Kyrie’s soccer portrait

Here’s our little HotShot’s soccer portrait!  This week is her very last week of soccer.  We’re glad to have it over and have some more free time on our hands, but it’s been really a really fun season. 

Cool shades

Bri and I were waiting in the van, and to pass the time we snapped some pictures of us in our sunglasses!  I cannot function without my sunglasses living here, and Bri has quickly picked that up from me as well.  I just love my little sidekick! 

Body Walk

Today Kyrie's class (the whole 3rd grade actually) had a field trip. It's times like this that I'm SO grateful to be a stay-at-home mom because I can actually go on these field trips. She gets so excited to see me there, and then I see the other kiddos who don't have their parents there, and it just makes me sad for them. I feel so lucky to be able to share in these fun experiences with Kyrie.

The field trip today was called Body Walk, and it was all about how to take care of our bodies (proper nutrition and exercise, avoiding drugs and harmful substances, etc.). It was held at the Yuma Civic Center, and I though they did a really great job. The different stations were put together really well, and it was very fun and interactive for the kids.

When we first got there, the fire department was there and gave a presentation to the kids about fire safety. They mainly stressed having a plan in your home for what to do if there was ever a fire. Honestly, we’ve never talked to our kids about that, so I was glad this was brought up. I know what our next Family Home Evening will be on! Bri was still super shy during this part and sat on my lap, but here’s a picture of Kyrie with the rest of the 3rd graders watching the video they showed. Kyrie is right in the center and is wearing a bright pink headband and a light pink jacket.

After the presentation from the fire department, the kids went to different stations to learn about their bodies. Each “booth” was basically a canvas tent that they’d decorated really cool by painting relevant things on the “walls”. Then the staff all dressed up in fun ways to match their booth, and then each area had its own slogan to help the kids remember what they learned. There was a booth where the ladies were dressed as dinosaurs with the slogan “Don’t let your teeth become extinct”, there was a booth about exercise that had a lady dressed in a referee uniform with the slogan “Make your move”, there was a booth about eating healthy with people dressed like Egyptians with the slogan “Eat like an Egyptian”, etc.

After the presentations, they had a room where the kiddos got to play some games. This particular game was a ball toss. The ball had all sorts of different pictures of food on it. Each person got a turn to catch the ball, and wherever your thumbs landed, you had to tell which food groups those foods were in.

It really was put together quite well, and I think the kids learned a lot.

Cambria and Isis

I know I’ve got lots of posts about little Bri with her kitties, but it just never fails to touch my heart how much she loves them and they love her!  Today was the cutest!  I was getting started on some chores, and Bri asked to get in the tub.  So I helped her get in, and then I went and made my bed.  When I came back to check on her, I found Isis sitting on the toilet lid right next to Bri.  These cats are always wherever she is, and it’s just so sweet.  As much as she tortures them, they sure love her!  The picture with Bri’s little feet is my absolute FAVORITE.  So precious.

A is for apple

I recently decided to start doing preschool with Cambria.  I haven't gotten into a groove with it quite yet, but I'm hoping to get a schedule figured out really soon so we can do it at least 4 days a week.  It's just hard since we have to run off mid-afternoon to grab Asher from school.  But we'll make it work!

Anyway, today we started working on the letter A.  I’ve done lots of research and found some fun sites that have all sorts of teaching/crafting ideas for any topic you can think of.  Bri has been very interested in learning her letters, so I chose to start with the alphabet.  I drew a large letter A on a piece of paper and let her color it while I got the craft materials prepped.

 

Then we made an apple tree.  Such a simple craft idea, but she had such a fun time doing it!  I love how proud she is of her finished product. 

Valentine’s Day 2011

We had a fun Valentine’s Day!

Cambria and I did a few fun things to celebrate. We made some cupcakes a few days ago, per Bri’s request. She woke up, and first thing in the morning said she wanted to make cupcakes. So that’s what we did! She helped make them, then I let her frost her very own cupcake and eat it for breakfast. She thought that was super cool, and I told her not to get used to the idea.

Then for lunch today we made heart-shaped pizzas. I stole this idea from a blog I found called No Time for Flash Cards. I cut tortillas into heart shapes (note: next time I will cut out a template instead of doing it freehand!), and then I also cut our pepperoni into heart shapes as well (another note: next time I will buy a tiny heart-shaped cookie cutter!). We had a picnic in the living room and watched a movie together while we ate our lunch.

Kyrie and Asher both had parties at school, which meant CANDY! They came home and proceeded to devour more candy than they should have. But hey, it’s once a year, so I wasn’t going to moderate too much. Derk came home early, and he walked in the house with flowers for all of us girls and a new poster for Asher.

After dinner, we had our Family Home Evening. We read the story of the Good Samaritan and talked about how we’re supposed to love everyone. Then we had a little activity. I cut out a bunch of paper hearts, and I wrote our names on 5 of them. We each drew a heart, then we secretly wrote some act of service we were going to do for the person we drew. It was actually really amazing how this turned out because the ones who really needed to work on serving/loving a certain person in our family ended up drawing that person’s name! It was a really cool non-coincidence! I told everyone that we’re not going to just do that one act of service, though, and that I wanted all of us to find ways everyday throughout the rest of this week that we can serve that person. I’m really excited to see how this pans out!

After our FHE lesson, Nana called and wanted to Skype. This was one of the sweetest moments I’ve witnessed in a long time. It was so cute because we couldn’t get my mom’s headset to work, so the kids talked to her on the phone while they sat in front of the computer so they could see each other. They were so excited to see her, and it just made my heart ache that we’re so far away. Seeing them singing to each other, talking, and laughing was just precious and heart-breaking at the same time. It was so, so sweet that I snapped pictures of each of them taking their turn talking to Nana!

During Kyrie’s turn to talk to Nana, she lost tooth #19!

The Tooth Fairy stops making her rounds at about 9pm, so Kyrie had to hurry off to bed! As she was brushing her teeth, she turned to me and said she really hoped I wasn’t the Tooth Fairy. Then she said, “But Mom, even if I know the Tooth Fairy isn’t real, will she still leave me money?” I told her the Tooth Fairy only comes to children who believe. She still believes. But she just couldn’t go to sleep before writing the Tooth Fairy a note! She was in such a hurry that she couldn’t take the time to find a piece of paper and just wrote on the back of her scrapbooking stickers instead.

The Tooth Fairy couldn’t leave $5 or $10 this time, so she tried to compensate by leaving $2. It was Kyrie’s first molar, after all!

Story Theater

Today I heard about a really fun, interactive story time at the library where a professional actress and writer Victoria Goring (co-star on Lost!) came and acted out a story with the kids. She went to all the libraries in our area, and I was super excited that the time worked out just perfectly to where I could take Asher and Cambria! I'm not one that is hyped about celebrities by any means, but now that I've actually met a real celebrity, I can say it's kinda cool! ;-) She was very nice, fun, and did a fantastic job. The kids all loved her!

It was extra fun because Asher was the main participant! She asked for the kids to participate in coming up with the title, she'd randomly stop and ask a child to come up with a part of the story, etc. When she asked a child to pick the title of the story, Asher's hand shot straight up in the air, and she called him up there with her. He was so cute and chose the title, "The Very Mean Bad Guy." Then she asked him if he had any wish in the whole world, what would it be? His response? "To be the Hulk!!" Then she asked him what he's REALLY good at, and after thinking for a moment, he responded, "Gymnastics!" That cracked me up because he's never taken gymnastics lessons in his life! BUT he proceeded to show her some of his gymnastic moves anyway. ;-)

I didn't take too many pictures, but here are the few I did take! Asher basically had his hand up the whole time and had a great time contributing to the story. And Bri is sticking out her tongue because she was trying to scare the bad guy. Also, you can get a lovely view of her destroyed hair and shaved eyebrow (though both have grown quite a bit and look much better than they did). ;-)

Here's a video I took of Asher presenting the title! It's really hard to hear what Asher is saying, but he's says, "My title is The Very Mean Bad Guy." Isn't he the CUTEST?!

Untitled from Hillary Stephens on Vimeo.

And here's a little clip of part of the story the kids came up with!

Untitled from Hillary Stephens on Vimeo.