Lionhead Performance, Russia, Obert Sky

Wow, okay three years go by and then I begin blogging again. Yes, there's been a lot that we've missed blogging about but better late than never I guess.

We've done a read aloud for six hours before. But we beat that record just yesterday. We beat this record (not that we're trying to beat our past record's by any means) by reading Obert Skye's book Pillage. We started around 10 or 11am and ended close to six. It's fun - even Cedric is able to pay attention to our read aloud's now ... especially if they're about dragons!

The above photo is of Tyra drawing a dragon on the window with dry erase markers. She did this while I read ... along with drawing a massive mansion (which was also a part of the story) with a plethora of people on the front lawn, all of them having come to gawk at the massive building and half of them lying on the ground, having fainted at the shock of it. Pretty funny, Ty! Oh how I love her.
The kids spent some time outside today. Actually, I asked them to play outside because the house was such a mess and I needed to pick up without four tornadoes messing it all up again behind me. (I know, Ty. I know. Not you) :)

They had a good time. Ethan busied himself with drawing. He was a drawing a picture of Lord Shen. (Ethan's totally in love with the movie Kung Fu Panda 2 at the present moment.) He's doing a great job drawing pictures of the characters. Especially Lord Shen and Tigress.

The boys even made themselves "hammers". Replicating the Kung Fu Rhinoceros' weapon. They spent most of the day one day last week making and playing with these weapons. (Good thing John was extra nice and spent some time and creative energy helping them make these marvelous weapons.)

Cedric had built himself a makeshift house with a bunch of wood, on our front porch, around the bench swing. He even had a window! (Which he was quite proud (not to mention protective) of.) He's such an outdoorsy type of boy. I love it.

The girls have had fun being the best and closest of sisters. Ty dressed Millie up: dress, make-up, first time attempt (and success!) of french braids and all. Millie looked and felt so pretty! It's so fun to see those two experience sisterhood together ... especially when they're getting along!

Millie was pretending that a boy "her size", named Jack, was escorting her down the stairs and was dancing with her. How sweet!! I didn't realize how dreamy and princess-y she was like until that day.
The kids got super creative with an art project we had going on. They were to construct some sort of modern looking structure and then paint it white but they, very happily and creatively, created their own works of art.

Initially the art project was supposed to be similar to Louise Nevelson's type of art work. Her art work: interesting. The artist herself: even more interesting. I'll post pictures of the direction the kids took with their art pieces ... maybe that's a good thing though! :)

Cedric made a house. Ethan is working on constructing a huge house of his own. Ty created an "oxygen factory". (more about that one later) I had to push pause on their creativity and send them off to bed. They're excited to continue their projects tomorrow.

We kept with the tradition of having a special Valentine's breakfast for Valentine's day. The boys were so cute and sneakily cut, colored and taped up a whole bunch of hearts all over the house the night before. It definitely made things more festive. I love those boys!

We had lemon water, chocolate pretzels, a bunch of fruit and some round, crispy chocolate treats. We had a good time.

John is still teaching kung fu every Thursday. Right now we have Dalan, Hunter, Tyra, Ethan, Cedric, Millie, Ellie, Zade and Dominique that come. John had been teaching them the lionhead dance with a new (baby) lionhead he got the class for Christmas.

They were able to do a performance for family just last week. Everyone had a good time ... well, I'm not so sure about John ... he was pretty stressed about the event. But it really did go quite well. The kids had a blast and I'm sure it'll be something they'll remember forever.

We started doing "A Journey Around the World" together. We will be reading about and learning about, in various ways, other countries across the world, as though we were traveling there.

Our first country is Russia. Ethan chose it because one of his Lego guys is Russian. :)
We decided to visit a couple in our ward who are going on their third mission! They happened to go to Russia ... which isn't even why we dropped by their place. We dropped by because we wanted to thank them for their example and give them a card saying so and share some of our Russian dessert with them.

The kids all either rode their bikes or rollerbladed over there. They always love to stop and say hi to Roo and Karl. Millie was carrying the little bundle and card in her plastic bike basket.

The Littlefield's were so kind. They immediately invited us in, offered the kids some cookies, which they happily enjoyed and when they found out that we have been studying Russia they pulled out their Russian hats. I don't know why but that hat is very fitting on Ty. Eth looks like he could fly to Russia ... in a very good looking kind of way.

They pulled out a Russian muscial "box" which was one of the beautiful Russian palaces, carved out of wood and beautifully painted. The kids all "whoa'd" at the same time when they saw that. It sang a song based on a love story. Sister Littlefield sang some of it. It was so beautiful. Languages are beautiful especially when they're being sung. They also pulled out their hand painted Matryoshka doll.

(It's interesting to note here that I spoke with my mom later that day and she told me how much she detested Russian - because they were forced to learn it from 4th grade until their teenage years where they then had the option to learn English if they wanted to instead.) I guess being forced to learn a language would dampen the experience a bit.

Brother Littlefield taught us some phrases in Russian: "let's go" is "paydyom", "good bye" is "dasvidania", "thank you" is "spasibo".

Sister Littlefield was so nice to show the kids how little the dolls got. Even I was surprised. The last one was almost microscopic!!!

I re-realized today that Heavenly Father truly wants us to learn and to enjoy learning. It seems that every time we are in an awesome learning groove, He blesses us with an event of some kind, such as our visit with the Littlefields, to help further our learning experiences.

I feel so greatful to Him for caring about us so much and I feel so grateful that there are such wonderful people like the Littlefield's who open their doors to others and have such a warm and inviting spirit.