The Twins First Day of Preschool

So I was trying to get caught up with organizing all my pictures from last year in the hopes that I could keep up with blogging a little better this year (I'm still working on September...I think the odds are stacked against me).  I was debating whether to try to catch up or just start fresh, but when I realized that I left off right before the twins first day of preschool I decided I had to do at least a little bit of catch up.

So here it is, the twin's first day of preschool:

As I mentioned in my other two posts, we had three different start dates for school this year and the poor twins were last.  Once Hannah left, every single day they asked if it was time for them to go to preschool yet.  When the waiting was finally over, they were pretty dang excited.  The older girls were pretty excited for them too.

For the record, I must say that I did not encourage them to wear the same thing that day.  I do my best to not be matchy-matchy with them.  But my mom had gotten them a bunch of different outfits and they both really wanted to wear this one for their first day.  I figured it was their first day and they had the right to wear whatever they wanted, even if that meant they would match.

They certainly didn't seem to mind.

Addison went to school at 8:00 and the twins had to wait a whole nother hour before their school started.  To complicate things a bit, Hannah starts Kindergarten 15 minutes after the twins start preschool.  Fortunately my mom was there so she took care of getting Hannah to school that day so I could get pictures of the twin's classroom.

We headed out a little early to get said pictures.

 They hung up their backpacks on the backpack hooks just outside the classroom door.

When the girls went into the classroom, Miss Renee (by Maya) and Miss Abrea (by Lilly) greeted them, and told them to find the bus with their name on it and put it up on the door.

I have to interject here, the way Lilly's pants are happens ALL THE TIME!  I have no idea how.  I haven't figured if she pulls them up or one just hikes up somehow.  It seriously cracks me up though.  I love it!

At the open house they were pretty excited when they saw these all-things-a-preschooler-could-possibly-want bins.

They grabbed a pencil and got right to work on their first worksheet.  

And after that I felt a lot like I did dropping off Hannah at her first day of Kindergarten.   Like they were just fine and wondering why the heck I was still there.  So I finally left and took this picture on my way out.

They have been loving preschool ever since.

Hiking in Moab

So this past weekend we headed to Moab to visit Bart's family.  Bart and I have been to Moab in late May for the Art's Festival before, but this is the first time (in a long time at least) that we came down with no particular event/activity in mind.

I suppose that's not entirely true.  His Brother Jacob just got his mission call to Bolivia, and was ordained an elder and went through the temple on Saturday, so we technically went down for that.  But we went down early so we had a couple days to just do whatever we wanted.

We decided to go on a hike and go fishing.  For the hike we went to Moonflower Canyon and it was such a perfect hike for kids...well...minus the poison ivy.  It's short, not strenuous at all, and dead ends into this little pond type thing that was perfect for exploring.



Addison was very intent on documenting our adventures in her sketchbook.





And Bart (and his brothers) spent a lot of their time chasing lizards and looking for antlions. (I included that link because the first time Bart told me about them, I didn't think there was such a thing...apparently I was very wrong).





Someone was playing some sort of recorder and then horn for almost the entire time we were on the hike.  It made the little canyon echo, and gave the whole hike a very surreal feeling. 



Hannah proved to be quite the little trail blazer, and was always up at the front of the line of hikers.  Bart commented that she was just like him when he was her age, so I thought it was cute...that was until her dad had to help her navigate around poison-ivy-infested rocks. 



Charles probably won some best uncle votes while showing the kids all sorts of different insects/animals.











And giving the kids drinks from the Camelbak.  (Lilly later told me that was her favorite part of the trip).





Lilly discovered a newly hatched dragon fly that hadn't even completely stretched it's wings.







Ben just wanted to play in the water. 



The boys (and Addison and Hannah) liked climbing on the rocks.

And then we were on our way back.




After the hike we went to check out the petroglyphs.



There is also a log ladder that goes up this narrow gap in the rocks.  But none of us braved the climb.  That may have been partially because someone was up there the whole time we were there and the kids were ready to go.



This is seriously like one of only three hikes I've been on in Moab.  Ten years of marriage and we've only been on three Moab hikes!  Part of the problem is that Bart doesn't like doing any of the touristy hikes.  But still...three hikes?  That's pathetic.  I'm determined to make sure there are more Moab hikes in our next 10 years. 

Student Led Parent Teacher Conferences

Did you ever have back to school night?  Do you remember how incredibly excited you were whenever back to school night rolled around?  Your WHOLE family got to come to your school and see what you were doing.  I can't be the only one out there who felt this way as a kid.  Back to School Nights were  seriously the highlight of my elementary school years.  I STILL remember (with fondness bordering on giddiness) guiding my parents around my classroom, showing them all the cool stuff I was working on, and just beaming with pride as my teacher told my parents what a great student I was.

Well, around here they call them Student-Led Parent Teacher Conferences, but it's still just as exciting.  Addison got to show us all sorts of stuff she was working on.



The night of parent teacher conference, which also happened to be the 100th day of school, Addison's teacher had the students write 100 words.  If they completed all 100 words, their paper got cut into these curly cues and hung from the ceiling.

The kids have been learning about volcanoes, and got to "make" one in class. 



The highlight of the evening was watching it erupt.

I missed the first eruption and asked Addison to put in some more baking soda.  Addison looked questioningly at her teacher who gave her the go ahead (apparently they were only supposed to do it one time).  As Bart was helping her put the funnel in, part of the volcano broke off.  I gasped and held my breath waiting for Addison to start crying (she does that from time to time when something she's worked hard on breaks...and she had been telling me about this volcano for days), but she didn't, she just once again looked at her teacher, who said, "Don't worry, that's fine, it's just the demo one."  Then she was fine.  I was pretty impressed, I thought for sure there would be tears.

It wasn't until I asked if Addison needed to get her volcano from the bucket to take home that I realized, it wasn't her volcano that broke at all, it was the Demo volcano for everyone to use!  The lack of tears made sense, but I felt even worse!   We had broken the volcano everyone else would be using that night. Oops!

Fortunately Addison's teacher really didn't mind.  She is such a wonderful teacher, I'm so glad Addison is in her class.



Before we left Addison's teacher asked her what the molten rock was called when it was inside the volcano.
Addison excitedly replied, "Magma!"

"And what is it called outside of the volcano?"
 
"Lava"

And with that Addison earned the right to take home her own "Lava" so that she could make her volcano erupt at home.

More on that in the next blog post...

Kids Really Do Come Different

 

Having two kids the exact same age has taught me that kids really do just come different.  I think any parent with more than one child probably knows this, but when the kids are at the exact same stage developmentally, it really is exaggerated. 

For example (and I could list a million), Lilly is a night owl and Maya is a morning person.  It's funny, more than once at night, coming from the twins bedroom I'll hear Lilly say (in a very perky, playful voice) "Maya, are you awake?"  To which a groggy, sleep-filled voice responds, "Lilly, I'm tired! Go to sleep!"  Don't get me wrong, Maya has taken part in her share of after-bedtime exploits....this in particular comes to mind...but for the most part, Maya is asleep well before Lilly.

As you can imagine, Maya also wakes up before Lilly.  Poor Addison is very aware of this.  Lately Maya has been going into Addison's room probably 15-20 minutes before I wake them up in the morning to ask her sister if it's time to get up, if they can play, or if Addison can help her with some problem she's having (such as no more toilet paper on the roll).  Addison, being the saint-of-a-child that she is always helps her sister when needed, or gently sends her back to bed.  But 15-20 minutes before a wake up call is that awful time when you just can't really get back into a deep sleep, especially if you've gotten out of bed.  On a regular basis lately, when I come to get the older girls up, I'm met with a groan from Addison with an exclamation of, "Why Maya, Why???"  Poor kid.  I am going to have a talk with Maya about not walking her sisters up before it's light outside.

Usually Naps are no exception to the late-to-fall-asleep and early-to-get-up pattern that the twins fall into, but this day was an exception.



Hannah woke up well before I expected the twins to wake up, and asked if she could play with her play-doh that she got for Christmas.  Now, my husband is a ceramic artist.  I try to encourage 3D play whenever possible.  But I have to say, I am SICK of this play-doh.   Part of the problem is that the table where they play with it (and really the only place to play with it in the house) is in this awkward place that is mostly on hardwood floor, but partially on carpet.  Which means play-doh ALWAYS gets on the carpet, and is seriously a huge pain in the rear-end to clean up.  Especially when I'm feeling like this. 

But, like I said, I didn't expect the twins to be up for a while, and Hannah isn't too bad about keeping it clean, so I said yes.  Unfortunately, as soon as she had actually pulled everything out and started playing, I saw a hesitant Lilly peeking through the railing on the stairs.  I couldn't tell Hannah she had to clean it up now.  She had just barely gotten it out.  So I accepted the fact that I would have to do some serious clean up and told Lilly she could play too...wondering why on earth she woke up before Maya.

I also figured I had better take some pictures because I really wasn't sure that the play-doh would ever come out again.








In the end it wasn't so bad.  And I realized just how genius the idea of getting the twins brooms for their birthday was.  By the time Maya came up, the play-doh was put away, but when I told them to grab the brooms and sweep up the mess, even she was excited to join in.  The play-doh may see another day after all. 

And as I later pondered the discrepancy in the sleep-wake pattern on this particular day, I realized that, most likely, the reason Lilly was so hesitant to come up stairs was that she hadn't fallen asleep at all, but rather saw her sister quietly exit her bedroom, and moments later, followed suit.