Funny jokes

Like normal children, our kids like to tell jokes. And they are not very funny. Most jokes are of the chicken/road variety, but I don't think the children understand the concept of a punchline. They especially like to tell jokes to Chris while we are driving in the car. After each joke, Chris will say, "1, 2, 3, laugh!" And everyone will burst into forced laughter.

We were in the car yesterday, and Beth said, "Yoke, tell, Dad?" After I informed Chris that someone was speaking to him, he told Beth he would love to hear her joke. Hear it is:

"Why chick road?" ("Why?") "Cow eating bird."

Then she finished it up with, "1, 2, laugh! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Thanks Laura!

Well, that says it all.

Help!

I thought I was clever enough to figure out how to change the look of my blog. Now it is a mess. I don't know how to fix it. I can't even get it to go back to what it was. Sorry about the mess. I don't have time to fix it now. I'll do it later. Maybe.

A child's prayer

Bethie has learned to pray. She prays several times a day. She says, "I say it," and then starts praying no matter what else is going on. She often prays while someone else is trying to say a prayer--she just prays louder. Most of her prayers go something like this:

"Our Father, please bless our Sarah. Please bless our Nathan. Please bless our Mommy. Please bless our Sarah. Please bless our Daddy. Please bless our Nathan. Please bless our Ammon. Please bless our Beffie. Please bless our Jesus. Please bless our Sarah. Please bless our Nathan. (and then someone prompts "in the name of" and she says) Christ, Amen!"

It's very sweet. Today, she wanted to give the family prayer. She kept insisting we all kneel down, but we weren't done with scriptures yet. Eventually, it was time. She prayed, "Our Father, please bless our bums. Please bless our guitars. Please bless our Blues Clues. Amen!"

Loftier ambitions

Yesterday, Nathan informed us, "I want to be a taxi driver. After I save the world."

Ambitions

This morning, we went through our weekly Sunday ritual. That is, listening to Nathan complain about church. "It's so boring! I hate church. I don't want to go. My teacher is ugly." (He's a weird kid.) The other kids tried to tell Nathan why church is good. He needs to go so he can learn and be better. Nathan said, "But when I grow up, I'm just going to be a bad guy, anyway."

With those kinds of goals, who needs church?

(By the way, he was well-behaved today and I think he enjoyed it! Just don't tell Nathan that.)

Communicating

This is for all you people who have served in primary and wonder if the kids learn anything.

Beth is a singer. She sings all the time. And a lot of the songs she sings are songs we don't sing much at home. But I know where she learns them. Songs like, "Roll Your Hands" and "If You're Happy and You Know It." She calls that one, "Happy Nose Cap Hands." Yesterday she asked me, "Ashes Down?" I said, "You want to play Ring Around the Rosies?" She said, "Yeah!" and jumped up and down. (She's always jumping.) I said, "Where did you learn to play that game?" (We play other things. We don't neglect her just because she's the fourth. We just forget to do all the same things we did with the other ones.) She said, "Nursy." I said, "You play Ring Around the Rosies in Nursery?" She said, "Yes. Kaitlin funny." (Kaitlin is obviously a little girl in nursery.) The end.

The Hundred Acre Woods

That's my attempt at a better title. Beth loves Winnie the Pooh. (The classic movie. I'm not a fan of the modern stuff. What a way to ruin good characters and good storytelling. Anyway...) She has a stuffed Pooh Bear that she recently latched onto at Grandma JoAnn's house. She insisted that it was hers, "My Poop," and took it home. There's no giving it back now. Sorry Grandma. And sorry to all you other grandkids. It's Beth's favorite thing. As you can see, she calls it Poop. When she wants to watch the movie she asks, "Watch Poop?" And now, because of her cousin Ryan's influence, she calls the bear Poopy. All day long we hear, "My Poopy." And "Bottle for Poopy. Yummy milk, Poopy?" And other such things.

That's all.

Ammon and the piano

I wish I could think of better titles. Ammon has loved taking piano lessons from Kathryn. It's the one thing he does totally independently. He loves to practice--without prompting from Mom. Kathryn's taking a bit of a break from teaching because she is busy planning her WEDDING! And she's moving and ... and ... and

Anyway, it doesn't stop Ammon from learning. Ammon has a great ear. This is something I can't really relate to. I can pick out a few tunes, but not a lot. I'm a great sight-reader. Ammon is often found at the piano. Within the last few weeks, he has taught himself "Joy to the World," "Silent Night," "I Am a Child of God," "Little Drummer Boy," "Angels We Have Heard on High," and others.

Chris thinks he's got the gift.

We kneel to pray

Nathan was told to kneel down for family prayer. But we didn't say where he should kneel . . .

Piggies

Today was Beth's first day in piggy tails. I love little girls in piggy tails. I told the girls I wanted to take a picture of their piggies and Bethie immediately held up her toes. (*This little piggy went to market . . . )

Of course, the piggy tails didn't last all day. In the late afternoon, Beth stood up and her hair was a mess of static in her face. She said, "MOM! Hair broken!"

*I added this explanation of toes=piggies for those of you whose children are bigger. Maybe you've forgotten.

Blog

One of the followers of my blog (it's Rachel) has complained about my lack of entries lately. She blames it on Facebook. As if I can't do both. So, 4 entries in one day--this is for you, Rachel. And now I'm going to go play on Facebook.

Sarah loves math!

Ammon is a great student. He catches on to things very easily. It is almost mundane to have to teach him math concepts because they are so easy for him. However, watching Sarah do math is something else. Now I understand what people meant when they told me I had a "math brain." She gets the concepts without any teaching. She really understands the principles and concepts without any visual aids or even much explanation. Sometimes she'll say things like, "I already did 4+2 yesterday. I know it's 6. Why do I have to do it again?" Those are the types of questions I asked all through school and the reason I stopped doing my "busywork" homework in the 2nd grade. Hopefully, I can help Sarah see that repitition is important to learning. That way, even though we don't have real grades in home school, she'll still be able to excel. The other day, she was doing a problem and started staring off into space. I said, "Sarah, would you like to use the counters to help you?" She said, "No! I'm using my brain to help me!"

Success!

Ammon learned to read, and read well, when he was pretty young. But I have not been able to get him interested in chapter books. I have checked out various types of books from the library--he'll read them if I force him, but he'd rather not. A while ago, I was pretty worried about his lack of interest in reading for fun on his grade level. I e-mailed my friends, Neal and Kristi (who have 8-year-old twins) for some book ideas. I couldn't even get him into the ones they recommended. (But I haven't tried all of them yet!) Then Chris brought home a book called "Rocks and Minerals." Ammon couldn't put it down. And he comprehends it. I decided not to worry. He just has different interests.

Later, he got some different chapter books for Christmas. He was uninterested. But Grandma JoAnn gave him a Garfield book. He loves it and reads it constantly--over and over. Maybe he just has different interests. But come on! He's got to learn to read real books at some point. As I started to worry about him again, he surprised me. He took the new Bible he got for his birthday to bed with him. In the morning, he said, "I read the first chapter of Genesis by myself." I asked him some questions and found that he has a good comprehension of King James' language. So, I decided not to worry.

One book Ammon got for Christmas was the classic, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Since he wasn't going to read it by himself, I decided to read it to the family. Of course they love it! Nathan hangs on every word with his eyes as big as his ears. (I couldn't think of a good comparison.) Everyone laughs and wants to read another chapter. And then another. After we finished the 2nd chapter, Ammon stole the book. He took it to bed with him two nights in a row and had it finished! It's like a little dream come true for me. Ammon read his first book. Ammon read his first book. Hurray!

By the way, now the kids want to watch the movie. We tried showing them the Johnny Depp one about 4 years ago and it scared the chocolate out of them. I didn't watch the whole thing because it was traumatizing my children. Those of you (with normal children) who have seen it, do you think my kids can handle it now that they know the story?

Name calling

I am not good at titles.

Nathan's full name is Nathan Pohaku Woods. He is pretty proud of his name and says it all the time. Nathan has decided that when he grows up, he will name one of his sons Willy Wonka. He will have another son named Reginald von Hoobie Doobie. (I think those are both better names than Solomon which is what Chris wanted to name Nathan.)

Bethie has picked up on this and goes around calling everyone "Sarah Doobie Doobie" or "Nathan Doobie Doobie." She thinks it's pretty funny. If she is not calling someone "Doobie Doobie," she will call them by Nathan's almost full name. "Ammon Haku Woods" or "Mommy Haku Woods." And we all laugh because she is adorable.

*I think this whole name thing makes our family seem well-read since Willy Wonka and Reginald von Hoobie Doobie are both characters in books.

Institute

So here's a story for you:

My mom teaches an adult institute class. When she goes out of town, she usually asks me to sub for her. Today was one of those days. I prepared as best I could. But I realized that I don't really know how to teach grown-ups anymore. I have been in the primary a long time. If there are no crayons, there is no lesson. But I still formulated a plan and I was as ready as I was going to be.

I left with the perfect amount of time to drop the kids off and get to the institute early (but not too early). As I walked through the snow and ice to get to the car, I realized I forgot my shoes. MY SHOES! I was wearing slippers, but still. MY SHOES! I started laughing, went back in the house, and came out fully clothed. I laughed all the way to Chris's work thinking about forgetting my shoes. I went to grab a diaper to take in to Chris (with the kids) and looked at the passenger seat. There were no scriptures there. I forgot my scriptures. MY SCRIPTURES! Did I mention this is for an institute class? In my scriptures were my lesson plan and the key to the classroom. I had no time to run home. This was even funnier than forgetting my shoes. I don't know why it struck me funny, but it did. I figure I can either laugh or cry in situations like this. And crying gives me a headache. So I laugh.

In the end, I borrowed some scriptures, said a prayer, and taught a lesson. The lesson was about submission. I think I learned a lesson about true submission as I was humbled and had to rely fully on the Lord to get me through this one.