Category: Uncategorized (Page 55 of 212)

JACK: smugly  Do you know what a demigod is?

SAM: mimicking  No.  Do you know what a dummy is?

JACK: What?

SAM: Someone who goes poop on the floor!

Sam chortles, Jack scolds him for potty talk.

Recently I had the pleasure of being the “special visitor” for both my boys’ classrooms.

Sam’s preschool teacher invited all the parents to come share their professions or talents if it ties in with the class activities.  Last month the classroom centers included farms and arts and crafts, so I volunteered to teach the children about sheep, wool, and knitting.

It was so much fun to be a part of their class!  I brought in Amanda’s giant sheep to talk about the animals.  I brought lots of roving to pass out and talk about colors, and showed them how it is carded and spun on my wheel.  Then I showed them some projects I have made and talked about how sheep give us warm clothes.

I didn’t personally take any photos, but the next week I found myself on the bulletin board outside the classroom!  Here’s a close-up of those (with overly-intense-face from me):

Today I came to speak to the whole first grade at Jack’s school about Christmas in Germany.  They are doing a “holidays around the world” unit and the teachers solicited parents to come share if they had experiences.  With my collection bolstered by my mom and sister’s Christkindlmarkt hoards, I had quite a lot to show!  I talked about Germany in general, where and why I lived there, all the familiar traditions we get from Germany, and the ways they do things a little differently.  At the end I had time to read the Brothers Grimm tale about the Shoemaker and the Elves.  The teacher took some pictures and shared them on ClassDojo for me:

I brought in homemade Stollen and Bratapfel for the kids to try.  I took a poll at the end and it was about 50-50, half thought it was yummy and half thought it was a little too weird.  Personally, I’m loving the baked apples, which I made with this recipe.  Sam got super brave and tried the vanilla custard (made from scratch because they don’t sell that kind of thing at King Soopers).  He declared it delicious in a shocked voice.  It’s sugar and eggs, boy – what did you expect? 🙂 Jack’s favorite is the stollen.  He had two extra pieces as an after-school snack.

A special part of the project was collaborating with my long-time pen pal, Stefanie!  We have been writing since the third grade, first on paper and then by email, writing a few times a year to tell each other about school, marriage, and now kids!  She was very helpful in describing an authentic German Christmas.  She also sent me pictures of her family to share.

The last thing, that I’m so pleased worked out, is we exchanged carols!  I asked her to send me a video of her kids singing a German Christmas song for me to show the class.  I received it last minute this morning!

I played these videos for the class while they snacked on baked treats.  Then we recorded this message to send all the way around the world to Germany!  I sent it to Steffi this afternoon.  I hope her kids like seeing it!

We spent the holiday in Grand Junction with a plethora of relatives.  Not only my entire immediate family, my parents, Ben’s parents, and all my siblings, but the Arndt family came to visit too!

A few of us got ill during the trip, but we were all well enough on the big turkey day. 

(I’m new to WordPress and these pictures were uploaded in reverse order.  Still learning the ropes.)

Excited for holidays and new dragon jammies!

The first snow of the season. It finally feels like the holidays.

We are broadening Jack's horizons. This week I sprung on him soccer class. He was enthusiastic when they covered it in PE weeks ago. I signed him up for Mighty Mites, a non-competitive program to learn the basics and practice with other kids aged 5-7.

He ran right out there and started dribbling! It looks like he's having a ball out there. I'm so proud of him!

Halloween was fun-filled and long.  You can’t say we don’t get our use out of costumes!  After the church Halloween party we still had school parties, community carnival, and the big night itself.

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Most importantly, we have a mountain of candy to enjoy until Thanksgiving 🙂

Our church held the annual Halloween party early this year.  After judging at Amanda’s Speech Meet all day I raided her prop closet to build a spooky trunk display.  What good is having a drama teacher in the family if you can’t mooch off her?  Sam insisted on helping.

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Not long after that we all suited up and went to the party!  As Sam has been reciting all month, he was a dragon, Jack was an ewok, I was a vampire, and Ben was a ghoooooooooost.

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I’m didn’t know the kids looked so grumpy in this pictures.  I blame that on the sealed container of candy corn someone left in plain sight at the entrance.  Don’t show kids candy if they can’t have it!

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It was a whirlwind party.  Quick pizza dinner, then a quick round of carnival games.

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I wish I had more time to set up my trunk – I barely got it decent looking before kids arrived!  A lot of the the things I had planned didn’t happen because I had no time.  But there were many ooo’s and ahhh’s and I had many kids try to come back for seconds and thirds or more.  (Seriously.  Ben packed me two 36 packs and one 18 pack of full-sized candy bars and I ran out well before the kids stopped coming.  I’m POSITIVE there were not 90 kids there).   I didn’t have time to replace my fangs or put on black gloves and pince nez.  I did my best impression of Sam’s preschool teacher with the thick Slavic accent, put spooky music on my old timey speaker, and tried to keep the cauldrons bubbling. I might have sounded like this at times, but people seemed to like the effect either way.

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The party quickly wrapped up and the boys dived into their hauls.  It’s only October 22.  I hope we have more fun to come.  (Sorry if I sound grumpy.  I have a splitting headache.  It was a fun but crazy day with a lot of emotional kids to handle for a variety of reasons.  I really really wish I could sleep in tomorrow.)