Help with Erik's Kindergarten December Activity

During December Erik’s class is having a Gingerbread Boy unit that his teacher has asked families and friends to help with. This is to be a fun surprise for the children so none of them know about this. They will be taking a gingerbread boy to the kitchen for baking and when they return to get him he will have escaped.

Your part is if you live outside of Utah would you send a postcard stating that you’ve seen the Gingerbread Boy running through your neighborhood, while you were at the mall or where ever you might be when you see him. You can also say that you know Erik (Example: I am Erik’s aunt/uncle/friend and I saw . . .)

Each time the class receives a postcard they “will mark it on their map and track where the Gingerbread Boy is and all the places he’s running through so we won’t eat him. It will be very exciting for the children to receive postcards at school as well as celebrate and make note of just where he is on any given day so the more postcards we receive, the better!”

If postcards are sent before they start in December the teacher will just save them for when they do start the unit, so no need to worry if you would like to help out but not wait until December to get the postcard off. So if you would like to help send me an email, call or ask the next time we talk and I will give you the mailing address for Erik’s school and his teacher’s name. Or leave me a comment on this post and I will give you a phone call. :)

Thanks everyone.

We hope you are having a wonderful Thanksgiving month. We wish you the best as we head into the Holidays and winter weather.

Winter Wonderland!

So who is up for fresh powder?

This was about 40 minutes ago and it is still coming down. We have enough snow now on the road that you could start in our backyard and ski on down our road.

Erik is exstatic and hopes it does this all year. He is still learning the difference between days, weeks, months & years, but maybe he really does mean all year. :) However it's great that we have a nice little hill in the backyard for him to sled on. So Mommy and Cameron get to stay nice and warm (and dry). While Erik has his fun sledding.

What a week. . .

Since last Monday (so it's really what a week and a half) we have just been busy with all the little things in life. Life has been good but it seems like a lot of everyday things just keep happening.

I'm going to skip over the whole bully at the bus stop issue. That seems to be better now. But that took up a lot of my thoughts last week. Luckily this is a very nice community and so there was plenty of support and things are looking up at the bus stop.

Saturday our ward primary had their practice for the Primary Sacrament Program, which was the next day. Erik practiced reading his scripture for the program and did a very nice job. For some reason learning the word "whatsoever" was much easier for him than learning "kingdom." We were so impressed with him getting ready on Saturday all by himself. I guess the part that was impressive is that after breakfast he just disappeared into his room. We figured he was playing and so just let him be. Spencer and I cleaned up the dishes and then out came Erik all ready for church. (Usually he protests and throws a fit about getting dressed for church or about going to church.)

He was disappointed and felt duped when he found out that we were just dropping him off and that the rest of the family was not wearing church clothes or going to church. He wasn't sure that he liked having 2 church days in a row either. But by the time we picked him up he was just fine with it all. Having a pizza party and feeding the children doughnuts sure helped him be happy, as he put it. He really likes his primary teacher and the primary in this ward. We are just thrilled with it. Erik is getting to the point that he looks forward to primary time each week and doesn't protest much at all. He comes home so happy after church that it makes our Sunday evenings so nice. Needless to say the primary program went great. Erik did well, as did the other children. We only had one burst of laughter when a little 3 year old sunbeam (that everyone in town knows because she is so social) got a hiccup in the middle of her line.

Erik had a good Monday at school. But Tuesday he woke up with a temperature of 102. So he's been home all this week. Their poor kid was so worried about not going to school that it finally dawned on me that he thought he was not going to get to ever go back to school. After figuring that out he felt better about school but keeps reminding me that he's missing out on learning and is going to be behind. He is so worried that he won't learn what he should and sad that he is missing out on all that goes on each day.

Luckily so far no one else in the family has gotten sick. Cameron is just busy eating, sleeping and keeping someone (usually Mommy, but Daddy also) moving about the house while holding him. The little stink likes to be on the move but is not mobile yet. So he works himself into quite a fit screaming and crying if he doesn't get to move around the house throughout the day. Needless to say not much gets done. We have started using the johnny jump-up and that helps for about 15 minutes.

Spencer after he gets home from work has been busy figuring out wiring for the garage and the lathe/phase converter. Erik last night got a lesson on reading an electrical diagram and how a switch works.

So Happy

We love having our own backyard.

It's so great to be able to let Erik just run and play without having us right there. It's also great to be able to run and play in the yard with him. We have enjoyed having the room. Erik loves playing chase, or race or any game that includes running.

I'm taking an online scrapbooking class to create a neat Thanksgiving Gratitude Memory Box. So I've been wanting to take a family photo for that project. So Sunday evening we went out in our yard and set up the tripod. We had a lot of fun just playing around in the backyard, watching the moon and just relaxing. I'm sure our neighbors thought we were crazy because Erik wanted us all to scream, but it was nice to know that the neighbors are at a distance where they may not have even been bothered. That's a nice feeling of freedom.

So here are a couple of our snapshots to give you upclose looks at how the boys are growing and changing.