Happy B-Day to my favorite middle sib

Anyone want to guess why this girl is smiling? (And no, it is not because she is just so happy for William and Kate :) It's because Cynthia is celebrating ANOTHER BIRTHDAY! And even though I'm technically "off the grid" at the moment (if my calculations are correct, I'm on a China-bound plane somewhere over the Pacific) I didn't want to let today go by without poking some fun, err.. I mean wishing my baby sister a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

There may be some of you that don't know this, but Cynthia is the middle child in the family. You know you've got it tough when they even have a special name (Middle Child Syndrome)to describe all your weirdness. I thought it would be funny to post some of the traits of a middle child (you know, to show you that Cynthia can't help being the way that she is :) but I couldn't find anything online that didn't list out traits that made her seem like a serial killer:
Loner
Quiet
Impatient
Uptight

That doesn't sound like a good way to wish someone a happy birthday. Anyway, I tkept looking and found a few more websites but it seemed like the information was just getting worse..."they may be a little weird, unfriendly and even worse, psychotic because of this feeling of emptiness."

Ouch. Anyway, I figured the BEST present I could give Cynthia for her birthday this year was an apology--Sorry I was born first. (It was a tough job being the favorite, but someone had to do it!) I hope you and your middle self are able to enjoy and happy and untraumatized day :)

Tres Magnifique

When the kids and I got home today, there was a package waiting at the door. (Ok, there were actually a couple of packages but that's because I've had to get a few things--like a dual voltage flat iron travel hair dryer before my trip next week :)

Anyway, here's Kobe and Tehani looking "tres chic" in their new French navy sailor shirts. My mom was in France recently and picked these up for the kids. My only question is--Where is MY shirt? (I'm just going to pretend that they don't make these in women's sizes and leave it at that.)

Merci pour les cadeaux Maman. La prochain fois, tu n'oublie pas un pour moi.

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Ho'ike

Translation? Tehani had her hula recital tonight.

OK, techincally it wasn't a "hula" recital since hula is Hawaiian and this was Tahitian (And yes, there IS a difference :)

At any rate, here's a clip of Tehani "Tahitian Hips" Tevaga doing her thang. (And in case you can't tell my nine year old from the others..the 2nd little person on the left belongs to me) Enjoy!

China Week

So at the end of the month I am leaving for a 16 day trip to China, Thailand and India. Although it may sound like a vacation, the trip is actually a Foreign Business Excursion that is required for the Executive MBA program I'm doing. Call it what you will, I just know that I am super excited to go. I've been a lot of places but never to these countries.

Anyway, I decided that in preparation for my trip, the fam was going to learn about the places I'm going (whether they want to or not) So tonight was our first night of what I am affectionately calling "China Week." We ate Chinese food--with chopsticks--and watched a program that we recently aired at the station (which you can watch here if you too are interested in learning more about China :)

Tehani got pretty into it as I was even able to convince her to put on her cheongsam (Chinese dress) for the occasion. When I told Kobe it was too bad that he didn't have anything Chinese to wear, he replied "Mom, I'm wearing Chinese clothes. Don't you know that EVERYTHING is made in China!"

I'd like to know who has been teaching my son about China when I wasn't paying attention? Anyway, if you have any easy recipes (or suggestions on other movies we might watch) let me know. Otherwise, the kids might just end up eating fortune cookies and watching Jackie Chan movies by the time we get to the end of the week :)

Discovery Gateway: Staycation Day 2

I knew my Staycation Jar was a hit when Tehani woke me up this morning at 6AM to ask if she could "pick" out our activity for the day. After a few more hours of sleep I finally let Tehani pick and the Tevaga family was off to the Gateway for a morning of Discovery fun!

If you've never taken your kids there, I highly recommend it. Kobe has been there once for school but this was Tehani's maiden voyage to the place. Who knew science could be so fun! Luckily we got there right when they opened (read before all the crowds showed up :) so we spent a few hours there and left before the place got too crowded. But we will definitley have to go back again.

Two days down, a whole long week left to go :)

The Staycation Jar

So the kids have just started Spring Break. We'd been planning to ship them off to Chicago (you can do that when you have a relative with buddy passes :) but the flights just didn't look that good. Then I was worried that I was going to get "stuck" out there (oh the joys of flying standby) so we opted to keep the kids here for their week off of school. Needless to say, the kids were not amused.

Anyway, I knew I had to come up with some sort of distraction to 1) keep them entertained and 2) to make it seem like we were actually doing something fun for the week. I had the kids write down a few fun things they would like to do and we folded them up and put them in a jar. Over the next week, we'll pick one paper out each day and that will be our activity du jour. Instant Staycation fun!

We decided to get right into it and picked Go To A 3D Movie out of the jar tonight (Luckily for our wallet, the only 3D movies in town are playing at the dollar show) It was also funny to hear Kobe's definition of a staycation. Tehani heard me say the word in the car and said "Stay-what?" Kobe piped right up and said "Staycation. You know, when people that don't have money stay home and pretend that they are having fun."

Let the pretending begin!

My science experiment

I've never really been a fan of science. I mean, I did get good enough grades in the subject in high school (I should point out that I was in honors science classes so my dislike for the stuff has nothing to do with not understanding it :) I mean, do I REALLY need to know how to dissect a frog? And I've never once been asked to randomly name elements from the Periodic Table...

It is, of course, only by fate that my oldest LOVES science. Which means Kobe was completely in his element last weekend when he participated in the Science Olympiad. Who knew that there were whole competitions all around science?!?

Being the good "Science Mom" that I am, I decided to conduct a few experiments of my own. Here are my findings:

6 Hours: This is the max amount of time that Tehani and I could spend at the Science Olympiad before we were all scienced-out :) I really expected Tehani to be "geeked out" way before that but there were enough exhibits to keep her somewhat entertained.

180 Minutes: This is how long we had to spend in the car--round trip--to get to said Sciencepalooza. What's so great about Weber State University anyway? (I'm going to have to lobby the Science Gods to consider moving their dog-n-pony show to BYU next year)

Zero: This is the amount of homework I completed while at the Science Olympiad. My plan had been to get some reading done but between driving kids across campus to different events...I was like a one-woman taxi service.

Anyway, I'll close this post with a pic of Kobe's new favorite science sport, Sumo Bots (Its like sumo wrestling--for science geeks) Enjoy!