Cookie Club

 Benjamin's morning kindergarten teacher does "Cookie Club" as an incentive to get the kids reading. They earn a cookie "as big as their faces" and the opportunity to bring home 1st reader books from school for saying what sound each letter makes and reading 30 of 40 sight words and 30 of 40 sound out words.

It seemed like it was putting a lot of pressure on Benjamin because he was acting out in class and got sent home (suspended from kindergarten!?) for drawing on himself in marker and on other kids papers. (Earlier in the week he had dived into a group of kids sitting on the carpet, etc.)

Benjamin tested for cookie club and barely missed getting in. I told him we'd practice so he could try again. We had a busy weekend and never practiced, but Benjamin came home with a Cookie Club Membership!!!  (It's about like how he learned ride a bike and I had no clue until he said "Look at me Mom!"... but now it'd be "Look at me Mother!" He's been calling me "Mother" when ever he refers to me lately, which is a lot, I asked him if he thought it sounded more grown up which he replied to in the affirmative) He said that he'd had a dream that he'd tried out for Cookie Club again and got in so it gave him the confidence to do it. What an amazing kid!

Benjamin is such a good kid. He shared his cookie with all of us without me even having to ask!

It's so fun to see him reading! Alexander is enjoying having Benjamin read to him too!

Married to the Army

My life is now complete because I have an ACU pattern apron. I am ready to be an Active Duty Army Chaplain's wife. (I hope you're seeing the humor in this too...) Actually, I've been wanting a new apron for a long while, like the last ~10 years, because the one I was using was a gift made by an ex-boyfriend's mom. It has an elephant appliqued on it and I was hoping to send it to Goodwill, but Benjamin is trying to lay claim on it. He actually said he wanted the new one and I told him it was kind of girly. He said,"I guess you're right. This [pointing to the purple ruffle] looks like a dress." 

I really appreciate Ryan and my mom humoring me by keeping the boys from getting underfoot while I was sewing over the last couple days because there's no way my sewing machine could have handled that ruffle. My mom has her old Singer from when she was in high school and it is a beast! Thanks also to FlirtyAprons.com for the inspiration.

Where is the best place to see Christmas lights?: Temple Square!

I don't know why we've never ridden the Trax in SLC before. I guess I hadn't realized it was free to ride w/in city center until a few months ago. Instead of going to the children's museum, the boys opted to take a ride. We originally were planning to go on Sat. to give Ryan a day with us away so he could focus on his end-of-semester school work, but Alexander was recovering from pink-eye and an ear infection so we had to delay our trip. 

 We only had to wait for ~5 minutes for the return trip, but to Benjamin it seemed like an eternity.

We finally got our chicken pot pies at the Nauvoo Cafe (they were all out the last time we were there) and they lived up to the recommendation we received. I had been bringing food (chicken/tuna salad w/ crackers to give beggars), but then I had a qualm of conscience about our tasty dinner, so the next beggar got a granola bar and a $5 bill... I'm not sure what this philanthropy is evolving into yet. Ryan met a guy in the hospital that took his kids with two crockpots of beans to homeless people every Sunday... It sounds like a good path to take.

We went to the Conference Center in an effort to look at the pulpit because the boys have a picture book about it, but it was hydraulically moved under the stage for Christmas. We didn't get to complete the tour because we're trying to teach the boys about obedience and they weren't following directions (understatement). We'll have to go back in the spring so we can go up on the roof too (I hadn't realized it was open for tours again).

 James enjoyed hitting the windows on the temple. (To him everything is tactile!) I hope the windows are sound proof, otherwise he was probably disturbing the people in the baptismal font.

Benjamin is holding "Gus the Rat". Gus is one of 3 stuffed animals the kindergarten kids take home to have adventures with and then draw and write about in the stuffed animal's journal. We didn't have Barry the Bear or Tommy Turtle over a weekend so Benjamin really wanted to take Gus to Temple Square. He's been with us for more than a week, but I need to wash him before we send him back b/c he's a) now a carrier of the (pink-eye) plague and b) been dropped in the dirt more times than I can count. Amazingly, Gus' tail hasn't been ripped off from how much Benjamin swings him around by it .

We finished our evening with a view of the lights from the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building. 

On the way home, I picked up my order of raw (unpasteurized) California Almonds. I almost should have ordered the entire 50 lbs... wow, they're yummy. The boys fell asleep in the van and amazingly stayed asleep when we carried them to their beds.