3rd grade C.A.M.P night

Our elementary school does a wonderful curriculum night for each grade, scattered throughout the school year, called C.A.M.P. night (classroom, art, music, PE). The 3rd grade C.A.M.P night was last week, and it was a great opportunity to spend an evening at school with Connor and see what he's been up to.

In the CLASSROOM they've been working and learning about gratitude, thanksgiving, pilgrims, the United States and freedom. He showed us the modern-day and pilgrim villages the class built, as well as a number of related projects-

For ART the uber fabulous art teacher was doing demonstrations on making origami pilgrims. Uber fun!

For MUSIC the students performed three songs they have been learning. I seriously loved these songs. One is a Native American (Iroquois) song about a naughty baby bear who has to sleep alone outside of his den and sings himself this lullaby so he's not afraid; one is about first coming to this country (such a fun song!); and the third is a thanksgiving prayer, and I was pleasantly surprised that they were allowed to sing "thank you God." These videos are at the end of the post.

For PE they had bowling set up in the darkened gym with fun disco lights and music.

We are very happy with our school and are grateful for the good, well-rounded education they are receiving and the opportunities that go along with that. Enjoy the videos!-

Etiquette dinner

Manners are becoming a lost art. Or so it seems. I decided it was time to up our etiquette game. I think my children do fairly well with their pleases and thank yous, but there are other areas in which we could stand for some improvement.

I announced to the children one day that we were going to have an etiquette dinner, and to watch for an invitation in the near future. One recent evening I made invitations and rested them on top of their pillows, and as they went to bed that night they discovered them and tore them open in sheer excitement. The joy level certainly could have rivaled that of Christmas morning. FOR REALS.

The boys were required to escort the girls to the table, and then to seat them.

I set the table properly (I generally do, but not with the extra forks and spoons and salad plate), and we taught/reviewed to put our napkins in our laps, and the purpose of each plate/utensil. We reviewed manners, what to do if you're at someone else's house or a restaurant and you don't like something on your plate (hint: it doesn't involved yelling YUCK and spitting it out ;) ). We reminded them how to say "excuse me" if adults are talking and you'd like to get their attention. We talked about boys should treat girls when they start dating someday (because really, that will be something we deal with before we know it).

I made grilled chicken over bow tie pasta with this fabulous creamy garlic alfredo sauce, garlic cheddar biscuits and steamed veggies. We practiced cutting our meat quietly and neatly. It requires such intense concentration, you know.

After Brian and I went through the list of etiquette topics we wanted to cover (which were all received with rapt attention I must say), I served creme brulee with chocolate.


After dinner we had a family dance party to some tin pan alley music. It was really fun.

The children thought this was the most fun thing EVER. It really was a simple effort but hopefully has some lasting effects. We will definitely do this again. It is really important to me that my children know how to act in different situations and always have their manners about them. And that boys know how to treat girls with respect, and Isabel knows how she should be treated.

I went to the dentist today, and while the hygienist was cleaning my teeth, she asked, "are you the mom that did the etiquette dinner for your kids?" I was so confused for a minute. She then told me that when Isabel had been in two days earlier for her cleaning, she had told the hygienist all about our etiquette dinner. So it clearly made an impression!

I am happy to report that we have had an increase in good behavior at mealtime. And in addition to clearing their plates without prompting, the children now thank me for the meal. Most of the time.

Halloween 2011

Halloween was a bit low-key for us this year. No costumes at school (this is not new), no ward trunk or treat (this was new), no friend parties. Which basically left Halloween itself. So we packed it into one day.

I couldn't bring myself to make a sweet breakfast, in light of the class parties and trick-or-treating that would ensue. So I made malt-o-meal with sugar pumpkin shapes. The children fortunately deemed this acceptable. Good thing. 'Cuz there was no plan B.

Connor and Isabel had costume-free class parties at school. Isabel's class was very structured, they rotated between game, craft and treat stations. Very calm and kindergarten-like.

Connor's class had a pajama day and had a board game/treat fest. He's getting so good at chess, thanks to 2 years on the chess club at school.

I kept dinner fairly healthy too, but still tried to make it fun and festive. So we had swamp milk, grilled cheese sandwiches, mummy dogs, and carrot critters.

Fortunately the children chose pretty simple costumes this year, seeing as how they only wore them once. Connor wanted to be a black widow spider-

Isabel chose to be a butterfly-

Lucas wanted to be a ghost. With his skeleton shirt and black eye makeup, without the sheet he ended up looking like a member of the Cobra Kai (all hail the Karate Kid!).

Mason was a train engineer-

It was a gloriously warm and lovely evening, and we had a great time trick-or-treating. The haul was substantial.

My birthday

Sharing a birthday with Brian is pretty much cool every day of the year... except October 29. This year, my fun friends threw me a birthday party costume dinner, and it was fabulous! I loved going out with the girls and just celebrating me. No offense to my husband. I love him. But I loved having my own celebration.

I dressed as a geisha. I made the skirt out of a tablecloth I found at a thrift store, and found the shirt at the same thrift store and pieced the rest of it together. It was great to see everyone's costumes! I have some amazingly talented and creative friends. We went to Hacienda, and I was seriously spoiled all around. A night to remember for sure. And perhaps the start of a new birthday tradition!

Thanks to all you girls for the memories!

The actual day of our birthday low-key: Brian had to work a long day, but I loved all the calls from family and friends, and I made a compromise birthday cake: coconut tres leches cake. Yum. No matter how you slice it, here we are, another year older.

The month that was October

I dislike when blogging becomes a chore. Which is what it feels like right now. Because there is so much to catch up on from the past month. But since I'm OCD about documenting things, here we have one big October dump post.

And I know that just made you want to jump right in and read, yes? Just like when someone stands up to give a talk or speech or lesson and gives you all the background on what happened when they got the assignment, and then proceeds to apologize for the talk they are about to give and asks you to "bear with them." I seriously dislike that.

But for the sake of remembering the past month...

In October, we:

- Made some fun, festive fall treats, including orange sweet rolls for our conference viewing, candy corn malts (which didn't look as neatly layered as Mel's, but still managed to make the children's eyes go all buggy just the same, which was exactly the effect for which I was hoping), and chocolate pumpkin cookie ice cream sandwiches with vanilla bean ice cream, rolled in mini chocolate chips. Yes, it is everything you might imagine and more.

- We watched a couple of boys engage in fun new activities. Lucas completed his first season of soccer, which was great fun for everyone. I'm totally serious! Lucas loved playing. Isabel and Connor made some other sibling friends to hang with each week. Brian, Mason and I enjoyed relaxing and watching. It was a beautiful fall, and the evenings were just fantastic. I imagine fall soccer in general is much more pleasant that spring soccer, weather-wise. And Connor participated in his first Cub Scout derby, a space derby. Connor loves Scouts. LOVES it. He didn't win, but had a great time making his rocket with some help from his dad, and had fun racing it.

- We had some fun outings. The kids get off a random Friday in mid-October, so we all went to Fort Collins for the day. We showed the kids where the Fort Collins temple is (most likely) going to be built, then had a fun park outing and picnic.

And we attended a local fall fest. We didn't make it to a big pumpkin patch event this year, but this sufficed. Plus, I won a $500 gift card from the festival to a local dance theater, so now Isabel is taking a tumbling class.

- We had our first snowstorm. Sadly, since most of the leaves had not yet fallen, they became a trap for heavy wet snow and so many poor trees lost branches. But it sure was pretty. And it sure was gone within a few sunny warm days, just in time for trick or treating, hooray! Mason obviously had no recollection of the white stuff, which was evidenced by his confusion when I asked if he wanted to go outside (which is always met with great excitement and joy) and then started piling warm clothes on him and then plopped him out in a snowbank. Great confusion ensued. Until he started eating it and there was joy all over again.

And this brings us to our remaining October birthdays, and Halloween. Up next.