Da; Bears, da' zoo, da' dinos, and more too!

Here at the Nutt House we enjoyed a week preparing for upcoming events, spending time with family and with friends.  What a great week it has been!

We started our week off Monday with family home evening, Kara proudly gave the lesson on the Book of Mormon while Kaden anxiously took charge of the treat.  With great eagerness he made us frosted sugar cookies that he decorated with “chocolate bugs” (otherwise known as mini chocolate chips if you don’t share Kaden’s imaginative views).  What a great way to start our week!  Taking one evening a week out of our busy lives to focus on the teachings of Christ and on our family always help to focus and center us as a family and doing this more consistently is one of the goals our family has for this new year. 

After a lot of buttering up and promises that he could be the "Head Chef "
and Kara would just assist Kaden agreed to let Kara help frost the cookies

Kara is busy preparing for a couple big events – in dance she’s preparing for another competition this next weekend where she’ll once again perform her solo, this time with a more challenging element added in.  She’s going to be great, but even thinking about ties my stomach up in knots!  Additionally, her dance group will compete together.  They are such an energetic, fun group of girls I can’t wait to see how well they do. 

The Lil' Lights "Sunbeams" stylin' in their new warm up jackets

Along with dance, Kara has been preparing for another big event in her life and big change for us all… kindergarten!  She is now officially registered for school and this week we attending a kindergarten roundup where we went to the school she’ll be attending (Sierra), listened to a presentation by the principal and teachers and even got to go see the kindergarten classrooms which were set up with stations so Kara and the other kids could work on projects and get a small taste of what kindergarten life would be like.  She is so happy that she’ll be attending kindergarten with so many of her friends (4 from church and 1 from dance), she’s started asking almost daily when she can start going to kindergarten.  There is a part of me that wants to shout back… NEVER!!!  Don’t go!  Stay young, stay here always!  However, I know that isn’t realistic so I hold back the thought and remind her she will start kindergarten after our summer vacation.  She is ready, on every account, she is ready for kindergarten.  Now, just if I was as prepared…

Four future leaders all ready for kindergarten.  They have
the whole world before them!

Excitedly working at one of the stations in a kindergarten class

Kaden has been busy at school this week as well.  This week we focused on the letter “R” and R is for rainbow and R is for Robots.  Kaden and crew glued rainbow colored cereal onto a paper in the shape of a “R”, made their very own rainbow crayons and overall had all the fun that three years can have.  I love this little group of kiddos, they interact so well with each other and have such a vibrance for life that is infectious. 

Though it looks like they boys may eat their new bear crayons
they were really just showing them off

Da' Bears

We made time this week to go enjoy a couple of our favorite places. With cousin Jessie here with us for the weekend and wonderful weather we took our adventures outside and enjoyed a trip to the zoo with friends.  The weather was perfect and inviting friends to go with us made it so I couldn’t back out of going thanks to an ever present, ever growing “to do list”.  What a fun day we had!  One of our friends had never been, so seeing the zoo through her eyes was fun and helped us to see and do more than we would have probably done otherwise.  Thanks to the membership we have this year we were able to treat everyone that went with us to train rides around the zoo.  That did help us to see more of the zoo since little people were getting tired before we finished seeing everything we wanted.  Once that was done we wrapped up our trip with a visit to the stingray bay where we petted the stingrays.  Kara has never wanted to pet a stingray and she finally let on that it is because she thought they would sting her.  So, next trip to the zoo, we are going to attempt getting her to pet a stingray!  Kaden, this dear adventurous boy was all too eager to pet the stingrays.  He’d make this an every visit to the zoo “must” if he could!

Checking out the snakes in the Arizona Reptile exhibit

Three little map readers near the prairie dogs
(Sadly our first time seeing them at the zoo)

The zoo is always best when you are hand in hand
with a friend

Climbing high to check out the Rhino

Standing like a flamingo... next to the flamingoes

Because what else would you do at the zoo besides play in the dirt

Train time!

Two out of the three were happy and excited to pet the
sting rays

Friday brought Kara’s class, and last one she can attend at that, at the Natural History Museum.  For Kaden, this meant another trip to the Natural History (or Dinosaur as he calls it) museum.  He enjoyed sharing this favorite place of his with Jessie this week.  As he did last week, Kaden gravitated to the puzzles at every available opportunity.  Though this time he didn’t want to complete the puzzles unless Jessie would do it with him.  Kaden loves his older cousin, in part because he’s family, part because he’s older yet still enjoys being with him, and in large part because he’s a goofy boy – just like Kaden.  Because they are so similar Jessie brings out a goofiness and laughter in Kaden that is both exasperating and exhilarating at the same time.  As much as the two of them together drive me bonkers and bring on a desire to bang my head against a wall (a large portion of the time, though not all of it) I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Puzzle time

He didn't like it when I jumbled the numbers, making
the puzzle slightly more challenging

Take our picture mom!

Their best dinosaur faces

Saturday we had a rare day at home.  That didn’t stop the Nutt House from staying busy though.  Oh no!  We took advantage of a rare Saturday to have a project day.  With a list in tow Brent and three very eager helpers got to work knocking off project after project after project.  It was good to get so many of the little “to do’s” accomplished and while the crew were busy on those, I sat in the house tackling an all too large laundry pile.  While not as fun or with as much help as Brent’s project crew consisted of, it did feel good to get the laundry caught up, at least for a minute.  Once this was all done we were able to relax a bit and watch the kiddos swim at some swim lessons then go home and have some good ol’ family movie time.  Perfect ending to a Saturday!

Spray painting for an upcoming cub scout event

What trust we have in our kiddos to handle spray
paint on their own1

Swimmin time!

Sunday brought church and with it, for the week came talks for Brent and I.  The Bishop had asked us to speak on how Studying the Scriptures strengths us and our family.  What a blessing the scriptures are to us!  I am impressed at how much our kiddos want to have scripture time.  Anytime I don’t want to, they are there to remind me we need to do it and for that I am ever grateful.  The Spirit and Christ-centered focus that daily family scripture time brings to our family is so…. Just so!  So peaceful, so rewarding, so priceless, so enjoyable, so… so many positive things!  And, having this family scripture time helps me too, because it reminds me and provides motivation to keep reading my scriptures personally as well.  What a true blessing we’ve been given in these precious volumes!  How I do love them and my family!  (*I promised my talk contained more eloquent wording, many more words and was more spiritual)

All shiny clean and ready for church

It was a wonderful Nutt-y week and we are excited (and slightly nervous) for all this week will bring for us!