2018 :: week 14

March 25

Nursery has been a lot more of a grind since 2018 started for a variety of reasons. First, I was working by myself with last-minute subs for a few weeks after one of the other nursery workers moved unexpectedly and the other had a baby three weeks early. Next, we lost all the older kids. Elliott is our second oldest at 2.5, and three of the eight started nursery in December or later, so we are working with a very young crew that has very little experience being away from their parents. None of the kids are potty trained and a few never speak to us, which makes it a lot harder to do lessons and activities. I didn't realize how much I looked forward to our walk around the building until it became obvious after two terrible attempts that these kids just aren't ready for that much freedom. Also, nursery starts at 2:10pm, and on any other day of the week ALL the kids would be in their beds napping. Now that two new ladies I really like working with have been called things are starting to look up.

March 26

Will's love language is quality time. Monday night after dinner but before FHE the two of us took a walk together. The best conversations I ever have with Will happen while we are out walking together. I love that he still holds my hand, it won't be long before he won't want to anymore.

March 27

On Tuesday morning I volunteered to help in Miss Ringgenberg's classroom for a few hours. She asked me to put together their "Kindergarten Binders." The binders are a compilation of the best work the kids did throughout the year. She had asked some 'upper classmen" aka 6th graders to hole punch a lot of the papers to speed things up, but they didn't do a stellar job. I ended up having to re-punch a lot of the holes making it take longer than I thought. I still enjoyed seeing the work the kids have done this year. This school year is really flying by!

March 28

Lauren had her first soccer practice Wednesday evening. Her team decided to be known as the "Pink Thunder," and has adopted the Imagine Dragons song "Thunder" as their team song. The girls had fun learning the most basic elements of soccer. There are eight girls on the team--3 from her kindergarten class and 5 from another class at her school. Several are also Girl Scouts, so it's a group that she will interact with a lot.

March 29

The kindergarten music program was Thursday evening. The kids sang a set of eight songs, many of which Will's class sang when he was in kindergarten. Mr. Klemm is the music teacher at OPC and many moons ago he was the music teacher at Dorothy Moody and taught my two youngest sisters.

March 30

In honor of my Grandpa Crane's birthday (March 29, 1905) my extended family tries to "March to the temple" and attend the temple at least once during the month. Anthony and I barely squeaked it in, but we did it!

March 31

Elliott's chore is putting away the cutlery. He takes his job very seriously and has started doing a much more accurate job since we started bringing the stool in so he could see better. We did a lot of work around the house in the morning and also listened to General Conference. That evening Anthony went to the Priesthood session and the kids and I met the Throssels at Chick-fil-A for dinner.

2018 :: week 13

March 18

Will's Sacrament Meeting Art. For the past few weeks he has been drawing pictures that coordinate with the theme of a his favorite songs.

March 19

For our FHE activity we took a walk up to the school to play kickball. Will's first playground sport love is kickball. Due to some poor sportsmanship by some of his classmates he stopped playing for awhile. Now the troublemaker prefers to play soccer, so kickball has become an option again and Will wanted to work on perfecting his kick.

March 20

It was a gray, chilly day, but we didn't let that stop us from getting free cones at Dairy Queen Tuesday afternoon. The Ules, Kanaks and Steiners joined us, which made it extra fun.

March 21

I love my little shadow. Elliott is my buddy and we have fun together while the big kids are at school and dad is at work.

March 22

Thursday was the warmest day of the week and the kids played outside for several hours after school. Will was on the hunt for any bug, grub or worm he could find. Ew. The kids have set up a "fort" on the garage steps located on the side of our house. They have collected pinecones, rocks, leaves, sweet gum balls and other organic materials and have organized them in a pretty impressive fashion. Even Elliott is in on the collecting. I love seeing them collaborate and their imaginations at work.

March 23

My friend Brittny organized a "Pay it Forward" sale. Ward members purged their homes of things they didn't want or need and then anyone was welcome to "shop" and take other things home for free. We donated some clothes. I had planned on going through our toys over spring break but then ended up having so much going on I didn't get to it. The kids found a few treasures when we dropped out stuff off Friday night. Will picked out a few books and a pair of roller skates and Lauren got a unicorn stuffed animal.

March 24

Lauren and I went on a date to the Matt Ross pool Saturday afternoon. We went down the slide, chased each other in the lazy river, soaked in the hot tub, and used kick boards in the lap pool. We had a lot of fun together, but she did tell me she wished Will had come too. Those two are developing a really fun friendship this year.

2018 :: week 11

March 4

With the younger nursery crew we aren't able to leave the room. I find myself really missing the walks we could take last year. Singing time is a great respite and our chorister, Vickie does such a great job with the kids. Here they are singing "I am Like a Star."

March 5

We hosted an end of the season pizza party for Will's basketball team Monday evening. Unfortunately not everyone was able to come.Liam, Ben, Trevor, Yonas, Enzo and their families were able to gather and we had a really fun evening discussing the season and watching the boys jump on the trampoline, wrestle and play hide-n-seek.. Each of the boys had a great attitude and really improved this season. Will LOVED having Tony as his coach. It was a great bonding experience for them.

March 6

It randomly sprinkle-snowed twice Tuesday. In the morning I looked out the window while paying bills and saw snowflakes falling from the sky, but there was no accumulation. Later, while the kids were walking home from school it started doing it again! On the ground it looked wet, but it was little bits of snow that looked like styrofoam balls falling from the sky, not individual flakes. March weather is hard to predict.

March 7

Will took his Pokemon binder to school so he could talk shop with friends after school.

March 8

The kids got all cozy together on the couch and then called me over to take a picture. They know me well. I hope this good cheer and camaraderie is a sign of good things to come. The kids are out of school until March 19th. I had a very busy morning running errands, trying to take care of business before I have to bring all three with me next week. And so we can just focus on having fun together!

March 9

John Family Spring Break Stacation 2018 begins! As soon as Anthony got home from work we headed downtown to go swimming at the hotel we booked a room at for the night. We swam, ate at Pie Five in Westport, went swimming again and then watched the Princess Diaries before going to bed.

March 10

Saturday morning we continued our staycation by heading into KC. We met the Wilsons and then rode the streetcar to River Market Area. We visited River Market Antiques, walked on the bridge and along the river, then walked to City Market to buy snacks. We had lunch at Il Lazzarone then rode the streetcar back to Union Station. At this point we were running out of steam so we scrapped our plans to go to the Brookside St. Patrick's Day Warm Up Parade and spent an hour at Science City. At this point we were exhausted, rode the shuttle back to our hotel to pick up our bags and head home. We had such a fun day, but had no trouble getting the kids to go to bed an hour early in anticipation of losing an hour for daylight savings time.