It's exhausting being awesome

(This was written last Saturday night, but I didn't add the pics until today.)



Ok, I'm not sure where that title actually came from. I'm just exhausted from this week. I know some of you have way more stressful lives with work, sports, music, etc. I'm just glad that parenting is a gradual transition because what I did this week exhausted me.

I taught preschool, which was fun (minus a few stressful moments of Dean bullying other kids since he didn't want them playing with his things).  I had Q and R again even though I had them last semester. We have 5 kids now, so that threw off the rotation.

For Q we:

• Played a question game where kids hunted for 1 red, 1 blue, and 1 yellow question mark I'd taped up around the living room. They came back to the quilt and I "journaled" their answers to the questions. All of the blue question marks were blank and I had them ask me a question. This was far more successful that I imagined it would be. They were very intrigued by the question marks all over the place. I also played "question/not a question" where I'd either ask a question or say a statement. If it was a question they'd hold up a question mark and say "question!" if it wasn't, they'd hold up their arms in an X and say "not a question!" The older two kids really liked this. The three younger kids were a little confused by it.
• Made paper quilts where you glue patterned squares of paper onto a big sheet of paper. Dean was so proud of his. He carried it around all day until he could show Matt when he got home. He wanted to sleep with it, but I convinced him that hanging it on his wall would be good enough.
• Sewed with plastic needles and yarn in a loosely crocheted quilt. This was stroke of genius on my part I think.
• Ate Quakes rice snacks
• Q listening game. Once again, the older two (4 year olds) really got it, but the 3's not so much
• hide the quarters in the flour (it was supposed to be cut the quarter, but no one was cooperating and they were all enjoying playing in the flour. It was a huge mess, but it took a good chunk of time and the kids loved it).

For R we:

Blast off!

• Made toilet paper rockets by painting toilet paper tubes with glue, covered them with foil and stickers, made the tip out of a crushed cone of foil, and fire out of red tissue paper
• Balloon rockets, definitely the most popular activity of the day. I had 6 strings tied to our garden and taped to our house. Each had a straw piece on it. I taped a big balloon onto it and closed it with a mini clothes pin. We counted down and the opened the clothespins and the balloons rocketed down the string. They had me blow up their balloons 4 or 5 times.
• Water bottle rocket that Matt helped me make. I got one good launch off, but the kids wanted to help and touch and crowd too much after that. I got one more rocket off after the kids left, and the bottle ended up in our neighbor's yard. Oops.
• We collected "moon rocks" on our rocket trip to the moon (our sand box with decorative rocks I got from the dollar store)
• glued planets to a black piece of paper so we had a solar system to explore. 

Additionally this week I fed three missionaries. It's amazing how different Elders are than Sisters. We've had sisters so long in our ward and they just switched to Elders. SOOOO different it was funny. I fed them Israeli Couscous with grilled vegetables, chicken satays, hummus and pita chips, and a tomato/cuc. salad. They had no clue what anything was, but they did a decent job of trying/eating everything. I always try and do something "different" because I'm  so afraid they'll be fed the same thing over and over.  Even in reference to the salad, one Elder said, "Well, I recognize cucumbers and tomatoes, but I don't know what that green stuff is on top." When I said it was dill he said, "Hu, that's not something I've ever cooked with!" =)

Tonight I accompanied 2 girls at their high school band solo festival. It was hard to prepare with my kids begging me to stop playing, shutting the piano cover, crying, trying to play over the top of me etc.  In the end it turned out ok (not fantastic, but I did only have 1 week to learn the music). The worst part was having to play on an electric piano at the festival since the stupid music holder doesn't easily allow for more than 3 sheets. I actually had one sheet fall on one of the girl's song. Oops. I was shocked at how much more difficult it was to accompany instruments than vocalists. I was happy I had an electric piano at home so I could practice with them since my piano is 1 1/2 notes lower than concert! Also, lyrics are way easier to follow and accommodate for mistakes than another set of notes! One was a bass clarinet. One was a flute. I don't think I'll be doing it again next year if anyone asks! I am just so glad it's over and I think I'm ok with this not being my phase of life right now. Maybe when kids are older.

Also, I have decided to run a half marathon in May. It's practically the only Saturday race in TX, and I figure if I'm going to do it, now's the time since I'm not pregnant or breastfeeding.  Last week our long run was 6 mi. and we kept a decent pace of 9 min. miles. Today we had a 5K run at race pace. I felt good about our 8.3 min. miles. It was so hot today I went through all my fuel belt water even though it was a "short" run. I don't know how I ever ran without water.  It's amazing to think that I consider 3 miles a short run now! It so used to be my max.

This pic has no relevance to the post, but I just loaded it on my computer. It was St. Patrick's day and the boys are wearing the rainbow hats we made at our party.