Tartan Walk-a-Thon...2012

Today the boys had their first ever walk-a-thon at their school. This is another activity/fundraiser tradition that the PTO has started at the school. All the kids were to gather pledges to help raise money for class field trips, fun assemblies, a tiger mascot, and items for the fall carnival. If they got more than $30 in pledges they got a Tartan water bottle, a dog tag necklace, and a Tartan walk-a-thon tee-shirt. My boys made sure they got all the prizes!

As a member of the PTO, I was able to go to all of the walk-a-thon, including the AM kindergarten session. Jaedyn was so excited to come with me, especially because her friend Molly was there. She even wore red, white, and blue to match the school colors...

We had music playing while all the kids were walking and it didn't take Jaedyn and Molly long to find Ms. Curth (Jantzen's kindergarten teacher last year) and walk with her...

In the afternoon we held the walk-a-thon with the rest of the school. We did each grade in different shifts and Jantzen's was first. When I found him walking he was a little grumpy. When I asked him why he said, "Cuz they won't let me run!". He cheered up quickly when his friend Jacob caught up with him, then he enjoyed the rest of his walking.

Jaron's grade was the last ones to come out and walk. We also had music playing for the older kids and I was using a friends pom poms to get the kids all excited to walk. As soon as I saw Jaron I started singing and dancing by him. As you can tell, he was very embarrassed by me, but I didn't care, I was having fun...

Whenever he came around by me, he would try to run away, but then he just gave up because I would chase him and tell him how much I loved him...his friends all laughed. That's okay, they all know me and know I'm just having fun. This is a picture of Jaron trying his hardest to ignore me...

Before the boys went back in to their classes, I was able to get a picture of me with them...and their happy smiles!

I had so much fun at this walk-a-thon and even though I embarrassed my kids a little, I know they had a good time too! I had several of the teachers and school staff tell me what a good idea this fundraiser was, so I'd say it was a success! It's too bad I won't have Jaron around next year to embarrass. I guess I'll just have to double up on embarrassing Jantzen!

"McTeacher's Night"

Tonight we took the kids to our local McDonald's for the "McTeacher's Night" school fundraiser. It's where the teachers from the school volunteer to work at McDonald's and the school gets a portion of the money that's spent while they're working. My kids were really excited to go because they LOVE McDonald's and they think it's fun to see their teachers working there. It's always crazy busy during this fundraiser, so we decided to go at the beginning so we could get a seat.

McDonald's is now sponsoring our school and they asked that we (the PTO) make a sign for the school to show off inside. We had very little notice to get something put together, so we put up a temporary sign. This is what we came up with...

I painted the tiger mascot for inside the school, but we decided to use it that night.

The boys enjoyed their food, as usual...

...then they went off to play with their friends. Jaron was a little bummed at first because none of his friends were there yet, so he just sat up in the play area...

Jantzen, on the other hand, had lots of friends there and had a blast playing with them. He mostly wrestled with JoseAlfredo...

...and followed Jaedyn around a little...

Jantzen took a little break from playing to get a drink, but quickly realized that his drink was all gone, so he tried to sneak some of Jaedyn's. She's too quick for him and she grabbed it from him. Lucky for him she's a nice sister and decided she'd share some of her drink with him.

Here's my Jantz being silly with a couple of his friends...(Sebastian, Jantz, JoseAlfredo)

Finally one of Jaron's really good friends (Ethan) showed up and then he was happy...

Here are some of the teachers that volunteered at "McTeacher Night"...

(Ms. Henderson, Mrs. Harvey-VP, Ms. MJ, Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Gonzales, Mrs. Braegger-P, Ms. Graham & Mrs. Bates, Mrs. McKoy & Mrs. Amor & Ms.Blake)

It was a fun night for my kids, a little tiring for Josh and I, but it was a good cause for the school.

Jantzen's Point of View...

The boys had "Junior Achievement" at their school this week. It's where they have several people that work in different professions come talk to them about different careers. They do different activities to help them learn a little bit about what it's like when they grow older and have to work.

Jantzen told me they had to draw a picture in class of what their moms or dads do for work. Since I don't work, he drew a picture of his dads work. He even labeled his dad (on the bottom left hand corner), so you know that he's not the one who's falling, calling for help...

I thought it was really cute!

Annual St. Patty's Day Breakfast

Today I woke up and made my kids our annual St. Patty's Day breakfast. Jantzen gets so excited every year for this because his favorite color is green. He's been talking about the green blueberry muffins for weeks now.

This year I added more to our breakfast, so we all got to enjoy green pancakes, green scrambled eggs, green blueberry muffins, and green milk all on green plates and cups. And, of course, we were all wearing green...

We all filled our tummies full of yummy food and lots of green food coloring (I hope our insides don't turn green too!). The rest of the day we spent hanging out together and then ended the night at Cafe Rio for dinner. I know, that's not an Irish thing, but it's our favorite place to eat and it was good!.

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY!

"Adults Only" Egg Hunt...

Tonight Josh and I attended an "Adults Only" Easter egg hunt with about 13 couples from our ward. Each couple had to fill 20 eggs with random things and it turned out that there were about 600 eggs total up for grabs.

We headed down to a park in the neighborhood where the eggs were hidden before the fun began. Josh and Kelly were up front, I think they were very eager to find some eggs...

After we were all told the rules, we headed out to find the eggs. This is pretty much what Josh did the whole time...didn't really look for many eggs while I searched and searched. He neglected to fill me in on our plan...to get the least amount of eggs (there was a prize for the most and least eggs collected), so I didn't give up looking.

He decided to sit and relax with Kelly while the rest of the eggs were found...

...so, I took a break too...with Mary...

Here's a group shot of all the couples after all the eggs were found...

We all headed back to the Nye's house. Mary, Natalie, and I hitched a ride in the back of Nate's truck for a fun ride back, it reminded me of being back in high school. We then all counted our eggs and got ready to open them and see what treasures awaited us.

Unfortunately Josh and I didn't get the most or least amount of eggs, so we didn't get one of the Easter basket prizes. We didn't get anything too crazy in our eggs either, but some of the couples there sure did.

There was a fun rule that states, "If you get something that can be worn, you have to wear it"...and they did! The Terry's got several pairs of thongs, and the Dustin's got a fancy bra and braid...

The Baird's got a fancy thong that came complete with a white pom pom ball on the end and lucky Cody got to wear an adult diaper...

There were also lots of other prizes, cash, gift cards, candy, and coupons from our hosts, but Josh and I didn't get any of the eggs that contained them. Oh well, maybe next year. At least we got in a lot of laughs!

Casualties of Fun...

What happens when you're on the trampoline with two other kids and an adult (Spencer)...

...you're probably going to get hurt! That's what happened to my poor little Jaron. He was having way too much fun flying in the air and then it happened, his knee hit his nose on the way down resulting in an injury.

Jaron came in the house freaking out and my first thought was that he had broken a bone, but it was just a massive bloody nose. Jaron's very emotional when he gets hurt, so he made a big deal about it. He went in the bathroom to try to get it to stop, but it was taking a lot longer than he thought it would. After being in there for a long time, I went to check on him. At first he didn't want me to see him. He tried his best to get me to go away, but I wouldn't.

He finally gave up trying to hide his face and accepted the fact that I was determined to get a picture of him with tissues stuffed up his nose...isn't he so cute!

Luckily for him his nose stopped bleeding and he said he was going to go back out on the trampoline, but I said no. His bloody nose was enough drama for the day for me!

Service Day

Today I had the opportunity to participate in another day of service with my ward. This time it was a local community park we were assigned to clean up and I was happy that I was able to bring part of my family with me and not be alone this time. Jantzen and Jaedyn joined me in the cleanup while Josh was at work and Jaron had stuff going on at school.

Jantzen was really excited to wear the yellow vests and some of his dad's gloves to clean up the park. I was happy and excited that he wasn't complaining about having to work like he does at home when I ask him to vacuum the floor.

We got a quick picture of the three of us by one of the city's trucks and then we were off to work (yes, Josh's gloves are a little big on me)...

Jantzen and Jaedyn quickly got to work with Jansen pulling weeds and putting them in a trash bag...

Jantzen's favorite part of cleaning was sweeping the sand off the playground. He worked really hard on it and did an awesome job!

Jaedyn eventually came over by me and helped pull weeds. She was so proud of herself every time she got one out...

Then, she tried out the trash picker-upper (word?). It was a little hard for her to maneuver, so she gave up on it pretty quickly...

Jaedyn decided she had worked pretty hard and therefore deserved a little play time with Emmy. Of course, her choice was to play in the rocks. I don't know why, but that girl LOVES to play with rocks. Maybe it's because there's too many in this town.

I love the show-off-the-diaper look she's sporting...

After playing with Emmy for a while, Jaedyn found her favorite boy...Casen! After that, I didn't get any more work out of her. She just wanted to play with him.

Jantzen and I worked for a couple hours before we had to leave and pick up Jaron and after we were all done, the kids got to enjoy some cold water and snacks.

It's such a nice feeling to give service to others and I'm so glad that part of my family got to share in it with me this time. I hope they learned how great it feels to give service to others. I hope next time my whole family will get to be there together.

"Tiger of the Month"

My little Jantzilla was chosen by his teacher this month to be the "Tiger of the Month" for always being helpful and volunteering in his classroom. One student from each class gets picked every month and he was so excited when he found out he had been chosen. He got a certificate, his picture taken (to be placed on the "Tiger of the Month" board for all the school to see), and a prize. He picked out a notepad so he could drawn more pictures.

When he came home from school he was so excited to tell his dad all about it. He stuck his certificate on the fridge and has been talking about it non-stop. I'm so proud of him for being such a good student. Keep up the good work buddy!!

"Late Night"

Last night my kids were invited over to the McKee's for a "late night". Mary told me that Casen was insisting that Jaedyn come too, he even promised to clean his room if she could come over, I thought that was really funny! Jaedyn was excited that she got invited too because it's normally just the boys that get to go. Josh and I decided to take advantage of not having any kids around, so we went out for a very peaceful dinner...it was nice!

Later I got a text from Mary saying that Jaedyn and Casen fell asleep in his bed. She took a picture for me...

...they are so peaceful, sweet, and innocent! I thought it was so cute, as long as this is the only time she sleeps in another boys bed!

"The Cat in the Hat"

This week my boys are celebrating reading week at school. Every day they've been able to dress a certain way they normally wouldn't get to on a regular school week. Yesterday they got to dress up as a favorite character in a story. I tried to get Jaron to dress as "Harry Potter" because he already has the costume and he loves those books, but he wouldn't. I guess being a 5th grader makes him too cool for stuff like that. Jantzen, on the other hand, loves to dress up. He decided to be "The Cat in the Hat" because he loves those books. I made a bow out of some scrap material I had and a hat out of paper. He already had white gloves and Jaron was nice and let him borrow some of his shirts. The one thing Jantzen wouldn't let me do was draw a nose and whiskers on his face. Other than that, I think he looked pretty good as "The Cat in the Hat"...

Jantzen told me all of his friends loved his costume and said he had fun wearing it all day.

"Blue and Gold"

Last night Jaron had his final "Blue and Gold" banquet as a Cub Scout (in August he'll be a Boy Scout). This year's theme was "Survivor". We were told that the dads had to help the boys make their cakes, but lets be honest, how many dads actually help make the cakes??? In our house I do it.

This time Jaron decided he wanted a camp fire cake, so I checked out Pinterest (I love that site) and I found a really cute idea that Jaron loved. I baked the four layers of chocolate cake and frosted them while Jaron was at school. When he got home I let him do the rest of the cake. First, he started with crushing up some Oreo's for the dirt. As you can see, he had a blast doing this...he's very animated sometimes!

Then Jaron sprinkled the Oreo's on the cake and added the wood (creme filled Pirouette Chocolate rolled wafers). Both Jaron and Jantzen had to test these wafers out to see if they were any good. I think by their faces that's a big YES!!

The last thing Jaron added to his cake was the flames. I made these out of butterscotch and cinnamon discs. I crushed them up, baked them in the oven, and then after they cooled I broke them apart.

I think his cake turned out pretty cool (you can't tell by the picture, but it was actually almost 10 inches tall) ...

I got a quick picture of Josh and Jaron together with the cake before we headed to the banquet...

At the banquet I got a picture of the rest of us together at the cake table...

For dinner we enjoyed a baked potato bar and salad. On the tables were mini marshmallows and toothpicks for the kids to make stuff with. My boys seemed a little more interested in creating things with the marshmallows than they did eating anything. Jantzen and Camden made "warriors" so they could fight each other...

Jaron ended up making a chair, a person, and a space shuttle (I thought this was the best one)...

Here's Jaedyn enjoying some "daddy time"...

There was a game in the back of the gym for the scouts to play with. They had to work together to hook a 2x4 with ropes. With so many of the boys yelling different directions all at once, it made it hard for them to complete, but they got pretty close before they gave up.

At the entrance there were some green crepe paper streamers hanging from the door and my sweet little angel decided it would be fun to tear them down. After the first piece she brought to me, I told her not to do it again. That didn't stop her. She ended up taking down a couple more pieces...what a little stinker!!

When Jaedyn wasn't tearing down the decorations, she was playing with her "boyfriend", Casen. I caught them under the table hugging each other...

After dinner was all over, each of the Cub Scout dens did a skit. I don't remember exactly what Jaron's was about because it was hard to hear them, but they did a lot of running and rolling around...it was pretty funny to watch...

While the rest of the dens did their skits, Jaedyn went over with Casen and Camden to try and hook the 2x4. It didn't work out so well for them, but they had fun trying...

After all the skits were done, it was time to hand out awards. Jaron received his "Webelos" badge (and pin that he had to put on me), his fitness pin, and handyman pin.

The last thing that was done at the "Blue and Gold" banquet were the awards for the cakes. Each boy was given an award for their cake, something that stood out most about it. Jaron's cake received the "Best 3D" cake award. The cakes were eaten for dessert and Jaron's went pretty fast!

Jaron had a blast at his last "Blue and Gold" banquet. I'm so proud of all that he's accomplished in such a short time as a Webelo. Now he's working on receiving his "Arrow of Light" award...Good Luck Jaron!!