September...In October! That's how we roll these days

Jonas preschool class

Jonas 1st day of school. Wouldn't open his eyes on purpose...the little stinker

 Jonas began Preschool and he loves it! I am the teacher for the first 6 weeks and it does create a busy month and a half, but I do love teaching.  As you can see from the picture above, his class includes ALL boys so he calls it "boy school" (as opposed to Joy school).  We are using the mother goose curriculum as well as doing plenty of field trips and supplementing with some montessori toddler life skills.  They are hilarious and it's actually kind of convenient to have all one gender. They are all interested in the same types of toys so they make less of a mess at play-time, they can all be included in the same games easily, etc.  Of course they all want the same color of crayons and the same swords at the same time as well, but it's still all good.  We went on a field trip to the apple orchard nearby (I checked my girls out of school to come with us since they seem to have no funding for field trips at their school).  We went to the local gymnastics gym and tomorrow we will go to the library for a tour.

Jonas is also at the "asking questions about everything and pointing to people" stage which can cause some embarrassing situations.  He is constantly pointing at complete strangers and saying things like "Mom!  How come that man is not wearing a shirt?" or "Mom!  How come that lady has a big tummy?" or other such lovely observations.  If we are in public I try to distract him, quickly duck his pointing finger another direction or quietly whisper to him how that's not appropriate. In a desperate situation I've even just covered his mouth for good measure.

He also LOVES cheese.  Pretty much any kind but swiss and gorgonzola.  When my dad was visiting (also a cheese lover) he purchased some white cheddar and brought it home from the grocery store.  We don't usually have this type of cheese so when I was slicing some off to put on a sandwich Jonas asked "what kind of cheese is that?" to which I responded that it was white cheddar.  He immediately wanted to try it and approved.  He is being such a stinker about food in general and will hardly take bites of dinner, vegetables, and the like.  I am hoping it is just a stage but I get frustrated!  I cooked him his absolute favorite dinner of rice pilaf, broccoli and rotisserie chicken the other night with berries for fruit and he refused it.  He is one that is a lot happier if he's fed and he gets so beside himself he won't even take a bite of food!!  Luckily Jared has been handling the dinner situation if he's home.  They've been going outside to take bites after the rest of us have finished but it gets mighty frustrating...

Jonas at his gymnastics field trip

Jonas apple picking at the ranch

Jonas grocery shopping with me. He wouldn't pose for the picture of course

Lillian before church one day

 My Lilly girl has been doing pretty well in kindergarten.  They had their "crazy color days" for two weeks where every day the teacher designated a different color they were all supposed to wear.  She was very excited and creative about it so her picture below is during her "black & white" day.  She is doing okay in school, but the more I'm volunteering in her class and keeping a dialogue with the teacher the more I'm hesitant about keeping her there.  She does just fine academically but it's the social side that I'm worried about and hoping that another year will give her the maturity she needs!  She'll raise her hand in the middle of instructions to let her teacher know that her bug bite itches, or she will come home and tell me how no one would play with her at recess and and she just stayed by the yard duty the whole time, or that she was so tired she didn't want to do anything.  I've had to pick her up early from school two times now because her teacher was concerned about her.  I got the word from the Preppy K coordinator that there is no way she'd be able to join that class so Jared and I are still considering what to do since she could really use the social aspect of kindergarten for practice but we can't afford a private school option (between $400-500/month) and the teacher told me she's bright so I might have a hard time justifying to the school that she needs to repeat kinder.  AAAhhh! The things you don't think about when you have an August baby!!

Lillian on black & white color day

Lillian is continually biting her nails and eating her boogers so Jared found out about a product called "mavala stop" which is basically a clear, extremely nasty tasting nail polish that is supposed to deter such behavior. The reviews on Amazon were great, Lillian was totally on board because it's been her goal for the past couple years to stop these things, so we went for it.  Apparently it hardly does a thing for her.  Even Jared's boss said it worked wonders for his daughter and it maybe stops her for a few hours but I can only remember to put it on her nails so many days in a row and we're a little disappointed.  No magic bullet here, but we'll have to keep on trying.

Lillian on carousel at Gilroy gardens

Finding parking at the girls school is crazy.  Luckily Jared splits the early morning carpool with the neighbors to do the 7:40 drop off for Jocelyn, but twice a day (kinder drop off and afternoon pick up) I have to brave this with the younger kids.  One morning Lillian told me (as I'm trying to parallel park...not one of my strengths) that she would help me.  She turned around in her car seat and looked out the back window telling me, as I'm backing up, "You're going to crash! You're going to crash!" and, as I'm slowing down and parking a foot or two from the other car "You're okay now!" and acted like she had been the biggest help ever!  She definitely takes her role as older sister seriously when interacting with Jonas and Emma. As shes talks to him in a blend of condescending and informative tones... "Now Jonas, let me tell you about how to spell red.  You see...It's R-E-D and you see here how it is on the side of the crayon?  Well, you will need to learn that for kindergarten and now you know."

Emma at gymnastics field trip

 Little Ms. Emma is just that...little!  She's so tiny it's hard to believe she can already stand up steadily, get into loads of trouble climbing up things, get into things and even take a couple steps.  It seems she is a lot less verbal than my other children were at this point (which I will need to ask the doctor about at her year check up), so I've tried to use baby signs with her to no avail. She looks at me, or even looks away like "why are you making a fool of yourself doing those silly signs?!" and just grunts when she wants more food or attention.  She is on mark for everything else and seems to love dogs and music so I'm not too worried, but can't help but compare to my other 3 and worry that everything is alright.

Emma on carousel at Gilroy Gardens

She has been helping out with teaching preschool (by napping about half of the time), going on field trips with us and being flexible about naps with all the school and extra curricular drop offs and pick-ups every day.  She loves for me to hold her which means that she's not very good about going to anyone else.  She's totally happy going with me anywhere as long as she's on my hip or in a tummy pack, even a stroller most of the time.  But if I take her to the rec center kids zone to try to work out: Forget it!! She'll only last maybe a few minutes before she's screaming/crying and they've had to come get me every time I drop her off. I have maybe 30 minutes before they tell me they can't do the crying any longer!  I'm determined to get her used to it...Wish me luck.  She'll be turning one here in a few weeks and we love having her as part of our family.

This is where she escapes to when I'm not sure where she is...Better option than the toilet

Emma at the apple field trip

 Jocelyn is tackling 1st grade like she's done it her whole life.  She's been really into reading the Junie B. Jones books and will check out one every week for her "take home reading." They aren't my favorite as they don't have correct grammar AND Junie B. is a naughty little girl, but they are entertaining, I'll give her that!  Jocelyn is taking art lessons again this school year and has her artwork on display with the other students for the month of October at the community center so she's excited about that.  We started doing some at-home piano/music lessons which she has done well with.  She also enjoyed going to the back to school BBQ (she doesn't want to miss out on any social events whether they are parties, recess, play dates, kids zone... you name it) and enjoyed going to the pumpkin patch with Lillian when some friends took them this past weekend. 

Jocelyn's artwork at community center.  The camel up top...

At the pumpkin patch last weekend

Girls with Cotton candy at back to school BBQ

 We also went to the local Specialized Bike Rally sponsored by Rotary club and Specialized bikes in town.  The kids did great, had a fun time and earned their shirts, water bottles and backpacks.  We, of course, didn't win any of the raffles for specialized bikes or helmets and Emma was resigned to sitting in the stroller the whole time, but it was still worth it.  We followed that by going to the Home Depot Kids craft.

The next weekend we went to the ward camp out which was a little bit of a bust...rained out.  Jared was in the aftermath of his kidney stone, it rained, was quite a bit of work for a short amount of time, Lillian didn't sleep very well (so consequently the rest of us couldn't), and Emma & Jonas had colds, etc.  Did I mention that it rained?  Luckily I had been wise enough to request one of the "cabins" they had available so we weren't dealing with sopping wet camping gear on top of sopping wet kids, but anyhow, at least we supported the cause :)

Girls at apple field trip