Through My Eyes: March 10, 2007

Hey Everyone,
I've been so bad at emails. I don't know why. Just tired, I guess.
First the all-important weather report. Spring is definitely here and the weather has been warm and really nice. The only bad thing is that apparently spring is when all the live oaks lose their leaves around here! So our yard is a mess, as are all the yards around here. Ben worked with the boys for hours and hours today raking up leaves. First he tried to burn them, but soon our house was filled with smoke from the fire in the fire pit out back, and from the fire in the fireplace. So then I went to Lowes and bought 25 of those 30 gallon leaf bags, and 16 of them are filled! And we're not really even very close to finishing the leaves already in our yard, and there are still lots of leaves in the trees. I hope the shedding and leaf-regrowing will be over by the time my family comes out for their Spring break.
So, let's see what else there is to report. I went to a card-making activity on Tuesday night (one of the Relief Society small groups). I found out that the lady who hosts this activity, Kelly, is the cousin to the lead singer of Green Day. Isn't that funny? No, the singer is not LDS, nor has he every been. Kelly's mom (Green Day singer's maternal aunt) joined the church, and her children are LDS, but not the rest of the family. Although apparently he did hire an LDS nanny for his kids. So that is my brush with celebrity.
The boys had a dance and music performance at school on Friday. The kindergartners were divided in two groups, and one group did their dance first and the other did the singing first, and then they switched. Naturally my boys were in different groups, so I couldn't see both of them do both performances. I decided to watch their dance, and forego the singing, since I'd heard them talking more about the dancing, so I figured that was more important to them. The whole event was a Texas theme, so the dancing was 5 square dances. They were so cute!!! Totally cute. At this age the kids are not self conscious at all about dancing, or about dancing with the opposite sex, so all the boys were paired with girls, and it was adorable. I have to say Joseph was probably the better dancer, a slightly better sense of rhythm, and he was also paying more attention. But Brigham was so cute because every time he came around the circle he looked at me with this funny smile. After the performance, the parents were invited to stay for lunch, so I paid $2.50 for each of the boys and me to get an overdone hamburger, chocolate milk, and an ice cream cup, and we ate at the park adjacent to the school. It was fun. Right after I dropped them off at school I went over to Walmart and bought them both wrangler western shirts to wear. They had brought cowboy hats for themselves and a few of their friends (extras from our Florida goodbye party). Now they just need some cowboy boots and they'll be true Texans.

Ok, I'm going to really try and do better at emails more often because my mind is totally blank on anything else interesting to report. On Tuesday after school I took the boys to Inflatable Wonderland at the mall for their reward for getting good reports at school and church. That is a great place! I just sat there and read a book and the boys went nuts and had a great time. It is full of a bunch of different inflatable bounce houses, slides, and other stuff. There are attendants there to watch the kids and interact with them-- mostly teenage girls, and they did a good job. And on Tuesdays it is 1/2 off, so only $5 per child for as long as they want to stay. We probably stayed for about 3 hours. We came home to discover our dog had escaped and camped outside of one of our neighbors houses and barked at their 3 dogs all afternoon. Argh! We have discoverd that Mister can OPEN the lever-doorknobs in our house. So if I forget to deadbolt one of the doors (or one of the boys opens the door and forgets to re-lock it), he can escape. For a dumb dog, Mister is amazingly good at figuring out escape routes. He clearly needs walks more often, and I need to figure out how he can get them. The big boys are big enough to take him on walks, but then Mosey wants to go, and he's not old enough to be walking outside alone, and I really cannot do walks anymore. At least not as long or as fast as what Mister needs. We need to train him to run on the treadmill maybe!
Ok, I'll close and leave you with a couple of pictures of the spring blossoms and the boys' dance.

Joseph waiting for the dance to begin. Yes, I know the sombrero isn't exactly a Texas cowboy hat, but the cowboy hat *did* evolve from the sombrero, and Texas *did* belong to Mexico once, so it's still ok, right?