Flat Annika

This year in Annika's kindergarten class they did Flat Stanley's. Well - actually in Annika's class it was Flat _____ - so for Annika it was Flat Annika. The kids drew a flat version of themselves, and just like the book Flat Stanely, mailed themselves off to family or friends for a visit. Flat Annika decided she wanted to see the wilds of Alaska and that she did! Thanks so much to Gary and Marianne for the scenic tour you took Flat Annika on. Here's the photos Marianne and Gary sent back of the super trip - their captions are included - way funnier then mine could be. :)

Safety first! Buckled up and ready for adventure!

Wow!! There's Denali (Mt. McKinley) Amazing how big it is.

Stopped at the "Beautiful" town of Talkeetna. Well, maybe not so beautiful in the Fall.

How's this for a real Alaskan hat? :)

I don't see lions or tigers ... but bears! Ahhh!! Run!

At the Anchorage temple with Aunt Marianne, and cousins Braeden and Hayden.

Out at the Eagle River Visitor Center - close by where my mom used to live!

Uncle Gary showing me the sites at the Visitor Center.

A baby moose! Quick let me back in the car!!!

Reindeer! Guess this is where they hang out when Santa isn't using them.

Mmmmm ... Alaska Wildberry and Chocolate Factory - where they have a real chocolate waterfall. I'll see if I can take a dip later. :)

My own Alaskan Souvenir. I'll "moose" you all when I have to go back to Utah!

Thanks again for the super fun trip! And for all the funny goodies you sent back to the non-flat Annika!

Highlights

Just the highlights - cause ... well ... I'm lazy! :)

For FHE on Monday we made Oreo Turkey's for our project. The girls had a fun time eating candy, using frosting as glue to put together their turkeys, and eating more candy. Bleck! I was sick by the end of the evening just from watching them eat so much. Bad Mom. :( Next year I think I will give each of them a little cup of their ingredients instead of splaying it all out on the table.

Mieka and Matthew's turkeys didn't last very long - about 2 minutes. They were more interested in eating them than making them.

Annika proclaimed between mouthfuls of candy .. "I just can't stop eating this stuff!" Umm ... yes you can.

A happy no longer bleeding nose Emma with her fun turkeys. Poor girl had a sudden nose bleed that put a sad damper for her on the turkey festivities. But now she's happy!

Rachel came to play for family home evening while Nancy was in Florida. After making turkeys she chased the girls around the basement. Thanks for tiring them out for us!!

Tuesday through Thursday just flew by ... not much to report. Well - except for a super AWESOME Hello Kitty Turkey that Mieka made for school. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of the finished project. Note to self - remember to insert picture of a fore mentioned turkey here!

Mieka dancing in the snow trying to catch a snowflake on her tongue. :)

Friday I got to go to the cannery with Nancy and Janice. I wish that I had taken pictures of us in our lovely aprons and hair nets. Lookin' Good! We canned chicken. Yuck! I will never look at canned meat the same again. But I am grateful that we were able to go help can food for those in need and that we are also now eligible to buy some for our food storage. Hoping it looks better when comes out than it did going in.

Saturday we were able to go to the Gingerbread House Festival done by the Boy Scouts. There were some pretty incredible gingerbread houses there. We ended up buying one of them - the Pinkalicious one of course! As soon as we it get home I'm going to fully coat it with shellac - mostly to keep little fingers from picking it apart before Christmas.

The Girls favorite gingerbread house - and of course it's pink - Pinkalicious!

Yay - we've already got our gingerbread house done for this year - in November! We bought it cause I knew I would never have the time or patience to recreate it for the girls. :)

This one was my favorite - and Dave's too. It's based on Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water House. Amazing!

Quick montage of the rest of the ones we thought that were stellar.
Amazing stuff and amazing people that made the amazing stuff!

Later we had a sort of super Saturday where we did all the Thanksgiving Count Down crafts that we were suppose to do during the week. Apple turkeys, Mayflowers, and nifty corn syrup leaves.

Joe Cool Turkey - looks like he has sunglasses on. :)

Leaves painted with Karo syrup and drops of food coloring. These turned out really pretty - the pictures don't do them justice. They are all marbled and shiny. Very cool.

Mayflower boats made from the cup grippers from Starbucks. Yes! I went to Starbucks and got hot chocolate just so that we could make these little crazy boats. My first time there - probably last unless we need more supplies for more crafts. :) Their coffee must be better than their hot chocolate.

That evening we headed over to a new burger place in Lehi. They make Belgian type fries there, so we decided to give it a try. Annika proclaimed the fries so good that she wants to go there every Saturday night! Apparently dipping them in her Lime Slushie is what made them good. Bleck! And Mieka decided that drinking her ketchup was the easiest way to get her vegetables for the day. Double Bleck!

Slushie dipper!

Ketchup drinker? What has Dave been teaching these girls?!?

Today was the Primary Program. I think because they had so many kids in the primary they had to make up some parts. Annika's part was to tell about a miracle that happened to her. She told about when she was sick last year and her Daddy and uncle (Dan) gave her a blessing. She immediately felt better - so it was a miracle. And truly it was! I had never seen her so sick and know that the blessing did heal her and give her comfort. Anyway - she did a super fantastic job. Walked right up to the microphone, spoke clearly and slowly. She did great!

Right before the Primary Program. Cute girls!

Later we made some funky little pie pastry things - layers of pie crust with chocolate chips and marshmallows between them. On FamilyFun they call them yumm-o leaves ... I would probably say more sort-of-ok leaves. Annika proclaimed them "too crusty." I would have to agree. :) Probably give them a 2 1/2 stars - with Dave being the only one that wanted second helpings.



And then Dave gave a great Science Sunday lesson on surface tension. Awesome! Dave is a great teacher and does a great job of explaining why different things work the way the do. I hope by doing this that we will help encourage the girls to be interested in science. Maybe they will grow up to be rocket scientists!


Super great week. Once again we are so blessed to have happy, healthy girls. And happy, maybe not so healthy as we could be but working on it mom and dad. We are grateful for Dave's jobs - plural as in 2 - just until February. And we are grateful for the great prosperity Heavenly Father has blessed us with!

A life less busy ...

Sigh ... we have had a week of much less busyness and much more fun. Monday was the usual of school, gymnastics and FHE. We have found the mother-load for FHE - a flannel board set that has all the parables in it. We've gone through all the parables, so now we need to invest in a few more Bible stories and several Book of Mormon ones. The girls do a great job of paying attention and participating when we use these flannel board stories. Highly recommend!

Tuesday was election day. After dropping the girls off I headed over to vote. I'm amazed that I was able to walk right in and vote. I thought for sure this year with so many people being disgruntled about politics that the line would weave itself out the door and up the hall ... maybe even out to the front door. But I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. Yay! I've been trying to keep up with all of the happenings in the election - but I have to admit that all of the negative campaigning was very ... well negative. While doing my daily news surfing I found an article about two men running for the same seat in Connecticut. They both decided that they were going to run a kind and compassionate campaign and instead of focusing on tearing each other down, focused on what they could offer their constituents and what they thought were the important issues. What a novel idea! The one man even said that if he didn't win he would still support the other politician 100%. Wow - an election where you weren't left questioning the winner's abilities or ethics. I wish more people were like that.

Later that day we had an election of our own for dinner. I made up a ballot and each of us got to choose what kind of pasta, sauce, veggie, and dessert we had. As per normal elections some were upset about the results of the vote, but still ate what was offered. :) No crying like election 2008.

Election 2010

Before and After Voting - Election 2008

Wednesday was a craft and science day. After Annika's piano lesson we started our Thanksgiving countdown craft list. Today was making cornucopias out of candy. Yum :) Each of the girls filled their little cornucopias with candy that "looked" like food and even made a few of their own foods out of starbursts and tootsie rolls.






Later after Dave came home we had a science night and made home-made catapults out of a block of wood, clothes pin, popsicle stick, and a bottle cap. Add a bit of hot glue to the mix and the girls were launching pennies all over the kitchen and family room. There are so many great ideas online of fun things to do with kids - almost a bit overwhelming there are so many!




Thursday - presentation at Annika's school on the Netherlands and Belgium. I was invited to come give a 20 minute presentation to all the kindergarten classes about what Belgium and the Netherlands are like. The first group wiggled and giggled through the first 10 minutes of the presentation and then talked with their mouths full of stroopwafels and nutella the second half. :) The afternoon group did better - probably because I zoomed through the presentation and talked mostly about the food and Sinterklaas - two things they like and can relate to. It was fun doing the presentation and getting all the food for them to try. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures myself. But the plates of food looked good :) Belgian chocolates, great dutch bread with chocolate sprinkles and nutella, and a stroopwafel. What is there not to like. :)

Later in the afternoon the girls headed over to Emma and Matthew's to have a fun tea party. Thanks!

Friday - school, cleaning, the usual. Dave came home early - super nice surprise! Yay! The girls made pine cone turkeys, hand print boats,and then lounged in the sun on the deck with Dave - with ipods in hand.






Later that evening we headed over to Pirate Island to celebrate Annika and Emma passing off their Pslams 100. Each of the kids in the kindergarten class had to recite all of Psalms 100 during class - it's LONG - look it up. For passing it off they got a free kid's meal at Pirate Island. They all had a super fun time.

The girls with their nifty balloon butterflies.

And Matthew with his awesome crocodile that chomped on all the butterflies ... and girls. :)

Saturday we were able to go to Logan's baptism down in Provo. For Utah County his baptism was unusual - he was the only one being baptized. Usually there are 5 to 8 kids being baptized during the same meeting. So it was nice that it was focused just on him.

The rest of the day was spent at home being crafty. We made a crayon roll for our church bag and started to make a pilgrim doll. We still need to add quite a bit to this little sock doll - and yes - she is a Hello Kitty Pilgrim girl. :)


That night while Annika was getting her teeth brushed the other front tooth came out. Kind of ironic because her piano teacher just gave her "All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" to play at the Christmas recital. :) The tooth fairy was very generous and gave her $2 to celebrate losing both of her front teeth.


Sunday we had a special stake conference - Elder Cook came to visit our stake. It was a fantastic meeting and gave me renewed vigor to keep up with the daily necessities of prayer, scripture study, and more prayer.

After rest and relaxation Dave did Science Sunday with the girls. We are starting off this weekly tradition with Candy Experiments. They both had so much Halloween candy that we decided to use it to do a few experiments.

Testing dissolving skittles in hot and cold water

Testing candy for acid.

We also tried to do a density rainbow experiment with skittles, but it didn't work so well. Just ended up a big brownish purplish puddle of yuck. Oh well - at least we tried. :)

After we were finished with our science projects we started our Thanksgiving count down craft project - wax paper leaves. They turned out pretty well. :)

Over all a great week. And so much to be grateful for. I've noticed a few people on Facebook posting everyday what they are thankful for. I think that's a super great idea. Each night before we say family prayers everyone tells what they are thankful for. Our condensed list from this week (in no particular order and by no means all of them) 1. grateful for two wonderful girls that are happy, healthy, silly, and kind, 2. grateful for a daddy that works so hard, 3. grateful for the great prosperity that Heavenly Father has blessed us with, 4. grateful for a warm house to keep us safe, 5. fun activities to do it each day, and 6. family that loves us so much.