Let Him Eat {more} Cake!

I made Leo a lion cake for his first birthday. I used a 4-inch bowl to bake the cake for the head and then surrounded it with cupcakes dipped in OREO crumbs for the mane. Pretty cute and clever if you ask me.

We have given all of our kids their own cake to eat play with destroy when they turn one. It is their first taste of cake and frosting. We ate the cupcakes and he got the 4" round.

Hyrum kept pretending to eat Leo's piece of cake - he never did take a bite, though. He started before he had even taken a bite of his own cupcake.

After 20 minutes of filming him, Leo finally dropped the whole thing on the floor. He was sufficiently done.

On the Monday after his birthday, he got to go to the doctor for his well-child exam and his vital statistics are:

Weight - 19 lbs 14 oz (10th percentile)
Length - 31 inches (90th percentile)
Head Circumference - 19 inches (90th percentile)

These stats fit in perfectly with the rest of the family: tall, slender, big head.

We filmed the destruction of the cake, then put it through some software to speed parts of it up 10x. The end result is 6 minutes of watching Leo. If I can ever figure out how to get it attached, I'll put it here.

Utah, Fortune Cookies and Spring Break

We traveled to Utah at the start of Spring Break to do some yard work at Ryan's parent's house. Shelly organized a family work day for Saturday morning and all of the siblings (except Meggan, who is on a mission with her parents) and some of the spouses and grandkids were there to help. Can you believe there were lots of cameras taking pictures, but NONE took a photo of the 6 siblings together?!?!? The pear trees, grape vines, clematis, bush cherries, last year's flower growth, leaves all had work done; many hands do make light work.

Ryan got hit in the left eye with a tree branch that he had just cut. It caused his vision to be blurry. Glen looked in it and couldn't see anything. Ryan called Genette's eye doctor, but the message service said that since he wasn't a patient, they were unable to do anything for him. We thought about taking him to the ER, but that didn't feel like the right thing to do. Daniel and Gene were able to give Ryan a Priesthood Blessing. I got to do the driving for the rest of the day and Ryan took it easy, keeping his left eye closed for most of the afternoon. [On Wednesday, Ryan went to see our eye doctor and was told that he came in at the right time, that the ER wouldn't have been able to do anything for him anyways, and that he had the starting of an infection, most likely a fungus from the live tree branch hitting him in the eye, so he got some prescription drops for that. His vision had cleared by Sunday and was able to drive us home.]
Saturday night we had plans with my mom to go to the BYU Museum of Art to see the Carl Bloch exhibit. It was beautiful. My favorite painting was "The Daughter of Jairus". The daughter is dead. The mother is sitting on the bed weeping. Christ is at the door with the dawning of the new day. I could feel the grief of the mother and it was heart-wrenching, but I knew there would be Joy in the Morning.
I am really glad that we took the time to go to the exhibit. We took all our children - Sabrina liked walking around with the rented iPad learning more about the paintings with her grandma. Her favorite painting was "Christ Blessing the Little Child, 1873". Ryan's favorite was "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane". Hyrum and Roderic most preferred the WWII cartoons on display downstairs. (Ryan spent most of his time down there with them as a result. They also had cool "Cowboy and Indian" paintings--quite a collection.)



On the drive home, Roderic called me to the back seat because he had tied the seat belt around his belly. He had wrapped the chest strap back around his body and back underneath, in a classic hitch--but he must have pulled it all of the way out during his experimentation that got him in this fix, because it was in the car-seat safety locked mode: it would not let any further belt out, and it was starting to cinch pretty tight around him. By the time he called me back, he had already unbuckled it to try to get it off. I sat by him for ten minutes trying to get it undone, while Ryan was still driving through the one of those few uninhabited portions of Idaho in between Sublet Road and the Burley areas. Then we stopped at the rest area and tried for another 20 minutes with Roderic screaming his head off because it hurt! Ryan ended up moving the suitcases and such from the trunk to the front seat (it was raining a bit), got out some tools (hurray for emergency preparedness!) and unattached the seat belt bolt. There was much rejoicing; how good it is to be free! Hopefully Roderic has learned his lesson about what the proper uses of seat belts are. Hyrum thought it was quite fascinating. He was exulting that Roderic had to take of his pants and his shirt (as Mom tried to get him to squeeze through.)

While Ryan was enjoying a delicious Dean-Larson-homemade pizza with the Deacon's Quorum on Wednesday night, we had stir fry and fortune cookies. Hyrum told his father when going to bed that they had read "the jokes" inside the cookies, and that the box said that you needed to just eat one fortune cookie a day. So we'd better eat one a day.

Roderic - Don't let others try to stop you from doing what is right. (Spot on! These fortune cookies must work!)
Sabrina - You will take a chance in the near future. (She is running in her first track meet this next week.)
Hyrum - News of an old sweetheart who still things much of you. (I don't understand what this is trying to say. And I didn't change spelling or order of the sentence. It really said "things" instead of "thinks".)
Me - Your dynamic eyes have attracted a secret admirer. (Must be Ryan.)

While the kids were out of school, I enrolled Roderic and Sabrina in swimming lessons at the YMCA. They had fun playing and swimming all week - Hyrum, Leo and I got to be in the kiddie pool during lessons. We also went to see the movie "Tangled" at the dollar theatre, played at Bodies in Motion, walked around Zoo Boise and did some yard work.

U-N-O

Has a year really passed?

Today we were at the YMCA for swimming, Julia Davis park for lunch, Zoo Boise to enjoy the spring weather and see some animals.

Happy Birthday Leo!

Brain Neurons and Life Long Learning

Last month our Relief Society held a Parenting class. The instructor was an experienced father and social worker who seeks truths (he's my Visiting Teacher's Dad). One of the things he shared with us is that human brains change over time. Neurons are connected and disconnected throughout our lives. A lot change as babies, adolescents and seniors - "it's like waking up with a whole new brain everyday"! This knowledge has allowed me to be more forgiving when dealing with my children when I expect them to know something that they've known before. Also he told us that when we have stress or anger, we lose our ability to be creative. And parenting requires creativity!


Leo has been displaying his neuron growth. For example, two Sundays ago, while the sacrament bread was being passed, he noticed that he was the only one in the chapel in our family that did not take a piece of bread. Oh the unfairness! He protested as it passed him by on our row and again as it passed him on the row behind us. I learned a lesson and this past Sunday he was not skipped (and was thus quiet).

I have taken life long learning to a new level in our home. Last July, I decided that since my children were not being taught at school the rhyme

"In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

and didn't know which happened first the Civil War or the Revolutionary War, I needed to educate them myself. I created a timeline and it hangs on our wall in the dining room.

It starts with 1440 with Gutenberg's printing press and goes through Leo's birth. I have included dates of importance (birthdays, anniversaries, temple dedications, when my parents got their first TV sets, MLK's "I have a Dream" speech, wars, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan). I have also put pictures of composers and the different periods of music.


The next idea came from Caitlin during 'Soup Day' at Summer's house. Do you read the cereal boxes at your house? All of us who can read do at our house. (We ALL know the story behind the creation of Honey Bunches of Oats!) I have now covered up the cereal boxes with things I want us to read/memorize. We've got math facts for Roderic (and Hyrum), the Beatitudes, the first 3 Articles of Faith, key signatures and other scriptures. Some of the papers are in sheet protectors and some aren't. All are attached to the boxes with masking tape. When one box is emptied, I move the page to another box. It has been fun to sit next to Hyrum at breakfast and hear him doing math.


In the study guide for the New Testament lesson 9, it has this idea for a family discussion:

Display a map. Ask family members how a map could help them plan a trip. If your family has recently taken a trip or will take one soon, discuss how a map was used or will be used on the trip. Explain that in our journey toward eternal life, the scriptures and the teachings of the living prophets are like a map, helping us know how to return to our Heavenly Father.

And I thought, what a great idea for giving out kids a visual of how much driving we'll be doing country we'll see this summer on our Epic Vacation. Roderic, Hyrum and Sabrina can all point to Boise on the map. They know where Layton is. And Roderic and Sabrina can point to New York. I'm thinking it would be fun to put pictures of family members on the map where they live and perhaps pictures of our vacation locations.

And look at this scripture I made for Hyrum.


He gets to read it during Primary on Sunday and I thought this was better than me just standing next to him whispering the words into his ear for him to repeat. We're working on it.

And Roderic is giving the talk in Primary, so last night I gave the FHE lesson on the POTATO method of giving a talk. I first heard of this method on keepapitchinin.org
Pray and Prepare
Opening on Topic
Tell Two or Three examples of the Topic
Answer why or how this matters
Testify
Over

100th Day of School and then President's Day

In First Grade they have all sorts of celebrations. Like Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, the 100th day of school, Valentine's Day, President's Day, Dr. Seuss' birthday.

100 seems like such a large number, especially to a 6 year old, so to celebrate the 100th Day of School, he got to do a worksheet to help grasp what 100 is.

I can eat 100 crums (crumbs). {Cookie and Cake crumbs preferably.}
I can hold 100 LEGO. {As long as they get put away afterwards.}
I can run 100 mils (miles). {Not all at once, though.}
But I would never want 100 pupees (puppies). {AMEN!}

For President's Day, he filled out a booklet on what he would do if he were president. The underlined words are Roderic's responses.

If I were President, the first thing I would do is mac lose (make laws).
If I were President, I would eat chickin (chicken).
If I were President, I would travel to Uootuoe (Utah).
If I were President, I would have a pet cat named Fluflee.
If I were President, I would pass a law that teflfoones (telephones).
If I were President, I would help Bagpaprs (Bagpipers).

Joy School

Hyrum is enrolled in our neighborhood Joy School. There are 5 other kids in the group, so I get to teach every 6 weeks. Last week was my turn and the lesson topic was The Joy of Spontaneous Delight. It was so much fun to teach! We blew bubbles in a cup with straws. We acted out "Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business" by Esphyr Slobodkina. We watched popcorn be popped without the lid on the hot air popper. We shook hands with a doorknob. We played with balloons. We learned the finger plays "Grandma's Glasses" and "5 Little Monkeys". We sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" with actions that each of the kids chose - bite your sleeve, jump up and down, run around the room, clap your hands.



I'm glad I am doing this with Hyrum. It is good for me to be a formal teacher for him. And it is helping me to see joy all around.

Missing Teeth

We now have a boy with a "Jack-o-lantern" smile at our house. Roderic's tooth has been loose for a while and last Thursday night it was really loose. I offered to pull it for him and he said he'd rather wait and pull it out at school so he could go see the nurse and get a small treasure chest to put the tooth in. Sure enough, Friday he came home from school with a tooth in a treasure chest. He pulled his tooth out right before lunch.