Finishing up March: Teaching Preschool, Hike, Jane X-Ray, and Easter Activies + Everyday Life

Preschool
Preschool was back at our house for the last two weeks of March.

We are now using a curriculum called Mother Goose (the first half of the year we were running

through the ABC's and the teacher teaching did their own lesson plans). The company provides the lesson plans and all the supplies for the crafts for each day.

We last had Preschool at our house way back in October! So, I was not sure 

how Z was going to handle it, but to my surprise he was AWESOME!

He shared, he listened, he participated, and he even sat on his mat! 

(Sometimes when I am the "helper mom" he wants to just hang on me.)  

My favorite quote from him was after we had done an activity and there was something on 

the ground and he came up to me and said, "Here you go teacher." handing me the object.

Not "Mom." "Teacher."

I loved it. My friend who was helping said, "Did he just call you teacher?"

I later was telling Lee and he said, there is nothing more embarrassing then calling your

teacher Mom (in Elementary school), so at least he has got the "teacher" down. :)

I taught about butterflies for the two weeks. And yes, there is that much to

talk about for two weeks (they mix in a lot of other concepets like letters,
colors, numbers, and social skills)! I even had material I didn't get to! The kids were supper cute.

I was not sure how 7 boys would like butterflies, but they loved it.

I'll have to get some pictures that my friend took of them. We had a lot of fun.

And Jane joined in the fun for two of the four days and was a little angel.

Here are the kids loving having the picnic table inside.

They love to eat and play at it.              

Colored parking spots that you have to match up the color of car to the spot. He loved it!

Listening to Elder Holland and Grandpa Cooper speak. They both were amazing!

Family Hike

There is a Regional Park right down the street from us that has a few trail heads. 

We decided to go hiking on a Sunday evening there. 

It was so green and beautiful. Zachary loved looking through the binoculars

that he "borrowed" from Grandma. :)
(Seems like we are borrowing lots for her these days...)

We got pretty close to cows and found some cool holes to look in.

Z called the trail a highway that we each had our own out lanes that we needed to stay in.

Jane put herself in time out. Z was running around like happy in front of her.

 "Pretties" she likes to wear two sometimes. And she is pretty cute while doing it!

 

We went to the park and she insisted that both babies come. She would

not let go of them once we got there. Kind of hard to play with two babies, but

she loved every minute of it. 

You also have to love the diaper on the baby doll. :)

The only way I could get her to come on the walk was to bring the books!

Jane X-ray

We met up with some friends at the park on Good Friday morning.

Jane ended up going down a slide that I usually help her on all by herself, and it did not turn out good.

It is an L-shaped slide so it turns in the middle. I usually catch her and help her

turn, but I was not close by when she started to go down.

She ended up turning on her side at the turn and landed on her shoulder on the ground at

the bottom. It took her a super long time to calm down and by the time we got 

home I could tell something was not right with her collarbone.

Every time I tried to pick her up she would cry "owe" and point to her shoulder. Poor thing.

(Exactly a year ago was when Z had fractured his, and this seemed like the same thing.)

I got a doctors appointment in, and they had us go and get an x-ray done.

Lets say Jane did not like getting x-rays done!

She SCREAMED the entire time. And I was the one holding her down.

I was glad it was Good Friday and that Lee had a half day to come and help with Zac.

They ended up saying that they didn't find anything. A good thing, but even almost two

weeks later we have to be careful about picking her up under her left arm.

 It's nice to know that they couldn't really do anything if it broke anyways, so time

just will heal it. But I felt so bad about it all. She was a good sport.

Waiting room. They kids loved the water and free cookie!

Easter Activities

Cookies for FHE deliveries to Primary teachers and Bishopric. Z was in charge of sprinkles.

On March 29th Lee and I went on a date to the production

of The Lamb of God. It is music that goes through the last week of Christ's life. It was really good!

And I loved having something that really reminded us all about the real reason we celebrate Easter.

The next morning we were happy to see that it was not raining yet, so we could join our friends, the George's, at a YMCA youth camp nearby for an Easter egg hunt and pancake breakfast.

It was an awesome setting and the kids were pretty cute. They had hunts going on every half 

hour. The kids love the hunts, but they only each lasted a minute to two minutes, and 

Z was not very happy about that. We ended up doing three and calling it good. 

Zac and Lucas. Jane and Paige.

We ran to HD before the rain came. Jane was super happy to ride like her brother on the cart.

We dyed Easter eggs. The kids liked it. Z did most of it. Jane just sat there with a egg

in the yellow most of the time. Lee was really good at helping Z be patient while waiting. 

It is an activity that is risky with kids, but it turned out fun!

And Zac was pretty cute with finished product. 

Easter morning the kids loved finding eggs everywhere when they came downstairs. 

We had not told them that there would be eggs when they woke up because we did not
want a reason for them to wake up any earlier.

Zac was super good at bouncing around and leaving lots for Jane to find.

We had about 40 eggs for them to find. They were supper happy with the five jellybeans and

one candy in them.

Happy Easter! Sunday best!