Last week Aaron was asked by Daniel's teacher to do a presentation about how he uses math in his every day work. Aaron was a little intimidated, but did great. 20 minutes with a bunch of 3rd graders can be daunting--haha! Noah and I came along for some moral support, but again, Aaron did great. He talked about his work on the amphibious tank and also his current support of the F-16 jets. Daniel was excited to have Aaron come to his class.
Two Saturdays ago Matthew and Josh's piano teacher had a huge fundraiser held in her honor. She has stage four cancer and has been fighting it for awhile. She is an amazing person so we wanted to help out. I volunteered to make 18 loaves of bread to donate to the bake sale. I had to have them baked and delivered Friday night. Unfortunately, our family was all out of bread, too, so what was only supposed to be 18 loaves baked ended up being 36 loaves since our family needed our own 18 loaves, too. DOH!! When they were all done they covered a big chunk of my kitchen counter!! I was a baking maniac that day--haha! The house smelled so yummy, but it was hard to keep the kids from snatching the bread to eat.
Friday night was Ladies Night. It is always a nice night and break from kids. I love my kids, but an occasional break is a good thing for me. We had fun visiting and making different food items to share. I brought a Confetti Salad which was pretty good. My kids are not a fan of that particular salad so I only make it when others can help me eat it :).
The next morning was the day of the fundraiser. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate very well. It ended up being rainy all morning long. We decided to head over late morning to check things out and to see what goodies were left. There was nothing. There was an incredible turn out to the fundraiser and everything was gone. There were donations of all kinds--spa giveaways, a finished basement giveaway, etc. It was such a neat thing to see the whole community come together to help her out. We got to the fundraiser just in time for the balloon release. Everyone was given a purple balloon and gathered together in the grass. We sang a few primary songs and then released the balloons. Here we are waiting for everyone to get their balloons:
It was amazing to watch--although my eyes were teary from the primary songs.
Since the rest of the Saturday was rainy we decided to right a grievous wrong--our kids had never seen the Star Wars movies. We had a Star Wars marathon the rest of the day. We didn't get through all the movies, but got a good start on them. I can't believe it has taken us this long to watch them!! Even though they were so 'old' (Josh's words), the kids still enjoyed them.
Last week was a crazy busy week for us! Monday we had tickets for the Payson Temple open house. Since the only time we could get for our family was at noon, we just let the kids have the day off from school that day. The drive down to Payson was about 90-100 minutes just by itself one way. The kids have pretty great attendance so one day missed wasn't going to be so bad. Luckily G&G T were able to come along with us. When we got to our time we started out watching the movie about temples in the nearby church and then we headed over to the temple to walk through it.
You can't take pictures inside the temple, but it was so beautiful. The kids have been really lucky in being able to walk through a few temple open houses in the last few years! We did take a few pictures outside the temple when our tour was done, though.
It really is a beautiful temple. We were glad we were able to go.
Tuesday morning Josh had his annual physical appointment with the pediatrician. Josh is officially taller than Matthew at this point by 1/2 inch. He also weighs 107.8 pounds. He is getting so tall. Josh wanted to prove he was taller so we had to get out the level to prove it.
Since this physical also counted as his scout camp physical, too, they had to do a hernia check. Josh has never had one of those before. Luckily, Aaron and I were able to explain what was going to happen before it did. Aaron had no idea about hernia checks when he was Josh's age so when the doctor checked Aaron, Aaron was quite surprised to say the least. Even with us warning Josh, he still did not like it AT ALL! Oh well it is just one of those necessary evils in life. I just told him to be glad he wasn't a woman because their checks are a lot worse!! After reading through the Scout Physical form, there is a question about having a seizure within the last year. The doctor told us that since Josh has had a few seizures within the last year, they might restrict his activities up at camp, but to check with the camp director to make sure. Hearing this really seemed to upset Josh. I felt horrible for him. On the way home from the appointment I talked to Aaron and told him about it. Aaron decided to contact the Camp director to see what he said about it. Luckily, the camp director listened to the situation and said that as long as Josh's seizures are controlled (which they are for now and Josh really only has seizures at night) and that we as parents are ok with all the camp activities there wouldn't be any restrictions on Josh. We were all glad to hear that. It also helps that Aaron will be able to go up to Camp for a few days with Josh, too. I hate seeing your kid have a hard time with something you can't help him with!! Sometimes life just isn't fair!
Tuesday night was supposed to be baseball, but it got cancelled since there has been so much rain lately. It's been crazy!
Wednesday morning Sarah had an all day field trip to the zoo that I got to chaperon. As we were all getting ready for the day that morning, Daniel bit in to his breakfast and then fished out a 'rock' which ended up being his tooth. He hadn't told anyone it was that loose because he wanted to surprise us all. He surprised me most of all because he just put this bloody tooth in my hand without telling me what it was first. Ewwww!! I HATE teeth and think that anything about them are gross. However, Daniel thought he was hilarious by putting his tooth in my hand. I was not amused....
After getting over the tooth drama I went on the zoo field trip with the first grade. I was in charge of four girls which ended up being a lot harder than I thought it would be. We got to see lots of neat things. Here was a peacock with all his feathers out. He was walking around squawking at everyone, too.
The girls' favorite were the elephants.
After seeing all the animals at the zoo we met up with all the other first graders at the entrance where there was a fountain. I don't know what it is about water or getting wet, but all kids love it. By the time we were leaving all the kids were soaked.
Sarah and I did get to sneak away to see this lady's bird. There was no one around her so we got to get pretty close to the bird. It was interesting to hear her tell us about the bird.
The zoo trip was fun and I was glad I was able to go along. The next day Sarah came home with this for me and Grandma T to say thanks for volunteering this year. As you can see from the orange spots Sarah had eaten some Cheetos right before she gave it to me. Her teacher was so sweet!
Her teacher also had all the kids in her class write us thank you notes for reading with them and for chaperoning the zoo field trip. The notes were so sweet!
The next morning was Noah's last day of preschool. They had a water day despite the temperature only being in the 60s. Brrrr! I didn't have time to look for Noah's swimming suit that morning so I sent him in comfy clothes that could get wet. However, Noah refused to get in the water at all since he wasn't wearing his swimming suit. He spent the whole 2 1/2 hours just sitting on his towel because he didn't feel he could get wet since he wasn't wearing his swimming suit. What a stinker!! His teacher had a lot of fun activities set up to play with, but Noah didn't do a whole lot with them. Here he is sitting in the back corner on his towel.
When I picked Noah up he gave me a tongue lashing for not sending him in his swimming suit.
When I got home from picking Noah up from preschool I got a call from the school. I HATE calls from the school. Daniel had fallen in recess and at PE and hit his head. He said he had headache and needed to come home. I went and picked him up and as soon as I brought him home, I got another call from the school. This time it was from Matthew's teacher telling me his eyes were swollen and his allergies were bothering him pretty badly. They had gone on a walking field trip and it didn't quite agree with Matthew. DOH!! I had to load everyone back up in the care and go over to give Matthew an allergy pill and eye drops. Can you see why I HATE getting calls from the school?! Luckily, it wasn't anything too bad this time! Phew!
That night it was preschool graduation. This picture sums up a lot of Noah's personality:
I asked him to smile and he started being really goofy. He got better when the program actually started, though. He lead the Pledge of Allegiance:
He also got to be one of the five little speckled frogs for his part of the program. He was pretty cute in my biased opinion:
They also sang their goodbye song which was a little sad.
Afterward I wanted to get a picture of Teacher Sara and Teacher Grandma, but could only get Teacher Grandma. Noah LOVED Teacher Grandma. Noah was being Noah and this was the best ungoofy picture I could get from him:
It made me a little sad to think that that would be the very last preschool graduation we will ever go to with my own kids :(. They grow up too fast! We were glad G&G T and G&G M were able to come to the graduation with us, though.
Noah got a 'diploma' however, it said his name was Noah Terry instead of Mancil. Aaron looked at me and kiddingly said, "Do you have anything you need to tell me?" Haha Aaron! Noah also got his ABC book at graduation that showed all the letters they had learned about throughout the year.
Being a typical boy Noah's favorite letter page was 'U' because it had underwear on it.
Friday day the Girl's Camp Director, Young Women President and I went to check out the campsite for this years girls camp. It makes things easier to plan after seeing what the actual place looks like. I am so glad the Camp Director and I work so well together. It will make planning this years camp a little easier! The closer camp gets, the more crazy things seem to be getting! Good thing there is almost two whole months left to plan....
Friday night Aaron and I were able to go out on a date because G&G M offered to watch the kids for us. Wahoo!! It was nice to have some uninterrupted adult conversation over dinner. It was nice to have some time together, too. Things have been pretty busy lately, so it seems like Aaron and I have to divide and conquer quite a bit. It was a nice date.
Saturday was so rainy that we really couldn't do a lot. We had another movie marathon--Harry Potter. Josh and Daniel really loved it since they have read the books.
Monday was Memorial Day. Aaron got up with Josh, Matthew and Daniel and helped put up flags in yards for the scout fundraiser. When they were done we headed over to Lagoon for a fun family day. It was a really busy day so we only stayed for a few hours before we left. We had a lot of fun in those few hours, though.
In the last hour of our visit we decided to ride Rattlesnake Rapids. It's a ride that you get wet on. Matthew rode it once and then absolutely refused to ride it again. I stayed out with Matthew, Sarah and Noah while Aaron rode it again with Josh and Daniel. I was able to get a picture of them on the ride as they came by us:
All of us were pretty soaked by the end so we came home. We then had a BBQ with G&G T. The kids were really excited to see them come over:
The weather was nice enough we were able to eat outside:
It was a fun weekend.
We got our garden in finally. This year we decided to try something new--strawberries. Noah is excited because he LOVES strawberries. The plants we got from the nursery already had a few small strawberries on them, but they didn't last too long before Noah picked them all off and ate them. What a crazy kid!
