Pool Play Day

After Beach Day 2 on Thursday, we thought we'd keep having fun, so after a two hour break for lunch and some quiet time, the Stouts came to our home for some pool time. Now our kids thought the 5 of them doing jumping action shots was cool - what if there were 10 kids?!?!

Ready, set... jump!

Hooray! Hyrum jumped early, so we get to try again! :) We took several pics trying to get it just right. A little harder with the bigger group.

Off again, try again

Watching these four little men was my favorite part. Jed, Wes, Owen, and Ethan. Jed and Wes especially seemed to be enjoying being part of the big kids' game. Owen and I are pals, he likes the oranges I brought to the beach, and Orange and Owen both start with O, so that helps me remember which one he is of the little blonde Stout boys. Nice leg floaties, Wes.

The above pic was the winning shot.

After playing in the pool, the kids ate two cookie sheet fulls of french fries -


I did the best imitation of Eat-A-Burger fries as I could, and they got 2 ketchup thumbs up from all the eaters. And a chin up from the runt of the litter, Lily.


We made sure she got some little fry bits after the big kids stuffed their faces.

My kids loved using their goggles. They all had a fun time - thanks for coming over Stouts!

Okay. So, what should we do tomorrow? Hmmm.

Beach Day 2

Everyone working by or playing in the tide pool - the older kids making a castle at the water's edge while the younger kids splash away.


At the beach on Wednesday, Kristy told me they had spent all that morning playing on the rocks and in the tide pools while in the tide was out. Kristy wished she had invited us over for earlier to share that time with them too - her kids had such fun playing and it's been beautiful weather this week. "We'll be out tomorrow too if you want to come by!" Of course my kids did, so after breakfast we got suited up and headed over again for another day of fun in the sun (another day of no rain!)

Melodie letting Lily help her start a sand castle.

Who made this? Oh, look it says right here... Hyrum did!

Joe and Kaylee finding crabs and shells.

Mr. King Crab and his Castle. (He's the little white dot by the entrance)

We found the Kind a Queen, sharing their leaf throne.
Hermit crabs are cute.

Painting Fingernails

Abi loves fingernail polish. I wish I didn't hate it. Hmm, hate's too strong. I am usually so overly anxious about it spilling or them touching something with wet nails that I don't enjoy it usually 99% of the time. I need to relax huh, just relax and paint their little cute nails.

So I did on Tuesday. I painted Abi and Lily's fingernails and toenails with Melodie's help, and they were ready for more, so then I gave them both a paint brush and water and they painted my fingernails and toes for a good 20 minutes. It was really cute, and it's a great mess-less idea for littler girls! Try it!




And Abi and Wes played very nicely upstairs for a long time that day. When they returned to the downstairs, they both had both of their names written all over them with permanent marker. Above is Abi's Wesley arm tatoo, and on her right arm, ABE.

So now when I see her I'm thinking of President Lincoln. Cute kids. I love it when they play nice.

Pigs at the Trough

Not the pigs from the farm this time. I'm talking 'bout my little pigs.


Sharing a bowl of carmel popcorn that I bought at Auto Mercado.


The Little Lily Piggy is also a Little Lily Monkey and has a banana.

Beach Day 1

Hey all - we had a perfect afternoon at Tamarindo beach yesterday, (aside from when I had to run in to the bathroom and miscarried my pregnancy - was 10 weeks), and then had dinner with the Stouts - they are an awesome family. They are heading back to the states on Sunday. We went to play with them again today when the tide it out... will post those photos in another post.

Here's the pictures I took on Wednesday


Wesley making a spaceship - the little mounds of dirt at his feet are his buttons and he made a chair around himself. It was a pretty good little ship.
Sand is the best toy ever - you can do anything with sand!

Mel's drawing of her imaginary friend Bob the Crab.

Abi, Lily and Wes in the middle, Ethan and Jed Stout on the left and right. Everyone busy playing.

"Lily! Cheese!" She know that's her cue to throw up her chin, squint her little eyes, and do a cheesy grin. Love that little face

Corey coming in from boogie boarding with the kids - they are all done cause they found a crab and that has their full attention now.

Can you see it in the middle of the picture?


They got a bin to keep track of him till they had to come in for dinner.
We had a fun day.
Hmmm. What do you want to do tomorrow?
Unanimous answer: Beach!

Barking Dogs

It's 10:00 PM and the dogs are all talking to each other. Pet Peeve about this place - too many noisy dogs. Especially this little feller, who I am 99% positive is the one that starts yapping at 5:15 in the morning at the house across the street, which street is a very narrow street, and with no front yards at either of our houses, it makes the house very close and thus the dog very loud, and with no carpeting and a home made of tile and cement, I am finding myself cursing him at 5:16 and today I thought if I had a gun I'd be tempted to walk out side in my underwear and go shoot him and then go crawl back in bed. But today, after President Monson's talk, I tried to thank the Lord in ALL things and thought maybe I could let it be a blessing by getting out of bed and exercising before his continued barking woke up all my kids at 5:30 AM. They've been getting better at letting us sleep in. We let them turn on the tv if they will let us keep sleeping, and that's been working out good. :)

But if the tv doesn't work as a stall tactic through December, this puppy dog better watch out, cause I'm not my usual cheerful self between 5 and 6 in the morning.

Homeschool

Corey doing dice multiplication with the kids - they are getting

really good and they think it's a game (it's learning and it's fun!)

I went into the public school here a week ago and asked if our kids could attend til December. They said no because of the date - their school years starts in February and ends in December, so they are finishing things up and our kids can't come, they can start in February though. That's not going to work, but that's okay. I told my kids (Joe, Mel, and Ethan) they were lucky cause they got off the hook. We were feeling excited to throw them in and let them learn to sink or swim.

Talking to the principal/director, I didn't want to press hard for them to attend, so I just said okay and left (after he finished explaining to me 4 times why they couldn't attend). The next day Shirley said I should have asked if they could just attend as "oyentes" or listeners only, meaning they'd just attend without having tests. Like auditing a college class I guess. I didn't want to go back and talk with the director guy, but I told Corey he could and he might have better luck. I didn't feel like he and I connected well, and Corey has a gift of connecting with everyone. So if we do that or not, we'll see. As for now, it's been a lot of fun to live a simpler life and have the slow pace of kids experiencing a vacuum of activities at home and not having anywhere that we have to go to.

...Except to the store 4 times a week. I've already been twice this week. And I will be posting later the differences between the catered to tourists store and the local's store. Until yesterday I had only gone to the local store, "MegaSuper", which was the only store I knew the location of cause Shirley took me there. Yesterday I went to "Auto Mercado" and what a difference! No wonder I was feeling depressed! Auto Mercado was like a little America store! Even had Magic Erasers, Blue Diamond Honey Roasted Almonds, and Kashi Heart to Heart. If only I can find Protein Powder, then I'd really be back in the States. Until then, I shall now only be shopping at Auto Mercado, unless I need cilantro, which they didn't have. I guess they don't think tourists are interested in that local necessity. I shall be blogging on "The Tale of Two Tiendas" later after I take pictures. I guess I'll have to go back to MegaSuper for pictures. That's okay. And it's not that bad of a store, just made me feel like a local and feel homesick for Costco. Now with Auto Mercado I think I might survive, so that's exciting to me!

Ok, so back to homeschooling, here's what we've been doing daily for the past two weeks:

1) Clean in the morning - We try to clean up before Shirley comes so she doesn't feel overwhelmed or that we're totally helpless without her. Then it's the 3 Rs - Reading, wRiting, and a'Rithmatic
2) Reading
3) Writing - Handwriting and/or journal writing. This week the kids are mostly choosing journal writing and telling the story of our adventure in Costa Rica.

Hyrum writing in his journal.

4) Math - usually the dice game, but sometimes worksheets.
5) Spanish - haven't really gotten down a total system here.... Right now we're working on some of the Primary songs and the Articles of faith. Corey also played a game with the older kids during Conference where they listened to it in Spanish and wrote down any word they understood and got points for each word, redeemable for treats.

So it's going well and has been fun. I started reading Narnia to the kids this week, my voice is getting a little sore from talking so much, but it's a fun story. We're starting at the beginning, so we're reading the Magician's Nephew right now. Joe's reading it on his own too and it almost done with it, but still listens in during the family reading.


Fun story, sadly I've never read it before. I'm glad to have this slower paced life and that I'm finally making time to do things that have been on my to do list for a long time. Reading to my kids! It's happening and it's great.

One last note - Abi is cute cause she gets in on the homework too. She sits with a pen or pink crayon and colors and scribbles, she's started drawing really cute circle faces too. I'll take pictures of those later, I love it when the kids reach this age of drawing circle faces, it's so fun.

Abi all tuckered out after drawing herself to sleep.

She's doing the same thing Wesley did at this age - he didn't color with crayons, just with a pen or pencil, and just colored everything in. Abi still has lots of work to do as you can see in her book above. Lots of lines to fill in. One time as Ethan was pounding on the table saying "I can't do it!" about his multiplication, Abi started to imitate him very sincerely as she slapped the table with her hand and cried "I tah dooYee!" and then would hold her head in frustration and look at her coloring. It made us all smile.

Ethan Used My Camera Without Permission: Take 2

I could tell it was him cause of this shot. That's his belly button.




These made me smile when I saw them, though.


What a cute little head.

Televisión

This is how we've spent a small chunk of our time here. We usually make them watch it in Spanish. Then pretty consistently Ethan will, in an attempt to show us that he's already learned a lot of Spanish, will say to us "Can we watch it in Inglés?" He's very persistent. He'll ask several times. Gotta admire that. ? Well, maybe not.

Personally I've loved watching Disney movies in Spanish - we've seen Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Los Incredibles (that one's really fun), and Mulan (Corey said during that one "Now this is really a multi cultural experience! - A Spanish translation of an American culturally slanted Chinese tale.") Other than the movies, I'd rather leave it off with all the weekday shows. If it was something they already knew then in English that might help them learn it in Spanish. That's the M o v i e Mouth idea that Corey's been working on, and it's gonna be great.

Is That Chloe?

At the restaurant there was another couple there who arrived at the same time we did. As they were admiring the kids that kept coming out of our two cars... "Cuantos hay? Seis?" ...our kids were admiring their very cute little 3 month old black lab.


Had more fur and larger ears than Chloe and it was a boy, but still it made them happy to think they were seeing her. Abi and Wes were petting him and tried to feed him rocks while we waited for our food. Silly kids.

Pretty Abi

These pictures are from Thursday when we were at the fish house waiting for lunch before going to Playa Conchal.


All the other kids were being noisy, Abi was just sitting there looking around, waiting quietly, being a patient little golden haired angel. I took some pictures to capture her sweetness and I think these do her justice.


And I still love her Tinkerbell haircut.

"Hey Abi! Say Cheese!"


"Cheese!"