Aug. 26, 2008

Me and the kids went to the Utah art museum to see a traveling art exhibit of famous painters like Monet, Van Gogh, Manet, Picasso, etc. with the boys' K12 school. We liked it. We're going to go back with Todd. When I was pulling out of the parking lot, though, I hit another car who was pulling out at the same time and my back tailgate got dented really bad and the back window shattered. It scared the boys, though they said they weren't scared they were just worried about our car being broken. No one was hurt, I'm really surprised that it did as much damage as it did. I'll post a picture of the car later. We had to drive from SLC without a back window to the Saturn place in Orem. The insurance got us a rental car. It was quite a long day!

I am doing home school with the boys this year. It's K12, a program through the public school where they give us the supplies and curriculum (at no charge to us!) but I teach them at home. We still have to mark attendance because it's public school even though it's at home. They have activities and get togethers for the kids to interact. So far me and the boys have really liked it. The curriculum is really great and I love teaching the boys. I am teaching them both first grade, and Nathan is doing just fine! Alex is reading really well so I do a different reading lesson with each of them, but everything else they do together. We took down the playhouse in the loft and made the loft our school. They both really love to learn-- it takes us about 4 hours to do everything and they don't complain, they just love to learn! Nathan's attention span has REALLY improved and he is doing really well with that. Not too long ago he couldn't sit for longer than 5 minutes before he was up running around pretending to blow stuff up. Alex has always had a really good attention span. I look forward to teaching them each day. The curriculum is fun. They have phonics (reading), handwriting, math, language arts (literature), art, history, science and spanish, but we haven't started the spanish yet because we are waiting on them to send us the microphone. We also do scripture study and then they memorize scriptures and they are on their 7th memorized scripture (that's not part of the curriculum though). They are so smart! I decided to do home school with them because Nathan really wanted to go to school (he's not in school until next year) so I was getting a curriculum for him and told alex he could do home school if he wanted, he could choose. He chose to do home school this year, and next year I'll let the boys decide again. I really like having them home, too:). Yesterday we were eating lunch and laughing and I was so glad we were together. We also have a fun "recess" at the end of their lessons. When they finish their lessons, we go to Jumping Jacks, the pool, the Dino Museum, etc.

Right now Nathan is VERY interested (obessessed, really) with size. His standard of measurement is a T-REx, either the whole T-Rex, or its head, tail, tooth, toe, etc. Sometimes it's also a long-neck. He asks all day which is bigger, a T-Rex or a ___? Or, is this as big as 2 T-Rexes? etc. He asks these kinds of questions all day long (literally!) Especially now that we are doing school, they think about everything and ask questions about cute random things. They also will have discussions between the 2 of them, and will ask "what do you think about...?" The other day Alex asked nathan in the car, "Do you think Satan sent germs?" The boys really love their baby sister. They hug her and kiss her and rub her head all the time, especially Nathan. They are really loving and sweet with her. They are also very patient. Today at the art museum the baby woke up right as we were going in, and she had to eat, and then we were going in again and then she pooped, and then she wanted to eat some more. We were joking that we'd never get to go in the museum and they were so patient. The other day Nathan was pretending that the baby's head was the moon or a planet and was blasting a pretend rocket off her head.

Baby Katherine (or Kate or Katie) has grown 1 inch and gained 2 pounds since her birth 4 weeks ago! I think she'll be a chunky baby like the boys were. She still sleeps almost the whole time, but when she is awake she's more alert and likes to look around. She hates her arms to be wrapped up in a blanket, she likes to be able to move them. And she hates to have any tiny bit of poop in her diaper. We literally change more than 10 diapers a day. At night she likes to have her pacifier (nathan calls a "sacrifier") and she likes to sleep on her side and she likes sleeping snuggled with me best. She usually wakes up about every 3 hours to eat at night. I'm still having fun putting dresses, bows and bracelets and pink, pink, pink on her! Everywhere we go people say what a cute little tiny newborn she is! She sleeps while we do home school, but if she is awake I just hold her while we do lessons (and then she falls asleep again).

Todd is working still at Platinum, a security system sales company. He did a really cool program so they took all the programmers and their wives to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Salt Lake...yummy!! He still cooks and is an AMAZING cook, as usual. Our favorite recipe lately is a steak with a kind of sweet rub/glaze and plantains on top also in a sweet glaze. It's very very good. He brought eclairs to work and now he has a reputation. The boys like to visit him at work and he gives them a candy. He also brings them home a cool paper airplane every day when he comes home from work, a fun little tradition he started. Todd is already smitten with his daughter. He's going to spoil that little girl like crazy! He is a really great dad with all of the kids. Last night he told the boys a story he made up about "Sir Jupiter" when they were going to bed, and it was about 30 minutes long! They boys really really love to hear stories. Unfortunately, mom isn't very good at making up stories. Good thing they have dad!