Dragons

I was talking to my friend, Adrianne, one day and she mentioned that she tries to do a couple of themes with her kids over the summer. "Themes?" I asked, "What do you mean?" She said they pick a theme like pirates, or fairies, and they read books, make crafts and treats, and maybe watch a movie all related to their theme. I thought that sounded pretty fun, but a lot of work.  Adrianne is pretty amazing.  So last week was our first week out of school, and I took everybody to the library. On a whim, at the library I thought, maybe we'll try a theme. It ended up being Dragons.

We checked out "A Friend for Dragon" by Dav Pilkey, "There's NO Such Thing as a Dragon" by Jack Kent (this one was pretty cute,) and "The Knight and the Dragon" by Tomie dePaola (which we've read before, but it's always a favorite.)

I printed a bunch of dragon coloring pages off the internet and the kids colored them, cut them out and made stick puppets out of them. We also worked on making a homemade Dragon pinata. That was pretty adventuresome of me, I thought, since I really don't have a clue on how you make one. 

(To see the finished product, keep scrolling down.)  Once we'd made the pinata, we had to throw a party because that's what pinata's are for, right?

So the kids made dragon party invitations, and I told them they could each choose a family to invite to share the party.  (Since this was kind of spur of the moment, I wasn't sure exactly what we'd even do at a dragon party.) 

Well, the kids ended up taking the invitations to our ward's Park Day, and anybody who was at the park got an invitation.  Which is fine--just a little bigger than I'd originally thought.  So we had an amazing Dragon Party with over 20 kids here!  Thank goodness it was actually fun.

In case you're wondering, here's what you do at a Dragon party:

1. Make dragon masks

2. Do a "Dragon Warrior" Obstacle Course: Run with high knees through the rungs of a ladder laying down on the ground, throw a beanbag through the tire swing, jump over a wading pool filled with water, army crawl under a PVC pipe, and kung-fu kick a sleeping bag suspended from the upstairs balcony.  When the Obstacle Course is complete, you receive your Dragon scroll which tells you which team you're on for the Dragon skits.

3. Each team gets 5 minutes to come up with a Dragon skit, and then we watch them all.  They were GREAT!

4. We also did these dragon boat races in the wading pool.  We made "dragon" boats out of water bottles cut in half and each team had to blow theirs across the pool--first one across won. (I was improvising, okay?--honestly, I didn't find very many dragon party ideas on the internet.)  I didn't ask the kids what their favorite part was, but I suspect it was the pinata.

5. Break open the pinata.  Here it is.  Didn't look much like a Dragon--more like a crocodile with wings.  

Still, it held up for an entire round and a half before they finally got the candy out of it.

All in all, more successful than I thought it would be, and loads of fun.  

We're so glad we got to have so many friends share it with us! 

And I can't wait to do another theme . . . next summer.  :) 

Land of the Free Because of the Brave

Each time we have a National Holiday when flags are flown, we count how many flags we see flying in our neighborhood as we drive around..  Until recently, we didn't have a flag so I always felt a little left out.  But this year in anticipation of Memorial Day, we finally got a flag, so now we can add ourselves to the numbers!  

I have often been guilty of forgetting the reason we celebrate Memorial Day and just revel in the day off without a care except what shall we BBQ?  But this year, I gave a lot of thought to the brave men and women who have given their lives to defend our country's freedom.  I am grateful for their courage, valor, and sacrifice for this great nation.  I really am proud to be an American and to live in this land of liberty and opportunity.  

Of course, we celebrated the day with a couple of BBQ's.  Here is one we went to at our friends, the Breinholts.  At this one all the kids made hats and things out of newspaper and had flags and noisemakers and went on parade around the cul-de-sac.  It was AWESOME!

Marching in the parade

Below is our random assault on one of their neighbors.  (I hope they are good friends with these guys.)  The kids popped these loud popper things that I guess were the cannons and blew their horns and yelled, all the while Chuck (who happens to be our bishop) was playing "Mary Had Little Lamb" on his wooden fife.  Or flute, or whatever it was.  I think that might have been the best part.  The neighbors said we'd better watch out because they retaliate with water guns.  But they must have had a change of heart because no counter-attack was made.  It was a super time!  Thanks for all the fun, guys!

End-of-School Picnics

Our internet has been sketchy lately, so I am behind in my posts.  Also, we're really busy and in the midst of Children's Music Theater, so I may not get my act together for awhile, but here are some updates.

This is the last Wednesday of school.  Dallin's class had a picnic at the neighboring park and Daphne had a little performance at the school with all the kindergartners at the same time.  So I had to split my time between the two.  I went to Dallin's for a bit and then headed over to the school to watch Daphne's performance.  

Dallin with his funny friend "McKeaver"

Dallin & his teacher Mrs. Altweis.  He just loved her!

Daphne getting ready to sing

Daphne and her teachers Mrs. Shoemaker, and Mrs. Hamlet

They are such a great team, and Daphne had a great first year of school with them.

Here they are singing this funny "Singin' in the Rain" song. 

Mrs. Pinkston the music teacher was great with these guys.  They sang five songs and sang the words very clearly and did cute actions.  Dallin & Daphne would both teach me songs that they'd learned from Mrs. Pinkston, when they got home, so I could tell they really enjoyed Music Time.

Here's a video clip of Daphne's performance--it's really short because Hayden kept running amuck and I had to stop and catch him.

I can't believe the school year is over already!  I'm willing to bet that time accelerates.  If I blink I'll probably miss our whole summer!  I am glad to have the kids home.  It's fun to just play and be together during the days.  Sean & Hayden love having Dallin and Daphne home too!

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

That's what Arthur says to me sometimes when I'm asking too many questions about his work.  

Just kidding.
But you're reading now, aren't you? 

Truthfully, he is so brilliant, that I don't really understand most of what he does and therefore don't even know what kind of questions to ask to elicit that response.  But he does have a security clearance and works behind a security clearance gate, and can't even get onto the base with out his special photo I.D. badge, and a retinal scan.  (Okay, not the retinal scan.)

So we all felt pretty special going to the Labs with him this past weekend for "Family Day at Sandia National Laboratories."  We all got special "badges," except Hayden.  The lady passing out the special badges said he probably didn't need one; she doubted he was a spy.  (Wahaha . . . Fooled her!)  

There was a full-blown wind storm going on that day, so walking to the various buildings was tiresome, and I have a new understanding of the good wish, "May the wind be ever at your back."  It really makes a difference!

Since the places we visited were all behind the security gates, this is the only place we were allowed a camera, and thus the only picture from our adventure.  Take note of our special security badges.  :)

We had a great time visiting Arthur's work place, and for the first time in the six years he's worked there, I got to see his office, and look at the stuff he works on.  We even put on special lab jackets to keep the static electricity down.  The kids favorite part was looking at stuff under the microscope.  (We got a close up look of Hayden's pacifer . . . hmm, don't think we really wanted to see that, actually.)  Arthur took us to see the rockets that he helped design the the flight computers for and we watched a video of one of them being launched.

There was tons of other stuff that we didn't get around to;  you really could spend all day there, if you weren't towing four little ones along.   Anyway, fun times, but here's to less wind for next time!  

Planting Flowers at the Temple

One of the cool things about living so close to the temple, is that each year, the Primary kids in our ward have an activity where they get to help plant flowers at the temple.  (The woman in charge of the grounds was, until recently, in the La Cueva ward, so I guess we have an "in".)

The kids really enjoy it, but I sometimes wonder if Sister Foutz doesn't come back the next day and fix all the work the kids did . . .  She's a good sport to let them come and help.

ITz

We got this idea awhile back from my cousins Kimball & Marianne to do a bean jar to reward our kids for good behavior. Since we started it they've filled it four times, and when it gets filled, we get to go do something fun like putt-putt golf, or the dollar theater or ITz. I had never heard of Itz until we moved here, so in case you are wondering, "What in the world is ITz?" I'll tell you. ITz is pretty much like Chuckee Cheese except without creepy animals walking around scaring you. And I like the food better. So this time we went to ITz and the kids had a great time and we all left a little over stimulated, but that's what ITz all about, I guess. Hooray for the bean jar!    

This little train roller coaster looked pretty fun, and since Sean loves trains, we thought he'd LOVE IT!  Well, he didn't say much during the ride, while the rest of us were squealing around the tight curves.  And when it was over, I was trying to get him to hold still so we could get this picture, and he kept saying, "Mom, this ride is done.  The train is over now," and was really pretty anxious to be getting out of the train.  But despite that, he still said on the way home, "Dad, thank you for taking us to the pitts!"