Tumbling Class

 

I signed Leah up for a tumbling class at our local recreation center. She went twice a week for five weeks and absolutely loved it. She actually took the class about a year ago. She liked it then, and often asked when she would have tumbling class again. So I wasn't surprised that she did so well with it. Last year I had to stay close to her and help keep her on task. This time I could just send her out there and she did a great job listening to the teachers and following instructions. 

Leah has some pretty good athletic talent. She can run fast and has good coordination for someone her age. She could climb and jump and throw with the best of them. I'm sure the past 3+ years of climbing all over our furniture and running amok all over our house has helped enhanced her skills. Dance lessons probably helped too. 

Leah loved her teacher, "Teacher Janice" (she's helping her do a back flip in the picture below). She did great with the two assistant teachers too, but Teacher Janice was her favorite. She always made sure she said goodbye to her and sometimes even wanted to give her a hug when she left. Janice is great with the kids and, as a parent, she is one if my favorite parts of the class. I really like how she runs this program. 

They work on all kinds of gross motor skills in this program. Each class they worked on at least one ball handling skill. This was very hard for Corbin. He couldn't stand that there was a room full of balls that he couldn't play with. I always liked it when he fell asleep on the way to class. Having him nap through the class was much easier than running after him and trying to keep him happy when he'd rather be playing ball like Leah and the other kids. 

Lucky for Corbin, the last five minutes of every class was free time and the siblings waiting on the sidelines were allowed to join in too. Corbin always went straight for the balls. Sometimes I would shoot baskets in the big hoops for him. He loved that. Here's a picture of him thinking about throwing a football into the 10 foot basketball hoop. This little guy is not afraid to think BIG. 

This basket was a little more his size. But I still got a kick out of watching him try to throw the big playground ball into it. 

Here's Leah at the end of her last day of tumbling class with her gold medal and fruit snacks. She was so proud of herself and all the things she did in her tumbling class. She asks all the time when she can go to tumbling class again. She loves it so much. Hopefully I can get her into at least one more session before she's too old for the class.

Leah's Dance Recital

Leah has officially completed her first year of dance lessons. She is such a great little dancer. I love watching her dance. Here she is with Millie and Kylie who also took lessons with her this year.

It was so fun to see them dance together. However I did have a hard time with their recital because their teacher decided to teach all the first year girls the same dances and have them all dance together. It did make the recital much shorter, but 30-40 3-year-olds on stage together is just too many. For their first dance, Leah wasn't anywhere near Millie or Kylie. Luckily for the second dance they were close enough that I could get them all in the same picture. Leah and Kylie are waving to the audience and Millie is two girls to the left of Kylie. For the record, I think Leah's dance teacher is great. I really like the way she teaches, I just haven't been very happy about how recitals have been handled. But this is her first year, I'm sure things will get better.

The girls did two dances. A tap dance to the song "Happy Tappin' with Elmo" (which was actually the same dance that they did for their Christmas recital). And a ballet dance to a "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" song.

Here's Leah with some of her fans who came to see her dance. Along with some of our Miller family who came to see Kylie, there was my parents, Grandma Tucker, aunt Susie, Melyssa, Lyndsee, Makynlee and Taysom who traveled down for the occasion.

Leah is taking a break from dance for the summer. She's ready for a break and I don't mind not driving her to lessons each week. But I'm sure when the summer is over she'll be ready to start back up again. Leah likes going to dance and she is really good at it. It will be fun do see what she does in the years to come.

Preschool Teddy Bear Picnic

During this past school year, we've been doing a little preschool group with some of the families in our neighborhood. Each week the kids would go to one of the homes and the mom there would teach a lesson. Each week we would focus on a letter and also on another theme (usually something to do with the season or an upcoming holiday). 

As the school year was coming to a close, we decided to do one last preschool group together. We thought it would be fun to have a "Teddy Bear Picnic" out in the grassy area near our town home. There is a Teddy Bears' Picnic song that we used to get some ideas for activities to do and snacks to eat. So each of the moms pitched in with an activity or treat. 

We started out with reading bear stories together on our blankets. 

Then we played the Teddy Bear Picnic song for the kids to listen and dance to. However, they thought it was much more fun to just run around all through the song.

Then they made necklaces by stringing honey nut O's onto a ribbon. Afterwards, they went on a hunt for teddy bear tracks.

For the next activity they put all their stuffed toys on a blanket and tossed them up into the air. The kids loved this and did it over and over again.

At the end we all enjoyed some yummy bear themed snacks: Teddy Graham crackers, gummy bears, strawBEARries and peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

And before people had to leave, we got a picture of all the kids together. So here's Sam, Emerson, Leah, Millie and Aria. It has been so fun to get to know these kids and their moms better over this last school year. For the next school year two of these kids will have moved and Leah will be going to a different preschool. So I'm not sure if we'll get this group of kids together again, at least not in a school like setting.

It was bittersweet to see our preschool group come to an end. It will be nice not to worry about planning a lesson every few weeks, but Leah and I both enjoyed the time that she was able to go play with her friends.

Ross's Trip to Washington

At the beginning of May, Ross got the unique opportunity to go on a trip with his mom and some of his siblings. They wanted to visit their mom in New York while she was on her mission, but that didn't work out. So since she turned 70 in April, they decided to take a trip for her birthday instead. Unfortunately their oldest sister, Tamaran, and their youngest brother, Kyle, couldn't make it. 

They decided to visit the San Juan Islands in Washington State. The five who live in Utah flew out early Wednesday morning and met Kaye when she flew into Seattle. From there they rented a car and drove up to catch a ferry to Friday Harbor where they had rented a beach house to stay in for a few days.

(Before I get too far into this post, I need to mention that Ross didn't come home with many photos from his trip because so many others were taking pictures. So most of these photos came from ones that Don, Kaye and Norma shared. Thanks guys.)

Here they are enjoying lunch together before they headed north to catch the ferry. The weather while they were there was unusually beautiful! It made for a much more enjoyable time. 

Here they are waiting for the ferry. These siblings all grew up on the southwest coast of Oregon. I'm sure that being back so close to the Pacific Ocean felt a lot like home. 

Here they are riding over to the islands on the ferry. 

The view from their beach house was beautiful!

On Thursday, they explored the island. They saw several tide pools, enjoyed the beach, saw a lighthouse and even came across half a dozen or so bald eagles that were swooping down on some prey that was only about 20-30 yards away from them. 

It turned out that their mom's room at the beach house had carpenter ants in it. At first it was just a few, but then more and more were showing up. So they called the property manager to take care of them. And as luck would have it, they decided to compensate them by sending them on a kayaking trip on Friday. This was an unexpected, fun adventure for Ross and his siblings. (Their mom decided to opt out of this adventure.)

They had a little fox that decided to come hang out on their patio while they were there. Everyone was pretty amused by this. 

On Saturday, they went on a whale-watching boat tour. It was much colder that day (hence the coats and other winter-weather clothing). Sadly, they didn't see any whales though. It was still too early in the season. 

Ross had a great time with his family. It was a fairly relaxing trip. Their mornings weren't busy, so they could sleep in a bit. He was able to go on a couple runs with some of the others. After breakfast, they would venture out for the day and then come back to the beach house for dinner. He told me his favorite part of the trip was the time they spent fixing meals together just visiting and sharing memories and stories. (However, I'm pretty sure Ross did a lot more listening than sharing.)

It was hard to have him gone for so long, but I'm really glad he got to go. It is not often that he gets to spend so much quality time with his mom and so many of his siblings. I know they all had a great time together.

BYU Women's Conference

BYU Women's Conference is something that I have looked forward to and attended for about 15 years now. I started going to it with the Turner women and then I got my mom to come with me for several years. However, for the past couple of years our numbers in our little group have dwindled through various reasons (kids, jobs, missions, distance). Like last year I couldn't go because Corbin was so young and needed to be nursed regularly. 

Well I was so excited that I would be able to go this year until I realized that Ross's trip with his mom and siblings would be at the same time as Women's Conference. That meant that neither him nor his mom would be around to help with the kids. And it just wasn't going to work for my mom to take them either. Normally this wouldn't have bothered me as much, except that this year Lesley would be coming out and I didn't want to miss out on spending time with her. So with a lot of encouraging from Ross, I asked some women in my ward for some help so that I could at least attend Friday's sessions. Several of them volunteered! The women in my ward are angels. I love them. 

We have a tradition to go out for dinner at Los Hermanos the night before women's conference starts. And since I didn't want to miss out on spending time with some of my favorite women, I packed up the kids and braved taking them to the restaurant with me. Bear in mind that my kids do not have a great track record of being good at restaurants. However, this night they did incredibly well despite the fact that we stayed extra long to visit. This was a tender mercy. 

Here they are playing by the window. It was great to be in a spot where they could get down and play without bothering the other customers. The second picture below is of Corbin eating some rice. I think he was only getting a couple grains in his mouth at a time, but he was working so hard on feeding himself, that it kept him entertained for a very long time. 

I love to go to Women's Conference for the girl time, but I've come to love the sessions just as much. I've found that my spirit needs that time to be fed and buoyed up. It is like a spiritual booster shot. And after I've been, I feel like I have the tools and motivation to be a better wife and mother. 

Here are some of the take home messages that I got from the sessions I attended on that Friday:

* I need to stop feeling like I need to do everything on my own. The Lord's grace is there to help give us strength to do anything we need help with. I often find myself slipping into the mindset that I should only call on the Lord's help if I have done something wrong. I was reminded that I should call on the Lord's grace daily for help being a better wife, mother, friend and neighbor.

* I cannot control the kind of children that I have, but I can control the kind of mother I am. I often find myself getting uptight about the way my children are behaving. Overall, they are actually pretty good children, but I think I often expect more from them than I should. This impression that I got was a good reminder that I need to work more on my own behavior than on my children's. 

* "What's in control here?...I will be a slave to nothing!" (quote from John Taylor when he realized that he had an addiction to his chewing tobacco). This quote was shared in a session that talked about putting relationships before our hand-held devices and other technological distractions. This quote has certainly stuck with me. I have found that I can easily get sucked into fun things you can do with computers and hand-held devices. Buy I don't ever want to feel like I am a slave to something like a phone, tablet or computer. These things, as good as they can be, often waste valuable time. My family and other relationships should come first.

*Social media skews our perception of reality. People post small moments of perfection and we tend make judgments based only on what we see online. We cannot assess the needs of another person by talking through a screen. This was a reminder of the importance of face-to-face interactions, especially for visiting teaching. 

There was so much more that I learned in the five sessions I attended, but these were the messages that I felt like I needed the most and have stuck with me the strongest. 

And of course the best part was being able to spend the whole day with my best friend, Lesley. She and I have been through so much together. I hate that she lives so far away now. But I love that we still chat on a regular basis and that when we are back together, we can pick things up like we were never apart.   

Who knows what next year will bring. Hopefully I'll be able to attend more of Women's Conference. I totally missed one of my favorite parts this year. I love helping with the service projects they have set up during the sessions and the night of service they have on Thursday evening. But my time was limited this year and I decided to spend as much time as I could with Lesley and her family. So glad I got to go!!!