Throwing Helicopters

As you can probably tell I am getting caught up on the blog before I leave. I am almost done, I promise. For Emmett's science, we have moved into beginner botany and have learned about seeds and leaves and flowers and why plants have them. I am excited for when we are in Idaho and I can have Emmett get some hands-on experience in my sister's huge garden. I hope he learns how to pick weeds. :)

Looking for maple tree seeds

Love this picture because you can see all his big teeth growing in

I remember the joy of throwing maple seeds (helicopters) and watching them spin to the ground!

Preschool: Ice Cream and Olympics

I taught preschool last week for the last time! It was a happy sad moment. Happy because I feel it is time to move on from the co-op preschool life for a year or two and happy because finishing preschool means our trip is coming up but sad because I really love these cute girls. We had lots of good times together, this week included.

Monday was focused on the long I sound and we learned about ice cream. We talked about what goes in ice cream and I had a great book to show all the steps. Then we made our own ice cream and I let the girls choose their own flavors. I got out all my extracts (maple, rum, vanilla, almond) and let them smell them. They liked them all, which was shocking to me. I thought they would dislike the smells. Emmett was the only one that chose vanilla. Three girls chose maple and one had almond. We did ice cream in a bag. It worked pretty well.

Wednesday was even more fun than making ice cream, in my opinion. We had our own Olympic Games to learn about the long O sound. I found all sorts of games to play and we played almost the entire time. I did have them do a quick craft where they printed with cups, creating an Olympic flag (with the rings) and I read one book that was really a great resource. But then it was games, games, games! My favorite was the marathon where they had to run 26 times around the circle in my house (family room, kitchen, dining room, repeat). After about 10 laps one little girl was huffing and puffing and said, "I ... am... so... tired." They encouraged each other and made it to the end.

shaving cream + glue + paint = painting that looks like a dropped ice cream cone

Olympic Torch snack: cheese puffs in a cone shaped paper

olympic balloon volleyball

Taylor and Sallie holding up their torches

Melynn demonstrating Olympic pom pom soccer

April Showers Kid Book Club

I hosted our kid book club this month. The theme I chose was April Showers Brings May Flowers. It was a lot of fun. I found a lot of books about rain and flowers, made some cupcakes with umbrellas, and planned a very simple flower craft.

Pushing the Pause Button

I am getting ready for a big trip to Idaho to see Josh's brother and sister get married. But not to each other, of course. His little brother, Isaac, is getting married to his high school sweetheart, Mariah, and his sister, Cassie, is marrying Hans, whom I've never met. I am down to the last week to get everything done before pushing the pause button on my life in Memphis.

I have my calling covered. Eight weeks worth of substitutes for the primary music is not an easy task. It goes like this: I start saying, "I'm going to be out of town..." when people start to edge away and have this panicked look on their faces. I am so grateful for the people who were willing to step up to the plate and pinch-hit for me. Oh yeah, and Mother's Day and Father's Day happen during my trip so I had to find people willing to lead the kids in Sacrament Meeting too. Fun fun. I predict that I will be released from that calling while I am gone.

I have a smattering of pictures that I uploaded a couple weeks ago and never posted. Because I've been busy!

Emmett watching tv and reading scriptures. Hmmm...

Tucker on his feet, his new thing, probably wanting to rip scriptures (which he did to mine the other day)

Little Bear Tucker

Superman!

My sweetie Melynn

This was totally posed. Emmett had to toss out all the toys to put Tucker in the crate.

But it is cute, right?

Tucker is starting to like cars

Temple Tulips 2013

My temple tulips came up again. They are beautiful. What I think is funny is that last year the yellow ones bloomed really well and I had only one white and red stripey one. This year I only have two yellows.

Here is the story of the tulips: Right after Josh graduated from medical school we took a trip with my parents to Nauvoo. While there, on the Nauvoo temple grounds, a gardener was digging up tulips and throwing them away! My parents are pretty good at making new friends so they started talking to the gardener and he said that they throw them away every year. I don't remember why. Anyway, he said we could take some if we wanted them. We put some bulbs into grocery sacks and took them with us, back to Omaha, and then here to Memphis. The first year was a surprise because we had no idea even what color they were and we were not sure if they would grow here. I planted them in December and they came up in March 2012. This time I planted in December and they didn't come up until April. Go figure. Next year I need to put them elsewhere because this corner by the front door is too wet and I'm worried the bulbs are going to rot. I hope they continue blooming each year since they have such a neat origin.

Josh's Birthday

I can't believe I only got one picture from this. I spent so much of my brain power on the surprise party that there was none left to take the pictures. Oh well. Here is the one picture I did get.

Fresh Paint

We did some painting in the kids' bedrooms to spice things up a bit around here. It was a fun project and they look more put together now. We also put up the cute vinyl sayings that my mom bought us. Take a look!

Melynn's Room: buttery yellow. It is so lovely in the mornings. The whole room feels filled with sunshine.

The Boys' Room: soft blue, almost periwinkle. Color called Rendezvous.

Thanks Mom for the vinyl! It looks so put together now.

How to Eat Crawfish

My residency buddies had a crawfish boil today. It is a tradition that they do every year. Many of them are from New Orleans or other parts of Louisiana. Here is a step by step guide.

Start with 70 lbs of crawfish. These are live, and fresh from the Gulf near New Orleans.

Throw them into a big pot of boiling water, together with secret spices (courtesy of Parker Velargo), corn on the cob, mushrooms, potatoes, green beans, and a variety of other vegetables. Then you cook them all together. (surgical gear not required) 

Chief Resident Parker Velargo

After they are done, dump the pot onto a large table (again with blue surgical drapes if you have them)

That's a lot of crawfish. This is only 35 lbs. There were two separate batches.
(We didn't partake of the drinks pictured here, if you are curious)

Emmett demonstrating the proper way to crack and eat a crawfish.

Step #1-Grab the crawfish from the table.

Step #2-Hold it in your hands, grab the tail, and twist until the tail is separated from the torso.

Step #3- Optional. Suck the juices and spice from the torso. Yummy! (really, it is)

Step #4- Peel the shell off the tail. 

 Step #5- Enjoy the delicious meat!!

Step #6-repeat steps 1-5 over and over and over and over again (you have to work for your meal, but it is awesome!)

I think my brother Isaac should do this for his wedding reception, but I haven't figured out where to get fresh crawfish anywhere close to Idaho (and don't think Mariah would go for it). So, I guess you will just have to come to Memphis to enjoy this tradition.

Josh's Surprise Party

Sunday was Josh's 30th birthday. I threw a surprise party for him. It was so fun to plan and have a secret that was all about him. I loved it. Originally I wanted to invite his co-workers and their spouses for a dessert bar after the Priesthood session. It would be a 2 hour time span where he would be out of the house, allowing me to decorate and for people to arrive (since most are not LDS) and he could come home and we would all jump out. Sounds perfect, right? Well, it was, until Josh told me that he had an all-day sinus course and all my well-formed plans fizzled. I assumed that most of the residents would not want to come to our neck of the woods after hanging out with him all day. So I scrapped my first plan and went with a breakfast on his birthday instead. I had a couple helpers bring food and seating to accommodate the large group. I tricked Josh into telling me who he would most like to hang out with and invited those few families (couldn't invite everyone because my house would have exploded). Then I waited. Saturday was funny because I had prepared food during Priesthood and he saw it when he got home but I just said, "I wanted to make something special for your birthday." Not lying, really. It was for his birthday and I did want it to be special. But I made two pans of it because we were cooking for more than just us.

Sunday morning I was hoping he would sleep in and instead he popped up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever. I did manage to get him out of the kitchen to take a shower, during which I made the mad dash and finished the rest of the preparations. I got the decorations out and the paper plates and such and fifteen minutes before people were to arrive he came out and said, "Who is coming over?" I told him it was a surprise but at that point the surprise was pretty much over. It was fun to have friends over before Conference began and I think he had a good time as well. My only regret? I didn't take any pictures.

Made His Momma Proud

At Wal-mart on Monday, we had quite a neat experience. We were rushing, as usual, to squeeze a trip to the store in before Melynn had to be at preschool. I just had a few things that I needed to get so I could prepare for my book club on Tuesday night. Plus, Emmett already needed his glasses adjusted. So, we grabbed a cart, stuck Tucker in the front and Emmett asked to push it through the store. No big deal, right?

First stop was for kid vitamins and we were going to cut right in front of the pharmacy since it was closed and as Emmett made a left turn with the cart he collided with a display of Halls cough drops. It wouldn't have been a big deal except the display rack had little metal hooks and one managed to hook onto the cart, causing the whole display to crash to the ground and Hall cough drop pouches to scatter all over the floor. My immediate feeling was anger. But after watching General Conference, I was really trying to be a kinder mother. So I took a deep breath and we all started picking up packages of cough drops. We were hooking the packages on as fast as we could (not in a very orderly fashion) when an employee came over and started helping. I didn't just walk away and let the employee finish. I had my kids continue picking them up until the mess was completely taken care of. And then it happened...

Emmett picked up the last handful and said to the employee, "It was my fault. I am sorry."

I wanted to hug him and kiss him right there in the store. Wow. Talk about seeing some signs of maturity blossoming! I was stunned because getting an apology out of him is usually not worth the effort but this was totally him. Him recognizing that he made a mistake and fixing it and being remorseful. Wow! I had a good talk with him later about how proud of him I was and how grown up it was to say what he said.

Can't think about it without getting a little teary-eyed.

Tucker Funnies

I love this baby! Tucker is simply the joy in everybody's day around our house. Both kids fight over him because they love him SO much! Here is what that cute baby is up to.

He crawls all over the place

He drums on things

He rides on my hip

He gazes lovingly at the clothes in the wash

He watches them spin round and round

He really likes laundry day

I have some video footage of this cute baby. Hopefully it loads as fast as the pictures did.

Visit from Cousins

My 2nd cousin, Lorena, came for a short stop-over on Monday. It was SO much fun. We talked until late into the night, the kids played like they had known each other their entire lives, and we learned new games. They taught us Chickyboom (which is super fun) and Stealth Chess and we taught them Storytime Memory and Family Night Frenzy. We had a combined Family Night complete with an April Fools Joke. I saw it on Pinterest. You cut letter E's out of brown construction paper, put them in a 9x13 pan and cover it with aluminum foil. Then you tell the kids they can have some brownies, only they are brown E's. I thought it was super funny. The kids didn't get it. They ate Easter candy for their real treat.

Melynn, Scotty, Grant, Emmett, Tucker, Nicole

Max and Tucker had a great time together

Nicole, Emmett, Scotty and Melynn

Emmett, Grant, Melynn and Nicole