Home School Pre-school

That's what Allie calls it. A few months ago we got together with two other girls her age and decided to have pre-school at home with them. We had a good thing going on our own, but I didn't mind trading off with the other moms and sending her out the door a few days a week too.
Allie has loved it.
This cute picture is from the day they worked on "H" and did a hair theme.


Last week when it was at our house we had the letter "I" and I made them icee's in our little blender thing. I guess they were pretty good and they were totally excited by the whole process of it. One of the girls, Maryn, could hardly contain her enthusiasm and said "Now you might be our new favorite teacher instead of Hannah's mom!"
I thought that was pretty funny and if I can be the favorite just by making a snow cone...come on over!

Jake's School Christmas Program

I attended my first school program for Jake. I was so excited to go see him singing in his cute little reindeer shirt. They combined with the other kindergarten class too, so there was quite a crowd of spectators. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't what I expected. First of all, I was so hot that I thought I would melt right there on the spot.
Second, they sang forever! I can't believe how many songs those kids learned. I was filming it at first because it was just so cute. Then I started to get bored and I couldn't imagine ever turning on this video and watching it without being even more bored, so I put away the camera.

Mike was able to come too and he wrestled a bored Allie while I filmed. It was nice. We were surprised that they were allowed to do songs about Jesus. Mike talked to the teacher after and she said that in the rules it says you can do religious songs if they don't take up more than 20 percent of the program. I thought that was interesting.

Anyway, Jake's favorite songs were "Jingle Bells" (of course), "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer", and "I'm Getting Nothing for Christmas". They got to use kazoos during Rudolf, and that was the talk of the week. When they were done with the kazoo song, they put all the kazoos back in a basket and promised they would get them after the program. I was a little grossed out thinking that they would just get a kazoo back, no matter who had used it. But found out later that they had identifying stickers on each kazoo:)
They also had a bell to ring during "Jingle Bells". So life at home, after Jake returned with the kazoo and the bell, was awesome for a few days:)

(That's Allie dancing to the lovely music of the kazoo)

Jake is a pretty cute little guy. He comes home from school talking about the things that he has learned (good things from school...not so many good things from other kids). It always makes me laugh, and sometimes I roll my eyes, when he says "I know" to something I am trying to teach him. He is smart, but sometimes he can be a "know it all" too:)

I wanted to write down a few of the things we have talked about lately.


Baby talk...

Me: "What do you think this baby will look like? Will he look like you or Allie?"

Jake: "He's a boy, so he'll look more like me."

Me: "Do you think he'll have brown or blond hair?"

Jake: "He'll have brown hair because more people in the world have dark hair than blond hair."

We read a book the other day about love and at the end they say, "I love you all the way to the moon". Jake and I were saying how much we loved each other and I said that I loved him to the moon and back, then he told me he loved me to Mars and back. I continued it with love from Pluto and back. I can't even repeat where he went from there because it was all this talk about other galaxies and stuff that only the people who made the nerd space movies he watches would understand.
We couldn't really end the conversation because there was no way I could refute that he had just told me that he loved me the biggest distance :)

We also ran into a bit of an outer space problem this year on his birthday.
I got him a set of glow in the dark planets to hang from the ceiling. I failed to notice that they hadn't made the planets correctly. For one thing, the sizes weren't right according to his space movie. Some were too big in proportion to the other planets. Then they didn't get things quite right in color. Earth and Mars were colored in a way that you could tell what they were, and Saturn had the appropriate ring, but heaven forbid...they left the great red spot off of Jupiter. It is his favorite planet, so I can understand his disappointment.
We spent way longer than I would have liked trying to position the planets on his ceiling according to where they should be in the solar system. That's where all the stress came in with identifying planets that didn't look quite like they should. There was one that I kept was insisting was the sun, but Jake told me it couldn't be because the pack only had 9 in it so it had to be one of the planets...he insisted that one was Jupiter (minus the red spot).
In the end, the putty they included in the kit failed to hold up the perfectly placed planets and I woke up to a sad boy at 4:30 in the morning who couldn't get Pluto to hang back up after it fell down and woke him up. Curse those planets!

Anyway, I love this boy and his fun personality. He is getting more and more responsible every day. He still fights with Allie as much as ever, but he is also really good to help her out when she needs it.

I love the conversations we have and the way his mind works. He's a fun boy to have around.

More Names

Allie and I were driving around in the car the other day and we came to talk about names for the baby. She was suggesting her favorite again (Sherman) and I was turning it down...again.
She reminded me that Jake really likes the name Tanner and then suggested that we name another baby Jake since she likes that name so much and obviously I do too.
Then she was quiet for a minute and said "Why do you think Dr. Strebel's mom and dad named him Dr. Strebel. That's a weird name."
This turned into a 20 minute discussion on what is a first name, a last name, and what is a title. These things are surprisingly hard for a 4 year old mind to master and she was left with many questions. She was worried that Jake was a Schwab and she wasn't. For some reason, she can pronounce "Schwab" when it accompanies Jake's name. But when she tries to say her full name, it comes out as "Schwart". So she thinks she has a different last name.
Then it was a whole new can of worms when she asked me why my name used to be Johnson and now it's Schwab.
Anyway, I was grateful when we reached our destination because sometimes I just get tired of explaining stuff.

Later, we were driving to dance and we had Allie's friend Lily in the car. She has a great grandma that they call Grandma Chicken. They also call one of her grandpas "Bugs". The conversation between the two girls was hillarious...
Allie: "Why do they call him Bugs? Does he like bugs a lot?"
Lily: (laughing) "No, we just call him Bugs"
Allie: "We once had a frog that we called Bugs (not true...we had a Bob the frog) but he died and went to frog heaven"
Lily: (laughing) "Now the frog eats bugs in heaven? Maybe there are bugs in frog heaven"

The conversation about Grandma Chicken was similar. The laughing was the part I loved. I love to hear kids laughing over silly things that don't involve annoying sounds or potty talk.

Exterior Illumination

I think Grizz has a little inner alarm bell that goes off when he senses Christmas light distress. The kids had been asking me to get the outdoor lights up for days. I think it has become a must around our house because it simply wasn't an option to skip it this year. Anyway, Mike was out of town and the day was somewhat warm (although this blasted rain hasn't let up till the last of our beautiful snow has been turned to icy yuck), so we decided to get going on the project.

I think I had time to get the bag of lights out and start wrapping the pole when Grizz was here with his ladder and his years of experience. We had beautiful lights, complete with a timer, in no time at all.

The kids were eager to "help". As it was a dress up day at our house, (what day isn't a dress up day with Allie?) Allie was too cold to stay out and opted to sit and direct from the window sill.


Jake was a great clip boy. He found every possible way to get in the way and yet be helpful at the same time.

I just stood there and held the string of lights. Every once in a while I would suggest that things didn't have to be so perfect, but that just won't do for the Christmas light guy.

He made sure each light was pointing in the same direction and replaced all the bulbs that burned out last year. He has extension cords and timers, ladders and knowledge. I benefited from all of it. Everyone should have a Grizz in their neighborhood. He sure comes in handy around here. Thanks Steve! I hope you enjoy the glow coming from our house!

Late birthday stuff

I thought I'd add some pictures from Jake's birthday. I think he had a great day.
It started out healthy with his favorite cereal Cinnamon Toast Crunch. His chair was decorated too...long live Johnson family traditions :)


Then he was off to school where his embarrassing mom came and made him pose with his teacher and in front of his box.

We also got to do the traditional lunch date with our friend Aubrey. All of us tried to talk him out of A&W, but that's what he wanted.

Then it was home to make the cake. It's a good thing that 6 year old boys are so easy to please. To save you from wondering just what this is, it's a Lego Star Wars cake. Mike and Jake have been playing Lego Star Wars lately, so suddenly we have a lot of Star Wars talk at our house. So naturally, his cake should be this cool...


Check out the professional frosting job. Oh well, it tasted good.

Grandma Johnson was able to come up for dinner and gifts. She gave Jake a Hot wheels toy that has bought me many moments of quiet bliss.

I think Jake had a great day. I sure do love him and am so glad to be his momma.

Happy birthday boy! I hope you have many great birthdays to come.

More Pictures

I took the kids out with me on a photo shoot because Mike was out of town. I brought their Leapsters and things would have been great, but Jake's batteries died within a few minutes...

Oh well, the people were understanding.

Anyway, I anticipated having time to take my kids pictures so I got them dressed up cute. We were losing light fast, but I still feel like I got some that I will love forever.
I think this was the first time I have looked through the lens and actually "looked" at Jake and Allie the way I look at other people I take pictures of. They are getting so old! And they are also really cute. They are cute because they are my kids and I love them, but they really are cute. I dare you to argue.

6!

The boy is 6! I can hardly believe it. The days are long but the years are short. It seems like yesterday that we went into the hospital to have Jake, but I guess that was 6 years ago.
I went into labor early with Jake and they held it off for as long as they could (two weeks). When my blood pressure went up and the contractions still weren't stopping, they said to come in and have him. He was breech so I had my first c-section. I remember driving to the hospital and talking to Mike about names. We had narrowed things down to Benjamin Robert when Mike said "what do you think about Jacob?" I loved it. So when he was born at 7:00 that night, we named him Jacob Robert (after a pretty cool guy I know:)
Jake was a really good baby. We didn't really have to change our lives much at all. We took him to movies with us, out to dinner, over to friend's houses, anywhere we went, he came with us.
I continued to work a few nights a week and Mike took care of him. That's where the countless hours of couch time came in. That boy learned to snooze anywhere, just like his dad.
Life was great with baby Jake. We love that boy.
Now he is in the stage where he likes to make silly noises and poke us when we aren't looking. He torments Allie and wants to eat candy 24 hours a day. He is also very kind and loving. He still snuggles me daily and gives great hugs before he leaves for school. He helps Allie when she can't get something done that is frustrating her. He plays hours of "kitty" as the cat on the leash for Allie because that's her favorite game. He is learning to read and has an incredible capacity for learning science and math.
He has great neighborhood friends and has established a fun pattern of playing outside through every season.
It has been fun to see him change and grow. I love him more than I would have ever thought possible. Happy birthday boy!

Prayer

I know it's terrible to laugh through a prayer, but tonight I couldn't help it. We have told the kids to get a little more creative in their prayers because they were tending to say the same things over and over and speeding up as if it were a race.

Taking things to heart, Jake has started to list every single thing he is grateful for. The list mostly includes family members, but then it starts to veer into the favorite things of the day. Favorite toys, friends that were fun, activities...it's just cute.

I was wishing for a tape recorder for tonight's prayers because Allie was cracking me up. I am putting this into quotes, but obviously this isn't exactly how she said things, just what I remember.

"I'm thankful for mommy, and daddy, and Jake, and Sam, and for the baby in mom's belly...even though we don't know his name and he is still in her belly, we know that we love him. I hope that I can be a good sister and be nice to him. He will be a good baby. Help me to be reverent (as she was jumping up from her knees). Help me to be nice to our baby boy. And I know that we have fun toys to play with, and I know that we have a good family, and I know...and we know..." and on and on. It was so cute.

I sure do love these kids.

We are...SV...

One of my Laurels is a cute little Sky View cheerleader. She brought by an invitation to cheer camp for Allie and it was all we heard about for at least two weeks...

"Is it after this dark sleep or 7 more dark sleeps?" She always knew that it wasn't soon, but she hoped. It ended up being on the same day as a Primary party and I let her use her free agency and decide what thing she wanted to attend. Maybe I shouldn't have even given her the choice, but after weeks of cheerleader talk, it was hard to resist. She went to the little day camp and had a great time. They had a little program for the parents after and it was fun to see her out there with all the other girls cheering.

What mom isn't proud when they look out to see their cute little girl and find this...

Mike keeps asking her to try out soccer or t-ball before she commits to cheerleading...we'll see how things go 10 years from now :)

Here she is with my Laurel Mally. She is proof that cheerleaders can be super kind and sweet...and cute.

Go SV!

I'm thankful for...

My family...

I don't think I will ever be as excited about family pictures as I used to be. I feel like the end result only shows that we are missing a big part of our family. But, I can't just quit taking pictures.
This year we went a different route than in years past. We didn't do the nature thing. I wasn't as thrilled about these pictures as I have been with other pictures, but there is no way I will drag the family out again, so they will have to do.
We took our Sam bear with us so we could have something to show for our angel baby.
Here we are...

Next year will find us with a bear and a baby to hold. That should be fun. I sure do love my little family. It's my mom's birthday today and it was my parent's anniversary on the 20th of this month. That whole day I was thinking that I sure was glad that my mom married my dad. They are both such good people and made the best parents a girl like me could ever ask for. I feel blessed to have found Mike and to have had such beautiful children. I look at these pictures and know that I am grateful for the sealing power of the temple. We are together forever. What more could I ask for?

Baby Boy

We finally got the last word on this baby's heart. The last ultrasound left the Dr. with some questions so they scheduled me to come in again a month later. Now that I am further along, the Dr. could be quite sure that if there were going to be problems, they would be able to see them by now. They didn't see anything. The 4 chamber heart was beautiful to my eyes, and it was cute to see his little face, hands, feet, and round little tummy. I had a lot of anxiety about this baby in the beginning. When they couldn't rule out anything at the first ultrasound, I was still a mess. Everyone tells me that healthy babies are the norm and that I shouldn't be as worried as I am, but my eyes have been opened and I couldn't help but imagine the worst case scenario. I know it sounds foolish to all of you to worry about another heart defect when Sam's was so rare. But the world of hearts is so complex. They can't say if Sam's defect was genetic or just a fluke. The only way to tell if it's genetic is if we have another baby with a heart defect. So, the possibility, though small, was there.
I am really grateful that I found peace with this baby after that first ultrasound, and that I have been able to choose to accept that peace. I haven't gone back to that state I was in before and I look forward to holding and meeting this sweet baby. This ultrasound wasn't nearly as nerve wracking as the last because I had peace. So, things look good. He is growing right on track, he is still a boy, and there are 4 beautifully working chambers in his heart.
The kids are still really excited and Allie likes to tell everyone that this baby has a healthy heart. She was at the ultrasound with us and was excited to see his cute face too.
So, that's our news.
I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. I am thankful for so many things. We are blessed.

Apples

Last year we planted an apple tree. It grew three apples that first year and they were so yummy. This year, I fought off the deer who thought the tree tasted yummy and ate the branches to nubs. Each attack was sad, but the tree continued to grow. We watched the three new apples grow and grow. They were perfect and beautiful, and all that the tree had to offer this year. Then one day, they were gone. The deer had found our beautiful apples and chowed them. I was so sad! I know there will come a day when the tree has more apples than we could ever handle, but for now I am sad that the three we had went to some greedy gut deer.

Anyway, we loved the applesauce that we made last year, so I was in search of free apples this year. No one seemed to have a good crop so I thought we were out of luck. Then my neighbor Marlene offered up what was left on her tree and there were hundreds of apples. I picked what I thought we could use and we made applesauce.

Of course, apples are tastier when they are peeled and sliced in perfect little circles.

They wanted colored applesauce again but I made sure to make some that weren't colored. I use the applesauce in some of the breads I make and once when I gave some out, I had to explain the green tint to the bread.

I love getting these jars off the shelf though. The kids love to argue over what color we are going to eat and they are always asking for more. I like knowing they are getting straight apples...and best of all, it was free!

Bunk Beds

We have been trying to figure out the bed situation since we learned about our new baby boy. We have three bedrooms upstairs and life has been great like that for the past 5 years. Now that we have a new baby coming, something has to change. Allie was totally on board to move downstairs. We have a bed in the toy room and she was thrilled to make that her big girl bed. I loved it too. Allie is a night owl and she makes it a rule to bug me a thousand times before she finally closes her eyes to sleep. Mike has a spot on the couch downstairs that is in use from the time they go to bed to the time he goes to bed. What does all that mean? It means that with Allie downstairs, she began to bug Mike instead of me. I was quite happy with the arrangement.
Then, for some reason, she decided she was done being a big girl. She went back to her old bed in her old room and wouldn't budge.
We had talked about getting bunk beds for years. I thought the kids would love them and it solved the problem of more kids than bedrooms upstairs. So I have been watching KSL for a while and found a hot deal. We put the beds together today.

After much frustration, a trip to the hardware store to buy more lumber and screws, and 10 hours...we were finished.

The main frustration came from the kids. We didn't even start building before they were fighting over who would sleep on the top. Jake's argument was valid..."I'm the oldest".

Allie's argument was also valid..."I'm the youngest".

To be honest, if you judge by who can stay in their bed all night, Allie would win. Jake comes out so often that I can imagine a fall in the middle of the night.

They fought till they were red in the face. Mike and I ran out of patience and threatened to take the bed straight to DI. We finally came to a reasonable solution. We decided that they would take turns. Each night they would trade off. The next argument came with who would start out on the top. So, we drew straws. Allie ended up with the short straw and came out crying. Once again, another peaceful resolution was made. They are sharing the first night and then Jake will start out the cycle. What a joke! But they are happy.

As I was making the beds up, I realized that this bed is going to be a pain! I told the kids that peeing the bed was not allowed. Jake was laying on the bottom bunk at the time and said "ew, I know where the pee would go...it would drip down right here! I'm not sleeping down here!" I thought that was pretty funny.

I think bunk beds are a rite of passage for childhood. I remember laying below my sister and kicking at her bed because she would fall asleep first and I just had to pester her. One night, the bunk bed came crashing down on me and scared me bad enough to never do that again.

Mike remembers kicking the bed from below his brother Steve.

I can hear joyful giggles coming from the room right now. I hope these kids can get past all the arguing and end up loving their beds and love sharing a room. If not, we just spent hours of frustrating labor for nothing...

*****Update from 9:30. Jake is asleep in the top bunk. Allie is in her old room crying because she has bothered Jake for the last hour. He falls asleep faster so she was tormenting him as he slept. She got plenty of warnings, but just couldn't make herself stop. So much for the first night...*****

Name Calling

We have all been through it. Some stupid kid in school starts rhyming things with names and the next thing you know, you are being called "Sue Poo" or "ew...Sue". I can still remember walking up the path to the cabin in McCall and hearing my brother call my name and saying "come look! Your name is up here!". He was at the age where he rarely graced any of us with his conversation unless it was to torment, but I went to look excitedly. It was a sewer cover. I don't even think I could read at that point, but he let me know that it said "sewer" and that it was my name. I remember feeling quite sad about that one. Now that I'm older, who cares. So my name is Sue and it rhymes with poo. It's also quite similar to a word that is found on a manhole in every city street. Who cares. Sue is not a terrible name. There are much worse. In fact, I like my name. I'm glad my parents chose Susanne instead of Hortense or something worse (I apologize if your name is Hortense...but come on, you have to admit that it isn't a very nice thing to name your baby girl).
Mike and I put a lot of thought into the names we picked out for our kids. Mike is notorious for coming up with nick names for people. He has a cousin that I only knew as Oatface until I met him and found out his name was Darrill. Why "Oatface"? No one can say. That's just what he has always been called. Mike's nickname is Oday. He doesn't have a middle name and Grandpa Del would always sing "Michael Oday who peed in the hay". It has stuck for over 30 years.
Maybe he got the funny naming thing from his Grandpa Del. How ever it came, there are some hilarious nicknames, and some that can't be said aloud in mixed company. I have to say that he has rubbed off on me a little and I have given names to some neighbors that have stuck. My favorite one is Grizz. I started calling our neighbor Steve, Grizz (for Clark Grizwald) because of his spectacular Christmas light display. It has stuck with him, and now everyone in the ward knows him by that name.
When we named Jake, we thought of all the possible things he might be called. "Jake brake", no big deal. "Jake the snake", only bad if he turns out to be some slimy creepy kid. "Jake, go jump in a lake"...again, not terrible.
Well, now that Jake is in school, we have learned a new one. He came home yesterday and as we were chatting about the day he said "Tennis calls me 'Jacob makeup'". Mike and I cracked up. Mike said something about how a boy named Tennis will get teased a lot more over his life than a boy named Jacob ever will.
I was still laughing in surprise that there is a kid named Tennis out there. Sorry if it's one of your top ten all time favorite names for a boy (or if Tennis's parents happen to be reading). I'll just say that you and I are different in what we like for names.
So, Allie might get called "Allie cat" her whole life, and maybe other kids will chant "Jacob makeup" at Jake, but it could be a whole lot worse.
Actually, what will be worse is if the kids put two and two together and discover what Allie's initials spell out. But we did do that to ourselves. Mike and our pediatrician thought it would be funny. We'll see how much Allie Susanne Schwab resents us for that one.

So now the pressure is on. What to name this kid? I had my girl names all picked out. Boy names are a different story. I can assure you though, he won't be Tennis.

A knotty girl

I can't believe I forgot to write about this event! I was organizing my pictures and came across the file. This girl went out to play and came back minutes later looking like this...

Luckily, the Internet had suggestions on getting cockle burrs out of hair. If this ever happens to you, get the hair wet and smother conditioner on it. Then they kind of just came out. There were lots of little pieces that we had to get with a fine toothed comb, but they came out. It was an hour project, and nothing I would care to repeat, but I am glad we were able to salvage her hair.

Half way done and still smiling! I was so proud of her. She normally screams when I comb the knots out of her hair in the morning. This was way worse and she just took it like a big girl.

Yuck... she has also been given instructions to stay out of the river bed unless she has her hair in a ponytail. What a mess!