March 2012

LOADS of March Randomness, and what turned into some kiddo updates....

When life gives you lots and lots of snow...have a snow day!

 

 

One morning I heard Kylee laughing SO hard outside, so I went to check and her and Bobby were just outside playing with this ball, trying to throw it on the roof and catch it. I love that she gets such a kick out of the simplest things. I took a quick video of them (it's not posted) and I love to watch it! I hope she always realizes how much her daddy loves her.

Random March pictures from my cell phone...

Our ward celebrated the Relief Society birthday in March and I had the wonderful opportunity to serve as the RS activities director in this ward (seriously I LOVED serving in this calling!!). Our theme for the evening was a birthday PAR-TAY celebrating each sister in the ward. It was a great night and our committee had a lot of fun putting this on. Since I was put in charge of the decor, I went with a pretty traditional birthday scheme with balloons, candy, and party favors :). Since I had just done Kylee's birthday a few months before and had a lot of things left over, I used the same colors of pink, white and yellow to decorate with.

Cute little sundae centerpieces for the tables that I found the idea for on pinterest!

Front of the room.

Since our goal of the evening was to celebrate each sister individually and their important and extraordinary role as a member of the Meadowbrook ward relief society, we used this quote from Emma Smith to tie in the party favors to our evening...

"Sisters we are going to do something extraodinary."
(On the pack of "extra" gum I wrote):
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the little extra.

 There are such great women in that ward and I miss them so much!! It was a great evening!

For Tyler's birthday Alisa sent him an UNO game and he was obsessed with playing. We played over and over and over again everyday for months! He is VERY into playing games right now (which I love because I come from an intense game playing family :) ) and if we're home at nights we always play a few as a family before bed (good leverage to make him eat his dinner). His current favorites are {still} UNO, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, The ICE breaker game, crazy 8's, any kind of memory game, and operation.

If we're not playing games, he is usually spending his time building with legos (his newest passion since about april). He has 3 different transformer lego sets right now (bumblebee, optimus prime and mirage) that he can build into either the figure or the car and he loves to just go into his room, close the door and spend an hour or two building. He's great at following the instructions and is SO proud of himself every time he finishes building one-even though he's probably done it 100 times. :)

And he is still completely obsessed with superheroes. Like 90% of his day he is talking either about Iron-man (his current favorite and who he has already decided he will be for Halloween because he is dying to have the Iron-man costume), spiderman, Batman or Captain America. How does he even know about these guys?! I don't ever talk about them-because I know nothing about them. Anything I know now, are things he has told me or I hear him and Bobby talking about. He's never seen any of the movies or shows. It blows my mind. Boys are just like...ingrained with this stuff? He sees a poster, figure, display, toy, ANYthing superhero in a store we have to stop immediately to talk about it and how much it cost (if it's a toy). He currently has a list of 10 different things he wants from the store-superhero related- and is like mega stressing over which thing he will choose when he has saved up the money he needs to. He goes over his list pretty much everyday and is just absolutely torn apart at having to just choose one toy. It totally cracks me up. Oh the stress of being 5 and making such difficult choices!

Back to the pictures :)

We went to a gymnastic meet up on campus with some friends when USU was competing against BYU. I think I was the only one in the stands cheering for the BYU girls (and they did win the meet!) ha ha!

It was a fun night!

KINDERGARTEN registration?!?!?!!

At this point we still weren't sure what our plans were and where we were going to be living come school year time because back in March Bobby was still going through all the applying and interviewing processes for jobs, so I went ahead and registered Tyler for kindergarten in Logan just in case. They do a whole big application and assessment for those kids that will be entering kindergarten in Logan (which is completely opposite of where we are now-kinda weird) because if they don't *pass* than they have to attend a mandatory kindergarten readiness program during the summer to prepare them and I was SO nervous. I know he is ready for kindergarten, but I don't know....I was just nervous for him!! Bobby stayed home with Kylee and Tyler and I headed up to the school.

First we went into the gym where we sat at a table with a bunch of other parents and filled out paperwork. My hand was literally shaking and I accidentally started filling out the paperwork with all my information instead of his and had to go ask for a new paper-so embarrassing!! Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do when this kid goes to college?! Somebody's going to have to come tie me up and put me in a closet somewhere. There was SO much paperwork to fill out and Tyler was bored out of his mind so I let him play some games on my phone. Then I started to panic and thought, he should be practicing all his stuff for his little test! So I made him right his name over and over (which he knows how to do with his eyes closed and backwards but I was just going crazy with nerves-ok not really, I've never made him try it that way, but you get my point ha ha!) and rhyme with me and count as far as he could and write his numbers. He just kept saying, "moooom, I already know how to doooo that, please can I just play angry birds?!" ha ha!

Then we had to wait in this loooong line to meet with some lady who just sat there and entered in all the stuff I had filled out into the computer, took copies of all his documents and gave us our preference of morning or afternoon kindergarten (morning). Then we had to go sit in the lobby with everyone and wait for a teacher to call him into a classroom and do a ten minute assessment-sans dear old mommy. They didn't tell us beforehand what kinds of things they would be asking him to do, but my {old} VT comp is an elem. teacher and so she kinda told me the things they usually require kindergartners to know before coming to school. I felt a little better having somewhat of an idea if he was on track or not, but sitting out there on that bench by-myself with my little buddy in another room being *tested* was torture for me. Torture! Longest 10 minute of my life-dead serious.

I think the assistant in the lobby (the lady who was taking the kids back and forth to the classrooms) could tell I was about to wet myself because she came over and sat next to me and patted me on the back and SO nicely says, "this must be your first" ha ha! Is it that obvious? I asked. She reassured me he would do just fine and would do great in Kindergarten. (which was oddly reassuring since she had never said more than 4 words to him-"come with me Tyler!"-and he said zero back to her. Yet I wanted to kiss her and be her best friend all the same.)

I know that Tyler is smart. I know that he will absolutely LOVE school. I know that he's ready to open this new chapter of his life. But I want him to know. I want him to be confident in who he his and what his talents are. And I was so nervous that if he completely forgot everything he knew in that room with that teacher, that he would be terrified to go back. That he wouldn't feel smart. That he wouldn't think school was fun.

He couldn't have cared less. He's five. His main concerns in life are how he will be able to create the iron-man suit so he can fly, which toy to buy with his hard-earned money, whether or not he will have to have vegetables at dinner, and how many more days it is till Halloween. He talks all the time about how smart he is and could actually do with a little criticism to bring him back to planet humility. The kid knows and brags about his talents-which include being able to completely embarrass me in public when he decides to stop dead in the isle of the store and completely become Iron-man. He starts by miming putting on the suit and then his whole body shakes as the suit is getting ready to take off and he then launches himself into the air and lands on the floor in, non-other than, a spiderman pose. He looks like he's having a seizure.  He even foams at the mouth. It's pretty amazing. What... lady who is staring?... Your kid can't be as cool as mine? Too bad for you. Nothing could deter him from his excitement from going to school because he's been excited to ride the school bus since he saw it drive past our house 2 years ago. Not even a mean teacher.

He did great. He came marching out of that room with a big ol' smile on his face, a sticker on his hand and a new shirt and shouted, "Mom, I'm ready for kindergarten!" Ha Ha! The teacher who assessed him sat down with me and took about 5 minutes to go over everything they had done with me, and he did very well! I took a real breath for the first time since we had walked into the school and hugged him tight. I can't remember everything, but I know he got all of the rhyming, spelling his name, identifying numbers, counting syllables, and identifying main concepts of stories right on, but totally got counting to 10 wrong! Ha ha! I guess she lined up ten cups and they were just supposed to count the cups, so he goes, "1,2,3,4,5. 1,2,3,4,5." instead of continuing on "6,7,8,9,10". I laughed and was like, he can count to 30 so I don't know what that was all about. She said it was fine and that since he could identify his numbers she was pretty sure he could count to 10. Silly kid.

AND silly ME! I have got to get me some chill pills because I know kindergarten assessment is nothing compared to what the future holds! I think I have a problem internalizing things around me. I make everything about me, even when it's not so I get all anxious and crazy. Like in this case, school was never something that was easy for me. If I got an A, I worked daggum hard for that A. Not doing well in school really affected my self-esteem and if I didn't understand something I felt incredibly stupid and defeated. I went to school because I loved the social side of it and the activities I was involved in. I was good at that part :). ha ha! I think walking into that school and knowing he was about to have his first test EVER just brought all of those negative feelings I had toward school back and I just freaked out because I internalized it. I just need to remember, he is not me. He has this love for learning that I envy, and thankfully has lots of his father in him!

So bring it on Kindergarten!


Kylee climbed this ladder thingy at the park in our old neighborhood for the first time all by herself and we were so proud of her! Tyler is her biggest cheerleader and kept saying, "ky, you DID it!"

We LOVE going to the park...even when it's cold and still has snow on the ground!

Kylee's dance class ended in March and even though she missed her end of the year recital (because Ty came home from his mission the same week so we were in St. George) she practiced their *bibbety bobbity boo* dance very hard!  (ky's on the left)

Ky's on the left

She's in the middle doing her ton-due. She was such a good listener in class and hung on to every. last. word. that came out of Mrs. Ruth's mouth. She wanted to be the BEST dancer and I have never {still} seen her concentrate or try so hard at something.

She was always the first one standing on her "x", ready to go in first position! She took her class very seriously and was never the girl that twirled around without permission or wandered around the classroom. Mrs. Ruth praised her constantly throughout the class and Kylee just ate it up. I was SOOOO proud of her and all her hard work!

Kylee and Mrs. Ruth on her last day of dance.

This was exactly what kylee needed to break her out of her shell. It was a small, no pressure, confidence building class and her teacher was amazing with her. When Kylee started dance she would not let me leave her side. I did every stretch, warm-up, and silly dance right by her side and Mrs. Ruth was so kind to let me join in so Kylee would feel comfortable. She never pressured her, or made her feel bad for not doing something the class was doing. She gave her her space and let Kylee warm up to her instead of forcing it on her. I learned so much about how to be a better mother to Kylee just by watching the way Mrs. Ruth handled her and her emotions and feelings. She's very different from Tyler and it was like Mrs. Ruth was my little guide on how to parent this kind of child. Seriously I could praise this woman till I was blue in the face and it wouldn't be enough. By the end of the year Kylee was not only dancing completely alone, she didn't even care if I was in the room or not. And it extended to other areas of her life as well. She started doing better in primary, she was better at home, and in new situations-where she used to just hide behind me and not make a peep. She has this confidence about her now that I just love and I can't wait to find her a new class where we are now!

She dances every chance she gets, and her current jam is  Call me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. Whenever it comes on the radio she shouts, "turn it up mom this is my song!!" and sings every word of it. And if she's not too busy twirling around in her leotard and ballet skirt and practicing her ballet poses, she's wearing princess dresses (that she changes every 5 min.) and saying, "hello, I'm ________, would you like to come to my castle?" She's also really into playing with all the princess barbies and my little ponies she has. Thankfully Tyler can be pretty easily talked into playing with her as long as his "guys" (ironman, green lantern, spiderman, etc) are involved in the princesses lives. Kylee loves the attention from him and most of the time they play really well together.

Whenever she needs a break from him, she comes into the craft room and paints. She LOVES to do her "projects" which can be anything from using paints, markers, glitter glue, colors or playdough. She gets bored with things much quicker than Tyler does so she is constantly changing her mind on what she wants to do throughout the day. The apartments we're living in right now have a nice pool so we go several times a week, and just in the few weeks we've been here she has gotten so much more confident in the water. Last year, she wouldn't get any farther than getting her knees wet, and now she's swimming all over the deep end-with her floaties on-and thinks she's the coolest fish in the sea! They are both looking forward to their swimming lessons next month!


On our way down to St. George for Ty's homecoming we stopped for the night at the Ellett's in Springville and had a fun night with a fire and smores'!
Tyler, Macey and Kylee

Bestest friends!

Up next, our fun week in St. George when uncle Ty came home from his mission in March!!!