Family STEAM Night

A month ago, we bought alarm clocks for the kids. We got three - one for each bedroom. They are non-plug in battery powered clocks that Corey liked cause they give off the "angry parent vibe" - ha.  I would now like to give a shout out to Natalie, who is our only child that consistently gets up to her alarm clock! AND this little girl is in elementary school! And she doesn't even have to get up this early, BUT she gets up at 7 am and babysits Katharine while we go climbing, or she practices violin, or she does homework! What 9 year old kid does that? Maybe other parents or kids are on top of it, but none of the 9 year olds that we've had so far have ever done that. Here she is this morning, practicing piano! She doesn't even take piano lessons. Wow, Natalie. I am so impressed with you.

If you're able to keep this good habit up long term, I'd say that there is nothing you couldn't do! And we're hoping she's able to teach her older teenage sisters how to wake up in the morning as soon as the alarm goes off and just go get at it. And Natalie really is our most trusted babysitter for Katharine. Cute Katharine tonight - sitting on the counter AND under the cupboard at the same time. Much like Natalie's ability to wake up to the alarm clock, not many humans have this skill!

Tonight we did something fun. I took my kids to STEAM night! They've wanted to go to these for years, but I haven't ever helped make it happen. Today we did. LSN walked down, D went over with his friend Millie, then OPK and I went over at 6:30 after O finished Reflex. Abi stayed home to practice flute and do homework, but she really wants to got to Target to get facial wash. She also really wanted sushi today. Poor girl, I did not fulfill either request. But she did clean the entire kitchen while I was gone at violin with SNPK. 

While I strive to support our local school, and I do the best I can... I don't do much. I don't volunteer in the classrooms and haven't ever gone along to chaperone on any field trips. But I do hope and plan to make up for it a little bit someday in the future when Katharine is in school and I don't have toddlers or a baby at home anymore. Right now, the best way I support is to bring numbers in attendance. I can bring a crowd.  Of course I attend my own children's programs and events, bike rodeos and parades and all that Maycember stuff (albeit sometimes reluctantly and out of sheer obligation). But I am patting myself on the back for taking this step today in support of our local school. The absolute highlight of the evening for me, was watching Katharine eat a chocolate chip cookie. 

SO freaking cute. Video here of her in wide eyed and in awe of this taste of high sugar content.

"What IS this?!? Give me MORE!"

Another video - she's got a hold of the cookie and she's not letting go! 

So that was fun, and I also loved seeing her chase the Sphero balls! 

Owen was kind enough to let her chase his ball, although she wasn't able to tell it apart from any of the other balls. 

We might need to get one of those for us here at home to play with with her. So, STEAM stands for (I had to look this up): science, technology, engineering, art and math. For Art, they had some red clay that the kids were able to play with. I made a Lightening McQueen car for Peter which was pretty good. Daniel having fun with Millie. Natalie and Lily getting creative too - 

It was a fun night and I'm glad we went, and we all enjoyed it, therefor I here make the pledge to go again next year! Someyear I dare say I'll even volunteer to run one of the stations. 

I did a great job being productive today and I also didn't overeat today. I ate at 9 and at 2 and was productive all the rest of the time, yay. I went climbing tonight, at momentum 8:30 - 9:45 with WLNODP, I did a new hot pink V2 that was really hard but I did it! And before we left I did my first V3! A green one on the south boulder. I can't do three that are by it (the hot pink V1 it, or the lavender V2 or orange V2) but yay, my first V3! After 4 attempts, sent it on my 5th attempt. 

Mel came up on Saturday around 11:30 and came to Sophi's basketball game, and hung out with us the rest of the day. She invited her brothers to come up on Sunday for dinner so they could give her a ride back to BYU. It was fun having the kids all here, but we didn't go to bed on time, so Corey didn't make it to the gym this morning. I didn't either, but lucky for us, Wes is done with hockey so we had him take Lily to jazz band. Since we didn't go climbing this morning, we went tonight. Again, I went with WLNODP and we stayed a bit too late, but Corey barely got in bed at 10:24, and I got P and K to sleep, then I thought I'd come finish blogging that Dec 3 post, and yay I did it. Now it's 11:45 and it feels like 1 am to me. 

Also thought I'd mention that Peter doesn't have nightmares anymore. The last one he had was on the night of January 14. I remember because it was a horrible night before I had to give a lesson on Sunday. But I remember he didn't cry that next night and I felt it was a tender mercy, and then he went a whole week without having a night mare. I mentioned it to Corey and he shared with the family a story from One Tattered Angel where they had a special needs child who was crying one time and they couldn't figure out why until one of her brother's revealed he had a pornographic magazine in the house. They got it out of the house, and the little girl didn't cry anymore. I think a similar thing has happened in our home and Peter has been cured of his nightmares since. So I think we have a new way to tell if the kids are into anything inappropriate to just stop it and get rid of it, cause Peter's sleep will be the giveaway.