Fantastic

My parents and Zane and I bought a four-show season ticket package from TUTS. Miss Saigon is our second show to see. Can I just say I loved it!!! It was heart-wrenching, and I bawled through so many different songs. The show brings in many different hard-to-deal-with themes such as the half-Vietnamese babies left behind in Vietnam whose dads are American soldiers. Kim, the main character, sings a song about doing anything for her son including dying. This song foreshadows the ending when she chooses to give her two-year-old son to his father and his wife to take back to America. I was bawling during this part (I cried through a lot of it.). She is a birth mom trying to give her son a better life! It is a very tragic story with beautiful music. I can't wait for our next show!

(As a side note, I did not enjoy the adult language and risque scenes. They could have left those out.)

Highlights of February

Because Zane is an accountant (auditor), January and February are very busy months for him. They are busy months for me as I do extra jobs around the house that Zane would normally do. My sister and I also decided to start teaching preschool starting in August. We have been neck deep in curriculum and planning to get ready for it. Besides that, here is what our family has been up to this month.

A friend from my ward took her preschool to the aquarium and invited other moms to come along. We had great weather and practically the whole place to ourselves. It was a great day.

Dallin, who has never been scared of anything, was a different kid at the aquarium. He was afraid to get into the boat with me in this picture.

This tiger was really scary.

After a little coaxing, he loved this Merry-Go-Round. We rode it 5 or 6 times!

He was a little scared of the Ferris Wheel, but he didn't cry.

Although he looks a little nervous in this picture, he loved the train around the park and under a shark tank (the shark tank was really cool). There was one scary part at the end when a shark jumps out and sprays water. I even jumped at this part.

Playing baseball with grandpa

Still adjusting to 12:00 church- Even the temptation of a fruit smoothie couldn't keep Dallin awake.

Gram comes to visit

Firefighter day at preschool. (My sister, a friend, and I started a rotating preschool for this semester.) Despite the look in the picture, he loved it. He now knows to stop, drop and roll.

Dallin needs places to jump other than my couch, so we moved the bean bags into the toy room and let Dallin jump. He loves it. No fear!

Monsters

Dallin has a new favorite book "The Bears and the Great Big Storm" by Paul Bright and Jane Chapman. When he finds a book he likes, he will obsess over it until we have read it multiple times a day for weeks. I bought this book from Scholastic because it teaches kids not to be scared of thunder storms. The daddy bear in the book keeps saying to his kids, "There's no such things as monsters" when his kids come into his room scared of the thunder storm. The bears also see shadows on the wall which they think is the monster. In the end (warning, spoil alert) the shadow/monster is only the next door neighbor Moose who needs a place to stay.

Dallin learned two lessons from this book: There is such things as monsters and a moose is scary!

Dallin, who had never been scared of anything, will not go in his toy room alone because there is a monster/moose in the closet. Before going to bed, we have to check in the closet, behind the dresser etc and show that there is no monster.

The funny thing is, he loves the book still and adds his own special, scary sound effects when I read it.

My Helpers

Zane put together my new Shelf Reliance can storage shelf a couple of weekends ago. I was so excited to get everything organized the next day that I recruited some helpers that were spending the day at our house. Dallin's cousins Drew and Sam had a great time helping Dallin and I fill up the wagon full of cans, pull the wagon to my bedroom closet where the shelving unit was built (weird place I know but it was where it fit best), and help me put the cans in the shelves. They had a great time helping.

The Assembly Line

I handed a can to Dallin or Drew and they gave it to Sam who put the can in the wagon. She had the easiest, most relaxing job.

Once we pulled the wagon into the closet, Sam and Dallin handed the cans to Drew to put in.

They were great helpers, well except when Dallin and Drew wanted to "help" so much that they pulled cans from my nicely organized shelves over and over again just to see them roll. If you aren't interested in food storage, I still highly recommend getting a shelf like this. It can provide hours of entertainment (which is another reason why its in my bedroom closet and not out in the open.!)

Mothers of Boys

Anyone who is a mother of boys has experienced the following traits of their boys: energy, aggressiveness, jumping, running, and the need to get dirty! Along with those traits, Dallin is mischievous. Everything is a game, and he is always trying to see how far he can go at something before we stop him. For example, while Zane was distracted in the hallway at church, Dallin seized that moment to pull his hand away, reenter the worship service in the very back and make it to the stand where the speakers were at a full sprint with his dad chasing after him. Quite a picture. The only reason he lost the race was the unfortunate trip which gave Zane time to get him. If it weren't for the fall, he had Zane beaten.

Mothers of boys will also agree that the best moments are when they stop the running and jumping to be sweet. I love the hugs and kisses (the hugs come with so much force that they can knock you down) and I especially love when Dallin is sweet towards others. Dallin's cousin Samantha is six months younger than him. That six months though is huge between them. Within this last month, I think Dallin realized that Sam was a real person and not a baby. Before, if he was playing chase with his boy cousins and she was in the way, she would get toppled over like she was invisible. Now though, they are friends. Sam does this scoot on the ground and Dallin will sit down next to her and scoot with her. He gives her hugs and kisses and they play with toys together. Ahh, how it warms my heart! I decided I can handle the energy and jumping if I get some of those sweet moments in between.

Really Cool Hair

No one can beat Dallin's bed head!