I Know, I Know. Stop Yelling Already!

I'm back from Blog Failures Anonymous. I haven't posted anything in a long time and I've missed a few birthdays, too.

So quickly, here you go.

Nathan, I love you, happy birthday!! I'm so grateful to have you in my life. You are awesome and you will always be my Samwise.

 Jeremy and Emma

There aren't a lot of times where they get along this well, so we had to take a picture to document the occasion. Jeremy was reading to Emma and both were enjoying it.

Star Bellied Sneetch Brownie Balls!

I finally found a tutorial for making these that is actually helpful! yay!

More Lincoln

cause he's cute :)

Megan's Birthday!!!

This deserves it's own post, but time isn't really something I've got right now. So here ya go.

This is what we did to her door while she slept

this is what we did to her floor while she slept

more decorations

Love you, Megan!!

In His Fifth Year . . .

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Wearing his nightshirt I made him and holding the Lego person he made at the Lego store.

I love the Dr. Seuss fabric line. I think I posted a picture of Emma with her birthday pillowcase I made, so here's Jeremy with his.

Cool clothes from Grandma Rosie

Remote Control Truck!

Wooden map of the U.S.

With all his loot

Jeremy wanted lava cakes for his birthday instead of a traditional birthday cake, which was just fine with me! He also picked out caramel and double chocolate Magnum ice cream bars :)

We love you, Jeremy! We hope you love being 5!

5 Fun Things About Jeremy: His favorite drink is water, he loves Legos, he loves to imagine new kinds of machines and then draw them, he can read but doesn't want anyone to know about it yet, and he is awesome!

Jeremy still gives the best hugs out of anyone I know. He's such a great big brother and he loves to play with Megan. He's almost always willing to play anything she wants to play and is so helpful with Lincoln. He was so patient while the girls and I did the musical, This is Kirtland! this summer. He even came to see the show a couple times and he paid attention!

The only thing this picture has to do with Jeremy's birthday is that it was taken on the same day, but look who's pulling himself up on everything!!

The next Einstein?

 Bye!

The Policially Correct Winter Program

This is the only picture I could get. I was trying to control Emma and console Lincoln at the same time.

Can I tell you how much I hate political correctness? It is the spawn of Satan.

Jeremy had his school's Winter Arts Festival today. It is supposed to be the equivalent to old school Christmas singing programs--except today kids are supposed to stand there and sing songs about building snowmen because snowmen are generic and safe.

We live in a neighborhood full of diversity. There are high concentrations of Jewish people and black people. This is awesome in my opinion. I think it's cool that the kids get to make friends with children who are different from them. Of course it was necessary to alter what was traditionally a Christmas program when we were kids, to something that would represent all the children who would be singing. This however was not done.

Every single song was about winter, Kwanzaa (which is a made up holiday people, it's like secretary's day or grandparents day; I know if I still allowed anonymous comments I'd get hammered here, but it's true), or Hanukkah. There was one winter song that mentioned December being a time for "Ho, Ho, Ho" and that was the extent of Christmas. The only mention was a reference to the commercialization of one of the most sacred holidays.  Excuse me? Really? While the words Hanukkah and Kwanza were repeated and even shouted at times through the entire program, the word Christmas was used maybe twice. 

I'm sorry, but I have a problem with this. Are they worried that the Jewish population will get upset if a small group of kids (that doesn't even need to include their kids if they want) sing Silent Night or Angles We Have Heard on High? Stupidity!! Do people really not see that "political correctness" has made our society stupider? On so many levels people are dumber because of political correctness. I could go on here, but it's a different topic.

Jeremy has no idea what Kwanzaa or Hanukkah are. No clue. He doesn't realize that the songs he sang today were in honor of those holidays. You'd think that if they were trying to have the kids understand the diversity of the songs they would be singing, that they'd bother to teach them something about the holidays. By the way, his class didn't sing the winter song that mentioned "Ho, Ho, Ho." The whole group did sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, which I also thought was ridiculous.

So in my frustration I wrote a letter to the principal explaining my disappointment. I'm sure it won't change a thing, but at least I feel better and know that I didn't just sit on my hands and ho-hum about it. And next time there's a winter program, I'm going to get involved before the day of the program.

Backtracking

I realized that I've missed quite a few posts, and a couple of them I feel bad about missing. Others are more of the "this is what's been going on" vibe.

So here's the first of the I-feel-bad-for-missing-this-post post.

Wahoo for Jeremy's First Day of Preschool 2010!

Jeremy is actually doing really well so far this year. I know we haven't even had a full week of school yet thanks to Labor Day and Rosh Hoshanah, but he seems excited to go, he's practically running into the classroom (instead of me shoving him in and then running away), and he's trying to be obedient to his teachers even when he doesn't want to. He's told me the names of a couple other students in his class and has even admitted to me that one of them is his friend (huge improvement since Jeremy doesn't really like other kids much). He's enjoying gym, where last year those days were almost impossible for him. I'm really proud of him and all the growth and improvement he's made. 

The second I-feel-bad-for-missing-this-post post is . . .

Happy 30th Birthday, Nathan! Congratulations on being old!

Yes, we celebrated Nathan's 30th birthday at the beginning of the month. While I think this birthday should mark the end of his teasing me and calling me old, it probably won't. Nathan wanted flan instead of a traditional birthday cake this year and lasagna for dinner. It was all quite tasty. Nathan is now one year closer to having his age make sense of all the gray in his hair. Don't worry about it! You know it will make your patients trust you more than those young'ins.

Jeremy & Emma

I had a friend take pictures of Jeremy and Emma for their birthdays. We'd gone to JC Penny for Emma's pictures, but they didn't turn out too great. I decided to ask Mary to do the pictures and I'm so glad I did!

We went up to Case University for the pictures. They have some amazing architecture, and despite the heat, the kids had fun and did pretty well. There were some pictures that I was afraid Mary wasn't quick enough for my rambunctious kids, like the first one of Emma, but yay! She clicked just in time!  

The Party!

Jeremy's 4th Birthday Party!!

We started off with a rousing game of Bed Bugs.

(Which Jeremy needed earmuffs for because the game is "too loud.")

Then we had the kids be exterminators and do a bug hunt! I made this little teepee, filled it with balloons and then "hid," plastic bugs beneath the balloons. One at a time we had the kids go in the tent with a butterfly net and search for bugs. We gave them each 15 seconds and then counted up how many bugs they caught.

The kids all wanted a turn blowing up balloons. It didn't matter that we had plenty for the teepee. 

The balloons ended up being a major source of entertainment,

from hitting them up in the air to taking their Capri Sun straws to them.

We also went outside to play for a bit, but forgot to bring the camera out. We tried to have the kids play bocce (pronounced bow-chay, not like the Star Wars language), but they were too interested in running around free and playing with other lawn toys.

Jeremy wanted a firefly cake. This was my best attempt.

I put neon green sprinkles on the butt of the bug to give the appearance of glowing :)

Waiting for the cake!

 

Happy Birthday Jeremy!

Don'tcha love how kids swarm together when one of them is opening a present?

This was Jeremy's first birthday party with friends and I think it was a success. The kids seemed to have fun and Jeremy is still flying high playing with his presents.

Thanks to everyone who came!

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Jeremy turned 4 yesterday. However, his behavior was such that we had to tell him he had to wait to turn four because the Birthday Committee thought he hadn't behaved well enough. Since I preside over the Committee for our chapter, it was true.


Today, thank goodness, he was much better behaved and so was allowed to officially turn 4 years old.

Here are a few pictures to document the occasion:)

This is what he called "The Biggest Smile Ever"

Months and months ago I found some hand puppets really cheap at Michael's Craft Store and bought some for the kids' birthdays. Emma got a little girl and a tiger for her birthday, 

Jeremy got a boy and a zebra. Here he is making it give me kisses.

Holdin' up his new shorts:)

Poor kid got mostly clothes and pajamas, good thing he's young enough to think that's cool.

This is his "Oooooh!" face. He was pretty excited about this one. Nathan bought him a bocce set. Jeremy learned to play bocce when we were in SLC in April. He played with his Grandpa Kent and just loved it.

Jeremy LOVES Hot Wheels cars and track sets. We found this one that has an elevator so he can get the race car to the top of the door all by himself.

We didn't do cake today since we're having a bigger party on Saturday with his friends which will include cake, but we had a special dinner (Dave Omer's Famous Dessert Crepes with my favorite Hershey's Dark Chocolate Syrup), and grasshopper flavored ice cream. I figured we'd keep with the bug theme that Jeremy asked for for his birthday. If you don't know--grasshopper flavor is mint and chocolate.  So after Saturday, I should have more birthday pictures to post; so be on the lookout, Grandmas!