Swensen Sentral

Well, 2020 has been a crazy year! And we are now heading back to school, thank goodness. Jordan School District decided to open on a 4 day a week schedule with Fridays optional and masks mandatory. It will be a very different year with social distancing measures, but I’m so grateful we are returning these kids back to some normalcy and friends. They need it. And heaven knows parents need it as well. I’ve never been so grateful to be a stay-at-home mom to navigate these crazy times for my kids.  Both Rick and I drove them to their new bus stop this morning. Rick played an embarrassing back-to-school tune and rolled down the windows for the neighborhood to hear. Amelie was mortified. Chase took it in stride. This will be their first year attending South Jordan Middle School while living in South Jordan. So no more 45 min car rides to school and scooter-tram rides home to Salt Lake. We are all happy about that.  Love these two kids so much and proud of who they are becoming, but ...

These two kids make me proud. They work hard to do well in school and get good grades. Tonight they were honored for that achievement. I’m proud of their efforts. And I told them if they keep it up that paper will turn into money someday!

I have felt a little guilty that I've never volunteered in the kids classes at school. It has always seemed too hard to schedule babysitters for the little ones so I could go in and do that. This year I decided I would go on one Fieldtrip with each of them. Two babysitters during the year didn't seem too much.  Last Friday was Amelie's day. We went to the zoo together. It was fun for me to see her among her peers and get to know the little girls she's always talking about. The thing I noticed most was that several of the other girls' moms were with us as well and they were holding hands half the time and the other half running around with their friends. Amelie on the other hand clung to me most of the time. Holding hands was not close enough for her. She wanted her arm around me and my arm around her. And she didn't seem to care too much about her friends, she was perfectly content to have just me. We had a good time together and I was so glad I took the time to...

Amelie reading Soleil's potty book to Sawyer: "And see he has a penis so he stands up to pee."  Me: so Amelie what do girls have? Amelie (very matter of fact): Girls have chinases so they sit down but boys stand up cuz they have long things.  (China and long things huh...) ******************** At family home evening talking about eternal families and being sealed in the temple.  Me: So you know your cousins Saffron and Willa and Cyrus? They didn't come from Emily's tummy so they went to the temple as a family to be sealed together.  Chase: Wait! Cyrus? He did too come from Emily's tummy.  Me: No he didn't.  Chase: Yes he did.  Me: Really? With brown skin and black curly hair? Chase: Well...yeah Me: And how did that happen? Chase: Well I thought since they adopted two girls with brown skin then Heavenly Father sent them a baby so it could match.  (Good thinkin')

We walk into Jamba Juice and Amelie says "It kinda stinks in here." Then we walk into Starbucks and she says "now this is better, it smells good in here." Ha! Surprises me that a 6 yr old likes coffee better than smoothies. 

We watched our favorite family show AFV. Afterwards Amelie says, "I wanna win $10,000 so we can spend it getting more toys...and buy some milk."  What? Does she think we are too poor to buy milk? Is that her drink of choice for a good time? What is she thinking? Oh to be inside the mind of a child. 

I have gotten really behind on the blog this past month. Here is a quick catch up working backwards. 1- Chase and Amelie wanted to have a little garage sale with their toys. The bad news is, they didn't sell one thing :(. The good news is we learned what to do different next week. 2- Sawyer is so goofy. He took these funny pictures of himself on my phone all by himself. 3- Amelie and I at Mother-Daughter homemaking night. We did crafts together and ate yummy food! 4- Chase lost his second tooth! He was so excited. Pulled it out at school, said it bled all over and it was so cool. Boys! 5- My Mothers Day present. Ain't it cute!? I know a toaster isn't exactly the best Mothers Day gift but I'd been wanting this for a while. Now I can make my toast in style! 6- Took the kids to Magic Mtn for the afternoon. It was so fun! Love that we are so close to it. We went after lunch and came home for dinner! Way better than Disneyland for that factor. 7- Soleil just ...

Rick and Amelie went to the Daddy-Daughter dance for school tonight. She was so excited! I curled her hair, put a little bit of makeup on her, perfume and nail polish. She was feeling faaaaan-cy!

I love birthdays.  I love that everyone has a day of the year that they get to feel so incredibly special and important, and be showered with gifts and doted upon.  Today was Amelie's day.  I think it was a good one.  Started the morning with her favorite cereal "Smarshmellow Matey's" as she use to call them.  She opened gifts from her grandparents (2 books and princess dolls).  Then she got dolled up for school, wore her favorite outfit (a dress of course), I curled her hair just how she wanted, and let her wear dangly earrings.  She celebrated at school by eating chocolate chip muffins and juice boxes with her class.  Then was surprised by an early school pickup from dad, who took her to see Transylvania at the theaters.  After that I took her to Paint A Dream where she picked out a ceramic cat and together we painted it according to her specifications (pink and purple tail, red stripes on the head, brown body, you know the usual cat colors...