Show and Tell

The second-to-last week of school, Sadie's kindergarten teacher wanted her students to do four days of show-and-tell. Each day had a specified part of the alphabet - the thing you brought had to start with one of the letters. For example, the first day was A - D, I think.

What better time than now to get Sadie acquainted with China? I thought. I asked if she might want to talk about different aspects of China each day for show-and-tell. I was surprised that she agreed. I thought for sure she would want to bring her Littlest Pet Shops, My Little Ponies, etc. Anything with "little" in the title is her favorite.

So Sadie and I spent that week doing research on China. I would give her several ideas for what she could talk about on each day, and she would pick one.

For the first day, which was letters A - D, she wanted to talk about Baoding. We picked up a map at Tools for Learning and made sure to point out where Baoding was:

The next day (E - H) , she wanted to talk about the Great Wall of China:

She and I learned that, if you add all the little sections of the Great Wall of China together, it's more than 5,000 miles long. We also learned that an estimated one million people died making it through the years. Oh, and one more factoid - you canNOT see it from space. That's an urban myth.

On the third day (I - P), Sadie decided to talk about pearls. China is the world's largest exporter of pearls. My mom was holding onto a pearl necklace to give to Sades when she turns eight, but she decided to give it to her early so she could show it to the class:

She LOVES her pearl necklace. She told the class what she learned about how pearls are made, with the mussels and the speck of dirt and the irritation, yadda, yadda, yadda.

On the last day (Q - Z), Sadie wanted to talk about train transportation in China:

She very, very much wants to ride on one bullet train and one sleeping train. That is her biggest goal for our time in China. She and I also learned to avoid train travel during the Chinese New Year - talk about crowded. The pictures I've seen of train stations that time of year give me a mixture of Social Anxiety Disorder and Claustrophobia. We'll stay put in Baoding during that time, I think.

Heeeere I am to save the dayyyyyyyyyyy!!!

That little Gage is so wiggly. The other day, I put him on the changing table, then leaned down to grab the baby wipes and a diaper from the floor, and the kid tried to dive off it. I took a flying leap to catch him. Thankfully, I caught him before he hit his head on his space heater and/or his crib leg, but I got a nasty bruise in the process.

The changing table has crazy-high edges on it - I honestly didn't think he'd be able to roll right over them. He's strong. I've always poo-pooed the straps that come with the changing table mattress, but now I have to totally use them to keep the Little Man contained while I'm trying to change him.

Downward-Facing Dog

Gage is a yogi.

The kid has freakish arm strength.

Mikey's Three!

Mike turned 3 last month. Time flies. We had a little family par-tay for him. Here he is, opening his presents:

Giving a nice fake smile, pretending to care about getting clothes:

Ben and I got him a couple of Automoblox - the week before, all the kids had been fighting over theirs, and we thought adding a couple more to the collection might calm things down:

But whattaya know - nobody has touched those dang Automoblox since the night of Mikey's party. Sheesh. I'm sooo packing those Automoblox in Mikey's suitcase for China. He WILL play with those, dang it. I'm packing them for spite.

This pic of Gage makes me laugh so hard:

"What IS this thing???"

I guess I was gone?

I was going through pictures on my hard drive today, and I found some pics that Ben took, apparently.

They make me laugh. Especially Mikey's expression. My guess at the culprit of the chocolate smearage? Toast with nutella on it.

Post-Nap Depression Rears its Ugly Head

Micah's in that awful stage where he only naps like half of the times I put him down for a nap. Sigh..... I hate when that happens. I also find, at this age, that kids have a harder time when they wake up than they did, say, when they were one. They cry and weep and wail and gnash their teeth, etc. I had a friend once call it Post-Nap Depression. Perfect name.

I'm still fighting the good fight. I reeeeeeeeeeeally need time away from Mikey for awhile every day, so I insist on putting him down. Sometimes he yells and throws things the whole time he's in there. And then I make him put away the toys he threw. Maybe someday he'll understand that it's counterproductive to do that. Sometimes he wakes up wayyyy too early and cries and cries and cries. I settle him down with a My Little Pony movie, and bam. He's down for the count:

Sometimes he's behaving himself and happy, so we go without a nap. And then he falls asleep in the car when we go pick up daddy from work.

My sisters are amazing.

I just think that all of them are so talented and funny and cool. And smart.

My sis, Nat, and her hubs, Pete, were in charge of their ward's roadshow this spring (Yes, I'm behind. I'm trying to catch up before we leave). It took a tonnnnnnnnnnn of time and work; I felt badly for her. I hope I never get a calling like that. The theme for the whole stake was "A Time Machine":

Each ward was assigned a time period - Nat's ward got The Book of Mormon. This is what they came up with:

Isn't Nat clever?

The whole time I was watching their show, I kept thinking, "This is soooo Nat and Pete." And I mean that in the best way possible. Cool opening dance number at the beginning to a very cool song I've never heard before? Check. Fake arms that the actors held from inside their shirts, then released when the arms got cut off? Check. The singing of "My Little Buttercup" from The Three Amigos? Check. A West Side Story-esque snapping and dancing number? Check. An angel that appears on really, really tall stilts? Check. A guy who does the perfect impression of David Caruso from CSI:Miami, complete with cheesy puns? Check.

And to top it all off, a Baliwood dance number at the end.

It was so cool. I was grinning from ear-to-ear. They did such a great job. I'm impressed by Nat, yet again. Good job, sis.