February Joy School

We hosted our neighborhood joy school group this month. Although I enjoy teaching and coming up with ideas for curriculum, I'm happy that my turns are over and from now until the end of May, I can just send Miles to the next person's house. :) Gwen however is sad that she doesn't get to participate anymore. She felt better when I told her that when she gets a little older, we'll do a joy school just for her! I'm lucky that some of these moms and a few other moms in the area have kids Gwen's age and want to keep doing this, so come September, I'm sure we'll do something similar for Gwen and Miles will be the one feeling left out!
Our theme this month was transportation. We also talked a lot about Valentine's Day. We try and take pictures every week to show the other moms what we did, so here's a type of joy school photo journal from the last month, without documenting every little thing, and with most of these pictures being of my kiddos, not the entire group. :)
Week 1- Red and Blue make purple, trains, red light/green light.

Week 2- Making Valentines, Boats, using cars to trace numbers, and the library center.

Week 3- car mat, play-doh, cutting and worksheets, blueberry yogurt, puzzles

Week 4- Watercolors, construction with rice and tractors, making blue and red spinners (to make purple again; our color this month) and making traffic lights for snacks.

In addition to planning the 4 joy school days, you also plan a monthly field trip. We just got back from ours today and I think it was a hit. At least my kids thought it was pretty cool! I wanted to give them an experience riding different kinds of transportation. We utilized our public transportation systems (a first for me) and rode trax up to Murray and then took a bus to fashion place mall. We lunched at the food court, but unfortunately didn't have time for much else before we had to catch our bus and train ride home. We managed to peek in a super cute paper store and buy some candy for the ride home; only the essentials people. :)

Hard Work

I've been trying to get my mind wrapped around the fact that in about 3 weeks, we will have 3 kids. I go through phases of complete terror to complete tranquility and everything in between. Lately I've been feeling stressed because I'm actually not stressed and probably should be. Either way, I've reached the point where I'm DONE being pregnant. You know what I'm talking about. I'm just DONE. With the 2 miscarriages, I've been pregnant for about a year these past 14 months or so. Just when I think I can't take any more of sharing my body, I realize it doesn't end once she gets here. There's nursing and trying to lose the baby weight. And then I feel tired. Don't get my wrong, I'm so glad to be pregnant and bring a baby home. Beyond happy. I'm just sayin, it's hard work sometimes.

You know what else is hard work? Consistency. Being consistent in anything takes so much energy, but being consistent as a parent is the hardest thing I've ever done. Why do they want dinner EVERY night? How am I supposed to say the right thing in the right tone EVERY time? Do I really have to wash that blanket AGAIN? The other day we made sugar cookies to get ready for Valentine's day. I always feel like a good mom when I work in the kitchen with my kids and they love it. But no matter what, I always end up getting frustrated. I wish I could stop that. "Don't roll out the dough that thin!" "Put the cookie cutters closer together so you can get more cookies out of it!" "Don't eat that!"

Then that Monday for FHE (another thing it's hard to be consistent at) we talked about saving for missions and paying our tithing. They have been "paying tithing" for a while now, but it's pretty haphazard. So we divided their banks into 3 different places so they could distinguish what money goes where. So far so good. We explained to them, again, that girls can go on missions if they want to, but they don't have to, like the boys do. So now even though Gwen's jar says "Gwen's mission" she will correct you if you don't call it her "Me marry" money. :)
I know I'm just rambling here, but I guess I'm just hoping that something good sinks in to those cute little blonde heads. For every good thing we do, I feel like I un-do it with a sarcastic tone or a sharp word. I wish it was easier to be consistent in the good things and have it come naturally. Parents, does it get easier? The more practice you have, is it easier to bridle your tongue? I sure hope so. This whole "natural-man" thing is the pits.

An Entire Hand!

Our first born is now an entire hand old! I can't believe it's been 5 years. I guess that's something you say every birthday, with every child. It's a good thing we stop to celebrate birthdays because it gives us a second to reflect and realize that time is passing and we'd better be alert and present, because it's going WAY faster than we want it to.

Miles woke up to balloons and a present. It took some convincing for him to actually open it because we weren't having his party that day. He got candles in his french toast and happy birthday serenades from us and Grandma and Grandpa Crosby. I'd say it was off to a good start.


We had pre-school that day, so he took treats to his class and got to wear a crown all day. Pretty big deal. That night, he requested "hamburgers" and apples and cheese. After dinner we went to Arctic Circle to get us some 30 cent cones and wear the kids out on the play place. ALWAYS a hit.


We decided to have a friend party this year. His first. Our first. We've had versions of friend parties in the past, but parents always came and it was more of a social event for us! This time we did the whole traditional, drop your kid off, they bring a present thing. Miles has been praying for his Spiderman Birthday for almost a year now, so we were crossing our fingers that it met his expectations. Who knows where this obsession with Spiderman came from. We never introduced him to it, but all of a sudden, it was the coolest. About a month before his birthday we decided to officially introduce him to this hero and let him watch a Spiderman cartoon on Netflix. Man, those "newer" versions are kind of...scandalous! We were happy to find "Spiderman and his Amazing Friends" from 1981. They are awfully awesome. Now both Miles and Gwen are obsessed with the cartoon and pretend to be the characters all the time. They have our family's Halloween costumes for this upcoming year already picked out now.

So when the kids arrived, I had coloring pages set up to work on while everyone trickled in. When am I going to learn that a bunch of balloons on the floor is way more entertaining! Miles was the only one who was interested in coloring. He's turning into quite the artist.


Then we had a relay race game. First you had to crawl through Spiderman's webs and back. Then you had to use some webbing (silly string) to trap a bad guy. Lastly you had to rebuild the city that the bad guys destroyed (stack a bunch of boxes). It was a big hit, but I had planned for it to take about 20 minutes, and it probably lasted about...7.


It didn't matter too much, there were presents to open! I was blown away. First by the fact that all of the kids were so excited to watch Miles open presents. They just shoved all the presents at him, begging him to open theirs next. It was cute, and utterly chaotic. Secondly, I was blown away that we have such generous friends. As I kept seeing what his friends got him, I silently moved what we got him out of the room to save it for another day. We shouldn't have gotten him anything! The kids played with his new toys for a bit, and then the moment they've all been waiting for...


Cake and ice cream! Every kid decided they needed a candle to blow out too. Makes total sense. :) As they finished, we turned on an episode of the aforementioned "Spiderman and his Amazing Friends" and had them all entranced.


The crazy thing is that the festivities weren't even over, after all of that! On Sunday, we celebrated at Grandma and Grandpa Garners house with Jeffery, who share the same birthday. I didn't bring my camera, but Miles was really excited about the rest of the presents. He requested a piggy bank. Check. He also got a scooter (left over from Christmas :) and probably the oddest gift a 5 year old boy could get; a yoga mat and yoga DVD. They do a kids yoga routine at pre-school and he LOVES it. I thought he would get a kick out of having his own mat and DVD, and I was right! He loves it and wants to do his exercises almost every day, "to make him healthy and strong."


Whew! I'm tired. I even kept it simple, at least in my mind. No pinterest worthy party here, but I'd say he felt special and loved. Mission accomplished! Miles is growing into such a remarkable person. His latest loves are "doing art" and Spiderman. Obviously, he's 5 and has some traits that need maturing, but I'm consistently blown away by his empathy for others, among other things. He's ready at the drop of a hat to help me with almost any chore and is a fantastic big brother. What cracks me up lately is his methods of persuasion with Gwen. If he wants to watch a certain movie, but Gwen doesn't, he'll say something like "But Gwen, this one has a girl in it!" or, "Gwen, look, there's pink on the cover, do you like pink?" :) He'll be a great big brother again. He can't wait for baby June to come out so he can "tickle her" and "feed her". In the morning when he comes in to snuggle with me, he puts his hand on my belly and waits until she kicks him. Tender moments I hope I don't forget. Oh we love our Miles boy.