2 Little Monkey's

This has been a busy and fun week for me, but as it always seems, when Mama has a lot on her plate, these little ones of mine sometimes get left to their own devises.   

Tuesday night I meet up with many of the RS ladies pictured below for a French cooking class at a local grocery store (so excited to try some of these recipes - yum!), Wednesday night was scout committee meeting (yep, boy scouts. It is my new volunteer hobby, by special request/assignment from my husband), Thursday, I made five 9x13 apple crisps and helped set up for our 4 ward Relief Society Birthday celebration dinner - it was fabulous, so wish I had pictures to share!   So Friday morning I took the little ones to their favorite indoor play place and we met papa for lunch.  They had such a good time, and played hard for 2 hours before we left for lunch. 

They played air hockey with my last quarters.  Their understanding of how points are accrued was totally backward, but they loved it and we all wished my quarter stash wasn't in the car.

 

Note to self, when going the 3rd week of March, double check the area school spring break schedule ... it was packed!  But I did run into an old friend I haven't seen in years with three of her munchkins -- funny how it doesn't seem like that long ago until we look at our kids and realize my #3 and her #2 were babies at the time.  Wow.  We had a great time catching up.  

After lunch I had just enough time to drop the little ones with a jr. high student, borrow her dad's truck, pick up a load of compost for $10 and get back to her place to meet my three big kids at the end of school.  GR spent the evening spreading and tilling the compost into our garden - totally missing KU's basketball game.  We are so grateful he did!  Today he's with the youth on a temple trip and it's rained constantly. 

Survivor Sistas

For the last six-ish years (eek! I can't actually remember when I started) I have been watching Survivor with my friend Julie.  She actually started long before that with a totally different group of amazing women. 

We are the Reality Sisters (aka Survivor Sisters) by name.  We are night owls, some by choice, some by circumstances.  We start gathering after 9 and never, ever think of leaving 'till well after midnight.  It has very little to do with the show we watch ... Survivor, Lost, So You Think You Can Dance, American Idol, Top Chef ... they have all hit the screen - though none as much as Survivor.  This merry band of sistas have been a grounding force for all of us.  We have a pack of confidentiality ... nothing leaves the walls of that house and we are free to laugh and celebrate and vent and yell about everything ... and we do.  Reality Sisters now dot the US, from coast to coast.  Each of them has left an empty seat in our circle.  They are missed and mentioned often in our late night discussions.  This week one of our own, came back for a week long visit and it was so great to have her back, to visit and catch up, and pretend for a few days that she still lives across town.

State Chess Tournament

Friday night and Saturday were spent traveling and participating in the state chess tournament with the three big kids.  We left the little ones with Grandma and Grandpa, knowing they would have a better time with them than with us and that made the entire experience much easier. 
 

State chess is for grades K-12 and is held at different schools in different towns each year.  There were TONS of kids participating.  Sam competed with 105 K-3rd graders, taking 43rd place, winning three of his six rounds (his best tournament so far!).  Rebecca and Emily both did well, each winning 2 of their 6 games, but ended up near the bottom of their grouping.  They were disappointed they didn't do well enough to metal.  But each of our kids did much better in this tournament than previous tournaments and that is something we are very proud of them for.  They were confident and didn't get rattled at all by the number of other kids participating.  Before Becca and Emily's first round started, a kid came out and threw up in the trash can outside the playing room, his stomach in knots with nerves.   

This was our first year attending the state tournament and I think in the end we decided that as long as the kids enjoyed it, it was worth the investment of time and money*.  We are continuing to look for ways to help the children better understand how to play chess, specifically helping them understand and identify classic patterns and how they play out.  I'm learning this is critical to doing well consistently, and something that truly comes with practice.  Nevertheless, I'm on the look out for a good chess book or two for kids (either geared toward them, or for adults to help teach children the game) to purchase with my supply of Borders gift cards before they are worthless ... if you have any recommendations, send them my way.  One I've looked though and like, although it's a bit advanced for my kids at their current stage, is "How to Beat Your Dad at Chess." 

  

* For the sake of family history ... typical tournaments cost $7/child as an entrance fee. State did not have an entrance fee.  Then there is food.  Much to the childrens annoyance, we do not purchase items from the concession stand.  It just isn't practical financially.  We typically pack snacks, water, and purchase lunch off site ... 2 $5 pizzas or at state, we purchased Subway sandwiches, which doubled as our dinner.  Since this tournament was 3.5 hours away, we stayed in a hotel Friday night to the tune of ~$100.  And then there is the gas money ... ~$3.20/gallon.  As for the time commitment ... you arrive at the tournament at 8:30am and you're there until 4:30 or a bit later.  Add to that travel time if it isn't local (and we are very blessed to have most of our tournaments close by) ... and that's a serious amount of time spent in a school commons.    

A couple of months ago GR ordered Faith in God posters for the girls.  Their arrival was quite timely.  They were shipped MONTHS after he ordered them, but arrived a week or so after an exhausting showdown, parent/child discussion about working on completing Faith in God goals, that went from hours to days in length.  

To make a lengthy story that does not make all parties involved look their best, our approach of "Please choose a goal from Y category and work on it in the four hours you have before church." did not yield the results we were hoping for.  In the days that followed, it was clear to me that if I wanted my girls to work on the goals in Y category ... that were "boring" ... I had to come up with ways to make them exciting, interesting and engaging in a way that will encourage and motivate the girls to willingly fulfill them.  

GR and I are hoping that these posters will work along with other strategies to help the girls take responsibility and accountability for completing their Faith in God requirements.   

Two houses ago, I found two poster frames at Target for $5 each.  I decided to use them to frame the girls posters. We are hoping this will be a cool and unique way for them to keep track of the goals they complete during Activity Days and be added motivation to complete others on their own so they can mark them off too.  Using a dry erase marker the girls can easily check off completed requirements and write out a plan for completing future goals in the margin space.

We're hopefully optimistic.  The plan isn't in full swing yet ... the frames need to be hung so the girls can really use them to do more than mark off things they have completed.  Then we'll work with them to plan out a couple of months of goals, on the plexi-glass surface, so when we say, "you need to spend time this morning working on Z goal." there is pre-agreed to, in writing plan to work from and will hopefully allow us to avoid massive, draining melt downs.