Jump In The Drink: May 2011

Monday, May 23, 2011

Thank You Letters

So I had the kids write thank you letters to their teachers last week for the end of the school year. Kylie wrote one that expressed lots of love and thank yous. Very much to her personality and then drew a picture of her and Mrs. Broadbent. Landon very much wanted to type his. I also had to explain to him in depth why he had to hand write his signature above his typed name, and not just type it when you have a typed letter. In school his teacher has been trying to teach them to be descriptive. So his letter included that as well. I love looking into his eight year old head. This is what he wrote - font and everything. It brings a smile to my face.

Dear Mrs. Wright,

Thank you for teaching me wonderful things. You have taught math nicely. Your brain has taught reading smoothly. You have taught science really good. You are a good teacher.

From Landon

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Growing Up

Tannen has been taking off his diaper and peeing on the floor. It is driving me nuts, and I am not sure if I should try and potty train him or not. He still seems so little. But I have offered to let him sit on the toilet if he wants to and go potty. Well just today he peed on the floor twice, and he was about to take off his diaper and do it again when I offered him to sit on the toilet. He smiled the whole time but never went pee. So I put his diaper on and sent him on his way. He then started to take off his diaper again. I asked if he wanted to sit on the toilet and he nodded, so I put him on again. I don't think that he was relaxing enough so I asked him if he wanted to stand up and pee like Landon. He nodded his head, but nothing came out. So I grabbed Landon (he is home sick today) and told him to show Tannen how to pee standing up. So he did, and then magically Tannen peed in the toilet. So maybe I should reevaluate potty training Tannen. He obviously knows when he needs to pee, but maybe it is only fun right now and he will change his mind.

Aria keeps practicing walking, and she is getting better. I think it will take her at least a month for her to really figure it out. But she has been standing up all by herself. She has been able to do this for about two weeks, but now she is getting pretty good at it.

Yesterday everyone stayed home. Four of us had been throwing up, and no one felt good at all. I think we are starting to feel better. Marcus when to work today. But it was miserable yesterday. Marcus and I both felt really sick. It is hard to take care of your family when no one feels good. We watched a lot of Netflix, and the kids played on the Wii too. Our house is TRASHED!! Hopefully I can start to get it put back together. We are still waiting to close on our house. It is taking longer and hoped for, and I am pretty frustrated, but not a whole lot that I can do.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

VACATION

Marcus, Aria and I went on vacation last week to visit Heather. I haven't seen her in almost two years because they move out to Pennsylvania so she could go to PA school. I got Marcus' parents to watch the three older kids so we could visit and play for a few days.

We flew out early Tuesday morning and got to Philadelphia around 4:00. I was also able to see Teresa who has been living out there for a few years while Glenn does dental school. We stopped over and had a Philly Cheese steak - and it was good. Then we got on the road to Heather's house. She lives in a really small town about two hours away.

On Wednesday we got up and Heather, Jaron, Marcus, Aria and I went to New York City!! I was very excited. We drove and parked in New Jersey, and took the Path train to New York. I loved it. I was initially pretty nervous to go. We got there around noon at ground zero. We walked around took a ferry out to Staten Island, shopped in Chinatown. Where I got a great little red bag that the lady tried to tell me it was a Versaca. Which didn't matter to me, because I must live in a hole and I didn't know what a Versaca bag was anyways. But it is really cute. I also got the kids NYC tee shirts. We rode the subway, got on the wrong side of the street, and started heading the wrong direction, went to Times Square in the evening and loved the lights and the energy of it. We ate at a local Italian restaurant, and headed back home. It was great because Heather's brother live in NYC and we could call him anytime we needed. We got in at midnight.

Thursday Marcus and Jaron went golfing and Heather and I hung out. That evening we went out to a Japanese Hibachi grill. It was SO AMAZING! I loved it. We brought Aria with us and the Japanese women were going crazy over her. They kept coming over to touch and hold her and would give her a bottle and rub her back. They would pick her up and have her wave and say bye bye mommy. We hung out that evening just chatting.

On Friday Jaron went to work and we were planning on going to Hershey PA, and amish country, but Ashton got sick and so we stayed home. Heathers kids played with Aria a lot and she started taking more than one step. I think one time she took about 5 steps. So now we have a little walker. I am sure it will take her a good month of practice to get it down. She turned 9 months while we were gone. But Kylie took her first steps and learned to walk when she was 9 months old too. It was really interesting be back east because babies must not be that common. Everyone stopped and commented on how cute Aria was. Even if people didn't stop and talk, they always looked and her and smiled as they walked by.

On Saturday we flew home. We were hoping to check out the Liberty Bell, but missed it because we didn't get out soon enough, and had a ton of traffic in Philly. Marcus and I got stuck in Denver for four hours, but we finally made it in SLC around midnight and spent the night at Hollie's where our kids were. We woke up today and drove the kids home. It was really great.