Reality Bites

I'm debating the reasons to even update this blog anymore. I am leaning towards gigantic waste of time and here's why... Blogs make life appear perfect and happy ALL THE TIME when the truth is, LIFE IS NOT HAPPY ALL THE TIME! And I don't for one minute believe that people would care to hear about what's REALLY going on in my life, apart from the happy memories I normally post on here. Like Baseball and Football season was fun, Drew's piano recital was nice, Will broke his arm, Jeff coached Will's baseball team, the boys participated in a fabulous dance festival at their school... all of these things I have photos of, of course... but the truth is while all this has been going on, I've been suffering from a major depression and cannot bear to pretend that my life is as beautiful and perfect as it seems. In fact, I think the pressure of polishing my life for a blog is adding to my depression. Life is long. Life is boring. Life falls below our expectations. I'm just going to focus on surviving and smiling and am not going to blog anymore. Oh blah de oh blah da, life goes on!

Kryptonite

So just incase any of you have wondered what has become of us since my last post over a month ago, I have been teaching full-time again at the middle school (this time I'm teaching English). Teaching is officially the kryptonite to my Super-Mom abilities. Which I'm not completely certain is a bad thing. I'm actually enjoying the break from attempting to be the best at everything and am enjoying being "normal".

But I've been checking back from time to time to read your blogs... so keep up the great work!

A Valentine's Story...

I just got these pics today and I just had to blog them. I was in charge of planning Will's class Valentine's Day party this year and I was lucky enough to find two volunteers who were willing to act out a little play for the students as part of the party. The book is called "Falling for Rapunzel" by Leah Wilcox and it's about a hearing-impaired Rapunzel who throws down everything BUT her hair for her prince charming...

The cast:
Rapunzel, her maid (that's me) and prince charming (that's Jeff)


The story:
"Once upon a bad hair day, a prince rode up Rapunzel's way."

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, throw down your hair!"












"She thought he said, 'Your underwear.'"

The kids all roared with laughter as she tossed out her underwear and they landed on Jeff's head.



"No, Rapunzel, Your curly locks!... your silky tresses!..."

"Rapunzel threw down dirty socks... silky dresses..."


The prince says "Rapunzel, do you have a rope?"

"Rapunzel dropped a cantaloupe."



That's Rapunzel's daughter who caught the cantaloupe.



"O.K. Rapunzel, how 'bout twine?... or a ladder?"



"She heaved out her blue-ribbon swine." Followed by pancake batter!

For his final try he shouts: "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your BRAID!"

"Confused Rapunzel pushed out her maid."





"The maid fell squarely on the prince, quite pleased with the coincidence.

Then smiling said, "For what it's worth, you'll find I'm really down to earth."

His young hearth thrilled, he gave a hoot, for what was more, the maid was cute!"

The prince and the maid rode off together and lived happily ever after.

The maid concludes the story saying, "I fell for you when we first met." The prince replies, "How could I forget?"

THE END

I truly mean it when I say that I could NEVER have asked for a better Valentine! The fact that Jeff was willing to act this out with me, and that he really got into it, doing the most hilarious prince charming voice EVER, is better than flowers or chocolates! I'm so thankful for my Valentine!! And Will's class thought it was awesome too! (Also, notice the principal in the background of some of the pics... he actually stopped by just to watch the show. Very cool!)

Kid's Marketplace

Drew's 3rd grade class went on an awesome learning adventure this week that we (me, Jeff & my mom) were so fortunate to be a part of. It's called Kid's Marketplace and it's meant to be a tool to introduce the skills required for money management and it was SOOO cool! Each student was randomly given a job and an amount they made each month (Drew was a fire fighter who made $200). They had a list of expenses that they would incur each month that they had to budget for; things like housing, clothing, food, and fun, among many others. Each student got to make choices on what they would spend their money on and in what order, but they had to go to every possible table at least once. It was really interesting to see where each student went first. Mom has helped out many times in the middle schools doing a similar activity called "Reality Town" and she said the major difference between the 3rd graders and the 9th graders is that the 9th graders first choice to spend their money was always the sports car, where the 3rd graders all high-tailed it to buy a pet! They'd settle for a bike and a room mate if it meant they could have a horse!

Jeff and I manned the real-estate table. Notice the cool Lego house and family decorating our table; Drew and I spent the evening building it (well actually I just searched for the right color and type of Lego, and he built it... Will helped with the landscaping and family). We had several offers from the students to purchase it, but we had to turn them down:) Here are some other observations that I made that really made an impression on me:

1. There were many other parents volunteering at this activity as well. What was interesting was the way the kids took advice from their parents. One girl yelled at her mom "It's my choice! Don't tell me what to do next!" while others were constantly checking back for advice... It's clear to see the analogy with this scenario and life. (Drew was one who was more than willing to take our advice which made me happy.)
2. Some kids thought that they had to spend all the money in their envelope so they were going around to the tables buying extra houses and cars just to spend it. Others were content that their needs were met and that they had a little spending money left over. (Again, Drew was the latter; he really wanted to keep his money! Although it is funny to note the areas where he skimped a bit and the areas where he splurged; he went easy on furniture, healthcare and food, but bought the most expensive clothes, a bunny and a motorcycle.)
3. Some kids didn't quite grasp the concept that the things they were required to pay for were adult needs that needed to be met. One kid got angry at me and said "Why are you all trying to take my money?" He didn't quite get the reason that he needed a house... guess he thought he'd live with his parents his whole life? (I think I know some adults who still haven't grasped that concept.)
   

Overall I think it was such a rewarding experience for these kids! I bet they'll remember this activity for a LONG time! A lot longer than if a teacher had stood at the front of the classroom and simply explained economics. What a treat for these kids! And you know me, I'm such a sucker for an awesome learning experience, I was on cloud 9 all day long just remembering how fun it was! I'm such a nerd!

Drew's 9th Birthday!

For Drew's Birthday party this year he decided he wanted to have a huge party where he could invite all his friends & family to come and play and be crazy and there's no better place to do that than at Bouncin' Off the Walls. It's this great place with a bunch of inflatable slides and bounce houses with plenty of space for craziness.

He chose a Star Wars theme (but you don't really get a theme at this place, other than your cake and goody bags) so it was basically just total mayhem. He invited his entire basketball team as well as friends from school, old friends he hasn't seen in a while and all his cousins too.
Here's a fraction of the group...
















With this big of a group of kids comes this big of a pile of presents... 90% of them were LEGO's so of course he was in HEAVEN!


We decided not to go the LEGO route (which is always a tricky thing... you never know if he'll like the present you got him as much as he would if we had just gone with LEGO's, but seriously, the kid has more LEGO's than we know what to do with!)... so we got him an acoustic guitar and a book to teach yourself how to play. I promised him years ago that if he took piano first and really learned how to play well, then we'd get him a guitar and lessons (I told him every really good rock star learns the piano first). Well, he's been doing great at piano, but we still think he has a few years of it to go before graduating to guitar lessons. But we still thought the guitar would be a good thing in the meantime. He seemed happy with it and looks darn cute playing it.


The day of his actual birthday we went out to dinner at Olive Garden with Grandma & Grandpa Peterson and my nephew Devon. It's always fun to go out to dinner with the grandfolks:)

Also, in his class at school he was the "Super Star" for the week of his birthday so we made a fun poster all about him to display in his class. Then on Friday Jeff, Will & I went in and read his favorite book to the class and played a game of "All about Drew BINGO". It was really fun. I made a BINGO card full of fun facts about Drew with his photo in the middle as the free space. We went through it as a class and anyone who shared the fact in common with Drew got to place and "X" on that space. It was fun for everyone to see how much they had in common with him. All in all I think all in all he had a great birthday!

Drew is such a joy in our lives! He's smart, creative, thoughtful, happy and so much fun to spend time with. I am proud and honored to be his mom! Happy Birthday Drew! We love you!

Winter Sports

Who says there's nothing to do in the Winter? Here's a bunch of stuff that's been keeping us busy these cold winter days:

Gymnastics: The boys both graduated for the last time from the Little Gym program (Will has been going since he was 14 months old...). They had their final performance in January and have officially out-grown the Little Gym.


Tubing: We took the boys to this cool tubing place near Park City. There's a "tube-lift" where it pulled us up the hill on our tubes, taking away any possibility of us getting any actual "physical" activity out of the adventure. It was WAY fun and going up the hill was almost as much fun as going down it!

We all held on to each others tubes and the guys who work there spun us as they shoved us down the hill so we really got twisting as we were going down. It was super fun!

Bowling: I signed the boys up for "off-track" bowling since they had the whole month of January off school (gotta love year-round school).
They loved it and on the last day they had a tournament where Will won first place out of his table group so he got to take a bowling pin home! Joy!! (Now they each have one... Drew won one too when he was Will's age.)

Basketball: They've both been playing Jr. Jazz this season and they are both doing awesome! Drew has all his buddies from school on his team and he's really getting good! They were struggling as a team at first, but now they're on a winning streak! Will and his team are hilarious to watch! Will gets right in there and takes the ball and dribbles it across the court and makes baskets all the time! It's amazing! (Granted he double dribbles, travels and breaks many a rule on his way, but he's still up in there playing and getting excited about it so that's all I care about.)

Things that are cool...

I just thought it would be fun to not only update on what our fam has been up to lately, but to make a list of the cool things we're enjoying right now... I think a few of you who read this might find it interesting for your kids who are the same age... So here goes:

1) The Library - I think this is one of my favorite aspects of our democratic government! First of all I LOVE to read and learn new things so I'm constantly finding new books I want to read and some I love so much I decide I want to buy them. So I here's how I work it: I look on Amazon.com for the book I'm interested in and then they give me a list of several book suggestions that are similar to the one I was researching. I write down the titles and get on the library website and put them on hold. Then the library emails me when my books are ready and I go pick them up. It's awesome! I bet I make trips to the library 3-4 times a week. I get to try the book for free!! How cool is that!

2) Mary Pope Osborne (the author of the Magic Treehouse series) - I love the way this woman writes! If you haven't discovered her historical fiction for kids, you need to check them out! Then you can branch out to some of her other works... Our favorite right now is her "Tales from the Odyssey" series. If these books had existed when I was in college I would have enjoyed reading Homer's Odyssey so much more!! We've been reading several chapters together every night and we are all loving the adventures! These stories have had such an influence on modern literature and it's wonderful to be able to read them together and have them make so much sense to the boys.

3) Family Dinner Monday - Friday (courtesy of Jeff's new work schedule for 2010) - For the first time since Jeff's worked for the FAA, we've been able to have dinner together every school night! I've always had a sit-down family dinner with the boys, but Jeff has always had to work. But since January that's all changed and I'm so thankful! Now he works Saturday and Sunday nights only, leaving the week night for us! We are all so happy!! This is where we all touch base and talk about our days and discuss what's going on in each of our lives. Every time I see one of those Swanson TV Dinner commercials where they talk about how important family dinner is and they say something like "kids who eat family dinners every night are less likely to do drugs" or something like that, I just start feeling all smug because WE DO! So hopefully it will do all the things for our family that the commercials say it will:)

4) The Rhyming game - One of my favorite things to do is sit and snuggle with my boys but they don't always want to sit still to talk, and sometimes we run out of things to talk about... so the rhyming game is the solution to this little dilemma. After I pick up Will from school, we always snuggle on the couch and talk about his day, and when that's finished (usually about 3 minutes later) we play the rhyming game where one of us says a word and the other has to say a word that rhymes with it. It's so simple but this can last for a LONG time which means a LONG snuggle time-- Score! Sometimes we'll shake things up and make it the opposite game instead. But either way, I'm happy because we're snuggling:)

And that's what's cool in our life right now:) Now seriously, go check out the Mary Pope Osborne books if you haven't already!