Soooooo... April

This month has been full of non-stop, action-packed excitement.  I don't know how any of the other months will even come close until the holidays roll around, because this one had real princesses at Disneyland, a trip to visit grandparents and cousins, baby animal cuddling, pony rides, Easter, two birthdays, a dance recital, Kael beginning to talk, and finally getting our long and eagerly awaited pet Nemos.

I'm thinking photo captions... I'm honestly too tired to do much more. :)

April 3rd- Disneyland

We got to see and do quite a lot in one day- it really did seem kind of magical.  Kael was feverish the day before, and didn't want to do much more than be held by Mommy the whole day, so it was really handy to find out they had professional photographers with almost all of the characters we met who would put photos on a card and let us order the digital copies off the internet. 

Meeting the princesses was definitely worth the wait in line.  All of them were so careful to make everyone feel special- even the grumpy baby.  We had a hard time pulling Bree from place to place because she would strike up conversations with each character and usually had more to say than time allowed. They'd smile and nod so sweetly- I was so grateful and impressed at the awesome attitudes they had.  I'd been wondering if one day would be enough, but we were all so happy and exhaused by the end of the day, I was relieved we hadn't planned to stay longer.

We drove straight from the Disneyland parking lot four hours to home that night.  When we woke up the kids, Mia was amazed at how close our house is to Disneyland.  I just chuckled and thought how awesome it is to be "the kid" sometimes.  The next morning we re-packed and headed to Utah.

We got to see the grandmas who took us to This is the Place Park during the "Baby Animal Days" of a fun Easter festival.

Make a Free Flash Slideshow

It was quite chilly that day- probably high 50's at one point, so when the baby animals weren't getting snuggled by kids, they were under heat lamps.  Anya pretty much looked like this for a couple of hours.  It was hard to pull her away.  She was so unhappy when we started to leave, I actually let her sit back down with her precious chick and let her finish loving the thing.  When she had somehow filled her chick holding time quota, she happily said good-bye and beamed as she said it was the best day ever.

We got to see Aunt Nog's new house that she will live in with her future hubby!

Kael got to hang out with his cuz.

These guys played so well with each other, I think they're pretty good buddies.

We got home the night before Easter Sunday, because Zach had to get up early to work.
We wrote a letter to the Easter bunny and asked if he wouldn't mind coming to hide the eggs later when Daddy got home.  After church we went upstairs and sure enough, the bunny came right before Zach arrived to tell us it was safe to come down.

Kael's first egg hunt.

I didn't have enough light by the time we were ready to take pictures of them all together, so we did retakes later. :)

The twins turned 5!  They had a left-over birthday party.  I used all the birthday supplies I've bought over the last 5 years, so they had a Barbie, princess, Build-A-Bear, My Little Pony party.  It turned out very pink.  We finally laid the pony pinata to rest after it's third and final beating.

The bears were from a kit I got at Costco years ago.  I had no idea the bodies needed to be sewn, and did it ahead of time.  Good thing, too- that party would have taken days had I let them try to do it.

That evening we went to the fish store and FINALLY got our pet clown fish.  Zach has had this tank running for months.  He couldn't figure out why his ammonia levels weren't dropping because it had done it's nitrite spike and was supposed to be done cycling within a week.  He figured out a month or so later that because he'd been storing his ammonia in the same container as the test tubes, they were always coated with an ammonia film and were giving off bunk readings.  After that dawned on him, we had our accurate tank tests and fish within a few days.  I think having five minutes of free time per day is getting to him... *frownsmile*

Mr. Kaelywoggins is finally starting to figure out how to use his mouth for more than kisses.  Just a couple of days after I told the pediatrician that no, he wasn't using even close to 20 small words, he started using about 20 small words.  (Ohhh that trip to the doc was also worth mentioning.  Anya and Bree and Kael each needed four shots.  I was stupid enough to tell them what was coming a day before, so Anya especially was good and worked up come needle time.  I had to hold her on my lap with my legs around hers and my arms around hers and hope not to get head butted while Kael cried to be comforted from the pokes he'd just gotten.)

Anyway.  Here's his portfolio so far: Mommy, Daddy, Mimi, Bee (Bree), ba (ball), ju (juice), mo (more), ba (bath), no, raaar (it's a sound effect, but I'm counting it,) dis (this), be (me), cars, ow, and a couple more I have yet to decipher, but are consistently uttered in the same situations.  My favorite kind of puzzle. :)




The twins last day of dance class couldn't come soon enough.  For them, at least.  I can't believe how sad it is- we finally found an awesome teacher and a nice place that doesn't cost much at all, and they're sick of "ballallay" because they hate stretching their legs in splits.  So here they are during their last dance recital.  :b  Now we're doing ice skating.  Which, of course, costs three times as much.  We'll see how long that lasts.

So there's April.  And this post took me so long to write... it is now May.

Bloggy-moms meet!

Ooh, new Blogger format. Fun. Well, for my first post in the official NBF I'm going to share my blogger dream come true. I met an awesome bloggy friend in real life while we were in Utah this month.

I've taken much advice from this awesome mom, some of it cautionary, lots of it literary, maybe a couple of things fashionary.
I've been taking a lot of flack from the non-bloggers of the world who just don't get it. (Because the phrase "Don't knock it until you've tried it," doesn't apply to SOME people.)
  I'm proud to add the meeting of this person I would otherwise have never met to my list of justifications reasons for investing time in the devil that is social media. So... neener, neener.

Decorating

I think I'm more into appreciating cute decorating than actually doing it. When we were looking at the other house on Harvest Dance, there was going to be a lot of painting involved whether we wanted to or not. So because it was also practical, I was very enthused about decorating. But it's been kind of slow going in this house that was basically perfect when we bought it.

Since December, I've had pictures up of the kids on Santa's lap. I finally got around to replacing them with my first idea. Drawings! I haven't really done any drawing since Mia was a baby. I want to get back into it. In about 7 years, when I've got a little more time and resources I want to branch out into color. For now pencils are really easy to come by, so I'm sticking with them. :)







I was kind of in a hurry, so I got lazy on everything but the faces. I mean really-the only fun part is the face, right? And I took liberties with the hair and clothes- Mia was having an especially bad hair day when I photographed her for this- ha.

Education Decisions

We had about eight kids over for our Valentine exchange party. It was a lot smaller than the ones we went to in Ohio, but that kind of made it more fun.

It was the last meet-up I hosted for my homeschooling group. I decided it was too expensive to keep the site up, and there weren't enough regular participants to divide the cost up. One friend who did come regularly told me about some other groups we can join. She's the one holding Kael...which was an amazing relief- he usually won't let anyone hold him but me!






It has been really interesting these last few years. I'm not homeschooling for the exact same reasons as a lot of parents, but I definitely see where they're coming from. Mia is still enjoying K12. I've felt like we should work toward getting her all on one grade level- and we'll probably acheive that goal by the beginning of next year.

I've been really torn about whether or not to put Anya and Bree into the schools here. The reason I started K12 with Mia in the first place wasn't just because of her academic level, but because of the awful things I heard about the schools that were available nearby, and I wasn't ready to put a four-year-old on a bus and send her across Columbus in the hopes that some magnet or charter might be better, (even if we were lucky enough to win the lottery it took to get in in the first place.) I keep hearing that schools aren't very good here, either. The highly recommended charter school that IS by us (half our ward's kids go there,) is full for the next two years, and they, like the rest of Nevada schools, don't let kids work ahead of grade level. At least not in elementary, I'm understanding.

So we're sticking with K12. I have an idea what I'm in for. The whole time I've been working with Mia, I've been working with the twins, with the K12 Kindergarten books we never used with Mia- ha. They won't be as advanced as Mia, but they'll be at about a first-grade level in reading and math.

So I figure, why not. We're lucky- we've got a wonderful man at the head of our family who is providing for us, so that I'll be able to spend the time it takes.

The only myth I was ever worried about was that homeschooled kids aren't as socially adept. But I haven't noticed any problems yet with these guys. They have a bunch of friends from church and extra-curricular activities at the rec center. I'm sure Mia will make more when she starts soccer. They are all so outgoing. When we go anywhere, they talk about all the friends they are going to meet and have a grand old time with everyone until they have to say goodbye.

My main real concern was that it does take a chunk of my time- about twenty to thirty hours a week that a lot of moms spend doing other things to help their families. Is this time I'm spending with them more beneficial than anything else I could be doing? When there is some other person somewhere being paid to spend this time with my kids whether or not I'm taking advantage of it?

I think the benefit of a one-on-one education is worth it for us. At least in these early years. When Mia doesn't understand a math concept, she doesn't have to wait until after class for it to be explained to her a different way. And if she does get it immediately, she doesn't have to do ten worksheets on it for no reason... we just move on.
When we do science projects, we DO them. When we learned about plants last week, I cut open the withering tulips Zach bought me for Valentine's Day and we examined the xylem with our magnifying glass. We're watching some beans sprout that we starting germinating a couple days ago.
We've been on more field trips in the last year and a half than I ever went on in my entire schooling career. Ever.
Speaking of which- I'm actually enjoying the review, and in some cases learning completely new things. Do you think I would have remembered anything about xylem, or Horatius the hero of ancient Rome if I didn't go over it with my kid? Ah- no. It's even been practical... I'm brushing up on my measurement conversions and even some spelling and grammar has caught me off-guard. ;)
When they're old enough to appreciate it, I plan to GO to these places we're learning about in Mia's history class. And if we're still homeschooling, we won't have to wait until June to go.

So we're sticking with it. For now.