Happy Birthday Nat!

8 years ago this adorable blue eyed, brown haired, freckle faced girl joined our family! We love you Nat! (I love Sarah passed out in the background.)

Twilight loves birthdays too - she always loves the boxes and bags to hide in!

Natalie passed out donuts with sprinkles to her class and, of course, I brought her a balloon. (o:


The girls' school has a good set up for lunch visitors. They have a separate table the kids can go to with visitors and they can choose 2-3 friends to come along too. We had a fun lunch all together since Sarah has her lunch at close to the same time as Natalie.

Isn't this such a Natalie shirt? It looked so cute on her for her birthday outfit.

School Projects

For the big second grade project in Natalie's class, her teacher wanted them to do a Great Brain report. The kids had to pick any topic they wanted and read a minimum of 5 hours on their subject. Natalie picked cats for her topic. We got lots of library books, DVDs, magazines and studied them for weeks. She made a binder to keep track of all the things she learned. She filled it with pictures, facts about cats, drawings of our cat, journal entries, etc. It was quite a project. Then she had to do a presentation on all she learned for her class. She really did a fabulous job and she scored a "Genius" grade. (O: I have enjoyed all the creative assignments her teacher assigned this year. They really challenged Natalie, but had such a fun and creative twist that Nat enjoyed using her artistic side to do her homework.

Natalie glued on some items that cats like to play with. Sure enough - Twilight is demonstrating that feathers and chenille pipe cleaners are irresistable! (o: Nat wanted to badly to take Twilight to her class, but it would have been a dangerous thing for the cat and the kiddos. So she had to settle for pictures.

And wouldn't you know that at the same time, Angela had to make a spotlight poster for her class. When it rains it pours! She did a cute job and wrote a little comment next to every picture.

ART!

At the girls' school, every spring, they have a little art night. Since they all LOVE to paint and draw I thought it would be fun to get them each a canvas to make a creation on. Sarah wasn't sure what to paint when we talked about this idea and I needed something to hang up in our bathroom downstairs, so I commissioned her to create a masterpiece using paint colors that match the towels and shower curtain. We found an idea in an art book that inspired her abstract design. Unfortunately, we were so busy the week that the paintings were due, it ended up being a very last minute thing and more stressful than it should have been. Natalie and Angela finished their works of art in plenty of time. However, Sarah's more complicated piece of art took a really long time. She wanted to be finished when she was halfway through. But, me being the mean mom that I am, prodded her to keep going even though it meant a later bed time. I didn't want her to give up halfway through. So her experience doing her art was not the relaxing and fun event that I wanted it to be, but when she was done, she was pretty happy with the result. I think she was glad she stuck with it.

At the art night, the girls were all proud of their works of art. Sarah and Natalie also participated in the talent show portion playing piano and violin. They got a little trophy for their participation (which Angela was very jealous of) and they all got ribbons for their lovely artwork. Natalie got a special award for hers - the students at the school got to vote on their favorites and Natalie's was chosen. It was a fun night and everyone walked out happily with their awards and pretty paintings that we get to hang in our house now.

Natalie's cute princess-y picture, I like the castle in the background, nice use of perspective. (O:

I love Angela's, she did this all on her own.

And my lovely piece to add to the bathroom! Thanks Sarah!

Science Fair 2011

Well, it's that time of year again, science fair time! As you know we love these and even though this year it wasn't required for Sarah, she still participated - with my encouragement. (O: We looked online for several ideas and she liked the idea of doing ocean science. We found this idea on sciencebuddies.com It's called, "Can Water Float on Water?" And we both were fascinated with what we learned. Basically we inverted different water substances on top of each other in the water bottles. We made different solutions - fresh water, salt water (various amounts of salt), warm water and cold water. We tried salty on top of fresh, warm on top of cold, etc. It was very cool. The ones like below that didn't mix colors seemed to be happy right where they were.




The one above, was an example of different solutions that wanted to switch places. The cold water on top was more dense and wanted to be on the bottom. The warm air wanted to rise up. The colors mixed to green in these cases.

Sarah worked so hard on this. I helped her lay it out, but she did almost the whole thing. This year was also particularly hard because the science fair is more demanding than the ones we participated in in Oregon. Here, you have to not only make a poster, but put together a binder with all kinds of information. It took hours to put just the folder together.

When Sarah came home from school the next day, she was sooo excited. Her project was chosen to go to district! This will be her third year in a row doing a district science fair. Way to go Sarah!

Science Guy

For Science Club in March, one of the dads came (apparently, this is tradition) and brought some liquid nitrogen and froze a bunch of different things. One of the moms said this has nothing to do with his job, it's a hobby. Liquid Nitrogen - that is unique!

The kids and adults enjoyed watching this dad and his son freeze marshmallows, a feather duster, a barbie doll and all kinds of other weird things and then smash them.



My girls always love a good "explosion" and this definitely fit the bill!

Angela's Bi-lingual Adventure

Recently, our school joined in a new Chinese Immersion Program that sounded really exciting to me. Our nephew participated in this same program at his school and has had a great experience so far. I attended the informational meeting at our school to decide if we wanted to have Angela participate. I came away from that meeting so excited about the program I couldn't wait for Ang to be a part of it. The state is really working hard to create a future work force that is ready to participate in the job market with China. They are investing in teaching the children Chinese.

I think it is a fantastic idea and it's exciting to see the how the program works. When school starts, she will spend half the day with a Chinese teacher learning mostly math. There is no speaking English allowed. Usually, the kids don't even know their teacher can actually speak English. Even when parents come in to help, the teachers don't speak English to them. The other half of the day is with a regular teacher who works on their English reading skills and writing. The parents who have been in to help say that they have even learned some of the Chinese words while volunteering.

The children already participating have actually excelled in mathematics when it is taught in Chinese and the teachers hired are native speakers so they learn the correct pronunciations and intonations which is the hardest part of learning Chinese. The other thing that I thought was really cool was that the grant, as of now, pays for the children entering to continue through 6th grade. They are working on programs that will continue through jr. high and high school. BYU and the U of U are also working on college level courses that can be taught in the high schools, so that if students are interested, they can actually achieve a minor in Chinese before they graduate from high school. How cool is that? When I told Angela the day we got a phone call letting us know she was accepted into the program, this was her reaction . . .

She is excited to learn and is constantly noticing Chinese characters. Whenever she hears about China or Chinese she tells people, "I'm going to learn that!" I bought her some Chinese flashcards and a CD and she loves to look at them and listen to the CD. She will also get to participate in a special summer Chinese camp where she will get to meet her teacher and do some fun cultural activities to get her ready for this big change.

The day we found out Angela was officially in the program, we went to celebrate at a Chinese restaurant. It was fun because we could hear the workers speaking to each other in Mandarin and we reminded Angela that she would understand that someday!

Ang didn't really eat much at the restaurant. Hopefully, she'll learn to appreciate things like the food. (o: I couldn't help but tease Angela that the students in the Chinese program have to eat Chinese food for lunch. Her face was priceless! She was having second thoughts on the whole thing. When I told her I was teasing, it was one of the most relieved looks I've seen on her little face. (o:

Ms. Sarah

I love the creative things the girls come up with when they are playing. I found Sarah "teaching" her dolls one day when I came up to her room. She loves using her big whiteboard when she is "teaching".

I like how she gave each doll a pad of paper and pencil. And on top of that, she wrote their names at the top and assigned them each a number like her teacher this year did. What a cutie.

Here Comes the Bride!

Natalie has an adorable teacher at school this year. We have loved Miss Duncan. The kids were so excited after Christmas break to see what she got for Christmas - an engagement ring! She is so cute and sent each one of her students their own wedding invitation in the mail which meant the world to all of the kids. Natalie loved looking at the picture of her teacher with her fiance. I think all the little girls in that class had a crush on her fiance! They could not wait for the reception.

Since the reception was out in Midvale, we decided to carpool with Nat's best friend Janie and her mom. Janie is adorable and I have loved getting to know her mom, she's so fun. We had a great time watching the girls anticipation of seeing their teacher and congratulating her. They were so hilarious and got more and more nervous as the line got closer and closer to her. It was like Miss Duncan was a celebrity all of a sudden. Natalie even asked if there would be news cameras there. (o:

The new Mrs. Tingey was very gracious and so cute with the girls. She and her cute husband were so grateful we came out and waited in the long line. I love how Janie has one of the orchids on top of her head in the picture above. (O: She is such a silly - which is why she and Nat get along so well.

We had a great night and I was glad to have a chance to get to visit with Lisa (Janie's mom).

The girls found plenty of other friends at the reception too! It was quite the party!

Science!

I was so excited to find out our new elementary school has a Science Club put on by the PTO. Of course, I jumped right in to help and have my girls attend. When it was my week to help, I don't think I realized just what I got myself into! There are a LOT of kids that go to science club. I think I had about 15 kids per group and we rotated about 4 times. I was kind of ambitious and did a fun "Mystery Powders" lab for the kids. We had about 8 different powders including things like Alka Seltzer, laundry detergent, sugar, etc. The kids had to first put a few drops of vinegar in each of their samples and note whether it bubbled or not. Then in a second set of samples, they dropped in some purple cabbage indicator (super easy to make - just boil purple cabbage and save the water - it really cool stuff to use as a pH indicator). The Arm and Hammer laundry detergent was my favorite. It turned bright green. I know, I am kind of a nerd. I love science! The kids then had to use my little solutions page to figure out which powder was which using these two tests. I don't think most of the kids cared to figure this out, they just had fun watching things turn colors and bubble.

Later that night, we used up the rest of my materials from science club and I let the girls mix everything together. They love watching things "explode". (o:

Valentine's Day 2011

The girls looked so cute Valentine's morning all decked out in hearts. I think Sarah was not happy that I was taking a picture. (O:

As usual, I went to help with the class parties - I love the little parties at school. I led a heart matching game in Angela's class.

And in Natalie's class I helped run the donut eating contest. It was hilarious.



They also made carameled apples in Nat's class. I thought the room mom and teacher were brave for picking some pretty messy activities. (O: But the kids loved it.

Natalie's friend Janie - can you see why they get along so well? They are so silly. (O:

After school, we found daddy's car at his work and decorated it and left little presents for him.



Daddy gave each of the girls a cute stuffed animal.

And I got three of my most favorite things: flowers, chocolate and books!

We ended the night with a nice dinner and a family movie together. (Parent Trap)

I love Valentine's day!

Be Mine

Ahhh, that time of year again. This time I had three girls in elementary school - which equals about 90 valentines to make! I prefer to do something a little more hand made than the ones you get at the store. I take many shortcuts in other areas of my life, but for Valentines, it just feels more special making something. Nothing fancy, mind you.

I found a bunch of foam on clearance at a store going out of business and some cute foam sticky hearts. See what we came up with . . . It was really pretty slick. The cutting took the longest, but we all worked on it while watching TV and it went pretty quick. The next steps were sticking on the hearts, writing names and then I hot glued the giant smarties on.

If you stick out your tongue, it turns out better.



This multi-layered heart design with sparkle hearts was for Angela's teacher.

Hibernation

These shots were taken during a very cold end of January/beginning of February week. We did a lot of hibernating this winter. Above, Angela working on her 100 days of school homework. My girls got in their jammies early many a evening because jammies are just cozy.

Sarah taking a sick day. Just a fever for a couple days, nothing too exciting. I actually like these kind of days. I love having the kids home and hanging out with them. I slow down and enjoy the break from a busy schedule too. I am so grateful to have this luxury - to not have to stress about getting work off when the kids are sick.

Dress ups are always entertaining when one is stuck indoors. This was actually when Natalie was heading over to JT's house for a princess/knight party two houses down. She "rode" her horse there. And she even wore those ridiculous shoes walking over in the cold. No snow, luckily.

Baluga Whale Report

Angela had to choose an animal from the polar climate to do a report on. For a couple weeks we read books and looked online to find out all about Baluga whales. They are pretty fascinating - I think I had the most fun learning about them. For instance, did you know they have a bony head and no dorsal fin which aids them in breaking through ice to get a breath of air?


Ang had to write down three sentences sharing what she learned and then had to present her "pizza box" and do a little oral report. It turned out so cute.