1st Grade Costumes

Over the last couple of weeks I've been helping to make costumes for the first grade music program "Frog & Toad."  I kept them very simple since we had quite a few to make and didn't want to spend a bundle.  I had 2 other moms help make a few of the costumes, but I took a picture of Sophia in all of them.  I think they turned out pretty good for as simple as we were making them.  We made:

 2 Bumblebees

3 Birds

1 Frog (excuse the jammies underneath!)

1 Toad

3 Squirrels

and a lovely little snail!

Sophia will be a squirrel in the musical tomorrow night.  She is very excited to get to wear a costume!  Hopefully the other kids will be too.  A few of them were a little tricky and it took me several evenings to figure out how to attach the squirrel's tail and the snails' coil, but with Chris' help we finally figured it out.  I did realize a little too late that I should have pointed the eyes downward a little more due to the way the visors sit on the kid's heads.  Live and learn!  Here's hoping the kids behave, remember their lines, and do their best.  It's always fun to see which ones like to show off for the parents and ham it up.  It always makes me smile to watch the kids! 

Happy Easter

Happy Easter from the Moon Crew! 

We had a great Easter weekend.  Everyone except Sam.  The kids were outside Saturday morning playing and I ran inside to unlock the door for company when I heard screaming.  Obviously not a good idea.  You see where this is going?  In the 30 seconds I was gone, Sam left his favorite toy and wandered too close to his sister swinging.  She nailed him and he face planted in the dirt.  Not fun!  So as I rushed my bloody and dirty boy inside, the doorbell rang.  Of course, the timing could not have been worse!  So I answered the door with a baby covered in blood and a mouthful of dirt.  Welcome to our house! 

So my careful planning for Easter pictures went down the drain.  Not really.  I don't mind when a picture prominently shows my children's "ouchies."  That's part of childhood and it's part of the many memories I will always have of them.  The, good and the bad!  So I accepted that Sam's face would be swollen and scabbed on Easter Sunday.  What I didn't know was that he would get very sick later that night.  Throwing up all night long so he was certainly not going to church in the morning.  That really devastated me -- for all the wrong reasons. 

You see, I had found these cute matching dresses for the girls and searched everywhere for something for Sam to wear.  This year all the boy's Easter outfits were pale blue, green and purple.  That would clash!!  So, I found an awesome store on Etsy where a lady in NC makes ties out of tons of different fabrics.  I found this polka-dot tie and was so excited!   I tracked the shipping on-line and was so worried it wouldn't make it in time.  It came Saturday afternoon, just in time!   But then, my baby was sick and not going to church.  So here's a picture of my girls!

Sam felt well enough to go to Papa's house for lunch and an egg hunt.  He was just really drained and exhausted.  Monday he had to go to the dr. just to check since he was super-fussy.  Besides the scraped face and the throwing up, he also has fluid in his ears and it looks like we're going to have to get tubes replaced soon.  Geesh. (I won't even go into details about how he then threw up in the car on the ride home).  But the moral of the story is I had the wrong focus for Sunday morning.  I had been thinking so much about my cute little kids in their matching outfits, that I wasn't focussed on the true reason for being at church on Sunday -- the celebration of Jesus - risen from the dead!  WOW!  I felt like such an idiot!   But, luckily, God used the weekend's events to really remind me where my focus should be!   Church was great, the music was awesome!  And my wonderful husband stayed home with Sam so I could go....usually he's teaching Sunday School and I ALWAYS stay home with the sick ones.  What a great blessing!  

Chapter Book Party

This year we've been trying to encourage Sophia (1st grade) to read more.  While the Pizza Hut Book-it program was always enough of a reason for me to read as a child, it isn't quite inspiring Sophia as much as I would like!  Honestly, free pizza still works for me...sad, but true!!  Sophia has really transitioned into a great reader this year coming a long ways from Kindergarten where she would cry when I forced her to sit down and read.  I have spent months slowly buying her "Junie B. Jones First Grader" books in preparation for when she was ready to read chapter books. 

She, on the otherhand, has spent months nicely stacking the books on her desk in her room.  She can read them.  She has read the first 2-3 chapters of most of the books.  They just don't capture her attention the way non-fiction books do, specifically, animal books.  She LOVES reading the facts about the different animals and is constantly asking me to find pictures on the internet of very specific critters.  Needless to say I did not enjoy her short interest in all things spider-related.  We're currently interested in sharks, which somehow, I don't mind as much!  But someone please explain to me how to Google "the shark with teeth that look like hair." 

This last week she started reading one of her Junie B. books.  She'd read a few chapters at a time and was getting past her normal cut-off point of chapter three.  So I told her if she actually read the entire book and saw how the story ended, then we would throw her a party.  That was all it took!  She suddenly couldn't put the book down.  And I'm proud to announce that Sophia finally finished her first chapter book, cover to cover.  "Junie B. Jones, Boss of Lunch" we'll always remember you! So, we had cake to celebrate.  (Please don't judge the way I frosted it.  I know I should have put more effort in, but it was a little last minute!)

Update:  A few days later she has finished her 2nd book and started on her 3rd.  Who knows how long this will continue....but I'm excited!  Not to mention we finished her Book-it requirements again this month and now get to head to Pizza Hut.  Happy first grader, happy mom! 

Just another day in Kansas!

It was a beautiful sunny day today and I wanted to make sure and get the kids outside for our normal walk and backyard time. Today, the wind was so strong that I just had to take a few pictures of the effort the kids put in to playing!

The wind was just crazy out there.  Sam LOVES his car.  But every time he tried to get in it, the wind would blow it away.  So he just cried and cried.  Finally I went over there and held it still for him until he could get in.  He was a much happier camper!  I'm glad the wind didn't stop us from getting outside! 

Nice little surprises

Being a mom means lots of little surprises during a day. Some days, I'm surprised at my capacity to tolerate noise. Some days it is shocking the number of times my phone can ring on the one day I decide to take a nap. Other days, I'm surprised by the things my children say. Isabella woke up the other morning and stumbled into my room and said, "Mommy, I'm grouchy, is it close enough to morning to get up?" I thought, good to know...better get back in bed and wake up a little less grouchy! I've been surprised by the amount of vomit one tiny child is capable of producing, and surprised at my creativity at handling diarrhea in the middle of Wal-mart with an empty diaper bag. Let's just say that wrapping a child's bottom in a spare t-shirt wasn't my first choice, but it worked. And I'd probably do it again if I had to. I'm surprised daily by my children's imaginations and their ability to role-play and create their own little worlds. Today, I was mostly surprised by how loving my children were to each other.

Sophia is not a morning person. I wake her up and she gets dressed, crawls to the couch and waits for her breakfast, eats, then crawls back to the couch a few more minutes before the bus comes. This morning, Isabella...who is as bright as the sunshine every morning....went to the couch and asked Sophia if she could snuggle with her. Sophia said sure. Aren't they cute?

Then Anna woke up and Sophia snuggled on the couch with them and read them stories from our rhyming toddler's Bible. The girls LOVED it! Now that's a much better way to wake up in the morning!

For over a year Sophia has been asking to get baptised. Chris and I keep putting it off because we want to make sure she completely understands what it means. Last year she didn't necessarily understand that cartoon characters weren't real so we knew she wasn't ready. More and more though we think she really understands and this morning while heading out to the bus she said she was being extra nice to her sisters to show me that she understands that when Jesus is in her heart, she has to show his love to others by being kind and loving. WOW!! She's really been listening and understanding!!!! So exciting! I promised her Chris and I would sit down with her this weekend and really talk about it and make sure she truly understands everything. But what a nice surprise for me this morning!

Slumber Party

On Friday, the girls decided to have a slumber party with their cousins Kaitlynn & Emma. Not just any slumber party --- but our very FIRST slumber party at our house. So exciting! We headed to Wal-mart in preparation for the big event and loaded up on some junk food. New nail polish and stickers, frozen pizza, ice cream sandwiches, ingredients to make indoor s'mores. YUMMY! The girls arrived at 5pm and we had pizza, did nails, and watched movies with popcorn and s'mores. By 11pm I was ready for bed and the lights went out. This is how the girls first decided to sleep.

By morning, one was on the couch, one went to her bed, and the other three managed to sleep beside each other on the floor. Probably a minor miracle I'm thinking. By 1pm on Saturday, our entire house was quiet and napping. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday!!

Spring Break 2010

Last week when I looked at the weather for Spring Break it looked perfect. They were predicting sunny, 50's-60's. I had visions of going to the zoo, parks, playing outside and going on walks....picnics. You get the picture. This week hasn't quite turned out as planned. The sun came out each day, but usually not until after 5pm. And, we have spent most of the time at the doctor's office. As of today we have

• 2 cases of strep throat
• 1 case of hives
• 1 ear infection
• 2 pink eyes
• 5 doctor's appointments --- so far!
• 4 kids all on different antibiotics

UGGGGH! Luckily each time we've had someone contagious, we've lucked out and not had to be somewhere so I don't think we've spread any of this junk outside of our house. Crossing my fingers! I've also been trying to convince my doctor's office to give me a frequent visitor punch card. Something like every 10th visit should be free. I know this comes with the territory of having a big family. And I should be glad that nobody is missing school for all of this. But seriously! I'm ready for a break from Spring Break!!