Fine Arts Knowledge Bowl

Our fine arts knowledge bowl season has come to an end! It's been a little bit of a weird year for Knowledge Bowl, but we still got to practice and we still got to have an in-person tournament.  We learned all about art (techniques, movements, principles, artists, etc.), music (notes, instruments, and composers), performing arts (some stage terms and also musicals), and then also literature (mostly different children's books and award winners, but also fairy tales and some literary forms).  There was a LOT to learn, and it was almost all new instead of being stuff they also learned in school.

I'm so proud of how much they learned!  Miles and Molly's teams both came in the top ten and both of them learned and practiced so, so much.

Medieval Times

Miles's teacher loves a big social studies project.  For the last six weeks, he's been working on a huge medieval project where he could pick from a long list of assignments to earn enough points overall.

Here's what he ended up doing:

*Cooked a medieval rice pudding recipe and written about it

*Made a job description for a knight

*Illuminated a dictionary with 10 medieval terms

*Read five books (The Inquisitor's Tale, The Book of Boy, The Midwife's Apprentice, Crispin: Cross of Gold, and Crispin: Edge of the World) and then wrote up summaries and ratings for each of them

*Researched medieval games, wrote a summary, and brought in bocce ball to class

*Wrote a 2.5 page report about the Black Death

*Made an 11-page cardboard scroll TV about food in the Middle Ages

*Made a poster about the bakers guild and the job of a baker

*Wrote a limerick about a knight

We estimated that his project took more than 30 hours and he read more than 1000 pages!  I'm proud of him for learning what it means to work so hard and putting in so much effort.

Go Eagles!

It's the time of year for school registration!  Miles will be starting junior high in the fall.  He's excited for the chance to pick his own electives, especially.  He's planning to take orchestra, French, and creative writing.  We also got the chance to walk around the campus and get an idea for what the school will be like.  Their library looks amazing and it sounds like there are some fun clubs!  It was good for both of us to get a better look at the school and the whole experience.

Winter Fights Back

Most of February and March have alternated between being pretty heavily cold and wet and then just a few days of beautiful sun, followed by another day of wind and rain and snow and gray, gray skies. I was reading a book with Elliott and it described my feelings about winter perfectly.

I'm ready for some spring :)

A Colorful Dream

We were able to see a really beautiful photography exhibit at the Provo Library recently.  The idea behind the exhibit is that a little girl goes to sleep in an all-white room and then goes on an adventure through every color of the rainbow.  The kids loved seeing all the different things in each color!

One of the most fun things about the Provo Library is the mirrored ceilings in the elevator.

You can really see the rainbow around the room in this picture.

Activities with Grandma

The kids have loved having my parents live near us and having weekly activities with my mom.  She's baked with them, played games with them, did a Pi Day activity, and so much more.  It means that now, when Elliott thinks about activities, he can't wait to show them to Grandma.

He checked out a book from the library about mosquitoes recently and it suggested an activity where kids could pretend to be mosquitoes.  He didn't want to do it at home...he was insistent that it had to be something they did with Grandma!

Luckily, Grandma was happy to comply and the kids were able to pretend to be mosquitoes, sucking up blood under the plastic wrap "skin" with their straw "proboscis".

Flashes of Memories

Recently, my mom gave me a box of items from my childhood.  It had my old yearbooks, old awards, and some of my old class projects.  Here's some fun things that I found in my box!

My Junior Girl Scout vest.  Our troop didn't earn a lot of badges, but we did go to a LOT of events!  I was a girl scout for all of elementary school.

Two pictures of me in preschool, one at Halloween and one playing dress up.

In my 10th grade world history class, we had to make children's books about the French revolution.  I wrote mine from the point of view of Jacques la Mouche, a fly.  I thought that mean "Jacques the fly" but it turns out it actually meant "Jacques the ugly".

My third grade young author's faire book.  Molly really loved being able to read something that I wrote when I was her age!

Kindergarten Homework

Elliott has SO much kindergarten homework every day to make up for the shortened kindergarten days this year.  We're supposed to read for 15-20 minutes. That's not a big deal on its own.  He's also supposed to spend 15 minutes on Lexia (a literacy skills website) and 15 minutes on I-Ready (a math skills website).  He also gets occasional papers for reading or math that we're supposed to finish on top of that.

I feel like an hour of homework for a six year old is a lot!  It also ends up being almost all parent-assisted, because he needs someone on hand to help with the computer or sometimes to explain the activities.

I will not miss this when the school year is over whatsoever.  Luckily, we still have a little time to do other things in the mornings like do his Kiwi Crate, play with toys, and go to the open gym for kids once a week.  He really loves these pool noodle swings they set up sometimes!

Sunday Morning Sandwiches

Behold the most glorious, transcendent breakfast sandwiches!  The kids made homemade breakfast sausage (surprisingly easy!) and toasted English muffins, then I taught them to make a folded egg.  These is no better egg in the universe for a breakfast sandwich than a folded egg.  I know a lot of people like fried eggs, but A) my kids won't eat runny yolks and B) I like runny yolks if I'm eating stuff with a fork, but if I'm eating a sandwich, I don't want it drip everywhere.

I really love watching the kids learn to cook!  Every time they make something delicious it's so fun to watch their confidence in their own skills grow and grow.

Cousins, Reunited

The kids hadn't seen my sister Emily's kids in a year and a half because of Covid, so everyone was so happy to see their cousins!  They spent five hours playing and would have happily played for hours and hours longer.

Childhood Memories

My parents' basement is finally finished, so we went to help them move all of the things into their basement.  Gerrit helped carry a ton of boxes, Miles helped assemble some bookshelves, and I organized my mom's toy closet.

It was a wild walk down memory lane!

Some of my old dolls

(Mine is the one in red with the bear, the other one was Emily's)

Original My Little Pony

It's my Polly Pocket collection!  I loved these so, so much when I was Molly's age.  Molly was also really fascinated by them.

 

I had no idea that my mom saved my American Girl paper dolls.  Some of these are based on their dolls and some of these I punched out from the magazine every single month, without fail.  I spent hours and hours playing with these.  To be honest, I would have happily spent hours on these again and spent way too much time "organizing" these for the picture.

My niece Anne also loved looking at all the dresses :)

My mom had also saved my old baptism dress, so I had Molly try it on.  It was too big but the sash helped cinch it in for her.

Mysteries of Machu Picchu

We had a lot of fun doing our Finders Seekers Machu Picchu box!  We had to split this one across three nights because Gerrit got home late from work, but it was still fun.  We learned a lot about Inca culture, how to use a compass (the math kind, not the map kind), and how fun slap bracelets are.

This was the back of our decoder wheel, which was a tricky, tricky puzzle for us.

Love and Pancakes

Miles and Molly made us a big batch of delightful lemon buttermilk pancakes.  Once we made the full-sized pancakes, we dropped the leftover batter into miniature pancakes on the griddle.

This pancake turned into a heart!  That's accurate for our family's love of pancakes.

Super Hot Dog

 Elliott really likes to draw.  I never really know what he's going to draw.  Sometimes it's a laser war.  Sometimes it's a lot of happy faces.  Sometimes, it's something very creative.

Case in point: Super Hot Dog, a superhero that saves your lunch

Love Story

I saw something really cute on Instagram that involved giving your kids a questionnaire about you and your spouse's love story and I thought that would make a really fun Valentine's activity! Gerrit and I also filled it in to have a record of the right answers (or NOT, in some cases)

Here's the questions and everyone's answers all in one place:

Where did mom and dad meet?

Elliott: Bulgaria (I didn't even know that Elliott knew what Bulgaria was)

Molly: College

Miles: At BYU

Gerrit: Provo, UT

Elisabeth: In our student ward, we carpooled to institute

Everyone is right but Elliott

Where was mom and dad's first date?

Elliott: Something really fun

Molly: Taco Bell

Miles: At Papa Giornio's Pizza Place

Gerrit: Temple Square

Elisabeth: Playing Rummikub and making cookies at Gerrit's apartment

It turns out Gerrit and I have a different definition of our first date.  Mine is when he actually asked me out, and his is when we first spent time together

Where did mom and dad get married?

Elliott: At a marrying place

Molly: Lehi Temple

Miles: The Oakland Temple (Winner!)

Gerrit: San Diego (NOT CORRECT). He crossed it out and wrote Oakland when Miles answered...

Elisabeth: Oakland, California temple

How old were they when they got married?

Elliott: 19 (He asked me how old you have to be to get married.  I said at least 20.  He said, "Okay, 19")

Molly: 23 and 20

Miles: Mom-22 Dad-26 (Winner!)

Gerrit: 22 and 25, which he crossed out and wrote 26 when Miles gave his answer.

Elisabeth: 22 and 26

Where did they go on their honeymoon?

Elliott: A paradise with coconut trees

Molly: Mini golf

Miles: Hawaii I guess

Gerrit: Did it ever stop?

Elisabeth: Monterey, California

Our kids have either a much more exciting or much less exciting view of our honeymoon.

How many houses have they lived in?

Elliott: 1 million

Molly: 3

Miles: 3

Gerrit: Kristie's, hotel, Wymount, apartment, apartment condo thing, here. 6 (He's counting two places where we stayed before our apartment was available, but I'm going to point out that he missed that we also stayed with one of my grad school friends and my Grandma).

Elisabeth: 4 (This is the correct one)

What is dad's favorite thing about mom?

Elliott: Her eyeballs

Molly: Her smarts

Miles: She does all his chores

Gerrit: Cooking/smartness/hotness

Elisabeth: Smart, good cook

What is mom's favorite thing about dad?

Elliott:  His buffness

Molly: His kindness

Miles: He's good at math so he can do taxes (I do our taxes, for the record)

Gerrit: Muscles/money/fix things

Elisabeth: Funny, handsome

What is mom and dad's favorite thing to do together?

Elliott: Buffness games (At this point, I had to forbid using buffness for any other answer)

Molly: TV

Miles: Watch random shows once we "go to bed"

Gerrit: Watch TV

Elisabeth: Talk, watch TV

How did dad propose?

Elliott: Sing so loud

Molly: He kneeled and showed it

Miles: With a squirrel carrying the ring

Gerrit: A cake, a song, a dance, a proposal

Elisabeth: Made a delicious cake, wrote a card with reasons he loves me, asked me to marry him in several languages and morse code, danced to my favorite song

Where was the first place mom and dad lived?

Elliott: The United States of America

Molly: Apartment Provo, which she crossed out and wrote Idaho Falls apartment because she saw Miles's (She was right the first time!)

Miles: Lousy apartment in Idaho Falls

Gerrit: Wymount

Elisabeth: Wymount in Provo

What was their favorite vacation?

Elliott: A paradise island

Molly: Bear Lake

Miles: Some fun city in California

Gerrit: Monterey, family reunions 

Elisabeth: Bryce Canyon

What is their favorite date night?

Elliott:  Wear pajamas

Molly: Restaurants

Miles: Forte if it was open

Gerrit: Plays at a playplace/Forte (He means theater)

Elisabeth: Restaurant Forte

Everyone was right on this one!