On the 3rd I took Christian to try out a "play based curriculum" preschool called Ranches Preschool in Farmington. After two years of my home-based one, I thought it was time to change things up. I LOOOOVE Teacher Tom's blog and wanted Buddy to experience that type of learning. The only preschools anything like that one are in Park City or South Jordan and cost $180 to $300 per month! Ranches is out of a woman's home and doesn't have all the space or materials Teacher Tom has, but I think it will still be great. While there, Christian painted this masterpiece of a Lego guy.
On the 4th Faith and I went to a mother/daughter tea which was an Activity Days event. The food was excellent, but my favorite was a game like The Newlywed Game to see how well we knew each other. I got 0 points in guessing Faith's answers (she changes her favorite color and activities too often for me to keep up!) but she got a nearly perfect score guessing mine. It was hilarious that one of the girls guessed that her mom's favorite thing to do in her free time was "taking care of kids!"
On the 5th I took our Wii to school, and along with two other parent recruits, did 20 minutes of Wii Bowling with one of the Kindergarten classes. Their class had the highest number of parents who joined PTA this year. It was a lot of fun and less crazy than I expected!
After two years of being the Membership VP, I decided to take a break from being on the board. The board, however, had other ideas and somehow I signed up again!? At least next year I get the cushy job of secretary (which I did three years ago).
May 8th was Mother's Day. Not a great one. I told my kids all week that all I wanted for my gift was the playroom to be cleaned up, or at least all the toys to be picked up off the stair landing. Not one thing was picked up. Sunday morning the kids didn't even get themselves breakfast (making us late for church when, at 12:50 p.m., they whined about not having any yet) much less bring me anything in bed. Not that I should have still been in bed, since I woke up early due to all of their screaming and rough housing! Still, I did get these two gifts (instead of the one day of consideration and obedience that I'd hoped for): a card that Faith had made for me at school,
Of course, the biggest blessing in my life is being a mother and, other than several hours that day, I truly cherish it! I always remember that Dr. Phil says, "you teach people how to treat you." I've got some new teaching to do ;)
On the 20th I did my final "Fun Friday" for Faith's class. I taught about flight and friction. We had paper airplane throwing contests and made these rocket ships that climb by alternately pulling the strings (here is a video of this kind of toy in action, theirs is made to look like a person).
I had a lot of fun teaching and getting the kids excited about science, but it was hard to think up all the lesson plans from scratch!
On the 21st we went to the Kaysville Safe Kids Fair. Christian and Tony had to get up early for Buddy's "Camp Champ" which is a city sponsored introduction to sports for preschoolers. They were already right there at the park and I joined them. Faith was missing for the beginning because she was at practice for the city musical of Wizard of Oz where she got a part as a munchkin! Buddy loved the Menchie's frozen yogurt guy.
Tony picked Faith up from practice and they arrived just in time for the police dog demonstration. The fair was lots of fun and the kids got tons of little prizes and treats from the booths including BRAND NEW HELMETS! This was awesome because the kids had just grown out of their old ones.
(Now I don't know if this is a "HAPPY" birthday since you're getting old, so Bad Birthday!) hehehe
(a purple musical instrument and below that, Indiana Jones holding a whip)
Here is the "simple machine" that Tony helped Faith build for her school project. (Actually, Tony did all the building, using some of Faith's ideas, and Faith decorated it.) The assignment was to devise a machine that could smash marshmallows. It turned out great!
On the 23rd I got gastric sleeve surgery. It is similar to gastric bypass, but they just cut 90% of the stomach away and don't mess with the intestines. I looked into it about 9 months before and had done the mandatory six monthly weigh-in's at my doctors. After jumping through a billion paperwork hoops for my insurance company, I was finally approved! For seven days before the surgery I was on a clear liquid and sugar-free protein shake diet. My mom took me to Salt Lake Regional hospital and waited with me for four or five hours (they were running behind) until I went into surgery. Everything went well, but I still had to stay in the hospital until the next afternoon. Tony had taken the 24th off from work, so he brought the kids to pick me up. This pic was taken on the 26th (at home) of the flowers the kids picked out for me.
I healed quickly and have been losing lots of weight! I'm down 49 lbs. as of today (July 9th). I had to do another two weeks of liquid diet after the surgery, and then two weeks of soft foods only, but now I can eat regular food. I have to stay away from sugar, white flour and rice for life, and have to get in tons of protein which is difficult because I can only eat about 4 oz. of food at a time. I will keep updating how things are going!
Next we went to Jensen Park in Syracuse. We got to feed lots of ducks and geese, even baby ducklings.
The 31st was Faith's piano recital. She looked gorgeous and did an amazing job!
I can't believe how advanced her song was compared to the other kids her age. And to think that she's only been taking lessons for nine months!
as well as Grandma and Grandpa Braegger,
