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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Popcornasaurus

Sorry this is such a long post, but it's a story that I want to remember about Jonah's first real at-home school project :  )

Jonah's class has been doing a unit on dinosaurs these past few weeks! As part of the unit, he had to complete a dinosaur project at home. It consisted of creating a dinosaur model made out of some kind of material and covered in the item of his choice.

PLAN A
As soon as he brought the letter home, he was adamant about using marshmallows for the project. So, we went to the store, bought three large bags of colored marshmallows, lots of toothpicks, and tacky glue. I left it up to Randy to get the foam to mold the dinosaur shape. Well, apparently Randy and I had different ideas about how this dinosaur project was to go down. My idea was to cut the shape from foam and use toothpicks to cover the surface in marshmallows. Randy's idea was to use the foam as a stand and build the dino out of toothpicks and marshmallows. Let's just say I won that battle ; ) So Jonah and I sat for approx. 2 hours covering the area of the shapes in marshmallows. Our plan was to piece the foam together the next night to create a large dinosaur and then we'd mount it on a board. Well, that's when things took an unexpected turn!  We get a note home, the night before the project is due, that says, "Your child must be able to carry this dinosaur on his own without assistance!" This was never stated in the original project description and if I weren't so exhausted from gluing 500 marshmallows the night before I might have argued that point to his teacher. There was no way Jonah was going to be able to haul this ginormous dino on his own. So Randy and I got to brainstorming again! We tried cutting the original one down, but it just mangled the marshmallows and made it look like a T-Rex had gotten a hold of it.  All the while, my parents keep calling ready to zip over to save us from this dino disaster.  I'm pretty sure my dad had his boots on and his truck fired up ready to roll.  My dad is the king of school projects! He spent many a late night constructing whole towns from mere scraps of wood and, as Linds reminded me, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria out of toothpicks and popsicle sticks, no joke!   I now know how he felt!  I reassured them we had it under control, well kind of, lol.  So onto...

PLAN B
Randy goes back to Michael's, buys more styrofoam (mind you, we've probably just spent $20 in styrofoam on these 2 dinos), we cut it out in the shape of a brontosaurus and proceed to glue popped popcorn all over the thing. We had tacky glue  and hot glue strings everywhere! The important thing is that Jonah was having so much fun! We kind of turned it into a dino party. And the best part was that we could snack on the materials as we were assembling, lol. I'm proud to say he (or should I say we) scored a 10 out of 10 ; ) He was so proud of his dino!  And I present to you...


POPCORNASAURUS!

Monday, January 30, 2012

GiGi's 60th Birthday Celebration

Last week was GiGi's 60th birthday! Since we knew she'd be nearly impossible to surprise, we filled her in on the festivities : )   We had actually planned, with my dad's help, to surprise her for dinner on Wednesday (her actual birthday), but both kids were sick with horrible coughs and a fever.  Jason and Tyler have both been sick, too.  Gotta love the cold and flu season!  Thankfully, we were all a little better by the weekend.  We spent the entire weekend celebrating her special day.  Lindsey, Jason, and Tyler came down from Chicago to spend the weekend, too. We had such a wonderful time!  Lindsey and I are taking my mom to Memphis as her birthday present (as we all know, she's a big Elvis fan)!  The last time she went, my dad took her.  They even stayed at the Heartbreak Hotel, which my dad said was a little creepy seeing as they pipe Elvis music into your room 24/7, lol.  We are looking forward to our girl's weekend! Happy Birthday to the most wonderful, caring, and loving mother anyone could ask for! We love you so very much, Mom!

GiGi's Birthday Cake!  This is a picture of her when she was about a year old!  Isn't she sweet!

We love our GiGi!

GiGi and her little princess!

Love how little Ty Ty is background guy in this picture ;  )

Blowing out the candles with some help!

"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my mother"
~Abraham Lincoln~

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Jillian the Gymnast

Jillian started gymnastics a few weeks ago and she is loving it! This is her first gymnastics class without mommy participation. She really enjoyed the class we took together at the Y, so I thought she might be ready for the next level. Her class is at a competitive gymnastics facility, but of course at this age, they just work on beginning tumbling skills and having fun, thank goodness. Not too sure how I feel about the whole competitive practice schedule as they get older, it's so intense. I was a little worried about how she would do without me down there with her, but she did wonderful. There are 5 little girls total in her class. They are all adorable! After the first week, I showed her some videos I had taken of her in action. After seeing the videos, she looks at me with a serious face and says, "Mommy, but where are the pictures of all my new friends?" Too funny! I did notice her chatting it up quite a bit with several of the girls. I wish I could have heard those conversations, too cute. Oh, my little social butterfly! Here are a couple of videos of her in action, sorry about the quality and all of the background noise. 



Monday, January 16, 2012

Tiger Cub Ice Skating

Jonah had a Cub Scout ice skating event this past weekend! He had a blast!  Of course, he came home telling me he now wants to play hockey after soccer this spring.  The thought of him playing hockey makes me a nervous wreck, considering most hockey players don't have any of their own teeth, yikes.  My mom suggested I let him play right after he loses his two front teeth, that way there will be no teeth to get knocked out, lol.  Maybe they play with a plastic puck at that age, fingers crossed!
This is his first year as a Cub Scout, well he's actuallly a Tiger Cub. There are 3 other boys in his den and they're having so much fun! They meet every Monday night with the whole pack and then sometimes have special activities on the weekends. His next big event is the Pinewood Derby. He and Daddy have been working on the car for the past few weekends. He is so excited! They have had lots of father/son bonding time, which is so important. You know how those boys love their daddies : ) Jillian and I tagged along for a couple of the events as scouts is very family oriented. Jillian already said she wants to be a Cub Scout, lol. Jonah set her straight on that one though, telling her that cub scouts is for boys, but she can be a Daisy and then a Brownie. She was thrilled to hear that! Now anytime Jonah puts his uniform on, she excitedly talks about how she's going to first be a Daisy and then be a Brownie. Bless her little heart!

Jonah in his Tiger Cub uniform!  He's so proud!

Jonah & his buddy, TJ
Jonah & Daddy on the ice!



Blake Shelton Concert

This past weekend I had an evening out on the town with the Lewis girls! Susan, Sharon, Rachel, and I went to see Blake Shelton in concert at Chaifetz Arena on SLU's campus. It was an awesome concert! We met for dinner at a cute Italian restaurant before and then made the icy trek over to the arena. Thank you girls for such a fun evening and for letting me be your 4th sister ;  )  We always have so much fun together!

Susan, Rachel, Me, and Sharon
     

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Happy New Year!

I can't believe it's 2012! Jason, Linds, Tyler, PaPa, and GiGi were here for New Year's Eve this year. PaPa & GiGi were sweet enough to stay with the kids while we went out to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Paolo's! It was delicious! We then came home and played board games, I know, I know, we're getting old, lol. What a fun night! May your 2012 be full of many blessing, love, and happiness!



Our Happy Little Family!
 Randy rang in the new year with a fresh face, let's just say he's already growing his goatee back, lol.

Ready for a night out on the town :  )

Jillian loves her auntie!

Momma and her girl!

We love our PaPa & GiGi!

Lovin' on some Ty Ty!

PaPa Snuggle Time!

Two New Year's Cuties

Another New Year's Cutie

PaPa is a celebrity around here and so is Buzz!  

A mouthful of popcorn and M & M's!

Christmas Celebrations!

We celebrated Christmas Day at my Aunt Jan's house this year!  After the kids opened their Santa gifts we headed over to Forsyth for a day of family and fun.  We had lots of good food and special memories with those we love.   Thanks for hosting in your beautiful home, Aunt Jan & John!  We had a wonderful time!  I didn't get near as many pictures as I'd like, which makes me a little sad.   I didn't even get one picture of my Grandpa Heinie.  Hopefully, Linds got some with her camera!  We then stayed the night at my Grandpa Heinie's house and got to visit with him the next day.  On Monday afternoon, we all headed back to GiGi & PaPa's house to spend the week!  It was like old times, well, plus 3 kiddos, lol.  I also got to have lunch with some of my best girl friends and the kids had a playdate, so much fun.  We don't get together as often as we'd like, so it was great to catch-up.  We finished off the week by heading back home to STL to celebrate the new year.
Christmas Morning!

Grandpa Lager opening his gifts!

Jonah and his new talking globe, so cool!

Jillian and her new Lalaloopsy treehouse!  Happy Girl!

Aunt Jan & Jillian

All the cousins!

Coloring Cousins!  Love Ty Ty's cheesy grin :  D

Christmas Eve

Cookies and Milk for Santa! 

Christmas with PaPa and GiGi

The Friday before Christmas, PaPa and GiGi came over so the kids could open their presents from them early. We had such a special day! After opening presents we went out for a Christmas lunch at Olive Garden : )  Jonah's favorite gift was his Lego space station and space shuttle. Jillian's favorite gift was the mermaid mountain, complete with 8 tiny mermaids and all their accessories. Thank you PaPa and GiGi for all the presents! The last two years Jonah's school had a Christmas store set up and let them shop. He took $20 to school and came home with gifts for each of us.  He even brought back change! It touched my heart to see how his eyes lit up and he got so excited seeing us open his gift to each of us. He is such a sweet, thoughtful, little boy! I'm so proud of him and how he's learning it's better to give than receive. That's a hard concept for little kids! He told me several times this Christmas season that getting presents is fun, but the most important thing is celebrating Jesus' birthday. How sweet and true! 


GiGi, PaPa, and the kids!

Jonah and his Papa!

Jillian and her mermaids!

Awww, how sweet!  Jillian was thanking Jonah for her gift from him, a hair accessories set! 

Christmas with JoJo and Grandpa Dan

The weekend before Christmas, JoJo and Grandpa Dan came over to celebrate Christmas with us! We had a yummy lunch (JoJo brought her delicious pasta) and opened presents! We loved spending the day with them : ) Thank you for all the neat presents!
Grandpa Dan, JoJo, and the kids!

Jillian opening her dollhouse!

Jonah got a really neat dinosaur excavating kit!

The two excavators!  Jonah was the chipper and Jillian was the detailer :  )

Excavating takes concentration!

The finished product!  Once you dug up the bones, you had to assemble the dinosaur.

JoJo & Jilly