Burnt Offerings, Recitals, Whoops, Owie, Wheezy Boy

Here's our comings and goings for the last 10 days:

Last Monday Aaron volunteered to teach an hour long class to the after school STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) program about the scientific method and how he uses it in his engineering work up on base.  The STEM class is offered to all 5th and 6th grade students who are interested in learning more about science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  It is offered after school twice a month until the end of the school year.  It is overseen by one of the teachers at the elementary school who gets volunteers in engineering, mathematics, scientists, etc. from the community to come and teach on different subjects.  Aaron chose the scientific method.  Monday afternoon I came along to help Aaron set up and to keep an eye on Sarah, Noah and Daniel while Aaron was teaching.  Aaron brought along the laptop, but the only backpack he could find to put it in was Sarah's old Cinderella backpack.  I am glad Aaron is secure enough in his masculinity to be able to walk around the elementary school wearing a Cinderella backpack :). 

 Aaron talked to the 60+ kids about his education and about his work on his old project the EFV (expeditionary fighting vehicle).  He also had the kids design their own way to get 30 marines from 30 miles offshore to 60 miles inland.  Some of the kids came up with some interesting designs.  Aaron was afraid he couldn't fill the full 60 minutes, but he did and kept everyone's attention, too.  He is glad teaching that class is over, but he got asked to teach it again at a different elementary school.  DOH!!  Oh well at least he has everything already prepared.

  Last week Josh and Matthew had their Christmas piano recital.  They did great.  It is fun to see them perform.  Josh went first:

 Matthew went next and was very enthusiastic in his introduction of himself and his song:

 Their piano teacher is a really neat person.  Despite fighting stage 4 cancer she is always upbeat and happy.  She loves music and teaching and it shows.  She has a ton of students and they all did fantastic:

The other morning all of us got quite a surprise awakening.  Sarah decided to get up early and fix herself some toast.  She unfortunately burned it which set off the house fire alarm.  That is not a pleasant way to wake up for sure!  Matthew HATES fire alarms and flipped out when he heard it go off.  It took a while to calm him down afterward.  Sarah ate most of her toast even though it was pretty burned. It looked like a burnt offering to me haha--MMMMMM yummy.

 Sarah came home from school the other day and was excited to show me her newly lost tooth.  She was trying to open a glue stick at school and knocked it out (it was already loose anyway).  I am just glad her teacher took care of it so I didn't have to.  I HATE teeth!!

She insisted on putting the tooth under her pillow instead of in our tooth jar.  The next morning she came out and said the Tooth Fairy had come and had brought $3!!  Josh and Daniel quickly looked right at me questioningly.  Then Daniel came over and whispered to me, "Why does she get $3 when we only get $1?"  Good question.  I will have to ask the Tooth Fairy that came that question.  He might need to recheck his wallet....Whoops!

Since she is missing quite a few teeth right now it is pretty funny to see her try and eat apples.  However, her and Noah seem to manage because they love their apples.  As soon as Sarah gets home from school she immediately goes over and eats an apple or two for a snack.  Since she is missing a quite a few teeth it takes her a bit longer to eat the apple, though. However, watching her provides some funny entertainment for the rest of us, though.  Noah loves his apples, too:

 

Wednesday Josh had his first unofficial violin concert.  It really wasn't a concert, though.  All the orchestra students went around the elementary school to 'carol'.  They played Jingle Bells.  Here's Josh waiting to start the song:

It sounds a bit rough, but the orchestra has over 60 students in it with only one teacher.  Some of the students have never had any music background either.  They also only have a 45 minute class twice a week.  Taking all that into account Jingle Bells doesn't sound to shabby after about 2 1/2 months of class.

Yesterday was quite a crazy morning for me.  The night before all the kids helped me get their teacher Christmas gifts ready which was some hand soap with a note from the kids.  When I had gotten the hand soaps they came with a cute bag to wrap the soap in.  Well that morning I first got Matthew ready with his soaps for his bus drivers, teacher and classroom aides.  He had a field trip in the community that day, too so we had to make sure he had his money and Christmas list.  He was going to Wendy's for lunch and then to Dollar Tree after to pick out Christmas gifts for our family and his secret santa student at school.  That was crazy getting him out the door on to the bus.  After he left I had to get the other four ready and myself since we all had places we need to go that morning.  I had to find Noah some matching pajamas since he was having a pajama party at preschool and actually needed normal looking pajamas instead of wearing one of Dad's shirts.  That took some time.  Then I had to help Sarah get dressed again since her first pick of clothes looked like she was homeless.  Then I had to pack school lunches for everyone.  Then I had to comb Sarah's hair, which took some time.  When it was time for Josh, Daniel and Sarah to leave for school Sarah couldn't find her teacher gift.  We looked everywhere, but couldn't find it.  She was pretty upset.  I told her we would take care of it the next day, but she didn't like that idea.  I quickly grabbed a hand soap, but I didn't have anymore cute bags to wrap it in.  I quickly wrote a note from Sarah, but I couldn't find our Scotch tape since Sarah had used all of it in making her books.  The only tape I could find was some blue painters tape.  Hey beggars can't be choosers so I taped Sarah's note on to the soap.  It looked pretty red necked, but I was hoping the teacher would look past the appearance of the red neck soap and see it's the thought that counts.  When I got finished with the soap I went to hand it to Sarah only to find she had already left for school.  Oh well.  I locked the front door and then I went and started warming up the shower and undressed to get in.  When I was stepping into the shower I heard the doorbell ring multiple times.  Awesome.  I quickly grabbed my bathrobe, put it on and went to see who was wringing my doorbell.  It was Sarah coming back for her teacher gift.  Doh!!  I tried to tell her just to wait until the next day, but she got pretty upset.  I gave up and grabbed the redneck soap with painters tape holding the note on it and sent it with Sarah to school for her teacher.  I hoped she liked her red necked gift.....I then got into the shower when the phone rang.  I finished showering and got out and listened to the voice mail.  It was the orthodontist's office calling to see why Josh and Matthew hadn't shown up for their appointment that morning.  Double DOH!!  I had completely spaced the boys appointment!  That's when this saying popped into my mind:

I am having a hard time keeping track of everything nowadays.  I don't know if I am just getting old and forgetful or if there is just a ton of things to remember with our 7 member family or both.....I knew they had appointments coming up, but I thought I still had a few days.  I called the office back and they could squeeze the boys in at about 10 am if I could bring them then, if not their next appointment wouldn't be until the second week in January.  Josh has had a wire sticking out and poking his lip so the sooner the appointment the better.  I told them I would bring them in at 10.  It was currently 8:50 am and I still had to get myself dressed, Noah dressed and to preschool by 9am.  It would be cutting it close, too, since Matthew was leaving on his field trip int he community at 10:30 and I was supposed to volunteer in Daniel's class at 10:40.  Anyway, I got Noah to preschool a few minutes late and then turned around to check out Josh and Matthew from school.  Matthew was in the  middle of art class so it took him a few minutes to come to the office.  He had made a clay bowl and the art teacher was letting Matthew eat some ice cream from it.  Needless to say Matthew wasn't thrilled to be checked out of school at that time.  Here's Matthew's fancy clay bowl:

I then went and checked Josh out of school.  We hurried over to the orthodontist's office.  Luckily, they were able to get both boys back at the same time.  They finished and I was able to have Matthew back at the school at 10:30 and Josh at 10:40 and I was able to volunteer at 10:40 as well.   It was a crazy morning!

Matthew loved going on his field trip and was excited to come home and show me the wrapped presents he picked out for all of us.  Because of that and the kids presents they have made at school we now have some wrapped presents under our tree (I am such a slacker and don't wrap anything until the last minute):

Boys will be boys....Noah and Daniel were wrestling on my bed this morning.  I was in the kitchen packing lunches when I heard Noah start crying and Daniel try to soothe him and tell him not to tell mom.  Hmmmmmm......Noah only cried for a minute and then was back to normal.  Noah came out and started eating breakfast and that's when I noticed a nice swollen black bruise by his eye.  I asked what had happened and Daniel told me.  They were wrestling and Noah hit the corner of my bed with his eye.  I didn't get mad, but wow that looks owie.  I think being kid #5 he's a pretty tough boy, though.  He's had 4 siblings to wrestle with and it has toughened him up.  Had this happened to anyone else there would have been much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

 Pour Noah has had a rough week anyway.  We have had to stay home since Monday because he's had croup.  Blah.  He finally felt well enough to go to preschool yesterday.  However, he has now spread the wealth and Daniel has a cold and his currently having an asthma flair up.  We had to break out the nebulizer last night/ early this morning to help with the wheezing. DOH!!  Hopefully, we can get it under control and not have to see the doctor.  I sent him to school with his inhaler today so hopefully he won't have a problem....

Yesterday Daniel got to build a gingerbread house at school.  Unfortunately, right after he brought it home he dropped it and it broke into pieces.  Poor guy.  He was bummed, but what can you do?!  Here's his gingerbread house after an intense earthquake--haha:

 Aaron needed some work gifts so he asked me to make some Mt. Dew and Coca-Cola jelly.  I made these one afternoon:

The next morning I was a little perturbed that Josh had opened one of them to eat on his toast for breakfast.  That's when I found this comic to applicable:

Oh well what can you do?!

The other night for dinner we had some dirty rice and corn.  With all five kids we have never had a problem with anyone sticking food up their nose until then.  Noah thought he'd try it out.  Before I could stop him he had a kernel of corn stuffed pretty high in his nostril.  He kept trying to pick it back out, but was unsuccessful.  I walked over to get a tissue to help him blow his nose.  He did not like the way if felt in his nose:

I had him blow his nose and thankfully it shot right back out.  It was quite disgusting.  Hopefully he won't ever do that again because it was really gross!

I love seeing all the cute crafts the kids have made at school.  Sarah made me this cute stocking note:

 The inside says, "to Mom I love [you]. I rily (really) like when you help with my hoamwork (homework)!  by Sarah".

 Josh loves cooking.  During his library time at school this week he decided to check out this beauty of a book. YUCK!!  Josh and I have yet to make a recipe from it, but Josh keeps asking....

 Daniel made this in art:

 I think Aaron has successfully brainwashed Daniel!!

Matthew made these ornaments:

  Last of all I got a feel good postcard from Locks of Love saying they had gotten my hair.  Glad I could donate!