a Marshmallow Fluff container. Yum!

~ going to see Shrek Forever with Steve and the kids at the cheapie show

~ going on a Home Depot run after the movie to pick up custom made storm windows for the upstairs rooms. They were already two weeks late, we had ordered them over a month ago, and found out that they had reversed the dimensions on the windows so we still had nothing to take home. Needless to say, we cancelled the order, got our money back and will be going elsewhere.

~ having Jared call me out to look at his sidewalk drawings. He made one of me, Steve, Shrek, and Rumpelstiltskin. He has really taken off with his drawings, usually wanting to draw every day, whereas before it had been months since he'd picked up a pen or crayon. He now includes lots of details in his drawing like eyebrows, bottons on clothes, and eyeballs inside of eye sockets.

~ lots of reading

~ going to church. Afterwards, I took the kids to a local indoor fruit market while Steve stayed to play electric guitar for second service. It was one of the worst times with the kids. Even though I hate to put the kids in the cart (they are four, for goodness sake!), it does help to keep Jared from dashing away from me. Jared did everything from fling fruit on the floor, knock over pails of juice, to run all around the store with me chasing him before I finally gave up. Then when I finally was able to scoop him up when he ran close to me, he yelled, kicked and screamed for awhile. UUUUUUGGGGHHHH. I love him so much, but he is a very intense, little boy, from having huge temper tantrums, to sitting up in bed at 9:30 and talking your ear off for an hour.

~ catching fireflies and swinging in the dark

~ watching Bedtime Stories together on movie night.

~ having Grandma watch the kids for three hours while I saw the sinus doctor and had another CAT scan done. Turns out the two upper sinuses have severe blockage and the lining has thickened. Now I'm on a steroid treatment and taking antibiotics. Monday evening I crashed at 7:00 and didn't wake until 8:00 the next day.

Yesterday, I still felt horrible, so I lazed around the couch most of the morning. Still, as I look back over the day, I'm amazed at what we still accomplished.

~ had a Joker's Birthday Party. Jared made up this game a few weeks ago. We sit around in a circle and have a birthday party for the Joker (who is really a pirate figure). Everyone brings him gifts to open up, ranging from diamonds, to poison, to knockout gas. Then sometimes we dance and then sing Happy Birthday. Then the Joker blows out his birthday candles.

~ did many mazes with the kids from a Maze book, and Alexa practiced writing her letters in a Big Kindergarten workbook I bought her a few weeks ago.

~ lots of jumping on the bed

~ watched several episodes from both Liberty's Kids series and the original Inspector Gadget series.

~ I squeezed in a shower

~ during lunch I read to the kids several Step into Reading Spiderman books, and a Graphic picture book about Patrick Henry.

~ my mom came over for a few hours to watch the kids so I could get some rest. But right before she came over, I found the kids in my room naked, rubbing my Vaseline all over themselves and the wall. They had been quiet for a few minutes, but it was so nice to eat my pizza lunch in peace, that I didn't go in there right away. That cost me twenty minutes of my resting time. What time I did have to rest after getting a bill ready to mail, washing the dishes and cancelling an appointment, my mom took the kids for a little walk, they washed the car with the hose, and read together.

~ In the afternoon, we did a project out of Mary Ann Khol's awesome book ScienceArts called Wet Paint Design. The kids dipped construction paper in water, then dropped diluted paint from a medicine dropper onto the construction paper to make designs.

Jared called his picture Volcano and Alexa labeled hers Ogre. We talked a little about the process of diffusion, too.

It still amazes me how even with such little planning on my part, and even when I feel bad, if we discuss the things going on in our lives and take advantage of everyday opportunities, the kids learn and pick up so much. Just in this week were were able to discuss everything from the American Revolution, sinuses, getting a refund, why it's not safe to run off in a store, how to make fudge, and diffusion.

Field Museum

We really had a great time at the Field Museum a few weeks ago, despite Jared running repeatedly away from me through the exhibits. I don't know what we're going to do with that boy sometimes. Steve doesn't want us to chase after him, but he will go on and on, running farther and farther ahead, and I can't take the chance of losing him in such a large museum. I'd love to take the kids places like this by myself, but until Jared can understand the importance of staying where I can see him, for now I need to have someone else with me.

The kids were much more interested Sue, the largest, best preserved fossilized T-Rex, and the woolly mammoths much more than on previous visits, mostly, I think, because they are really into the show Dinosaur Train right now. We started to go in the exhibit with the preserved animals, but realized if we didn't eat lunch soon we wouldn't be on time for the 3-D show.

The 3-D show Dinosaurs Alive! was pretty intense. Jared was glued to the screen the whole time. It was so awesome to have these recreated dinosaurs come out of the screen and almost seem to touch you. I highly, highly recommend this show.

Outside the theater, we walked past a unique display. There was a handle that led down to a vat of tar, and you had to pull on the handle to see how heavy it would be to pull yourself out of a tar pit.

Of course, the only way to the museum's central area from the theater is to walk right through a gift shop. We spent quite some time there, at least a half hour. It's hard not to feel like you're wasting your time just looking at stuff where there's an entire museum to explore, but I know to the kids it was a whole room of exciting things to explore. So we had puppet dinosaur fights, played with dinosaur figurines, and tried on dinosaur masks.  

I had thought we'd head to another exhibit, something we'd never seen before, but the kids wanted to go to the Crown Family Playlab. So, that's where we spent the rest of our time. They headed first to the percussion room....

then to the dioramas..

the dinosaur section where they pretended to sit in a dino nest and brush off dinosaur fossils...

Next, they headed to the play pueblo where they gathered corn and cooked it over a kettle...

made puppets out of paper bags in the art room....

and of course tried on animal costumes where they even encouraged me to join in the fun.

Our Favorite DVD's

Our kids don't watch T.V. They've seen two or maybe three shows on the television before, and will occasionally watch a spots game for a little while with Steve, but they almost always just watch select DVDs, and even with that I try to really limit the amount they watch. At the very most, I try to have the limit be an hour per day.

It's just been hard lately this past year because since they gave up regular naps at 27 months, they'll usually be up for fourteen hours straight. They are very active, and usually want a lot of my attention. They'd have me play all day long with them if I would. I love playing with them, and spend many hours a day playing and doing things with them, but I need to get dishes done, floors vacuumed, laundry done. They sometimes will want to help me with this, but more often they drag so many things out that it seems all I do is follow them around, straightening up after them.

I've been struggling with the concept of limiting screen time. I've read and thought long and hard about the concept of unlimited T.V. time for kids. I guess the argument is that if kids are free to choose how much and what kind of programming they want to watch, then they will eventually not care that much about watching T.V. because they know they can have it whenever they want it. So, I tried for about a month letting them keep watching whatever and whenever they want to see a program (which was still their DVDs and not television.) But, my kids would watch DVDs literally ALL DAY LONG. I would do my best to distract them with other activities, but like I said, I need to get some things done and during those times when I couldn't actively engage them in other things, they'd just want and crave more screen time.

I noticed that they were much more lethargic, crabby and dull. They didn't play as creatively anymore, didn't care as much to play outside, and didn't want to read as much. So, after this experiment, and reading Endangered Minds, I decided for our family's mental health sake, that there should be pretty strict T.V. limits set. We are very relaxed about bedtimes and eating, but the T.V. issue is quite another thing. And you know what? After just a week of this new "diet," the kids don't crave watching something as much. They are back to making up the most wonderful worlds and games for themselves, running around outside for a good part of the day and are in much better moods.

That said, we do enjoy as a family some really good movies. What I like about watching things together as a family is the discussions we are able to have, and how a lot of their questions come up about what is happening because they have us there to give answers right away.

Some of our favorite DVD's lately have been:

Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, Inkheart and Five Children and It

The kids adore musicals and in the past have loved Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and

Annie. They will also watch episodes of Reading Rainbow, Mister Rodgers Neighborhood, Between the Lions or a Scholastic book special.

Forest Park Summerfest

On June 6th We attended the Forest Park Festival. It was a cool day, so that made it nice for staying outside for a while. The festival ran down a length of several blocked-off streets. Right away the kids were excited because Trader Joe's was handing out free cookies. Sugary treats is the number one way to get to Jared's heart. We meandered through the different booths, saw some face painting, the Wonderworks booth where kids could do crafts, and several musicians. We particularly liked watching the tap dancing demonstration, and Jared seemed proud to drop his dollar into the the donation can.




Jared in particular really enjoyed watching a karate demonstration. It was the first time he had seen anyone do karate and was particularly fascinated by the stick demonstrations. I have a feeling he'll want to participate in this sport when he's older. Alexa seemed to enjoy it, too, but she needed to have Steve hold her the whole time.



Steve's sister, Shara, met up with us later in the day. It'll be so nice having her back living at home now since she graduated a few weeks ago. She's been looking for a job, but hasn't been successful yet, so it's been a little hard for her.



I grabbed a pulled pork sandwich and Steve had a braut. We found tables near the music stage. The kids sort of ate hot dogs and some chips (the little bit they usually eat), but were much more interested in jumping up and down and dancing.




There was a young boy, who looked to be about seven or eight, playing drums with the band. Jared really liked seeing him. Watching that boy made me think again about how we really need to search for a used drum set for Jared. Pots and pans are ok or now, I guess, but I know he would really love a real drum set.




We were going to the pony rides, but the kids were distracted by this giant slide, so we had to go on for a quick ride. I'm such a baby about heights, and even climbing up this ladder which really isn't at all that high started making me feel dizzy and queasy. How am I ever going to walk to the top of the dome in Milan one day?






We ended the afternoon with a movie at the theater. This makes movie number three for the kids (inside a theater, that is). Their first was Wall-e and then they saw Madagascar II. Today's movie was Night at the Museum II. We just saw the first one last weekend, so they were really excited to see this one.





Yet another KISS pose from Alexa!