Cousin Sleepover

This is the Baby Hero's new look. It comes after he has eaten tons, and he looks content and rubs his belly. We think he's pretty cute. (Notice how distended he is. We think he's the weight of a 6 month baby in a 3 month baby body. We'll find out on Monday. He's healthy and happy. He tries to convince us that we starve him, but I'm not convinced. Are you?)

Last weekend we had the Wendel cousins over for a sleepover and to celebrate the Bug Hero's Birthday. It was a couple of weekends late, because they couldn't come over the weekend closest to his Birthday. We had tons of fun playing with all five of our cousins. We watched the Clone Wars, and then dueled it out with lightsabers made from wooden dowels. We had a blast and sent home new lightsabers to fight with. We love having cousins around, and it's great because they think that we're really cool too!
Go, fight win!
Playing with the lightsabers. Driving the evil Sith Lord into the bushes.
The First Pinata! Go, hit it with the stick! Run amok!
Breaking the pinata open on the ground...I made the two pinatas out of cardboard and packing tape and they didn't last on the string. It broke long before the pinata's were opened. The first pinata was filled with legos. We had to create creations with the legos we collected!

All the Lego Creations we made!!
Preping the second pinata!

What do you do when the second pinata breaks free of the string?
Play Base Ball of Course!!

Smacking the pinata open. We had tons and tons of fun playing with our Cousins!

Minion Stories

So, it's been a while since I've had some really good minion stories to share, and within the past three or four days, I suddenly have tons to share again. I think the kids are getting a little bit more crazy the closer we get to Summer!

I think I will do them in chronological order, which also saves the best for last. On Tuesday, a group of students "cornered" me in third period. "Mrs. H!" They cried, "You are always reading the best books! Your homework assignment is to create a summer reading list for us to read!" I told them I would as long as I got their books to add to the list so I have materials to read while I'm in Indiana. They also want contact information for Indiana. It makes me feel really special inside. P.S. If anyone wants a copy of our summer reading, let me know. Once it's finished I'll send a copy your way!

On Wednesday, in 6th period we were solving using completing the square. Part of Completing the Square requires you to put blanks on both sides of the equal sign. I asked the students why we need blanks on both sides and they start guessing, but they're not really close. When they run out of guesses, they all looked confused. I told them that it was one the commandments of Math. "Thou shalt do unto one side of an equation what thou doest to the other." They all started laughing and one kid said "Hey that sounds like just like the Book of Mormon." Another kid spoke in the formal third person for the rest of the period. They also wanted to know the rest of the Math Ten Commandments. They are as follows:

1. Thou shalt not divide by zero.
2. Thou shalt not put other textbooks before thee in math class.
3. Thou shalt show thy work; check thy work and confirm that thy results are reasonable.
4. Remember thy test days and prepare for them wholly.
5. Thou shalt honor the correct order of operations.
6. Thous shalt not do thy math homeowrk in ink!
7. Thou shalt commit the facts of aritmetic to memory.
8. Thou shalt do unto one side of the equation what thou doest unto the other.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy orignial problems; thou shalt copy thy problems accurately and legibly.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's paper, not anything that is thy neighbor's.

On Thursday I had three to five students tell me that I was their favorite teacher ever. They also all agreed that I was the best math teacher in the whole school. It was really flattering that they all believe it.

On Friday I interacted with one minion a lot. I had a box of packing peanuts by my desk, because one teacher brought them in for me. One minion picked up a peanut and asked me, "Can I have this cheeto?" I then told him that they were styrofoam and weren't cheetos. He was devestated. He then spent the rest of the period trying to climb into the garbage can. I told him three seperate times to get out of the garbage can. They are very silly this time of year.

Here's a movie about the Baby Hero, because I know that's the real reason why you listen to me.

Talking and Packing

The Baby Hero has tried a new technique. He decided yesterday that if he talked to us and was really cute, he would see if that meant that he could get out of going to bed. It didn't work, but man, it was hard to go to work this morning because I knew he's so cute!

We are packing packing packing. We've got two and a half weeks left and we're right on schedule for the move. We're excited!!

Question

When do you stop swaddling the baby to put him to sleep? Is that part of the sleep training? Do you do it until he stops sleeping swaddled? I'm just curious. We're approaching getting ready to sleep train the baby hero (he's sleeping 7-9 hours in a stretch!) We're proud of him!

Baby Hero Blessing

This is a picture of the Bug Hero with His Baby hero. We love the little guy!
On Mother's Day, we were lucky enough to bless our Baby Hero. (I've started calling him Chunky Monkey, and you will see why.) We were lucky enough to have both sets of Grandparents here for the blessing, which was no small feat! One set came from San Diego, and the other from Sao Paulo, Brazil. We also the Baby Hero's cousins come from Las Vegas and one other uncle. We are grateful to have everyone attend.

During pictures after the blessing, I handed the camera to my honorable cousin, H-Dog Wendizzle, and he took movies instead of pictures. So you get lots of movies. We love our family! If anyone has actual pictures, not just movies, I would appriciate it if you would send them my way.



And this is why the Baby Hero is called Chunky Monkey. He's approximately 14 lbs. The same size as his 6 month old cousin. She's taller, and we think she has a pound on him, but they're essentially the same weight.

Here's a picture without any clothes on. Look at the cellulite!

Tulip Festival

Yesterday we went to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point. It was really really amazing! I had never been to the gardens and now it makes me sad that I'm leaving this beautiful creation. But I'm sure that there will be cool stuff to see in Indiana.




The Baby Hero was so much fun to take out and about! He loves attention from us! And we love to give it to him!

The other fun thing--my school is having a competition on how many steps you can take and log on this website and I liked walking around the gardens. I had 15000+ steps yesterday!

Today we went for another walk, to our favorite ice cream parlor, and found out it had gone out of business, (ultimate heartbreak!) but I have 16000+ steps today and I'm trying to break my record of 17137 steps. I'm really close! My goal is to log 37000 steps in one day. I'm sure it's possible, but until school's out, I'm not going to try really hard.