Local Science Fair, again

I had no idea the time commitment involved with Science Fair when I told Emma it was ok to get involved.  Well, at least I know for next time.  Last night was the awards ceremony for our local science fair.  Everyone got a participation award, and then Emma was one of two 6th graders to get an honorable mention.  Grades 6 (the first years) through 8th are all graded against each other, so we were very proud of Emma.

 Emma, Kendra, and Kaylee were called up in a row for the participation awards.  They are alphabetical friends.  (hahaha?)

The awards ran right through Emma's last church Activity Days.  She was disappointed about that, but she got to go to the first 20 minutes of Activity Days before it was time to leave.  Next week- Young Womens...

Dun dun duuuuuuuunnnnnn.

Wacky Wednesday

Today's dress up day was Wacky Wednesday, at both Elizabeth and the twins' schools.  I think my kids nailed it.

Career Day

Around the time Dr. Seuss has his birthday, the elementary schools spend a whole week celebrating.  Today was career day, and Annie wanted to be a dentist, and Maddie wanted to be a teacher.  I was at a loss for a dentist outfit.  We don't have scrubs, so we went with professional and a name tag that says, "Dr. Annie, dentist."  

Maddie makes a pretty cute elementary teacher, don't you think?

 I took the twins to school late since we had dentist appointments at 9 am.  Our dentist liked the idea of Annie wanting to be a dentist, so he gave her a mask and non-latex gloves to complete the ensemble.

Baby Kira

My sister Janelle and her family came for a visit yesterday.  I sent the kids to school in the morning, and picked them up at about 11 am.  (At least they got some school, right?)  It takes me about a half an hour to pick 4 girls up from 3 different schools.  Ryan even took the day off, spending the morning working on the never-ending homework and then the afternoon visiting.  It's not everyday you meet a new niece and cousin, and we were prepared to enjoy it.

Coming almost 2 weeks past her due date, Miss Kira was a whopping 10 lbs when she was born.  She hasn't slowed down growing since either.  This girl likes her food, and has the adorable thigh rolls to prove it.

My mom came for the day to see the family together.

 We had to pass the baby around.

 Everyone needed a turn.

 Little Claire is a doll.  She made herself at home with all of our girlie toys.

 She also impressed us with her dance moves.

 Annie and Alex hit it off.  The spent a lot of time outside during the afternoon, which of course I didn't get any pictures of.

Emma has been sprouting like a weed on steroids this last year or so.  We measured her against Nana, and she's closing the gap quite a bit.  She's pleased.  :)

Boy Oh Buoyancy

The age of middle school is a busy one.  Emma has thrown herself into it wholeheartedly.  She is on the 6th grade ASB, is on the Math Team, and has been working on her science fair project for what seems like forever.  They had meetings Monday afternoons, and then as we drew closer to the local science fair, they met Mondays and Thursdays.  So when I picked her up and we were done with dinner and everything, and I got around to looking at the display board... well, it wasn't her best work.  Instead of letting her deal with the consequences of her actions in the form of not doing well at the science fair, we started over.  This is where we were at 9 pm last night. 

 We raided my scrapbooking paper, rewrote parts of her papers, printed, cut, glued, and stayed up late.  But we got it looking much, much better.

 Then we made sure her report was everything it needed to be this morning.  Emma got to go back to school for the local science fair at noon, and stayed until 4 this afternoon.  Ryan and I dropped in at about 2 o'clock to see how things were going.

We will have to wait and see how she did until the awards ceremony next week.

4th Grade Concert

Elizabeth informed me before bed last night that she needed a train engineer costume for her concert.  I had known she had a part in the concert, and she brought home a paper a few nights ago saying that the 3rd and 4th grade concert dress had to do with careers.  There were several options on that piece of paper of career outfits, and I figured nice clothes would be fine for "business dress."  No need to worry.  Well, I was wrong.  Elizabeth was insistent that because she was part of the train crew, she needed something else.  

So I spent part of my morning and afternoon tracking down a few things.  During my morning walk, I had Chantel offer to give Elizabeth a bandana, and I got another friend to lend me a pair of suspenders.  I did not luck out finding a train engineer hat, but Elizabeth looked pretty good anyway.

 The group shot.  The rest of the girls told me they were going to photo bomb.

The concert was good.  Elizabeth did a good job with her part, and I will load the pictures from the camera later when I load all the camera pictures onto the computer.

Ok, I am finally getting around to adding those pictures.  Here is Elizabeth.  She was excited to be one of the group of "characters," meaning she got to be with the special group and not just standing with her class.

Little Lambs

We got word that there were some baby lambs we could go see at the C family's farm.  They were so cute.  The kids loved petting the two we caught.  By "we" I, of course, mean Ryan.  

Chinese New Year

I am afraid I am not very culturally aware.  Apparently yesterday was Chinese New Year.  Ryan came home from work and suggested we celebrate.  We celebrated at the local Chinese buffet.  The last time we went, Annie and Maddie were in diapers and I am pretty sure we vowed to never make them suffer through our presence again.  Between the mess we made, the feelings of frustration of 4 small children who didn't wish to sit still, and the big price tag we just hadn't wanted to go back until now.  The call of all you can eat shrimp and crab legs brought us back.  And boy, did we stuff ourselves.

 Honestly, I did tell them I was going to take a picture.

Ryan asked our waiter how to say "Happy New Year" in Chinese, and he kindly wrote it down for us.

I've decided there is a reason we don't frequent buffets.  I totally stuffed myself beyond stuffed to get my money's worth.  But at least everyone else did too.  We all moaned and tossed around in bed all night.  Elizabeth got up this morning and said she didn't need to eat breakfast because she was still full from last night.

Status Updates

Just logging some of the more interesting of my Facebook statuses, because it's easier than writing individually about each one.

So, Ryan isn't home and I left the kids talking to their grandma on FaceTime while I ran upstairs to use the bathroom.  One minute later I hear my mother-in-law's voice saying to, "Go ask your mom," and Maddie saying, "Ok!"  Not in a position to talk to anyone face to face and knowing how privacy minded my children are not, I yell through the door, "I can't talk right now- I'm going to the bathroom!"  I am rewarded by laughter from my mother-in-law Kim.

During dinner time last night, I had to remind the kids a couple of times that if they wanted dessert, they were going to have to finish their dinner.  After my last reminder, Annie looks at me and says, "Why do you have to be so rude?  Don't you know I'm human too?"  (Note, these are lyrics from the song, "Rude" by Magic!)

It might be a long day if you are ready to take a nap at 7 am.

Well, at least January was sickness free.  (Written February 2nd)

So, doing to one child what she was doing to her sister- a good object lesson, or bad parenting?

The checker at Winco guessed I was either a musician or an engineer based on what food I had and how it was arranged on the conveyor belt.  Um, no.  I would have guessed "Married to Michael Weston" based on how much yogurt I bought.

After watching yet another character die off, I've come to the conclusion that one does not watch MI-5 to become attached to the cast.

Is it still considered emotional eating if you have to wait two hours for the fudge to set up?  The January doldrums have set in...

Maddie is so excited to give her teacher a Christmas present that she took the initiative to get a gift bag all by herself.  She brought it to me saying home much Ms. P likes pink, so she was going to love this bag.  It was a Victoria's Secret bag.  Um....

Kindergarten

Today when the kids got off the bus, Annie had her hands in her coat pockets.  I didn't think much about it until Maddie said Annie's hand were messy while we were walking to the house.  I gave her a funny look, and Annie took her hands out of her pockets.  They were blue.  And by blue, I mean really, really blue.

 I asked her what happened to her hands.  She informed me that her teacher did that to her hands.  "Like for a project?" I inquired.  She nodded.  So I asked how come her hands didn't get washed before she came home?

"There wasn't time."

That does not sound like her teacher.  Her teacher is a stickler for clean, organized, and following the rules.

While I was scrubbing Annie's hands with dish soap (hand soap was not doing justice to this mess) and a wash cloth, I was pressing her for more details about this supposed art project.  Maddie came in and said that Annie colored her hands on the bus.  Annie vehemently denied this.

Evidence in Annie's backpack corroborated Maddie's story.  That's when Annie knew the truth was out, felt embarrassed and cried.  Since the marker was not particularly washable, Annie's hands were blue all evening, and she was really touchy about any mention of the episode.  She was quite upset with me for sharing the above picture with her grandparents.

On the upside, Maddie is the only one of my kids to regularly give me love notes.  I love them.

"I love you cos (because) you are nis (nice) and you are cid (kind) you are o so nis (nice)."