Hurray for Spring Break

I am so excited for spring break. My first as a teacher. I am using this time to finally get caught up on some of the things I have negleted, like journal writing, some house work, sorting the boxes in the spare room (yikes), and blogging.

Here I am this afternoon with crazy hair and all, just trying to keep the sickies happy

Here are the sickies and Dad. Both have colds and Jolee hurt her foot last night.
I don't know how hurt it is as she cries that it hurts, then runs off laughing and hopping.

Since the kids and I stayed home from church today to not spread their germs,
I taught Jolee a lesson about temples and that families can be together forever.
She has been saying "when I get big like you Mommy, I'm going to get married in the temple."
She has also been carrying around this picture of Randy and I from our wedding day.

As part of the lesson, we built a temple out of blocks.
She had to put the "Angle Orni" on the top. (Should be Angel not Angle and Moroni not Orni)

Here is JD at the zoo. He was a little bored and decided to eat the burp cloth.

Jolee is learning to jump off of anything she can climb.

She is getting pretty good air time.

Here is the polar bear, Snow.
She refused to get in the water, but she really wanted the fish on the floating table.
She spent about 5 minutes walking back and forth and trying to get to the fish without getting in the water.

The clever girl waited and reached and even laid down to reach even further.

Until she finally got the fish. Lucky girl. She never did go swimming.

We had watched the keeper getting the exhibit ready and we waited for Snow to come out.
Jolee was so excited when she came out that she yelled, "She's OUT!" and jumped around.

We fed the giraffe, Jolee had done it by herself months ago, but this time was too scary, so Mom had to help.

Aunt Sandy even fed the giraffe too.

Due to some of Jolee's more destructive tendencies when she is bored,
Aunt Sandy splurged and got a bunch of dress-ups for her for when we visit.
Jolee was is dress-up heaven!

Princess shoes! Oh, the joy they bring (and pain, it really hurts when she stepped on our toes).

JD is now a master army-crawler/ scooter.
He had traveled across two rooms just to get to Jolee's sandals.
He often crawls to the window and stares and Chonkiri (our dog).

Jolee with crazy hair and a crazy outfit in the jumping castle.

"I am going to fit this in my mouth some how!"

JD's first time in the jumping castle. He had fun with Jolee.
I just had to constantly remind her NOT to jump over JD.

See he does have red hair, it is just short
(except for a few hairs that are a little longer on the top of his head that I just can't bring myself to cut yet).

Randy didn't want his normal hair cut, he said "just shave it off."
I just had to get a halfway done picture.

Practicing dance moves

She wants to be a cheerleading ballarina princess.

"Arggg, I scooted meself into a corner, then booby trapped the exit." Ewwwww!

Reading the signs. Jolee loves to find letters and try to read.
She just makes up stuff, but she is showing major interest in reading.
She spends usually about a hour sometimes more sitting or lying down "reading" books.
She has started to read to JD too.

Dad, Sandy and Jolee being silly at the zoo.

My handsome hubby! His smile is the best part of my day!

JD got tired out and snoozed during the trip to the zoo last weekend.

Jolee and I looking for monkeys (actually this exhibit has lesser apes in it).
Jolee will correct people who call them monkeys and say, "no, they're apes."

Sandy in a log at the zoo. I really like this picture of her!
Jolee loves getting to go to Sandy's house and then the zoo.
Since we have gone the past two weeks in a row, Jolee is going to expect us to go every week.
Well, the elephant exhibit is opening soon and they have baby elephants!!! so I plan on going a ton anyways!
Lucky Jolee.

Here are the love birds! 7.5 years and still going strong!

The goofy girls.

Not wanting the girls to out goof them, Randy and JD snuck into Sandy and Jolee's picture to start a tickle war!

More signs to read, or use to do back flips.

What could be hiding in here? Oh, nothing but flowers.

Sandy and Jolee with another pretty bird.

An update

Between work and trying to be a good mom, I have had little time to even think about blogging, but here is a quick update.

JD is massive and happy. He is a master at rolling and is trying desperately to crawl. Right now he is laughing and jumping in his play center. His smiles are AMAZING.

Jolee is so smart and is always getting into trouble as she is trying to figure out EVERYTHING. She is fascinated with Strawberry Shortcake, especially the show about a dance. She has to wear a dress or fluffy skirt if she is watching it. Yesterday, I found some of my hidden energy and made her a princess dress out of some material I had (I was going to make a scrub top out of it). The pictures don't do it justice, it is actually pretty cute (well, at least Jolee and I think so).

Randy and I are both super busy teaching and being parents, while trying to continually show our love for each other. Randy is doing well in his masters program and is looking forward to the end of this class (just one more week).

in her homemade princess dress

eating a sock during a diaper change

learning to steal the remotes

sharing a bath

learning to ride a bike (she is now really good at it)

feeing a lorikeet

a happy little guy

juggling the babes

snow in utah

Lady Moon

My favorite lullaby that I remember my mother singing to me is called "Lady Moon." Her mother sang it to her and I just learned that my great grandmother sang it to my grandmother. I sing this song to my children and it is the song that Jolee requests the most, especially when she is tired or sad. It always calms her down. I have always wondered what the original words to the song were as my mother told me that she didn't really remember all of the words, so she made words to fit the song. Her mother passed away when my mother was 13 years old, so it is understandable that she had forgotten some of the words over the years (my mother first sang the song to me 15 years after her mother's death). I had done so searching to try to find this song, but without much luck. Today, I again attempted to find it. And after some digging, I found this site http://kol-safran.blogspot.com/2009/10/song-my-grandmother-sang.html. From this I went to http://books.google.com/books?id=Lxiqj0-a6X0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. If you scroll down to page 218. The original song is found with sheet music. The song was published even earlier in the book Songs for Little Children for the kindergarten and primary schools by Eleanor Smith in 1887. The words have significantly changed from the original, but seeing as how it has been 124 years from the date this book was published and that the song existed before the book was published, it is to be expected that things have changed.

The lyrics for the song I sing are as follows:

Lady Moon, Lady Moon shining so bright
Come down to (name of child) from out in the night
Little (name of child), Little (name of child) way down below
Moon hears you calling, but Moon cannot go
In my house full of darkness alone I must stay
Moon loves little (name of child), the bright Moon says

One day I will get around to having my husband video tape me sing this song and I will post it. 

Happy Halloween

This year, Jolee was a pink ninja turtle and JD was a jack-o-lantern. We went to a costume contest during the day. Nope, they didn't win, but they should have!

Later we went to trunk or treating at church. I was part of the group in charge of getting set up. We had a great turn out and the kids had a blast.

I drove up to Tucson in the wee hours of the morning and kidnapped Aunt Sandy so that she could come trunk or treating with us (Randy was out of town at a temple trip with the youth).

I had so much fun watching Jolee trunk or treat. JD wasn't as excited by the whole idea, but he enjoyed his cozy costume.

Jolee with two of her bestest friends.

 Focused on candy acquisition.

Getting candy from her babysitter (I think she snuck extra candy into Jolee's bag. Jolee is definitely  loved and adored!)

JD crashed with Aunt Sandy will Jolee enjoyed some treats.

Yum! (Look at JD's sleeping face on the side, so cute!)

When we got home, everybody crashed. Jolee wanted to sleep in her costume. At least I got her out of the shell.

Painting pumpkin on Halloween morning.

The artist concentrating on her masterpiece.

JD is such a happy Jack-o-lantern! I love his smiles and giggles.

My monsters!

The finished pumpkin. After painting she covered it with foam Halloween stickers.