Perfect

Here is my attempt to share some of our "real story." Here a just a few things from our last week to bring us all back to reality.

What "Perfect" looked like this week:

I booked a rental car for the wrong weekend so the GREAT price I found turned out to be DOUBLE when I got the dates right

I didn't finish all the laundry on Monday so the clothes stayed in piles on my bedroom floor until I finally just put them back in the hampers...maybe next week (the clean clothes are folded but aren't put away)

A friend from the ward offered to make dinner when I was sick but I declined because I didn't want her to see my messy house and undressed kids after spending the day laying on the couch sick

We ate frozen pizza - twice

We didn't do school AT ALL this week because I got sick and then left for my last minute trip and because it felt like too much work with everything else going on

I left B on time out for - I don't know how long, because I forgot she was on time out

I fed the girl's Lucky Charms for breakfast and lunch the day I was sick

I sprayed air freshener in the kids bathroom instead of cleaning it

I put my kids to bed at 6:30 when Paul was at school late because I just couldn't handle it anymore

I feel like I can't possibly get all of the stuff done that I NEED too which means I definitely don't get to do stuff I WANT to do

I wish I had more pictures of the kids when we go places but instead of taking pictures I try to not lose any children

I pretended I didn't see B and V putting stickers on the wall because I wasn't ready to deal with it

When V gets mad - she says all the things I say when I am mad....I really HATE that! A 4 year replica of all of my worst qualities

I found gum in V's hair

Casa Bonita

We went with our friends to Casa Bonita. We had heard so much about it and we were so excited to go. We went on a weekend and it was PACKED! The food was iffy but the company was great and the kids loved it. The girls keep talking about how we need to go back to the fancy restaurant.

The highlights of the night for our kids were:

Hudson ate 4 Sopapillas for dessert

Getting to see Landis

Landis, V and B

The diver jumping into the water

The haunted cave - I was a little worried about taking my little girls through but they LOVED it. The first time, we talked through the whole thing about how it wasn't real it was just trying to scare us. I was so impressed when they asked to go through again and didn't even need me there with them

Getting Tootsie Rolls

The Mariachi band - V told us she is going to be in a band like that someday

The puppet show - we stayed late so that we could see the puppet show. The kids were so excited. They loved it! It only lasted like 5 minutes (a little disappointing) but the girls didn't care.

Waiting for the show to start -

Hudson almost didn't make it to the puppet show. 

Left to right: Nathan, Evie, Landis, Bristol, Hudson, Vienna, Paul

Trying to get a picture of 5 tired kids 

Still trying....

The show FINALLY starts!

Completely enthralled

  Trying to get a family picture...

Since none of ours were great - I chose the one I looked best in. It is my blog
after all :)

Best Friends EVER!

PS. I am a little annoyed that I still don't know how to use my camera very well. Sorry about the quality of the pictures!

Bean Bags

This summer, I was visiting a friend of mine and she had Letter Bean Bags. The girl's loved them and played with them A TON while we were there. I decided to make some for the kids. I naively thought, I could finish a set in one night. Not sure where I got that idea!

I printed off the letters, cut them out, traced them onto applique paper, cut them out again, cut my fabric into squares, ironed the letters onto the fabric, sewed them on, put the bean bags together (I stitched around each one three times because I don't have a Serger), filled them, and then finally hand-stitched each one closed. NOT the quick, simple project I envisioned which is particularly silly since I was aware of the process BEFORE I started. (I guess 'perfect' me does things way faster)

Originally, I planned on making only Uppercase Letters but then I decided to do Lowercase too, because I have no filter when it comes to projects. I hate to admit, but I really did think - "No big deal to do lowercase too and how fun would that be?" Ironically, everyone else seems to be able to see what I am getting into...everyone but me! :)

These were finished several weeks ago and the kids love them! We play hide a seek, matching games, sorting games, and Paul plays catching and tossing games with them.(With the kids not by himself...although he probably would play with them by himself) In the end, I am glad we have them but would be in no hurry to take these on again.

My redo on these would be making the Uppercase letters just a little bit
smaller so they weren't so close to the edges.

Shake your bum

Have you seen Paul dance? He picked up his moves from his high school "Backstreet Boys" days. My kids think his dancing his hysterical, and with their encouragement he purposely exaggerates his dancing. Vienna calls it the bum shake. Here is Bristol trying to copy her dad's awesome moves

And here is Hudson copying Bristol's moves

Our lives

I take tons of pictures of the kids. Here are some of my favorites from the last little while. I am still trying to figure out our new camera so bear with me!

Hudson learned how to stand up in his highchair. He was so proud. I was so
terrified! 

He couldn't even finish lunch

We went swimming. Hudson was in no hurry to get in the water because
we had Cheetos with dinner

V Swims

B swims

By the end of the summer the girl's don't even need us in the pool with them!

 Tackling Dad when he gets home from school! Everyone's favorite part of the day - especially mine! :)

Alphabet Book: Letter L

L is for Ladybug:

V on the right and B on the left. 

I gave them 3 dots for each wing because we were doing the number 3 this week. But Bristol wanted hers to be different then Vienna's so she did 4 and 2 instead.

 L is for Lion:

Vienna left, Bristol Right

I originally planned to leaves for our Capital L. Or course, I gave the girl's the option and they chose the lion. I need to remember that if I let them choose they rarely choose what I 'want' them to choose. But, if I give them the choice I have to live with the choice.

Letter L collage page:

V right and B left.  

Vienna colored her Lls like her Hhs the week before. She made the capital L a horse and the lowercase l with hearts.

Week 3

Week 3 was the Letter Ll, the number 3, and Triangles. We actually didn't cover very many extra concepts this week because we didn't get school done everyday.

Hudson loves school and he can sort the colors! If he doesn't eat them first!

Cutting lines. Bristol is still doing big lines but Vienna graduated to skinnier lines. I was worried this would cause some tension because Bristol thinks she is just as big as Vienna. Luckily, she didn't seem bothered by Vienna doing smaller lines. Maybe I can start doing more things targeted to them specifically!

Working on triangles this week. Bristol's favorite shape because they have 3 sides and 3 corners and she is 3! Vienna begged to get a shape with four sides next week!

Finding triangles in the house

Drawing Triangles:

We also worked on sight words. When they know a word they get to punch it and put it on their ring. They love getting words! It is so hard for me to wait to punch them until they really know them. 

I was so excited to show Paul the words they knew the first day we did this.
He of course pointed out that one was "I" and the other was "a".
Leave it to him to be down to earth about it! :)

We also played the watermelon counting game. I put seeds on the top watermelon slice and the girls count them and then put a matching number on their slice. We did it with a timer to help them work faster. So fun!

Letter L

It was bound to happen eventually. Not only am I posting this a week late but we had a long week with school and we missed two days. We still finished our letter book crafts and our number and shape worksheets. We just skipped a lot of our extra concepts. Here is what we did for the Letter L.

Here are our Letter L sound pictures:

L is for Lizard:

V made a heart lizard - hard to see from the picture but she didn't want
a boy lizard so she added hearts.

We made hand print lambs for our craft. The girl's loved that their white crayon worked really good  on black paper and loved gluing on their cotton balls. These decorated the girl's magnet board for over a week - always a good sign!

Bristol's lamb

Vienna's lamb

We had to let the lamb's dry overnight which meant the picture didn't get taken until several days later - in case you were wondering why the girl's changed clothes mid craft. 

We also made punch letters again this week. It worked so much better because I knew how to make the page better.

B punching her Ls

V punching her Ls. Bristol testing to see if the pins really would poke her or
not - I am sure you can guess what happened next

Our shadow Lls! :) They worked!

Maybe not working hard but definitely playing hard! These are animals - Bristol is a bear and Vienna is a puppy...kind of! 

When school interferes with nap time!

Doesn't she do a great pathetic face? :)

The girl's also finished their  5 worksheets to practice writing their letters. They both thought writing Ll was SO EASY. Bristol said it was because she was "just really smart!"