Teacher Appreciation

So today I spent about 5 hours at a park close to our house. Ethan had a "field trip" to the park by his school to have a field day. They had a bunch of mom's volunteer to plan games for the entire 2nd grade to play. They broke the kids into groups of 6-8 students to rotate through all the games. For ours I made lawn darts out of grocery bags, duct tape, and sand. Thanks Mom for the Family Fun magazine subscription so I would have the instructions on how to make these! Anyway, the kids had about 8 minutes at each station to play the games. In one of the groups was a boy who looked at me and said "You look like a vampire." I was a little shocked since this is not something I have ever been called, but I replied "Thank you" mostly because I didn't really know what else to say. Needless to say I was happy to be done with this by the time we were done. I have quite a bit of appreciation for the teachers at all the schools for having to deal with kids like these everyday for their entire teaching career.

The Whole Family

So after I posted the pictures of the kids, my mom pointed out that Jordon and I weren't in any of them. I guess we are just not as photogenic as our kids are, but here are some family pictures for you to enjoy as well.

Family Pictures

While at my parent's house for Easter we had some family pictures taken. I thought I would share my favorites. All my kids didn't do great smiles, but some were still pretty cute. Apparently my kids all thought it was too bright. Ethan only had good smiles that didn't have his evil eyebrows when he was teasing his siblings (like in this first picture). Ashley tended to have a fake cheese smile, but it was still pretty cute.

The Circle of Life

Lately when my kids complain about an animal or bug we have tried to explain that even though they can be bothersome they are essential to life as we know it. This has helped them realize that everything has a purpose and reason for living no matter how bothersome.
The other day I was driving in the car with the kids. Driving past a bunch of cows the air filled with the lovely stench of cow poop. The kids always notice this smell and point it out. Of course they started to complain about it again today. Ethan said that he hated cows because they stink so bad. My rebuttal was "but they tasted so good, and milk tastes so good. Without cows we wouldn't have those good tasting foods." I then explained how even though cows poop stinks it also helps plants grow. His response was "then why don't we poop outside?!" All I could do was laugh.