Once again, the kidlets have proven that they are creative geniuses, especially when inspired by the locker room showers. I am pretty sure that the shower song will be the most popular part of the orientation video again this year.
For example, when they are in the middle of a six-week testing window, and have to spend waaaaay too much time sitting in front of a computer screen.
Give them some surgical masks and gloves, a pair of scissors, and some cadaver sentences. Then turn them loose! Chopping up sentences and splattering sentence guts all over some sentence skeletons is the best testing therapy there is!
If the kidlets happen to be 7th graders who have to take five multi-hour tests over the next few weeks, I recommend giving them a day to cut stuff up AND run around by making the dissection activity a relay race.
For that, you will need a surgical suite, so the kidlets don't trip over backpacks or jackets in the classroom. You will also need to remind them over and over and over that they are not allowed to run with the scissors. If you fail to remind them not to run with scissors, there is a good chance one or more of them will be in need of actual surgery before the race is through.
It is amazing how much fun grammar relays can be... when compared to sitting in front of a computer screen for four hours earlier in the week.
It also helps to have brilliant kidlets, which I just so happen to have piles of at the moment.
Brilliant, and loud, and squirrely, and (since they are almost 8th graders) a little fuzzy and kind of stinky. But none of them ran with scissors!
If you need something else to inject a little fun into the testing window, letting the kidlets nominate literary heroes and villains for a tournament also works well.
After a couple weeks of voting, we ended up with the 2015 champion.
If only defeating the big, hairy, slobbery, fanged tests was as easy...
My Idaho Niblets got to spend the night at my house Friday while their parents celebrated Becky's birthday in Twin (where Warren had been doing some training for his new job).
I didn't get photos of all of our adventures, but here is a play-by-play, just in case their parents were wondering about Bubba's new fascination with potatoes.
5:15 p.m. - Mindy returns from purchasing kid-friendly cereal, chocolate milk, apple juice, fruit snacks, assorted Easter candy, glow bracelets, pizza, and mac and cheese.
5:25 p.m. - Mindy moves all vases, lamps, sharp objects, markers, and fragile Harry Potter/Doctor Who memorabilia to higher ground.
5:27 p.m. - Mindy considers moving her Willow Tree Angels out of reach, but changes her mind after remembering 1) how much Kylie likes to play with them and 2) how easy it is glue their little angel heads back on.
5:34 p.m. - The niblets arrive.
5:35 p.m. - Baby Kristie decapitates a Willow Tree Angel, whose apparent please for mercy went unheeded.
5:36 p.m. - The niblets exercise their car-weary limbs and vocal chords.
5:37 p.m. - Mindy is thankful that she is currently without an upstairs neighbor and makes a mental note to wait and mail the assorted Easter candies to the niblets, perhaps when they turn 18.
5:50 p.m. - Dinner is served.
6:25 p.m. - The Niblets create a birthday book to give their momma the next day. The book contains beautiful their artwork along with lists of reasons they love their mom, including Bubba's heartfelt, "Her helps me not be sick."
6:45 p.m. - Easter Egg Hunt!
7:00 p.m. - Baby Kristie is introduced to Mindy's rat puppets.
7:01 p.m. - Baby Kristie develops, what we can safely assume will become, a life-long fear of rats and puppets.
7:10 p.m. - Kylie invents a fun new game to play, wherein she and Kenna are princesses who, while in the course of having many exciting adventures, discover that they are long-lost sisters.
7:15 p.m. - After listening to the extremely detailed back-story behind the character's in Kylie's game, Mindy begins to look forward to the time when Kylie grows up to become a famous novelist, screen writer, or producer on the Jerry Springer show.
7:18 p.m. - Kenna enjoys the contents of the jewelry kaboodle.
7:22 p.m. Kristie tastes the contents of the jewelry kaboodle.
7:25 p.m. - Bubba introduces the Avengers to the giant potatoes and sugar beets Mindy couldn't bring herself to throw away from last year's fair booth.
7:33 p.m. - Becky's sweet parents arrive and wonder aloud why Bubba is playing with fake root vegetables instead of with his action figures.
7:38 p.m. - Kristie goes to stay at her grandparent's house for the night, saving Mindy from the potential trauma of having Kristie wake up at her aunt's house in the middle of the night with no parents in sight and having a complete and total stranger-danger-come-apart.
Visual approximation of what Kristie might look like had she waken up in the middle of the night to the sight of her Aunt instead of her parents. Also a visual approximation of what Mindy would have FELT like had Kristie woken up and had a come-apart in the middle of the night.
7:50 p.m. - The remaining three niblets (who were evaluated to have very low middle-of-the-night come-apart potential) change into their jim-jams and get ready for "popcorn and movie time"!
7:55 p.m.- The niblets taste the popcorn and, in a rare moment of agreement, decide that it doesn't have enough salt.
7:56 p.m. - More salt is added to the popcorn.
7:57 p.m. - The niblets, setting a new record by agreeing with each other twice in one day, declare that there is now too much salt on the popcorn. 7:58 p.m. - Mindy takes a deep breath, shakes the popcorn bowel a few times, and tells the trusting niblets that all of the extra salt has been removed.
8:04 p.m. - The niblet contentedly munch popcorn while watching The Gruffalo on Netflix.
8:15 p.m. - Mindy marvels at how many of the voice actors in The Gruffalo have guest starred on Doctor Who.
8:16 p.m. - Mindy briefly considers showing the niblets an episode of Doctor Who before they go to bed, then reconsiders after remembering how Kylie reacted the last time she watched an episode of Doctor Who at her house.
8:45 p.m. - Mindy, finally learning from past experience, has the children piddle before getting in bed.
8:50 p.m. - Kylie and Kenna watch an episode of Barbie's Dream House on the computer while they fall asleep.
8:52 p.m. - Bubba watches an episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates while he falls asleep in his "nest".
8:53 p.m. - Mindy gives thanks for having multiple Netflix enabled devices.
9:00 p.m. - Mindy watches an episode of Doctor Who in the living room and briefly considers checking on the kids while wearing her gas mask and asking, "Are you my mommy?" ala "The Empty Child" episode.
9:01 p.m. - Mindy, unsure if Warren's new insurance covers long-term care by child psychologists, decides against checking on the kids while wearing the gas mask.
9:02 p.m. - Mindy congratulates herself on being cool enough to own a gas mask.
6:45 a.m. - Kenna wakes up.
6:46 a.m. - Kenna does her own gas-mask-less recreation of the empty child, standing above Mindy until her Aunt awakes with a start.
6:46.30 a.m. - Mindy very nearly jumps out of bed in fright while silently thinking a cuss word or two.
6:47 a.m. - Mindy, after checking to make sure she isn't having a heart attack, gets Kenna all comfy on the couch with blankets and books, then goes back to bed.
7:20 a.m. - Kylie wakes up. Mindy hears her talking to Kenna in the living room and is therefore prepared when Kylie comes into tell her aunt she is awake.
7:21 a.m. - Grateful for having avoided another cardiac event, Mindy gets up and makes blue berry muffins with the girls.
7:50 a.m. - Bubba wakes up and immediately goes in search of his new friends, the potatoes and the sugar beet.
8:00 a.m. - Breakfast is served.
9:00 a.m. - Becky returns to collect the kids before conference. Kylie gives her mom the birthday book made the night before. Kenna starts to pack. Bubba, unwilling to leave his new nylon tuber pals, scoops a few up in his arms and makes a break for it.
9:04 a.m. - Mindy corners the potatoes bandit in the guest room.
9:10 a.m. - Bubba reluctantly relinquishes his grasp on the fake potatoes, gathers up his Easter eggs, and dives to his grandparents house with his siblings.
9:55 a.m. - After having restored her home to it's pre-niblet condition, Mindy settles in to watch the Saturday morning session of General Conference with a bowl of left over Easter candy.
10:02 a.m. - Mindy may, or may not, have fallen asleep as the Tabernacle Choir sang "Glory to God on High".
This Spring Break, fashion was very important. Ruby and I worked out fuzzy bathrobes and matching blood-red nails. Meanwhile, Milo showed off his Idaho loyalty by wearing two Burley shirts at once!
It may have been my spring break, but the Utah niblets still had school. I had a ton of fun walking the smallest ones to class and helping with Maxwell's carpool. The baby and I played at the park, took walks, and watched fire trucks on YouTube while his momma helped with kindergarten reading, 3rd grade PE, and Junior Achievement. I also got to see rehearsals for Jonah and Maxwell's plays!
I made two trips to the shop that sells British food so that we could enjoy some Doctor Who related treats. Some of the niblets were more impressed with Jammy Dodgers and Jelly Babies than others, but everyone agreed that the Cadbury's Heroes were delicious.
The IF leg of my journey coincided perfectly with Kylie's birthday. We had a fun dinner at Leos, then moved the party to Grandma/Grandpas for presents, cake, and a movie!
The movie in question was a family favorite: The Penguins of Madagascar. We all tried out hand at making Private's famous face...
... But nobody could beat Penguin super-fan Greg. He IS Private... and Rico and Kolwaski and Skipper. Seriously. That kid could reenact the movie after only seeing it once. Amazing.
In conclusion, spring break was wonderful. Now I just need another week off to rest up and recover from my vacation.
In yet another example of my addiction to stake activities, I drove to IF yesterday to help Becky and my mom teach a couple hundred 14-year-olds how to tie quilts.
Tying theses quilts (that will be donated to the local homeless men's shelter) was one of four or five service stations the groups rotated through during the evening. More kids showed up than were anticipated, and many of them had never held a sewing needle before in their short lives. Needless to say, it was a little crazy and a lot fun. The kids were great.. all 200+ of them.
When there weren't enough needles for all of them to tie, they still found ways to keep busy, like hanging out under the quilts to make sure that the yarn didn't accidentally get bunched up. Those kids turned out to be pretty good little quilters
Of course, that's not to say that mistakes weren't made... But as one of the 14 year old boys pointed out, "The homeless guys will just be happy to HAVE a blanket, right?"
Because I knew it would be a late night, I had arranged for a sub at school today. That meant I could stick around IF a little longer and spend some time with some of my favorite people. After Becky got the older girls off to school, she and the two little ones joined me for breakfast.
Becky and Kristy were great company,,,
...and it is always a joy to hang out with Bubba. The kid is just one big ball of love.
So after a fun and exciting night with my amazing mom and some awesome teens, I got have have a fun and delicious morning with my sweet niblets and their awesome momma. Maybe I should take a day off more often!
It has been a little over two months since my adventure in the stake Relief Society ended and, although I am learning to enjoy teaching Sunday School, I still miss my old calling.
But after attending the new Relief Society presidency's first awesome event last Tuesday, I discovered that what I was missing most was my sweet sisters. Although the dinner and the program were wonderful, the best part of the evening was sitting with Sue and Jolene and Barbara. I LOVE those ladies! Of course, it was also super nice to show up to the meeting right before it started, sit down to eat, have time to visit, and then go home before midnight.
Then, on Saturday, I got another Relief Society "fix" when I crashed the set up for the other stake's big Relief Society breakfast and program. My dearest darling Valerie was one of the creative geniuses behind the event, so I had been able to spend a few weeks living the Relief Society Meeting Lifestyle vicariously through her.
After hearing about all of the awesome plans and preparations, I couldn't resist showing up a little early to take some photos of the end results.
Their theme was how keeping covenants is the "Key" to eternal salvation.
And yes, I plan to steal many of these ideas in the future.
Seriously... How cute is this?
Valerie planned and prepared absolutely delicious food.
I love that the muffins were actually mini bundt cakes. How cute are they, with all of their fruit fixin's?
Valerie has saved my Relief Society skin many times, so I was really excited to volunteer to help with some of the baking in an attempt to repay her kindness.
And you would think that, because I had such pure motives for baking, the baking process would have gone a lot more smoothly,
But it didn't.
My first attempt at coconut zucchini bundts was, well, disastrous. I over-greased, over-floured, and over-filled the pans; the result being seriously deformed cakes coated white sludge.
My second attempt turned out a lot better, but that small moment of success resulted in a burst of over-confidence which, of course, didn't end well.
I got the batter made (but not quite, as it turned out) and then started filling the pans.
Then I realized that I hadn't greased the pans, so I had to un-fill them, which made a mess.
After cleaning up the pans, I greased them, re-filled them, and slid them in the oven.
Immediately after I closed the oven door, I spotted the bag of coconut, which I had forgotten to stir into the batter.
After snatching the pans back out of the oven, they once again had to be un-filled, the un-filling mess cleaned up, the coconut stirred in, the pans re-greased, and then refilled.
That third batch turned out ok, but after so many baking fails, I spent the rest of the night waiting for the fair board to come and ask me to surrender my blue ribbons.
So I guess spending some time in Sunday school might end up being a blessing for me and for my ribbons.
I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but my principal loves a good practical joke.
He also loves semi-good practical jokes, and even kind-of-lame practical jokes. And he is no respecter of persons when it comes to who is on the receiving end of his pranks. District bosses, fellow principals, teachers, lunch ladies, custodians, and kidlets alike have all fallen prey to his mischievous machinations.
Once, while I was making a quick run down the hall to grab our BNN camera from the library, he sneaked into my classroom and herded all of the kidlets out the back door. He watched through the window in the stage door as I came back to find every desk in my room empty. To this day, I still have kids come back from the high school to reminisce about the day the principal stole my whole 2A class. It was the highlight of their semester.
My principal is also a pretty good sport when it comes to being on the other end of practical jokes. And by "pretty good sport" I mean he usually won't draw blood or break any federal laws when paying you back.
Once my equally whimsical assistant principal Deana played a mini-joke on him while we were at a training over in Pocatello. I played a minor role in the minor caper. As the training was resuming the next day, my principal ended a phone call with a somber look on his face and asked if I had locked the outside door to my classroom when I left the night before. Then he proceeded to spin a tale of classroom robbery that still to this day gives me heart palpitations. And that was just for a minor role in a minor prank. I don't even remember what he did to Deana. I hear post-trumatic stress can mess with your memory.
So when our current 7th grade student body president came to me with a plan to "get" the principal as payback for all of the times he had jumped out and scared her and her pals in the hallways, I probably should have warned her about what would happen.
But I didn't.
Which may of may not make me a terrible person.
The prank went down this past Thursday, with a little help from our awesome attendance secretary, Karmen. I'm not too worried about Karmen, but I'm pretty sure Kaitlyn isn't going to make it though the end of the quarter without experiencing some epic payback.
