The Circus comes to town

The kids came home from school with coupons for the circus.  They had asked to go last year but we never made it. So when they asked this year, I felt like it was something we should try and do... since we don't often go out and do fun things during school days. 

I didn't have very high expectations because it had such a small-town, local feel to it and didn't look very big.  It ended up being more expensive just for the tickets than I thought because of added fees to buying the tickets online, and so I was even more disappointed to learn that besides watching the show, everything else cost even more... and not very small costs, like $5 per kid to jump in the jumpy houses, or $2.50 per kid to feed some pellets to the petting zoo animals, $8 to ride a pony and $10 per person to ride the elephants.  The show itself was pretty interesting! The talented acrobats were so fun to see up close.  It was especially crazy to see what little safety precautions were in place.  The lady in the ring was pretty awesome, then a guy juggled this huge cube. 

Another favorite was the lady who balanced on boards and cylinder blocks or skateboards stacked up.

Four beautiful white horses did some synchronized movements.

The Theme of the circus was based on Dinosaurs so they had this special number where people wearing huge dinosaur blow up costumes moved around like dinosaurs. It was alright.

The people on silks were awesome. 

My favorite might have been the elephants. They were huge and the ladies on their backs had to be soo brave, I thought. It was super cute to see the elephants walk in a line holding onto the tail in front of them.

The last act was this guy in and on a spinning cage thing.

The kids really enjoyed seeing everything. It was SUPER hot in the tent and the bleachers were REALLY uncomfortable for this pregnant body so the 2 hour show seemed a little too long in my opinion and it was right over dinner time so some of the kids chose to spend their allowance money to buy some snacks. They did a good job sharing with each other.  Unfortunately, all of the kids except Alec complained and whined a lot about not getting to buy more. It makes me sad to have spent all the money we did and try to do something fun for the kids who don't seem to appreciate it and who are never satisfied. "If you give a mouse a cookie..." kind of situation.  Oh well. Hopefully, we'll all remember it as a good experience someday.

Mid-Semester Preschool Update

So, after the first week, I felt like things could only get better, but they continued to feel mostly the same. I still had one kid who couldn't leave his mom without crying the whole time. His mom was helpful and was willing to stay and try to stay in the background and that was working well, but I also felt like we needed to practice having her leave for a short period every day, so he could learn the concept of 'Mom comes back.' I guess he's never been left before outside of his parents or grandparents.  The kids were learning the routine a bit more, but also I simplified my schedule and expectations to meet 2-3 year olds, instead of 5 year olds. Every day I felt like I would come up with a new plan on how to better meet the needs of the kids and then every day I'd still have hard moments where more tweaking was needed.  A big help came just from simply taping a blue line on the carpet by the door for the kids to line up on before going out to recess. Since some of them had been to play at my house before preschool and with it being Freddy's own home, at the beginning there was a lot "During Preschool we don't...(run outside without Ms. Brittney, or climb over the gate, or get into the storage room, or empty out all the buckets, etc.."  Having them line up and wait for me really eased the stress of having 3 year olds decide it was a good idea to hit golf balls they found in a bin in the garage with a baseball bat they pulled out of somewhere at their friends as they waited for me to open the garage door to the playground.

I also got better throughout the month of simplifying the themes to go throughout the entire week, which cut down on prep a bit. I still have days where I chide myself for thinking this was a good idea. The saving grace factor in all the stress and anguish were the really cute/fun moments that happen at least once during each day where all the kids are with me and we'relearning and having fun and I LOVE that. Also, seeing how much Freddy loves it, almost makes it worth it just by that reason itself. He sometimes will grab onto my arm while I'm reading a book to everyone and just kiss it and grin up at me like he's in heaven. He LOVES to recount his whole preschool day to the kids when we pick them up for school or to Chris if he comes home for lunch or at the end of the day.

By the second month, my youngest student who couldn't leave his mom decided to take a break from preschool and I was able to fill his spot (thanks entirely to another mom of one of the other kids) within 1 day.  Things are going well now and I can imagine a time when it no longer stresses me out, but its not as simple as I thought it was going to be and I'm wondering how having a baby half-way through the year is going to change things.

Labor Day, Bike Ride on the New Road, and Fun with Instruments

We had our good friends the Gines over for a last minute BBQ for Labor Day. We got out washer toss and played soccer towards the end of the evening. It was pretty hot but as the sun goes behind the trees, its much more bearable. 

The new road behind our backyard that offers a southern entrance into Campus was finally finished! Rumor has it there is supposed to be a big sidewalk all the way down it too and we can see where it will eventually since there is dirt is raised up and leveled flat along one side of it, but its not there yet. I kinda doubt it'll get put in within the next 5 years. The kids found/made a new trail through the trees to get to our back fence where theres a big dip in the fence due to a fallen tree and we could easily lift our bikes over it. Then we lined up inbeween Chris and I and enjoyed a nice 2ish mile ride along freshly smooth blacktop.

We rode about a mile more all the way on campus to the Football Stadium. Sometimes Freddy rode in the trailer and sometimes he wanted to ride his balance bike. It was something the kids have been asking to do for a long time. I'm glad we made the time for it. It almost didn't happen because Chris had gone to the temple earlier that day and was gone from 5:00am - 3:30 pm and we had a rare date planned for that night to go see a community play "Arsenic and Old Lace"  at the theater on main street that some friends of ours are involved with. All in all, a great Saturday.

One night, we got out the guitar, and bass and ukuleles and other hand instruments to try and have a family music night. It was pretty fun despite the fact that no one really knew what they were doing. We got out a board for Gwen to tap dance on while we played. We attempted some latin/style sounds for a little while but got kinda fed up with our own incompetence and just turned on Calle 54 (Chris' favorite documentary on Latin Jazz) and were amazed at the skill of real musicians.