Note to Self: Walmart and "Quick" Errands

Life is starting to settle back into a normal rhythm again, like the glitter slowly settling into the comfort of the bottom of the snow globe.  The beautiful whirlwind of this weekend has been wonderful for sure, but I was really looking forward to the calm.

I had finally made a dent in the mountain of laundry and dishes.  The bills were paid, the children back in school, bedtime was reestablished.  I was finally feeling good about my general effectiveness in this mothering balancing act.

Then I went to WalMart.

"But I just need to make a few simple returns.  It will be quick.  I know where everything I need is.  No problem,"  I tell myself.

NOTE TO SELF:  Simple and Walmart with three kids never go together.  Especially when one is asleep and the one who needs to be in the cart insists on pushing the cart, unrestrained.

So here I am, exchanging two pairs of shorts and a broken toy piano, with a sleeping baby and two "helpers" along-side.  I get to the boys' section and find the shorts.  They only have one color in the right size, so I throw that in the cart.  Half-accomplished task checked off on my mental to do list.

On to toys... (oh, let's see if they have any cute maxi skirts in stock... Wait.  Focus.  Toys.)  Now we are hurrying, Mr. Four is getting pretty heavy at this point.  "Mr. Two, do you have Mr. Three in eye sight?  Good?  Good."  Here is the isle of obnoxious noisy toys to find replacement piano.  Yes!  They have one in stock, and it actually works.  Toss it (gently) in the cart.

Mr. Three is not in the isle.  I make the mistake of asking Mr. Two to peek around the corner to get him.  Mr. Two is too interested in aforementioned noisy toys.  Then I hear a somewhat distanced, panic-stricken cry.  That sounds like Mr. Three.  (Make that silly piano stop playing!)

I can hear him, but I can't see him.

WHERE IS MR. THREE?!!!!!

Find clueless store employee and give him the stare-down and say I AM MISSING MY CHILD.  DO SOMETHING.  So he goes to ask someone else what to do.  (Oh panic, do not set in now.)  Then someone who knows what they are doing gets on the radio and, thank heaven, someone has found him.  I see a mom with a young child in her cart who asks me if my child is missing, and asks if his name is (Mr. Three).  She found him and took him to a worker.  Thank you, thank you, helpful mommy. 

Then I hear the announcement, "Looking for a lost mommy.  Little two year old boy with teal shirt and jean shorts here in the fitting room waiting for you." (Never mind correcting them that he is in fact three.  Why am I even worried about that?)

There on the bench by the fitting room is a tear-streaked, but smiling Mr. Three with a friendly grandma-like worker, who is reassuring him.  Thank yous to the worker, hugs and kisses for my little boy.  Now he is STAYING IN THE CART until we get to the van.  Of course he protests.  At this point Mr. Four is awake and does not want to sit in the cart either and I am exhaused, while Mr. Two is just chillin', wondering what all the fuss is about.  So I go to the customer service counter with two screaming children standing in the back of the cart to make my exchanges and get out of there AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.  Thankfully there is only one person ahead of me in line so we can make a quick getaway.  Mission accomplished, with a big dose of drama, but done nonetheless.  In to the van we go.

Then I realize I have a little time before picking up Mr. One and decide to run to the next nearest Walmart to find the other pair of shorts, so I can cross that entirely off my to do list.  I pull into the parking lot, look over at a now sleeping Mr. Three, remember my last experience at Walmart and promptly pull out of the parking lot and go home.

Maybe I am actually learning something.

Busy, Busy

If I am a little absent for the next several weeks, there is good reason.  We have:

 

an almost toddler who can't stay away from the toilet and an older toddler who won't go near it

father and son's outing

family coming into town

one baptism

Easter

two birthdays

a baby shower

an out of town wedding

It will be an exciting and busy time, and I am looking forward to it all.  However, my to do list is daunting right now.  Wish me luck.  We'll talk later.

I Spy ABC Tub

You know I love a little I Spy fun at my house.  I have found lots and lots of sensory tub ideas all over the internet and came up with a fun variation on an alphabet tub for my boys, borrowing and adding to lots of great ideas I've seen elsewhere.

I started with some white rice and some alphabet pasta, dyed with the trusty Wilton gel food colors.  I wisely kept the dye out of Mr. Three's reach.  (It was a fun little experiment for the boys to take the baggie of uncolored pasta and squish it in the plastic bag with the vinegar and food coloring and watch it turn colors.)

After putting that together, I added 26 water bottle tops with scrapbook sticker alphabet letters stuck on the inside of the lid, and tossed them in.

I also tossed in a set of magnetic fridge letters and some round colored abc beads.

Then, the funnest part for my boys:  scoops, funnels, magnifying glasses and a pencil-magnet fishing pole to catch the letters.

I also put a cookie sheet with a sun bleached magnet puzzle and a homemade dry erase board (a cd case with white paper inside) alongside the tub to use to explore the letters.

They loved sorting the letters and examining the tiny pasta abc's with the magnifying glass.

I spy some B's!

I was happily surprised when Mr. Three immediately took to finding "his" letter in the box, excitedly pulling out his T's and showing them to me.  He is really fascinated by beginning letters in names right now and points them out on store signs, books, street signs, food packaging.  The kindergarten teacher in me does a little happy dance at this.

Mr. Two, who is starting to read, began making words with his letters and writing them on the homemade dry erase board.  Victory!

Oh, this tub will be put to good use!  I'm so excited that it turned out and that my boys love playing in it as well.

Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss!

We had another fun day celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday this year.  As an added bonus, it was on a Saturday, so everyone was home to enjoy it together.

We had our traditional green eggs and ham for dinner.  (Well, green eggs and bacon, close enough :))  Mr. Two was hesitant to "try them, try them and you may" but found that he did like green eggs and (bacon)ham.

Mr. One does not like green eggs and ham, he does not like them Sam-I-am.  But give him toast, he likes that most.

Mr. Four loves green eggs, well, to play with at least.  Eating? Not so sure...

Mr. Three said no to the green eggs, but loves the (bacon)ham.  Yum!

We also had some strawberry-banana Cat in the Hat skewers.  Those were a big hit with all the boys.

Mr. Two is crazy about his fruit kabob!  He and Mr. One assembled them for our family dinner, cutting bananas and threading the fruit on the sticks.  A fun way to sneak in some pattern practice, too.

Mr. Three loves his fruit!  Chomp, chomp!

We couldn't have a Dr. Seuss dinner without a fun dessert, so some sweet eggs and ham were on the menu.  Now these were green eggs that everyone was willing to try!  (Made with a pretzel under a candy melt, melted in the microwave and topped with a green M&M.)

The boys liked hearing a few favorite stories, Green Eggs and Ham (of course) and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, to name a few.   We also played a new game together: this cute fishing game found here.  I had a few more Seuss crafts and activities planned, but the boys were happy playing on Seussville and so I have them all pinned and partially prepped for next year.

MIM

Several weekends ago, we visited MIM, the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ with my parents and some of my siblings.

 

It was fun for the whole family.

 

You are able to wear headsets that sych with the exhibits, so that you can hear music from all over the world as you look at displays that show different instruments and artifacts.

There are huge rooms for every continent (well except Antarctica, no musical penguins I guess), as well as a large space with different musical genres, from jazz and blues to hip hop and rock.

 

There were famous musical artists' signed guitars, show costumes, pictures, etc.

 

But the best room of all was the hands-on room with instruments to play.

 

We had to peel the boys (and the rest of the family) away from it all.

 

They had so much fun.

 

I would most definitely go back, as there was so much to see, hear and do, we couldn't possibly enjoy it all in one outing.

 

Plus, the boys really rocked those headphones!

Lego FHE

My boys love Legos.  Mr. One and Mr. Two can sit and build for hours and hours.  Mr. Three likes to unbuild what his older brothers create :).  He likes making things with his Duplo blocks as well.  Mr. Four loves to chew on Legos.  We have to be very vigilant about keeping the little pieces out of his reach.  When they are not building, they are often discussing various Lego adventures.

I hope that the language of faith and the Gospel come as easily for them as talking about their favorite playthings.  As I was pondering this, I had a light-bulb moment.  I could use Legos to help my children better understand the gospel.  Here's how Mike and I did just that.

I purchased two identical small Lego sets and placed the pieces only (minus the mini figure) in two small boxes.  We told the boys that we had a gift for them.  (We gave Mr. Three a Hot Wheel to open just to be fair because he is too young for the little Lego sets.)  We let them open the boxes and dump out the pieces.  Then we simply said, "OK, now build it."  They were a little confused and asked us what they were building.  We just told them to figure it out.  They started examining the pieces and experimenting with putting them together.  Mr. One kind of enjoyed this, although you could see he was confused about what he was supposed to do, but it was clearly frustrating to Mr. Two.  Mr. Two quickly said, "We need instructions!"  We asked them if just a picture would help, and we showed them.  That gave them a better idea, but still was difficult to know how to put everything together.  Then, we gave them the instructions.  They were both able to put their model together fairly quickly.

We asked them to explain why they needed the instructions.  They said that they told them what to do, that they made building easier, that they helped them understand how to fit all the pieces together the right way.  We then asked them if they knew of anything that they had that might be like their Lego instructions to help them in their own lives.  Perhaps a book of instructions to help them know how to live.  We were impressed when they quickly connected the instructions to the scriptures.  Bingo!  We were able to have a good, short and sweet talk about how the scriptures are a guidebook for our own lives.  They can provide answers to our problems.  They can give examples of righteous people to follow.  They can be an answer to our prayers.  They tell us how to live so that we can return to our Heavenly Father.  Just like the Lego instructions, that they can go back to to help them rebuild a model, the scriptures help us build our testimonies, and we can learn from them each time we read.

We shared our testimonies about the power that comes in reading the scriptures.  How they have blessed our own lives and answered our own questions and prayers.  We expressed our desire to have them love the word of God, to be eager to read and study them individually, to have their own testimonies.

I am grateful that inspiration can come through the most everyday items, and that even Legos can be a springboard for a meaningful gospel discussion.

Valentine's Day 2013

Here's a little recap of our Valentine's Day.

I attempted to convince my two oldest boys to make Valentines this year, enticing them with clever cards I have collected (thank you Pinterest). 

Mr. One was unconvinced that this was a good idea.  He had his heart set on Star Wars Lego Valentines, so off to Target we went.  He was all too excited to get started selecting and addressing them.  I didn't have to help him at all, he was so happy.

The only trouble with Mr. One's cards was that Mr. Three was really enamored with them.  He kept sneaking them out, clutching them to his little chest, pointing out all the characters.  He also tried to convince me they were for him, pointing out the letter in the beginning of his name on the box as some sort of marker that they were actually his.  I had to go and buy an extra box later so he could have some, too.

Mr. Two, my artsy little man, was eager to craft, and saw these robot cards and wanted to make them.  We changed it up a bit with supplies on hand (colored hole reinforcers halved for hands and feet, curling ribbon limbs and simplified bodies), but I think our version turned out quite cute.  I especially love the hand drawn smiles.  It was a lot of work, and we had to assemble them over several days (five year old boys don't have the longest of attention spans), but he was so excited to give them to his preschool friends.  After all that work, I was frankly happy Mr. One wanted to go the store-bought route!

I had grand ideas of making my own Star Wars-themed cards for my boys, but time ran out.  Love this.  I also found a funny poem (thanks Jenny!) "R4 is red, R2 is blue, if I were the force, I'd be with YOU!" I may try and do something and just surprise them with a love note later... 

Mr. One also had to create a Valentine carrier to take to school, so we came up with a giant Lego brick box.  Mike measured and cut, and problem-solved to turn the idea into reality.  Mr. One glued and colored.  I even found a Lego font that he created his name with, and that was a really fun touch.  It was a team effort, and I think it turned out great.  He loved it.

We did have our traditional "heart day" fancy dinner with the family.  I spread a real tablecloth and decorated with candlesticks, heart doilies and foam hearts, using the nice(r) dishes.  I made pizza nuggets, roughly shaped into a heart, red jello, salad, and an extra rich strawberry-studded chocolate torte (think giant chocolate strawberry cake pop).  We turned out the lights, played some "love"ly music, lit the candles and ate together.  It was so much fun, and my boys were so well behaved.  I think I may break out the fancy dinner items more often!  Anything to avoid the typical weird noises, wandering around the dining room with a forkful of food, and random silliness...

It was a good day for showing our family how much we love one another.  I will use any excuse for extra love at home.