Famous, Nerdy Boy, Bird Refuge, Dance Recital

Sometimes Aaron and I get a minute when all of our kids are playing nicely together.  We then overwhelmingly think to ourselves, "Wow they all belong to us!!  When and how did we get old enough to have five busy kids?!"  Even with all the craziness that five kiddos bring we wouldn't change our cute family for anything!!

Sarah got an alarm clock for Christmas.  Her friend had one so she just had to have one, too.  The only thing is the one that Santa brought is it is incredibly cheap which means it is very difficult to work.  I can't figure out how to set it without the instructions.  However, Sarah has figured out how to set both alarms for in the middle of the night.  I have tried to turn them off, but again in order to do anything with this stupid clock you need the instructions and a degree from Harvard.  I HATE this clock!!  I thought I had fixed the problem only to find Sarah was incredibly grumpy the next day and told me her clock kept beeping at her all night long.  She has been going on very little sleep because she insists on having the clock plugged in every night before she goes to bed.  So I plug it in and turn off the alarms (or so I think) only to have her come tell me again the next morning that her clock kept beeping all night.  I think the 'NOT ME' ghost will have to pay a visit and make that clock disappear one day in the very near future while she is at school.

Yesterday I was making bread and Noah LOVES it when I make bread.  No it is not because he likes to eat it, it is because he likes to play the drums on all my ingredient cans.  His preferred music to play his 'drums' to the oldies song Sugar Sugar by the Archies.  Rock on Buddy!

Here's a snippet of part of his actual drum performance along with some dancing:  

What a funny boy!

He has also been around the kids and their spelling words.  He thinks he has learned how to spell his name--'thinks' is the key word there.  He says, "M-O-A-H spells Bubba!"--according to Noah.  Don't try to correct him either because you will never win an argument against a 3 year old.  

His nickname is Bubba, but he thinks that is his real name as well.  The first week the new sunbeams were in primary the presidency had the Sunbeams each introduce themselves.  When it was Noah's turn he said, "I'm Bubba!"  The primary presidency didn't think they heard him correctly so they all looked at me.  I sheepishly said his name is Noah, but his nickname is Bubba. He's been called Bubba or Bubbas ever since he was a baby in the NICU because he was so much bigger than all the other babies.  The nickname just stuck.  Too bad all his siblings call him and introduce him as Bubba as well.  Maybe by preschool he will be able to introduce himself as Noah.  We will see :).

As for teaching Sunbeams--it will be an interesting year.  We have 9 in our class and 7 of them are active.  Two of them are REALLY wiggly during class and unfortunately one of them is mine.  Noah can be a little stinker in Sunbeams.  I don't know if he likes to be a stinker because I am the teacher or if he likes to be the stinker because he is a stinker.  Oh well he's not too bad so I hopefully can deal with it as the year progresses.  Also in church stuff I got a new calling in addition to primary.  I get to be on the Enrichment Board or relief society meeting planning board.  I got asked clear back in November and never heard anything about it afterward.  Well we had our first planning session Sunday after church.  It seems like it will be a fun calling/assignment.

 Saturday the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge was having a Huge Owl day event so we decided to go.  On the way in walking through the parking lot there were lots of snowpiles that Noah took advantage of.  In this picture he had a snowball in his hands that he was running with to throw at Aaron.  

When we walked in there were quite a few people there.  We first stopped at the stuffed bird station with the magnifying glass.  The kids all took turns looking at the feathers and reading about the birds.

Sarah's checking out the feathers with her magnifying glass.

 Noah thought if he used two magnifying glasses at the same time he could see better.

Next we got the awesome opportunity to dissect some owl pellets.  A pellet is the mass of undigested parts of a an owl's food that it can't digest (bones, fur, claws, etc.).  So before the owl needs to eat again, it regurgitates this pellet to make room for the new food it will be eating.  So by looking through the pellets you can see what the owl has been eating.  Aaron was pretty grossed out by this so he was more than willing to keep track of Noah while the rest of us were able to look through our sterilized owl pellets.  Josh was the first one to get started.  We found all kinds of bones mostly from a vole which is an animal like a mole.

 Here's half a skull from a vole we found:

 Then it was Daniel's turn.  Daniel got a HUGE pellet so we found lots of things.

 Sarah helped Josh finish looking through  his pellet.

 Matthew looked for a bit then quickly lost interest and went to help Aaron with Noah.

 Daniel and I found almost a complete vole skeleton in his pellet with a few extra vole skulls.  All in all I thought it was fascinating stuff, but Aaron and I have differing views on that.  That's why he's the Engineer and I am the nurse, I guess.

 They also had face painting.  You had to pick an owl to be painted after.  Josh, Daniel and Sarah were interested, but Matthew and Noah had no desire to get their face painted.

 Daniel the owl:

 Josh the owl:

 Sarah the owl:

 They had a glass corner where they had binoculars you could look for different birds.  Since this is a bird refuge they have a lot of land with lots of birds that migrate through during the year.  We didn't see too many, but the kids had fun looking for different birds.

 Matthew liked looking around at the pictures and displays talking about the different bird varieties.

 They also had a 1/2 mile nature trail you could take to try and see more birds.  Noah did not want to do this so he screamed the whole time we were on the walk.  Because he was so loud the only birds we saw were these three owls:

 They had more activities to do there, but Aaron HATES birds and has a little bit of a phobia about them.  I didn't realize about the phobia until were had only been there for about 60 minutes when Aaron said he was done.  I knew he has always hated the aviaries and such, but now I know why.  He told me he had seen enough bird stuff to last him a lifetime and then some.  So we left shortly after.  While we were there the local news station came out to tape some of the days' activities.  We didn't get interviewed, but we got to be in the background of quite a few scenes on the news.  Here's one shot of Sarah (pink coat), Daniel (back of his head), Josh (sitting at the table), and me bending over helping dissect Daniel's owl pellet.  Wahoo we are famous ;)!  Josh was so excited because this is the second time he's been on TV.  He wants everyone to know he will be around to sign autographs later, the goof!

 They did an interview of one of the workers and Aaron and Bubba were in the background, too.  Noah is on Aaron's shoulders.  This was before Aaron had had enough of the pellet dissection.

Yesterday was a busy day so when I found five minutes to sit down I was bombarded with Sarah and Noah needing lubs.  By holding still for two minutes Noah quickly fell asleep which trapped me there for a few minutes, but I wasn't complaining.  Sarah and I played around with the camera on my phone and then we watched a movie.  It is times like this that I will sorely miss when all my kids will be in all day school so I am trying to take advantage now ;).

 We have been having some issues on Sunday with getting ready for church and actual church behavior so we decided to have a family home evening lesson about it.  Meet nerdy boy:

Nerdy boy is a kid who doesn't have his tie on correctly, doesn't have his pockets tucked in, doesn't have his shirt buttoned up correctly, he has his pants tucked inside his sock, he doesn't have his pants zipped up, he doesn't have his shirt sleeves buttoned, he doesn't have his shoes tied or even on correctly, and he has mismatched socks on (all of which we sell all too frequently on our boys every Sunday morning ).  Aaron dressed up like this because he thought the kids would think it was funny to see him dressed like how they dress sometimes.  I also got dressed up in my skirt, but there's not too much you can get wrong wearing a skirt other than tucking it in your undies which I did.  After dressing up like this we walked out to a waiting couch full of kids.  They thought we were hilarious.  Then they helped us get dressed properly for church.  Then we had a demonstration of what's appropriate church behavior and what wasn't.  Aaron and I fought over a toy, we argued, we sat on books, etc.  The kids thought it was hilarious, but they also were the teachers to teach us what was ok and what wasn't.  It was a different kind of lesson.  The kids seemed to have fun with it, but we will see Sunday if anything sunk in.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.  We are also telling the kids not to be like 'Nerdy Boy!'

Sarah's dance recital was last night.  She was so excited for it until it was time to do her hair.  She HATES hot rollers, however, I bribed her with putting on make up if she let me put hot rollers in her hair.  She agreed.  I was so glad there were no tears this time!

 Here's my pretty girl all dolled up.  I am glad I got at least one girl to play dress up with!!

 The makeup was good bribery as well when it was on.  I had put some mascara on her and I told her after I put it on that she couldn't cry or she would make her face all black.  That worked great.  If she started getting upset I said, "Now Sarah, remember you can't cry!!"  and she could turn off the water works pretty fast.  Hmmmm-is she too young to wear mascara every day?!  Haha just joking!

G&G T came up for dinner then to come and see her performance.  With Sarah on stage the boys each got an adult to themselves.  However, Aaron and I were chopped liver because they all chose G&G T to sit by and waller.  Later in the performance Matthew even fell asleep on Grandpa's shoulder.

 Here's Sarah's first dance:  She is the only one with black dance shoes because I bought the wrong ones.  Whoops--however, it makes picking her out easier.

Here's the second dance:

Here's my pretty girl afterward with her roses.

 When we got home it was way past bedtime so Noah immediately grabbed his pillow and followed me around because he wanted lubs.  How can you resist a face like that?!

 I am a horrible flower arranger so don't judge me, but the roses are starting to bloom this morning.  They look so pretty!