Eating like a WHAT?

As the kids were eating breakfast this morning, I noticed that my Raleigh
got up from sitting next to Shay at the kitchen counter to sit by himself at
the dining room table. I asked him why he moved, and he exclaimed, "Shay is
eating like a Nazi! She just spit in my cereal!"

"Bullets" and Kysa's worms

Working on some projects at the house this weekend, I had the tools out and
was screwing in some bolts. Kysa asks, "Mom, can I hold the bullets?"

Kysa loves her worms. When Ty put in the garden this weekend, she put some
worms in a container. I upgraded her original little cup to a cut off
2-Liter bottle so she could have better visibility. She frequently goes and
checks on "her worms". Yesterday she thought they died because she left
them in the sun, but alas, they were fine. She should be ready for Grandpa
Jer-Bear to teach her how to thread 'em anytime now.

Why do you like her so much?

It's no secret at our house that Shay is a mama's girl. To put it more
accurately, she is a mom-MONSTER. This morning as we were heading off to
school, I needed to run back into the house to grab Kysa's glasses and Shay
wanted to go back in the house with me. Exasperated, Kysa turns to Shay and
hollers, "SHAY, why do you like her so much!" I look at Kysa and start
laughing. Seriously! It makes no sense to me either Ky.

Where do you want to go on vacation?

"Where do you want to go on vacation?" The cartoon character on Nick Jr.
asked.

"Vegas!" Shay responded without hesitation.

Jaden Dunking

Jaden is one of Raleigh’s friends and a real basketball FANatic.  Got his left handed layups down just last week.  Having a little fun in his driveway here.  His mom Amanda is one of my good friends.

Shay and Kysa's Gymnastics

Grandma Ro is sponsoring the girls gymnastics lessons and today was their first day (since last spring). 

 

We went and got a leotard big enough for Kysa and exchanged one they never wore for Shay and they were set.  They had fun, and Shay hung in just fine in the 5 to 7 year old class.

 

But Shay just ran upstairs where I’m working very urgently and told me the following:

 

“I am angry mom.”

 

Why Shay?

 

“When I was at gymnastics my teacher told me to touch the floor with my nose.  I don't want to touch the floor with my nose!

 

Cuz that's YUCKY!"

Letter of Appreciation from Ty to Raleigh

Letter of Appreciation for Raleigh Shippen:

 

Dear Raleigh,

 

Thank you for being such a terrific son and example to your little sisters!  I appreciate how thoughtful you are to those around you and how patient you are with Shay and Kysa.  You are an absolute joy to have in our home.  I appreciate your enthusiasm for school, scouts, church, basketball, swimming, piano, football, and life.  I really enjoy your sense of humor.  I appreciate you when you clean your room and help around the house.  I appreciate how kind you are and how you treat your friends, family, and teammates.  I appreciate the way you are responsible with your homework and how well you have improved in your reading.  I really enjoy spending time with you like playing football, horse, or the wii or just hanging out watching Jimmer score 30 points.   Always know and remember you are loved by your parents, your grandparents, and yes even your sisters.   I couldn’t be prouder of the young man you are becoming. 

 

Love,

 

Dad

 

 

 

From: Van Dam, Christina -D91
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 9:58 AM
Subject: letters of appreciation

 

Dear Parents,

 

            It’s kind of a solemn place here at Ethel Boyes today.  As most, if not all, of you know, the board decided last night on option 1 for boundary changes.  What this means is that all of you that live in the Village will no longer be a part of Ethel Boyes.  This saddens me deeply and I spent most of the night last night in tears thinking about the kids in my classroom that I will be losing.  Your children have become a part of me and I want you to know how grateful I am for the opportunity I have to be their teacher and to love them and watch them grow.

 

            This week, we kicked off Rachel’s Challenge.  The children that signed the banner promised to practice kindness, compassion, inclusion and respect.  They are performing random acts of kindness and giving chains away to those that show kindness unto them.  We have talked this week a lot about what it means to show kindness and respect and that not all of our deeds will go noticed but that it is okay.  Our kindness chain has started in the classroom and is growing every day.  As part of this program, we are going to be talking in our classroom about appreciation and gratitude.  One of the things we will be doing is writing letters to express those things.  I am asking that each of you take the time between now and Thursday, February 17, to write a letter of appreciation/gratitude to your student and place it in a sealed envelope and send it to school.  (You can also email it and I will print it and put it in a sealed envelope).  When I see them in their folders, I will know what they are and write their names on them then so that the kids don’t have any idea what is going on.  I think that this will be very powerful for the students and a great stepping stone for talking about how it makes us feel to receive letters of this nature and why we might want to tell people what we love and appreciate about them.  The more letters for the kids the better so if a grandma/grandpa or brother/sister, etc. want to write a letter as well, that would be perfectly acceptable.  I just need them in my possession by Thursday, February 17. If you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to ask. 

 

            Thanks for all of your support.  I am blessed beyond measure to be the teacher of each of your children.  Have a great rest of the week!

 

Chris Van Dam

 

1-3 Spectrum

Ethel Boyes Elementary School

1875 Brentwood Drive

Idaho Falls, ID 83402

 

Bodie and L.A.'s birthday

Happy Birthday to Bodie Jane and Grandpa Gillette.  Giff and Mari had a baby boy a couple days ago and named him after Grandpa!  How awesome is that?

 

I started training for the Ogden Marathon Sunday.  Did 3.2 miles in the morning, 5.3 more after the Superbowl.  Felt great Monday and Tuesday but didn’t do anything, ha ha.  Today I did my interval workout and ended up logging 5 miles in 43:25 even with walking the 200 M rest intervals.  Not bad considering I haven’t been doing much running.  I did a total of 7 miles today in 1:05:00 counting the warm-up and cool down.

 

I am just doing a 3 day a week running program and I’ll cross train with it on some of the other days.  My goal is to work out 5 days a week, sometimes 6, and follow the running program as closely as I can.

 

I am thinking about documenting my training on this blog, but I’m also keeping track of my miles on my Droid with a program called RunKeeper so the blogging thing might be overkill.  I am LOVING the treadmill I bought with the $500 gift card I won from Play It Again sports.  All I did to win it was text a word to a number after hearing a radio ad.  Got a call from Play It Again about 20 minutes after getting home from TITHING SETTLEMENT that I’d won the gift card.  So my long awaited treadmill purchase happened sooner than expected.  I know it’s going to help my training immensely.  No excuses for not running now.  My weight is around 143.  Hoping to drop down a bit before the marathon, but this is a good basketball playing weight.  I figure basketball playing weight is 140-145 lbs for me, and marathon weight for me ought to be about 130-135 pounds. 

 

I took Shay to the eye doc at Sam’s club today because she started going cross-eyed a couple months back and it seems to be getting worse.  Turns out we’re ordering glasses for her too. She’s far sighted like Kysa but her prescription isn’t nearly as bad.  We may have to patch her or use eye drops to force her to strengthen her lazy eye, but the doc is doing some research on her prescription and calling me back on Friday with a more definite plan for her.  The doc is Brad Reinhart and he went to optometry school with our friend Rob Foster.

 

 

 

Boston Tanner montage

This is a classic letter from one of Ty’s senior starters to another in the 1^st or 2^nd grade.

Kysa Sporting Her New Glasses

20/200 vision....+7.00 in one eye; +7.75 in the other.

Kysa's glasses are pink...and thick.

She has been pretty good about wearing them. Just need to work on always
putting them in the same place (on her pink nightstand) when she takes them
off.

G-Ro to the Rescue

Grandma Ro has been a huge help to us in this busy time of year. From a
semi-surprise visit on Wednesday for the Madison basketball game (which
Grandpa watched) and G-Ro babysat so I could film and go to the freshman
girls practice...to coming last weekend so I could do the ACT's and ref a
basketball game...it is always a blast for the kids. She manages to find
time to play with them, read to them, make gingerbread houses with them,
Skype Kirb and Bodie with them, and always throw in a load of my laundry or
two and clean up my messy house. She is truly a superhero to me and my
kids. Oh, and I didn't mention that if ever something needs mended or
hemmed, she is quick to do it on my sewing machine (that only she uses!)
Even though she lives 2 hours away she is here when I need her to be, and I
am so grateful.

(I have to comment on this one picture with the kids by the Christmas
tree...I think it's hilarious because Grandma Ro looks so cute and the kids
all look like GOONS! Reminds me of the Little Bunny Foo Foo song...the good
fairy has done what she threatened to do.)

Aunt Claire's Overnighter

Aunt Claire stayed with us last week because Brittney was flying in to the
I.F. airport from Alaska at 9:30 p.m. and Claire had to teach in Rexburg in
the morning, so Dale took Brit back to Poky and Claire just slept at our
house. My kids LOVE their Aunt Claire so much because she is the next best
thing to Grandma Ro, Grandma Sue, and Grandma Rue. Kysa ended up sleeping
downstairs with her. We made Shay sleep in her own bed, much to her
disappointment.

Re-Living the Dream 2010 Part 2

Jen Cannon and I recruited BYU-I students Jenny Fiso McKinney (Eastern
Washington) and Marianne Schiess Dalling to play with us in a couple games
on Friday vs. Snow College and Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. Jill
Adams and Cady Williams along with Libbie Loughmiller Oram and Kelly Coombs
Grossman from Billings also joined us. We lost to Snow by 3 and beat
Northwest Wyoming by 8 points. It was so fun to see Cady and Jill. Cady
couldn't make it for our first game against Snow or I know the outcome would
have been different. (Cady had 32 points in the game she made it to.) Refs
were pretty poor for the Northwest game on both sides. The Northwest coach
said they were the worst she's ever had. It was ROUGH. Jill got a black
eye and I ended up getting tackled with about 10 seconds left in the game.
My jaw is still out of alignment, but it's getting better so I don't plan to
go to the dentist.

As for our travel plans, we left Thursday night and stayed in Bozeman and
then drove Friday morning. There was a semi-truck wreck outside of Powell
that almost caused us to miss the game, but thanks to some "desperation in
action" (Jen and I going car to car to see if anyone on the other side of
the wreck would turn around and take us to Powell) AND the emergency workers
who finally let us go through and then helped sandbag and push us back onto
the road when we started to slide off, we made it to the game on time! It
was quite the adventure. Jen's favorite line from the trip was mine when I
said "Go get the nurses!" (The two BYU-I nursing students) and mine was
Jen's when she said after we slid off the road, "Well, at least the two
truck will have to pull us out first."

G-Ro watched the kids so I could have my adventure. Ty took his boys to
Utah where they went 1-1 vs. Syracuse and Clearfield and then went to the
BYU v. Hawaii game in SLC at Energy Solutions Arena.

We had a couple from our ward over for dinner today because mom left us a
roast and we had plenty of food to share. Scott and Desiree Wheeler and
they have two little kids Cole and Alicia. Cole is 3 and must have a lot in
common with Shay because when they were down playing he climbed up on the
bunk bed with Kysa and then chucked his sippy cup down at Raleigh who was
playing a computer game. The sippy cup bonked Raleigh on the head and then
spilled all over the floor and Raleigh bedspread. Raleigh came up bawling.
Of course Cole's parents felt bad but it was pretty funny. I think Ty said
he home teaches Scott now. So yay, December should be done. :)

Re-Living the Dream Part 1 was my basketball trip to Snow College a few
weeks ago. If I ever get a copy of the team picture we took I'll post it on
the blog. Different team, but it was fun.

Random Pictures

Kysa and Shay really like playing in boxes from an ottoman I got on Black
Friday. Raleigh read a 200+ page Diary of a Wimpy kid book yesterday, in
less than 24 hours. Yay, I have a reader in the family! (Kysa is working
on it too.)

The cheesestick picture reminds me of Jill in warm-ups for our basketball
team. A new hip-hop song is called "Like a G6" and I asked Jill if she knew
what the lyrics meant. She joked, "It's actually 'like a cheesestick"." Ha
ha

pillow talk with Shay

Shay, “You’re the best mom in the universe.”

 

Thanks Shay.

 

“Universe is my favorite word.”

 

Oh really?

 

“The universe is for cats, and dogs….and kids, right?”

 

Right Shay.

 

“That’s what I learned on the ‘puter.”

 

“You are the best mom in the universe because you do so many things for us.  You sweep the floor for us….you get drinks for us, when we say please….you get toys for us….you take us to McDonalds….you help us go to sleep….that’s why you are the best mommy in the universe.”

 

Wow, thanks for saying all those things Shay.  That makes me happy.

 

“Give me your hand.”

 

Shay takes my hand, and kisses it.

 

Does it get any sweeter than that from a 3 year old?

 

We are just thankful that Shay CAN be sweet.