The Disparte Party!

Sunday, March 22, 2015

You've had a birthday, shout Hooray!!

Benny turned 2!!!

We met Grandma Carol at Disneyland to celebrate!

She got them each a personalized hat of their choice.

We all love the Soundsational Parade...and everything else at Disneyland! It was great way to celebrate.

To celebrate at home, Cait and Nate had fun helping me decorate the dining room.

Benny is such a happy, fun-loving kid. As I thought about a theme for his birthday cake, I thought the thing that would be the most fun for him would be to have everybody decorate their own little cake with him and make a fun activity out of it. So I made little mini cakes and cupcakes, frosting, and bought various candies to decorate.

Benjamin wanted a cupcake, not a mini cake (the age of 2 comes with strong opinions). And he just wanted to eat each item separately rather than combining for decor.

Cait and Nate knocked themselves out with candy decorating.

Quinn wanted to enjoy the cake all by itself.

I had fun too! And judging from the crazy wiggles, Baby #4 enjoyed a party of her own after the sugar rush in my bloodstream.

The next morning we went on a family hike at a location in East San Diego where we'd never been.

It was a nice easy trail so every member of our family could enjoy it, and the weather was beautiful!

Of all Benjamin's presents, the one he loved the most? His balloons! I thought he might. He is obsessed with balloons lately. One night he woke up in the middle of the night and said, "Balloons Mommy! Balloons!" He wouldn't go back to sleep until I promised him we could get a balloon someday soon. He insisted on dragging his last surviving balloon along for the whole hike. Even now, a couple weeks later, when the topic of his birthday comes up his one consistent comment is, "Balloon flew away. Other ones popped." :-)

In honor of his graduation into toddler-hood (and also because he was getting shaggy and the weather's getting hot), I gave him his first full on haircut. He looked like a totally different kid! I hardly recognized him and his teachers said the same.

We also met up at Quinn's Nana and Papa's in Huntington Beach to see Quinn's sister-in-law from Idaho and their kids who were here for a rare visit.

Nathan and his cousin Leo were happy to help him unwrap and break in his birthday presents.

Benny has gotten to be such a big boy! We went to a library we hadn't been to in months. The last time we went there Ben just wanted to pull all the books and movies off the shelves. This time I looked over and he had seated himself at a little table, picked out a coloring page and some crayons, and was working diligently on his picture.

He loves to sit at a little table at home and "write" or "draw pictures". I had to snap a photo of this one he drew the other day. He was beaming with pride when he showed me his finished product.

We love you Benjamin!! We're so happy to have you in our family and look forward to many more years of adventure with you!

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Heart-A-Thon

We have been so blessed to find the perfect schools for our kids! Nathan and Benjamin started at Emmaus Today Christian Montessori School in January when I started going into the office to work rather than working from home, and they love it!

Last week we had a Heart-A-Thon Fundraiser to raise money for a new playground at the pre-primary campus (Benjamin's age -- 2-3 year olds). Since every family is to required to volunteer a certain number of hours during the year, I volunteered to be in charge of it. I figured if I'm going to volunteer for something it might as well be something where I can be with my kids rather than working in the garden or sorting recycling or something else that takes more time away from my kids.

It was fun! And we also surpassed our goal to raise $3,500 and raised close to $4,500 to date (the school director says more donations usually come in for a month or so after the event).

The teachers helped the kids make cute decorations in the days before the event.

There were four stations.

Station #1: Heart Smarts

We arranged for two Nutritionist Interns from UCSD come and do a really fun presentation about taking good care of our bodies and hearts.

Station #2 was Basketball

(Nathan's class)

(Benjamin's class)

Station #3 was "Roller Ball".

For the older kids' class the parents rolled the balls from one side of the marked off area to the other and the kids had to try to dodge them and not get touched.

For the little kids the parents tossed the balls all over and the kids had to run and gather them and bring them back to the basket.

Station #4 was "Switch"

The kids danced and ran around the hula hoops on the ground and when the music stopped they had to find a hoop to stand in.

After a hand wash, we ended the activities with a healthy snack.

I LOVED being there to watch my boys do all the activities. They had a blast and so did I!

Plus I got a little glimpse into their social lives at school. See the little girl with in the front row with long blond-ish hair? She's a little French girl named Belen. She got a scrape during one of the games so I sat down on the sidelines with her. She asked me whose mommy I was. When I told her I am Nathan's mommy she got a smitten little look on her face and said with a French accent, "Nathan loves me. He say that to me yesterday and hug me." "Really?" I replied, stifling a the urge to laugh. "It must be because you're so nice!"

I told Quinn about it so the next morning after we had family prayer Quinn asked, "So Nathan, do you have a friend at school named Belen?" "Yeah." Nathan answered non-chalantly. "She told me she loves me." Oh boy, three years old and we've already got some crushes going on!

Thanksgiving 2014

We had a super fun trip to Utah for Thanksgiving! We left at 2am both directions so the drives were not even too bad since the kids slept most of the time (although it took Quinn and I a couple of weeks after the trip to catch up on the lost sleep).

Our kids are always in heaven at my parents because there's a whole big house with a ton of toys and books to play with, plus a whole big yard to run around in. Whenever they wanted to go outside and play in the swing-set/trampoline/sandbox area of my parents' yard they'd say, "I'm going to the park, Mom!" Because where we live in San Diego the only place they've been with enough grass and sand and space to have a play structure is the playground at the park. I thought that was funny (though a little depressing at the same time--man has their childhood been different than mine was growing up in a farm town!).

My mom made and decorated sugar cookies with the kids.

Nathan rode up and down the sidewalk on a scooter at Tanya's in-laws and our friends the Fieldings for probably over an hour straight.

Benjamin just loved having multiple people to give him their undivided attention.

We had a beautiful and delicious Thanksgiving dinner.

Quinn took the kids on four-wheeler rides which is always a huge treat for them.

I took Nathan on a Mommy-Natey date to the Ideal Dairy for hot chocolate and from-scratch bagel breakfast sandwiches.

And we even stopped by the BYU Creamery for old-times sake while we were up in Orem car shopping.

It was one for the books!!

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

General Conference Report

It's either really funny or really sad that I have had this draft half done since last April and am now realizing I better add the pictures and post it before the next General Conference comes and goes!

A few days before General Conference this time around I happened to stumble across this article where the lady talked about her paradigm shift regarding General Conference. Basically, she realized that since the talks are published in multiple formats after Conference, she can always read, listen to, or watch them later. But she only has that one weekend to build bonds of love and testimony with her children. So instead of shushing them the whole time or getting frustrated when they didn't sit still and eagerly do every Conference activity she'd prepared in just the way she'd envisioned, she decided to do more smiling, snuggling, playing, and enjoying with them. I took that to heart. And...it turned out to by our favorite General Conference experience as a family to date!

Yes, I still prepared coloring pages, match the speaker with the picture, conference journal activities, etc. But I didn't stress if they didn't do those activities.

I also prepared some non-conference related crafts, and also puzzles, train tracks building, etc. Quinn and I had so much fun just spending the time doing those things with the kids while Conference played and we all listened, but without shushing kids and getting frustrated. Heck, they're only 4, 2, and 1 years old! (Um...now 5, 3, and 18 months -- things change when you wait six months to publish a blog post!)

I want my kids to associate General Conference and hearing the voices of our prophet and apostles with feelings of love, kindness, happiness, and goodness. Because, really, those are the feelings that come from the Savior so if you think about it, it's ridiculous to create feelings of stress and anger over something that's supposed to be leading your family closer to Him. Right? Anyway, I was grateful to have seen the article and loved our stress-free General Conference!

We ended General Conference with a picnic dinner at the park and talked about the things that had stood out to us from Conference (Ok, well, Quinn and I talked and the kids responded to our questions with one- or two-word answers. We're in the tradition-establishing stage right now and hoping that the traditions will flourish a little as our kids get older.)

p.s. Sadly, I've turned into a bit of a city slicker. It grossed me out to think of eating on the grass where people let their dogs do their business. So instead we spread our blanket on the cement!

First Day of School!!

My baby is in Kindergarten. It's hard to believe.

Yesterday was her first day at the most awesome school ever! She's had some bad experiences with school in the past, so I was determined to find a school that would be perfect for her.

When I took her to visit this school and meet the teacher, I asked her afterward what she thought and she said, "I finally found the school I love!" And then begged me everyday to go back (glad I didn't take her there until a few days before school started!). She was super duper excited for her first day.

She's way into posing for the camera.

I tried a second time and said, "Ok, for this one just stand up nice and straight!" But she couldn't resist popping a little knee up.

When I went to pick her up her teacher said she had a great first day. I decided to take an "after" picture. She was yawning in this one (first-day overload).