Kindergarten Complete

We have completed kindergarten.  Above is a video of our year.  I need to take more video next year.  Kindergarten went really well and now I have a better idea of what I want to do differently next year. 

For kindergarten I purchased a complete curriculum since I still didn't know exactly what I was doing and knew that eventually I'd moved to piecing a curriculum together myself.  I planned all year to go ahead and buy Sonlight again for first grade but as we finished this year I decided I was ready to do it myself.  I've already bought everything for 1st grade (and saved a ton over buying Sonlight) and I'm almost finished writing up my own lesson plans for next year so everything will be set up and easy to do.  I'm really excited about teaching again already.



I got these Summer Bridge books for them to do over the summer, we just started today.  John was not happy when I told him I bought work for him to do during the summer but when he actually saw the activities he was excited and enjoyed it.





And since I have more time during the day we started preschool for Phoebe.  Together with a neighbor (who's just a couple months older than Phoebe) one hour on Mondays the kids go to the neighbor's and one hour on Wednesday the kids come over here.  So far it's going really well and Phoebe loves it.  She's starting to recognize letters and colors and is counting.  And her drawing skills have improved so much this past month.  She drew this face the other day, it's even better than her first one.

Aerospace Museum

On the way back from the dinosaur park we stopped at Hill Aerospace Museum.  We had never been and it's free so we thought we'd check it out.  There were tons of planes, way more than I expected.  Needless to say the boys loved it.

It was really hard to John to not touch though and he wanted so badly to get in them.  He kept asking "would that one hold six people?" "does that one have six seats?"  I finally figured out that he was looking for one that would fit our whole family.

And before we went inside where the nicer planes were I warned each kid individually "DO NOT TOUCH" a few minutes later I look and who's touching a plane?  Corey!  His excuse was I had forgot to remind him.

Dinosaur Park

We managed to make it to the dinosaur park today.  Despite a forcast of rain all weekend long it was okay today, just started raining tonight.  We went back in 2006 see this post for pictures of that trip, John and Bella have obviously grown a bit since then.

John was so excited and yelled "the dinosaur park!" as we pulled in, at which point Phoebe started crying "no, I don't want the dinosaur park."  She was freaked out in the beginning because inside the museum they have 4 animated dinosaurs that looked pretty real, but she was fine once we got outside where none of the dinosaurs move.  And we got a membership because one days admission for all of us was half the price of the membership.













They have a big playground with lots of dinosaurs to play on and slides and swings.  It was the kids favorite part.

























And this was done to compare, Corey did the exact same thing the last time we went.  The kids thought it was hilarious.

Just Pictures

I curled Hazel's hair for the first time yesterday.  I used to do Phoebe's all the time when she was little but never did Hazel's because I didn't think she would sit still quite as well as Phoebe did.  And she didn't but overall it went a lot better than I expected and wasn't really a challenge.  Phoebe now wants me to do hers too, I might try but I have little hope of it working because she throws a fit anytime I try to even brush her hair now.







And then we got this truck for John a couple weeks ago.  He still loves the cozy coupe car we have that my mom bought the kids when he was just a baby.  And now that Phoebe is big enough to be using the car they had started fighting over it.  And since Phoebe is still so little (and has so long to fit in it) and then we have Hazel right behind her I figured it was worth investing in another.  They are the biggest pain in the butt to put together but once you get them together they last forever and are totally worth it.

Bella's art

Bella LOVES to draw and she's really good at it.  I've never had to guess what her pictures are of because it's always so obvious.  I hope she keeps it up as she gets older.  I need to find an art class to enroll her in sometime.

Anyway this is the picture she drew tonight, no need to explain it.  I love the detail, especially the parrot.

The Zoo

Since we didn't make it to the zoo yesterday we went today.  Though the rain came back we decided to go anyway and it was still fun, not heavy rain just a light sprinkle.  We renewed our zoo membership so we can go more often now that it's warming up outside.

The new exhibit at the zoo right now is zoorassic park.  They have a bunch of dinosaurs throughout that move and make noise.  John LOVED them and Phoebe HATED them.  She was nervous when we saw the first one but did okay.  The second one however spit water and she freaked out and was terrified of every dinosaur she saw after that.





John and Bella love dinosaurs of course but I need to work on teaching them the real names.  Thanks to The Land Before Time they call them long necks, sharp tooths and three horns.  I tried teaching Bella t-rex and she thinks it's dinosaurs rex, which actually sounds right when she says it.





There's a dinosaur park about an hour north of us that we went to right after we moved to Utah, but John was only 8 months old then so he of course doesn't remember.  Maybe we'll go up there next weekend since I know he'll love it.  Phoebe however might not appreciate it.





And then Hazel went on her first carousel ride.  She was really nervous at first and just wanted to lay on me, but as soon as it started moving she got very excited and bounced up and down with joy.  Our zoo has the best carousel I've ever seen with so many different types of animals.  The kids love picking out what to sit on.  Phoebe chose an elephant, Bella sat on a kangaroo, John on a praying mantis and Hazel on a cheetah.  Bella had wanted to sit on the Okapi because she's really into them lately but it didn't move up and down so she went with the kangaroo.

Warmer Weather

It is finally warming up here.  Well it warmed up before but then last week it rained ALL week long and was gross.  And the week before all the kids got sick with a cold and Hazel had croup really bad so we've been stuck in the house the last two weeks.

Today the sun came out and the sky was perfectly blue.  So we went out and enjoyed it.  We had planned to go to the zoo but Corey wanted Krispy Kreme so we went to the one up north (since the zoo is north.)  When we got there we realized we were only one exit away from Antelope Island so we went there instead.  It was nice but there were a million cyclists everywhere which made driving around the island difficult, and the bugs at the beach were really bad so we didn't stay long.





We got this little balance bike for Phoebe.  She loves bikes and wants so badly to be able to ride John's old 12 inch bike.  But Phoebe is really small (off the charts small) so she doesn't even come close to being able to touch the ground on it.  This bike is 10 inches so she fits, and since the whole balance bike idea worked so great teaching John and Bella to ride I figure starting earlier will be even better.

She has a hard to balancing it upright even just walking it so I'm excited to see her improve.  I need to get a video so we can compare it later.  She had a blast going up and down the driveway saying "look at me, look at me!"  And she even took it around the corner to the mailbox.



And lastly Hazel, she's gotten pretty good at cruising but still wasn't walking while holding our hands.  Today I pulled out Phoebe's old push toy and set her up with it.  She took off and had fun going up and down the sidewalk.  I imagine she'll start walking sometime next month.  I'm not really in a rush to have her walking but I know she'll be much happier once she can get around better.  She's really not a very happy baby most of the time.

Her first picture

Lately Phoebe has really gotten into coloring.  I recently started doing some preschool with her and we're focusing on holding her crayon the right way and tracing lines.  Over the last week her "drawing" has started to improve and tonight in the tub she drew a face for the first time.  And it actually looks like a face.  I'm totally proud, if it was on paper I'd probably frame it.



And just a picture of her in her new Elmo shirt. I found it at Target and it is definitely the cutest Elmo shirt I've ever seen.