We Joining the YMCA

We joined the YMCA here when Jonathan turned 6 weeks because their childcare will watch kids 6 weeks -12 years for 2 hours a day while the parents workout.  When we joined I was a little unsure of what I would think about working out at a gym.  I have always worked out on my own, but now with 3 kids I had only gotten through a 30 minute workout video once without interruptions.

Well, the Y has been awesome.  We have gone every weekday since joining.  I try to make it in time for a class each day which means I have to start the whole process of getting out the door (pump, dress, feed, change, etc) 1 hour before the class starts. The days I don't make it to a class I run on the treadmill.  I started doing interval training on the treadmill because I read it was much better workout. It's true.  It is.  I am sore the day after every time I do it.

The kids love child care too.  Depending on what time we go they do crafts, play in the gym, play outside on the toys, do games inside or just chill and watch a movie.  Most days when I pick them up they are made that they don't get to stay longer.  It is an added bonus that there are often kids from our previous ward that are in the childcare at the same time so it's like a play date. Jonathan does fairly well.  I've gotten pulled out of a workout class twice because he had been crying for 20+ minutes and there were lots of other kids there (one day I know he was fussy the whole time but it was early afternoon and my kids were the only ones there so they kept him).

Every day driving home I wonder what I would have done if we hadn't joined.  It is so nice to have a built-in break from the kids.

Family Fun

We heard through the grapevine about music and popcorn in the park so we packed up the kids and headed over.  It was freezing.  Luckily we had a couple extra coats and blankets in the back of the van.  We stayed long enough to enjoy a couple cups of popcorn.

We'll have to start looking at the city website so we can do more of these in the future.

Ryan's Mouth Issues

Ryan had a little growth under his tongue that he had to get removed.  He strategically scheduled the surgery for the first Friday of March Madness so he could watch games the rest of the day.  Pretty smart thinking.  Everything went well.  They biopsied it and it's not cancerous so that is good too.  It was a blocked salivary duct that caused it (so they think).  All I remember the doctor saying was that hopefully it doesn't come back.  It hadn't even crossed my mind that it could.  It is just one of those frustrating thing that there isn't much you can do about (as far as we know).

Kevin's Preschool

Kevin has loved preschool. It took him a couple weeks to warm up, but now he begs to go everyday.  We each teach twice a week for 4 different weeks during the school year.  We're doing the alphabet and numbers and try to do a song, story and snack. Here's a couple pictures from other people's house's:

We finally had preschool at our house for the first time. I think Kherington was more excited for it than Kevin. When I woke up in the morning, Kherington informed me that she had made packets of M&M's (leftover from St. Patty's day) for each of the kids to take home.  We learned about the letter 'S' by reading a book about snow, decorating an 'S' with sitckers, making a paper snake and enjoying a smoothie for snack.

The kids played like siblings...happy one minute fighting the next. It was fun to see.

The next day we did trains for the letter 'T'. I had bought two train kits on clearance after Christmas that had a total of 6 trains which worked out perfectly.  The night before I hot glued them together, then I divided out the candy onto art palate for each kid. It worked out pretty well.

March Madness Brackets 2014

We filled out our March Madness brackets for FHE tonight.  To start it off, the kids ran around jumping up and down on the bed while we sang songs.

This year, Ryan printed out each of the team mascots for the games and the kids got to check the box for who they thought would win.  I found it interesting that Kevin is right handed and selected almost all the ones on the left while Kherington is left handed and selected almost all the ones on the right.  As it happened, the lower seeds were on the left...not so good for Kherington's brackets.

We had to get creative with Jonathan's bracket. The other kids were nearly a year old when March Madness rolled around so this was new. I ended up taking Jonathan's full name and assigning a 1 or 2 based on the letter then used that key to fill out the bracket.


Here is who all have winning it: Jonathan: Virginia, Kevin: Witchita State, Kherington: Dayton, Erin: Wichita State, and Ryan: Florida.

See how they Play

My kids have an obsession with scarves. Since the weather keeps dipping down to the freezing I haven't wanted to put them away, plus they are one of our most played with items. They wrap each other up into Mummy's, Kherington acts like she is Mary, they play tug-of-war, they tie things together and much more. It is pretty cute, until they both want the same one...then it is downhill from there.

St. Pattys Day

Lucky the Leprechaun made it to our house for St. Patrick's Day.  The walls got decorated with shamrocks, some green goodies left, he peed in the milk and left some lucky charms. The kids were so excited in the morning.

Last year I ended up throwing out the box of Lucky Charms because the kids didn't like it. This year they polished off an entire box in one day.

I realize that some people find it ridiculous to 'celebrate' all these small holiday's.  What I feel like they miss in their arguments against celebrating is that those 10 extra minutes of time getting stuff ready make the kids so happy.  I store and reuse everything year after year so it really is that easy.  In addition, as a stay at home mom with no kids in a formal school and no hard schedule, it is fun to have something special to look forward to.