some fun things

Clare and Lance at Wild Animal Park


The beach...
Calvin's swim suit doesn't fit very well. But he was super excited about boogie boarding. He has become a really good swimmer this summer. He got pretty sunburned on his "lower back" since his pants slipped down after we put on the sunscreen.

Alexey is enjoying watching instead of sleeping when we go out and do fun things.



Also, we did a treasure hunt with Calvin for his patch, compliments of my friend, Jill. We are going to do it again in a couple of weeks if he wears his patch really well at school. In one week he'll get another map and then the following week we can do another hunt. For every day he cheats we push back the events by 1 day.

checking out the map (sorry about the blurry part--I was holding a baby toy in my hand along with the camera)


X marks the spot!

new calling

In my church a person can be asked to help by doing a specific job at church. Some are asked to teach classes, others do secreterial duties such as record keeping, others oversee an entire organization such as the youth. I used to be the secretary in primary. It was a great calling. I loved interacting with the other members of the presidency and I also loved being in primary. Children are darling. Another great thing about this calling is that it is pretty easy....take roll, pass out talks, help with routy or crying kids, make copies, etc. etc.

This week I got called to be the laurel advisor. Basically this is a job to teach, love and hang out with the 16-18 year old girls. I am very excited! It will be fun. I am also overwhelmed thinking I don't really know any more than a 16 year old. It will be more time intensive becuase there will be activites during the week and I will prepare lessons for the sunday meeting. It will be great!

Calvin is doing well at school, having a good time and surviving the full day. He is happy.

quirky kids

-Clare loves to go pee in the pool. I know she holds it until we get to the pool and then run in and go pee first thing.

-A few days ago she said "mom, I need to go potty" I didn't see where she went but a few minutes later I found her outside peeing in the bushes. (doesn't this sound like boy behavior to you?) (she has been great at potty training and never has accidents but it seems like some of her planned potty breaks are a little ummmm unique)!

-Calvin does not like underwear. Actually, I think he does like underwear but he is too lazy to put it on when it is his choice. I have been trying to enforce the underwear thing lately because I do think he should wear it to school.

-The kids think it is THE FUNNEST thing in the world to go skinny dipping.

-Calvin won't eat dinner unless it is in a plastic bag. He has always preferred to snack rather than eat a meal. I have learned to call everything snack, even if it is lunch or dinner. Some of his favorite plastic bag meals are plain pasta, apple slices, crackers, cheese, cereal...

-The kids can go through a big costco sized box of tube yogurt in 2 days. (32 yogurts)

**I should add that these children aren't completely parent-less and this stuff doesn't happen all the time..just funny little things I've seen over the last couple of weeks i'm putting all together here!

Calvin and school

I did sneak a picture of Calvin on the first day even thought he didn't want one. Maybe sometime in the next week or so he'll smile and take a nice back to school photo. He had wanted to make a hat that morning ... so we did.

For most of the summer Calvin has been getting up around 6. Maybe a little earlier but most days I didn't hear him until around 6. Since school started he has been getting up at 4:30 again. This is so lame! I don't even let him sit down when he gets home from school for fear he'll take a nap and then for some reason he is getting up extra early. He hasn't done that for months. Hopefully it's just nerves or excitement of the new school year and he'll do a little better.

He does like school and does well there. He has the same teacher that my brother (Uncle Dan) had in Kindergarten.

One of my friends bribed him with a fun treasure hunt if he'd wear his patch all week. He seems to think that is pretty cool and did wear it quite a bit at school. So sometime this weekend he'll get to do a pirate tresure hunt with a map and everything. It was nice of my friend to come up with this good idea. She will do it again next week if he wears his patch next week as well. She is actually going to bury a treasure in her backyard and make him a map. Pretty neat!

not much time...

but I wanted to say that yesterday was the first day of Kindergarden for Calvin. He didn't want his picture taken. This year, our district started full day K so Calvin goes from 8:50am-3:15pm. It is a long day. Yesteday after he got home he said, "mom, I was at kindergarden for a long time, huh?" Yes, he sure was. It sounds like he had a good time and made a new friend who wears glasses like he does and his teacher is very nice. He has a batman backpack and a black camo lunch box. That's all for now.