Butterfly Museum at Thanksgiving Point

Last Friday, Thanksgiving Point opened up their newest museum to the public. Tyler and Ashley happened to have no school that day, so we checked Alyssa out a little early and went to see it. The museum is a Butterfly Museum. We had something similar to this in Missouri that we went to a few times. This one had live bugs all over the place including gigantic spiders, beetles, stick bugs, and of course the butterflies.

There is a tarantula just to the right of Ashley

I love this picture. Camden's face perfectly portrays my feelings about these giant spiders.

There were also a lot of interactive exhibits. Here are the kids inside of a bug jar.

Tyler and Camden both built some bugs.

Camden in a cocoon.

The kids on top of a giant caterpillar.

Reading inside of a honeycomb.

 And then there was the butterfly room. It was like 85 degrees and 95% humidity inside. We were all sweating within the first minute or two. But the butterflies were so fun to watch, and soooo big.

Waiting in line to get in.

 There is a butterfly on one of the big green leaves over Tyler's head.

 A close up.

 This was definitely the kind of butterfly that was saw the most of.

The boys got done after awhile, but the girls wanted to stay inside and sit so that a butterfly could land on them. They were successful.

The boys had fun playing in the treehouse play area. There was a treehouse up high with a big red slide coming down from it. There were also some bug costumes to dress up in and some bug themed hand puppets.

It was a fun museum and the kids are excited to go back and explore some more. We did miss out on one thing that Ashley really wanted to do. There was an area where they bring out different bugs for the kids to hold.  We'll have to try that out next time.

Bean Museum Preschool Field Trip

Camden's preschool class had a field trip to the Bean Life Museum down on the campus of BYU. We were fortunate to be able to attend a live animal show. The kids loved it. We got to see and pet a snake.

We also got to see a toad.

And we also got to see a tarantula. This one was NOT my favorite. Look at the way she just holds that thing and lets it crawl on her hand.

After the live animal show, we explored the museum a little bit, looking at all of the animals. I had printed off a scavenger hunt for Camden and he loved finding the different animals and crossing off their pictures. Here is the class in front of the elephant. We are missing the one girl in the class and one of the boys. The one on the left was not thrilled about being pulled away from the play area to take a picture.

After exploring the museum, Camden played for a bit before we needed to leave to pick up Tyler. It was a fun field trip and Camden still mentions animals and bugs that we saw there.

Snow and Puzzles

We got this puzzle as a gift back in October, so Alyssa and I worked on it together with a little bit of help from the others in the family. We also got a puzzle with our family picture on it for Christmas which we did together one Sunday afternoon. That was a fun one to do, but I didn't get a picture.

We had a good snowfall back in November.

 It was good snowman snow, so the kids had fun with it.

The kids wish it would snow like this again, but Danny and I secretly hope that it won't. It has been really cold the last few days though, and I would rather have the snow than the really cold temps.

Alyssa's Birthday and Christmas Party

Alyssa had a nice birthday. We can't believe that we have a teenager. Instead of cake, she requested a crème brulee cheesecake. It was a difficult birthday treat, but it was soooo good.

For dinner, she requested to go to the Japanese Steakhouse again. Our chef put on a good show.  We had to share our table with strangers, but they were nice enough to take a picture for us.

She didn't get her birthday song(they sing a very unique birthday song, but the busboy who knows it wasn't in to work before we had to go) but she did get and enjoy her ice cream.

We let Alyssa throw a birthday/Christmas party this year for her friends. They played Mafia, a quick version of it.

They also played this game where they had to eat a lot of skittles. Some of them were unlucky and had up to 20 skittles in their mouth. They had to pick out 2 skittles at a time and if they were the same color, then they could chew and swallow everything in their mouth.

They also did a gift exchange where they rolled 2 dice in order to see what they should do with their gift.

The rest of the time was Minute to Win It games. I did not get pictures of these because my camera was also the minute timer, but they had fun. There was a little bit of drama leading up to the party, as is normal for 13 year old girls, but I think everyone that came had fun. Most importantly, Alyssa had fun and that is all that really mattered to us.

Christmas Fun

We had a nice Christmas. Danny found Santa at the Grocery store one night so he brought the 3 youngest kids in to see him. Their requests were jeans(Ashley), a teddy bear(Tyler), and a car(Camden). I'm glad that they got to see Santa because somehow it had gotten to December 22nd without me taking them to see Santa this year.

On Christmas Eve, the kids got new jammies and we said goodbye to Peter, our Elf on the Shelf (he is on the star of the tree).

The kids were good to us on Christmas morning and let us sleep according to the rules we established years ago. Alyssa was up at 4:30, woke Ashley around 4:45, and they both woke Tyler around 6. Camden was the last to wake up around 7. I guess next year we need to establish rules about them waking each other up, too. We got our traditional picture on the stairs before they went down to see the presents.

Here they are in front of the loot before we started opening the gifts. By the way, Santa did a good job bringing them their requests, except for Tyler. He got a hot wheels track instead of a teddy bear. He was sad at first until he realized how cool the track was.

After Christmas, the kids got some time with some of their California Wheeler cousins. We didn't take a lot of pictures with them, but we did have lots of fun. We did take a picture in front of the pool after swimming together at the Provo Rec Center.

We also enjoyed having Danny home with us for almost 2 weeks straight after having him work almost nonstop for 3 weeks straight at the beginning of the month.

Teddy Bear Hug

On the last day of school before Christmas break for Ashley and Tyler, they had their Christmas Sing and Teddy Bear Hug. The Kindergartners sang Jingle Bells. They each had bells in their hands that they shook during the chorus. Tyler is on the front row in this picture.

Ashley and the other 5th graders got to sing and tell the story of how the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" was written.  I didn't get a picture of her.
After the singing, all of the students K-6th grade lined up to hug the teddy bears.

Ashley stayed close to her friend, Kaci.

 I love watching they hug the bears, especially the girls.

 

After the bear hugging, they went to their classrooms for a Christmas Party. They were so excited for the break from school when they left that day. Alyssa still had 3 more days before her break.

Tyler

Tyler is in a stage of life where he is constantly asking me to take pictures of things that he thinks are cool. Here are some of his latest pictures.
Balancing this paper on his knee.

Balancing this animal cracker on the rim of his milk cup.

 Balancing his lunch on top of the big pink ball.

We also got to attend Tyler's Kindergarten Devotional during the beginning of December. He got to dress as a shepherd. I don't think he has the performing bug, but he sure was cute up there on stage.

He did a great job with his line and most of the songs and recitations. This picture is a little blurry, but here he is close up.

Gingerbread Houses

On one of the many nights that Danny had to work during the month of December, we built gingerbread houses. We made our own gingerbread this year and after I started cutting out the pieces, I realized that we only had enough dough to make 3 houses. Alyssa volunteered to be the one to not have one. She was my helper, instead. They turned out great and the kids had fun.

We had a good laugh when they started putting the candy on and we saw this on Camden's house.

We didn't unwrap some of the candies, at first, so Camden started to put them on his house, wrapper and all.
With the remnants of the dough, we also made a few gingerbread cookies.

  And one more of all the kids together.

As soon as Camden placed his last candy on his house, he started to take them off one by one to eat them. Tyler also ate some candies right away, but he took it one step further and also ate some of the walls of his house. Ashley left hers the same throughout the month of December.