It was all worth it, though, because we got great pictures. And Ben's co-worker got treated to a super-fancy meal at Jason's Deli. :-)
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Catch up, catch up part 2.
I never wrote about taking our family pictures. We ended up going downtown and taking them in front of a famous Austin mural. The weather cooperated beautifully. I picked up Ben and one of his co-workers who volunteered to snap the pictures for us. Noon is usually NOT a great time to take pictures, especially in a south-facing location. Bright overhead sun is pretty disastrous in terms of lighting conditions. But that morning it was overcast, and it didn't completely burn off until just after we took our pictures. Yay! It was a good thing, because there was NO other time we could have taken those pictures, so a re-shoot wasn't an option. The boys are so good about doing pictures now. They were cooperative and helpful and I didn't have to bribe them or anything! The one adventure was in getting Ben's shirt. All of us wore different colored long-sleeved t-shirts for this picture, and Ben's only long-sleeved t-shirt had recently been ruined in all of the water-main repair stuff from the week before. So on the way to pick up Ben we stopped off at Target. Not the usual one I go to. First of all, the parking was terrible. Why were there so may people there on a Thursday morning? So I had to park far away and walk. Second of all, there were NO ride on carts. Not one. Unacceptable, I tell you! So I had to keep walking. Third, the men's section was way in the very back of the store. So I had to keep walking all the way to the back, meanwhile knowing that Ben's lunch hour was approaching and I needed to be on time. Finally I found a shirt that would work (at least Target didn't fail me there), and walked all the way back up to the front of the store to pay for it, and then all the way back out to the van after that. Lot's of walking! A lot more than I usually do. By the time we got to the picture location, my legs were pretty much done. Ben had to carry me from the car over to where I set up the camera, then over to where we took the pictures (where I at least had a wall to lean against), and then back to the car again when we were done. Workout for Ben!
It was all worth it, though, because we got great pictures. And Ben's co-worker got treated to a super-fancy meal at Jason's Deli. :-)
It was all worth it, though, because we got great pictures. And Ben's co-worker got treated to a super-fancy meal at Jason's Deli. :-)
catch up, catch up part 1.
Christmas is the easiest time to get behind on a blog, but also the worst time to get behind!
I got a little over my head this year with all the things to be done before Christmas, and something had to give. Sorry, blog.
When I last posted, the boys' Christmas recital was the next day. It went well. I really like the Christmas recital. It's less pressure than the big spring recital, and I just love Christmas music! This year Joseph played an arrangement of The Ukrainian Bell Carol (Carol of the Bells), Brigham played an arrangement of "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear," and Mosey payed the Children's Primary song book version of "Away in a Manger." They played well-- every year I'm amazed at what these kids can pull together in only 6 weeks of practicing.
Here are the videos of their performances.
Joseph was first:
Then Mosey:
Brigham played just after Mosey:
Everyone brings some kind of finger food to share after the recital. I had intended to go to the grocery store the day before, but that never happened, so the morning of I went scrounging around the internet to see what I could make with ingredients I already had. I ended up making something I really liked! I didn't take any pictures of it, but here's a picture of something similar to what I made.
And here's what I did so I can remember for another time.
I cut out circles of corn tortilla-- I think 2 1/4 inches in diameter, and then pressed them into the cups of a mini cupcake pan (I heated them up in the microwave for a few seconds before doing this so they didn't shred. Then I baked them at 350 for 7 minutes or so, then took them out and set them upside down on a plate for a few minutes. They got nice and crispy. Then I mixed up a can of Mexican-style refried beans (with tomatoes and green chiles), the rest of a leftover box of cream cheese-- probably 1/3?, and a handful of Mexican blend cheese. I heated this up over the stove until the cheese was all blended in and melted. Then I filled each cup with the beans and topped with another sprinkle of cheese. Voila! Easy! And they all got eaten up, so I guess that means they were OK. :-)
After the recital we went home, changed clothes, and then went to get our Christmas tree. We got such a pretty one this year! Apparently the owner of the tree lot we went to got a great deal on noble firs from Oregon, and they were about 1/2 the price that they were last year, and cheaper than the usual kind we get (we usually go for the cheapest kind). I love it! It's taller than we've ever had-- Ben had to move it next to the balcony and go upstairs to put the star on it.
And after THAT Ben and I went to take family pictures for a family in our ward. This was an extended family with 3 married kids and 2 two-year-olds who really loved getting their pictures taken. Not. :-) Thank goodness for digital photography. Head-swapping, here we come! It was freezing that day (not literally, but the 40's is close enough for me), but still so pretty down by the lake.
We decorated the Christmas tree in the evening, and I spent a late night working on my Christmas card. Yay! I love Christmas!
I got a little over my head this year with all the things to be done before Christmas, and something had to give. Sorry, blog.
When I last posted, the boys' Christmas recital was the next day. It went well. I really like the Christmas recital. It's less pressure than the big spring recital, and I just love Christmas music! This year Joseph played an arrangement of The Ukrainian Bell Carol (Carol of the Bells), Brigham played an arrangement of "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear," and Mosey payed the Children's Primary song book version of "Away in a Manger." They played well-- every year I'm amazed at what these kids can pull together in only 6 weeks of practicing.
Here are the videos of their performances.
Joseph was first:
Then Mosey:
Brigham played just after Mosey:
Everyone brings some kind of finger food to share after the recital. I had intended to go to the grocery store the day before, but that never happened, so the morning of I went scrounging around the internet to see what I could make with ingredients I already had. I ended up making something I really liked! I didn't take any pictures of it, but here's a picture of something similar to what I made.
And here's what I did so I can remember for another time.
I cut out circles of corn tortilla-- I think 2 1/4 inches in diameter, and then pressed them into the cups of a mini cupcake pan (I heated them up in the microwave for a few seconds before doing this so they didn't shred. Then I baked them at 350 for 7 minutes or so, then took them out and set them upside down on a plate for a few minutes. They got nice and crispy. Then I mixed up a can of Mexican-style refried beans (with tomatoes and green chiles), the rest of a leftover box of cream cheese-- probably 1/3?, and a handful of Mexican blend cheese. I heated this up over the stove until the cheese was all blended in and melted. Then I filled each cup with the beans and topped with another sprinkle of cheese. Voila! Easy! And they all got eaten up, so I guess that means they were OK. :-)
After the recital we went home, changed clothes, and then went to get our Christmas tree. We got such a pretty one this year! Apparently the owner of the tree lot we went to got a great deal on noble firs from Oregon, and they were about 1/2 the price that they were last year, and cheaper than the usual kind we get (we usually go for the cheapest kind). I love it! It's taller than we've ever had-- Ben had to move it next to the balcony and go upstairs to put the star on it.
And after THAT Ben and I went to take family pictures for a family in our ward. This was an extended family with 3 married kids and 2 two-year-olds who really loved getting their pictures taken. Not. :-) Thank goodness for digital photography. Head-swapping, here we come! It was freezing that day (not literally, but the 40's is close enough for me), but still so pretty down by the lake.
We decorated the Christmas tree in the evening, and I spent a late night working on my Christmas card. Yay! I love Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Well, I still have a few of these to send out, but Christmas is well and truly over, so here's our card from this year! This one took a very, very, very, very long time to do (including one all-nighter cutting and trimming and folding), but I think it's one of my favorites so far. I wish I were rich enough to print and mail one for everyone I know and love! Maybe next year I'll just do a Walmart photo card. :-)
Here's the front:
This card was folded and cut so that the four colored sections unfolded separately to reveal the person underneath. When the whole card was opened it looked like this on the inside:
The very back looked like this. I couldn't decide on just one picture, so I settled on 48 instead. :-)
Merry Christmas!
Here's the front:
This card was folded and cut so that the four colored sections unfolded separately to reveal the person underneath. When the whole card was opened it looked like this on the inside:
The very back looked like this. I couldn't decide on just one picture, so I settled on 48 instead. :-)
Merry Christmas!
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Main Street Bethlehem and other happenings.
The boys and I went to Main Street Bethlehem up in Burnet tonight. We got there about an hour earlier than we did last year, and our wait time in line was subsequently about 1/4 of what it was last year. Ben couldn't come with us because of work stuff, so the boys and I met my friend Traci and her son up there and we braved the crowds together. It was really nice, but I didn't take a single picture. There were too many people, and in my wheelchair, I just couldn't be in the right place at the right time at the right angle (or height) to take any pictures. So I'll just have to remember the boys finding their favorite places-- the candle makers, the blacksmith, and the tax-collectors, remember Mosey sitting next to a Bethlehem girl, learning to grind corn into cornmeal (did they have corn back then?), remember all three boys quietly sitting and watching Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus, and remember Brigham reading aloud the series of scripture verses summarizing Christ's life, then commenting on how perfect they were. And also remember Joseph helping me navigate out of the parking lot-- twice I had to squeeze in between two cars, with less than 8 inches clearance on either side. It was a fun night-- not as cold as last year, although I was still freezing. It was probably 55 degrees, maybe a degree or two less, but I was freezing. I get a chill in my bones during the winter and it's hard for me to warm up. I had on a long sleeved shirt, a really warm hoodie jacket (given specially to me by my mother-in-law because it's made of some special material to keep it especially warm while still being a fairly light-weight fleece, and then a big, really thick fleece hoodie. I had both jackets zipped all the way up, and both hoods on over my head, and I was still cold. I could never make it anywhere with real winter. :-) After going through Bethlehem, we met up with another family from our homeschool group at Storms where the boys and I had our fill of deep-fried Texas food. Mmmm. ;-)
It was a nice ending to the day and to the week. Tomorrow is a busy day. The boys have a piano recital in which all 3 are playing a piece, and Joseph and Brigham will be playing 3 violin/flute duets. Afterward we will go get our Christmas tree, then I need to go take some family pictures for a family in our ward, then I need to seriously work on my own Christmas card. We took the family pictures yesterday, but getting the whole card put together is going to take several hours.
Yesterday was pretty busy, too. We tried to do school lessons, but had to leave at about 10:30 AM for family pictures. We stopped at Target to get a shirt for Ben, first. That was the dumbest Target ever. Why were there SO many people shopping at 10:30 AM on a Thursday?! There were no available close handicapped spaces, so I had to park way further out in the parking lot than I usually do. Then after I finally made it into the store, there were NO ride-on carts. Oh, no! But I had to get a shirt for our pictures. Of course the men's wear section was in the very back of the store. By the time I walked from the car to the store, then to the men's section in the store, then back up to the cashiers, then out to the car, I had about tripled (maybe quadrupled) the amount of walking I usually do in a day.
But I made it back to the car and soon we picked up Ben from work, along with one of his co-workers who volunteered to man the camera. The picture taking went fine, and then we all went to eat at Jason's Deli before driving Ben and Phoebe back to work. Then it was home to try to salvage some lesson time and get ready for art.
After art Mosey had his belt ceremony for his green belt (he passed!). The parking was HORRIBLE at the TKD studio, and I again had to park really far away. I haven't done that much walking in a single day for a long, long time. But it was fun to see Mosey get his green belt!
Back at home, Joseph and Brigham were making dinner. The Pasta Roni burned a little, but was still tasty enough for the boys. It's so fun to be able to tell Joseph and Brigham to make dinner, and be able to count on them to actually do it! Even if the pot "over-boils" a few times. :-)
Soon, my friend came over for a Photoshop tutorial and for me to help her with her family Christmas card. And THEN I still had to do all my night-time routine-- feeding the animals, feeding the crickets, cleaning up from dinner (Ben started a load of dishes for me-- thank you!), etc., etc. The upshot is that I wasn't in bed until about 2:00, which has been average this week. Not quite enough sleep for me.
Speaking of which, it is 12:24 AM and I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, so I better go and try and get at least an hour or two more sleep than what I've been doing recently. :-)
Good night!
This picture has nothing to do with my blog post. I just like it. It's the "thankful tree" that I made this year out of pipe cleaners, floral wrapping tape, and construction-paper leaves. It makes me happy!
It was a nice ending to the day and to the week. Tomorrow is a busy day. The boys have a piano recital in which all 3 are playing a piece, and Joseph and Brigham will be playing 3 violin/flute duets. Afterward we will go get our Christmas tree, then I need to go take some family pictures for a family in our ward, then I need to seriously work on my own Christmas card. We took the family pictures yesterday, but getting the whole card put together is going to take several hours.
Yesterday was pretty busy, too. We tried to do school lessons, but had to leave at about 10:30 AM for family pictures. We stopped at Target to get a shirt for Ben, first. That was the dumbest Target ever. Why were there SO many people shopping at 10:30 AM on a Thursday?! There were no available close handicapped spaces, so I had to park way further out in the parking lot than I usually do. Then after I finally made it into the store, there were NO ride-on carts. Oh, no! But I had to get a shirt for our pictures. Of course the men's wear section was in the very back of the store. By the time I walked from the car to the store, then to the men's section in the store, then back up to the cashiers, then out to the car, I had about tripled (maybe quadrupled) the amount of walking I usually do in a day.
But I made it back to the car and soon we picked up Ben from work, along with one of his co-workers who volunteered to man the camera. The picture taking went fine, and then we all went to eat at Jason's Deli before driving Ben and Phoebe back to work. Then it was home to try to salvage some lesson time and get ready for art.
After art Mosey had his belt ceremony for his green belt (he passed!). The parking was HORRIBLE at the TKD studio, and I again had to park really far away. I haven't done that much walking in a single day for a long, long time. But it was fun to see Mosey get his green belt!
Back at home, Joseph and Brigham were making dinner. The Pasta Roni burned a little, but was still tasty enough for the boys. It's so fun to be able to tell Joseph and Brigham to make dinner, and be able to count on them to actually do it! Even if the pot "over-boils" a few times. :-)
Soon, my friend came over for a Photoshop tutorial and for me to help her with her family Christmas card. And THEN I still had to do all my night-time routine-- feeding the animals, feeding the crickets, cleaning up from dinner (Ben started a load of dishes for me-- thank you!), etc., etc. The upshot is that I wasn't in bed until about 2:00, which has been average this week. Not quite enough sleep for me.
Speaking of which, it is 12:24 AM and I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, so I better go and try and get at least an hour or two more sleep than what I've been doing recently. :-)
Good night!
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
'tis the season...
...to be very busy.
I have several very pressing things that I need to take care of ASAP, but instead I'm doing things like this:
This is our elf, "Sneaky Pickle Claus." My friend gave this to us a couple of years ago, and it's languished in our Christmas boxes until this year when I decided to get him out. It's an Elf on the Shelf. The idea is that this elf is watching the children, reporting on behavior back to Santa Claus. Every day the kids have to find where he is hiding. I knew the boys wouldn't really go for the "reporting back to Santa" thing, but I thought they would get a kick out of searching for it every day. There are lots of really adorable ideas online for the Elf on the Shelf (the above idea is not mine, I am so not creative enough for that), and I think it will be fun to do this for the next few weeks.
Other happenings:
Sometime last week, Chrissy got in a fight, and got herself bit by another cat. We didn't realize it until Saturday night when the bite got infected and started oozing and dripping and being really disgusting. Poor kitty. We didn't know what it was at first-- we could only see one puncture wound, but it was big and really, really deep. I put antibiotic ointment on it, and then we took her into the vet first thing Monday morning. Turns out it is definitely a bite. When they shaved the area, you could see the smaller wound where the other tooth went in. We've been dog-sitting another dog the past few days, and at first I thought she must have bit Chrissy (Sandy has growled and snapped a couple of times at Chrissy). But the vet said it is definitely a cat bite, and that it happened earlier last week. There's no way it would have had time to get infected and abscess the way it did in the 24 hours Sandy had been here when I first noticed the bite. Chrissy will be fine-- the abscess was lanced and drained and she got an antibiotic shot and we brought ointment home to put on it twice a day. It sure is icky, though.
We finally got our Christmas decorations up! Someday (maybe) my dream of a beautiful evening of Christmas music and hot chocolate and the family decorating together might come true. Not this year. Instead I got annoyed at Ben because I had been trying to get everyone to sit up to the table for dinner for 10 minutes because the food was getting cold, but he wanted to get the Christmas boxes down from the attic first. So the boys and I ate without him, and meanwhile, since I wasn't supervising the box unloading, he didn't get the right boxes down, so I had nowhere to put the Thanksgiving decorations we took down, and we were missing a couple of boxes of Christmas decorations. I don't know if Ben got mad at me for being annoyed, or if he just had a lot of work, but in any case he went into the bedroom and closed the door and worked on his laptop. :-(
Do things my way, and nobody gets hurt, is my motto. :-) Too bad it doesn't work that way.
Anyway, the boys and I did most of the decorating and meanwhile Ben made some progress on some work he was doing, and eventually he came out of the bedroom after the boys went to bed in a better mood. I do love the house being decorated for Christmas, even though it is a lot of work.
Today was Mosey's last speech therapy session for the semester. Joseph went in and was a control for the same study Mosey tested for last week. Another $40!! The boys are getting rich. I expect really good Christmas presents from them this year. :-) So we were there for about 2 1/2 hours, and afterward I wanted to go check out a location where I want to do our family Christmas card pictures. I'm cutting it seriously short this year, but the weather did not cooperate last weekend for pictures. Well, 5:30 PM is apparently not a great time to be driving around downtown. It took us an HOUR to finally get to where we were going, just south of the river, about 30 blocks south of where we were for speech. That is ridiculous traffic. The boys were very good sports, though, listening to the final Eragon book on my iPod. At least getting home was faster, as most of rush hour had dissipated by then. I dropped off Brigham and Mosey at home and Joseph and I went to Walmart. I'm trying to figure out what Christmas craft we're going to do for our art class. Walmart didn't have any clear glass ornament balls! I was very dismayed. Still, Joseph and I had a very pleasant mother/son date at Walmart and we managed to find a cart full of stuff we needed even if I couldn't find the one item we actually went to Walmart for in the first place. Joseph ran into Hobby Lobby for me on the way home and found the right ornaments. At home again, I supervised flute/violin practicing, sent the boys to bed, and then I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the house, putting away decorations stuff, and helping a friend do some photoshop work on her family Christmas card (note I haven't done any photoshop work on MY family Christmas card yet!), and now it's 12:20 AM and I didn't make any progress on my to-do-list. The laundry is seriously piling up in the laundry room. It's all clean, just none of it folded or put away. My inbox for bills and such on my desk is overflowing and giving me nightmares. We're gonna get our gas shut off. I still need to finish arranging the song our family is going to be playing in church on Christmas Day, so that we actually have a chance to PRACTICE before Christmas Day! I still have to get to the post office to mail off some things my sister accidentally left at our house. There is a traffic ticket I TRIED to pay back in September which came back because I didn't main in the right paperwork, but meanwhile the right paperwork has disappeared and I have to figure out what to do, but I can't because I have to actually make some phone calls during business hours, or else go to the county courthouse or some other such nonsense, so meanwhile the traffic ticket remains unpaid and I'm paranoid I'm going to be pulled over and hauled off to jail. I haven't done a single speck of Christmas shopping. I haven't even made lists for Christmas shopping. I haven't finished with the family Christmas photo I took for my sister over Thanksgiving, and I haven't taken the family photos I've promised two other families in our ward. Or mine either, remember? I need about 2 or 3 uninterrupted days to get all of this stuff done, but those 2 or 3 days are not forthcoming. So I'm burning both ends of the candle and trying not to make myself sick. I got 4 hours of sleep last night, and if I went to bed right NOW, I'd get six hours tonight. But I still have to feed the lizards and the frogs and wash off the kitchen table and locate the cat and put ointment on the cat's leg (which she really loves) and stage another Elf on the Shelf scene and of course finish this really important blog post that definitely represents the best use of my time right now. So anyway! Good night!
I have several very pressing things that I need to take care of ASAP, but instead I'm doing things like this:
Other happenings:
Sometime last week, Chrissy got in a fight, and got herself bit by another cat. We didn't realize it until Saturday night when the bite got infected and started oozing and dripping and being really disgusting. Poor kitty. We didn't know what it was at first-- we could only see one puncture wound, but it was big and really, really deep. I put antibiotic ointment on it, and then we took her into the vet first thing Monday morning. Turns out it is definitely a bite. When they shaved the area, you could see the smaller wound where the other tooth went in. We've been dog-sitting another dog the past few days, and at first I thought she must have bit Chrissy (Sandy has growled and snapped a couple of times at Chrissy). But the vet said it is definitely a cat bite, and that it happened earlier last week. There's no way it would have had time to get infected and abscess the way it did in the 24 hours Sandy had been here when I first noticed the bite. Chrissy will be fine-- the abscess was lanced and drained and she got an antibiotic shot and we brought ointment home to put on it twice a day. It sure is icky, though.
We finally got our Christmas decorations up! Someday (maybe) my dream of a beautiful evening of Christmas music and hot chocolate and the family decorating together might come true. Not this year. Instead I got annoyed at Ben because I had been trying to get everyone to sit up to the table for dinner for 10 minutes because the food was getting cold, but he wanted to get the Christmas boxes down from the attic first. So the boys and I ate without him, and meanwhile, since I wasn't supervising the box unloading, he didn't get the right boxes down, so I had nowhere to put the Thanksgiving decorations we took down, and we were missing a couple of boxes of Christmas decorations. I don't know if Ben got mad at me for being annoyed, or if he just had a lot of work, but in any case he went into the bedroom and closed the door and worked on his laptop. :-(
Do things my way, and nobody gets hurt, is my motto. :-) Too bad it doesn't work that way.
Anyway, the boys and I did most of the decorating and meanwhile Ben made some progress on some work he was doing, and eventually he came out of the bedroom after the boys went to bed in a better mood. I do love the house being decorated for Christmas, even though it is a lot of work.
Today was Mosey's last speech therapy session for the semester. Joseph went in and was a control for the same study Mosey tested for last week. Another $40!! The boys are getting rich. I expect really good Christmas presents from them this year. :-) So we were there for about 2 1/2 hours, and afterward I wanted to go check out a location where I want to do our family Christmas card pictures. I'm cutting it seriously short this year, but the weather did not cooperate last weekend for pictures. Well, 5:30 PM is apparently not a great time to be driving around downtown. It took us an HOUR to finally get to where we were going, just south of the river, about 30 blocks south of where we were for speech. That is ridiculous traffic. The boys were very good sports, though, listening to the final Eragon book on my iPod. At least getting home was faster, as most of rush hour had dissipated by then. I dropped off Brigham and Mosey at home and Joseph and I went to Walmart. I'm trying to figure out what Christmas craft we're going to do for our art class. Walmart didn't have any clear glass ornament balls! I was very dismayed. Still, Joseph and I had a very pleasant mother/son date at Walmart and we managed to find a cart full of stuff we needed even if I couldn't find the one item we actually went to Walmart for in the first place. Joseph ran into Hobby Lobby for me on the way home and found the right ornaments. At home again, I supervised flute/violin practicing, sent the boys to bed, and then I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the house, putting away decorations stuff, and helping a friend do some photoshop work on her family Christmas card (note I haven't done any photoshop work on MY family Christmas card yet!), and now it's 12:20 AM and I didn't make any progress on my to-do-list. The laundry is seriously piling up in the laundry room. It's all clean, just none of it folded or put away. My inbox for bills and such on my desk is overflowing and giving me nightmares. We're gonna get our gas shut off. I still need to finish arranging the song our family is going to be playing in church on Christmas Day, so that we actually have a chance to PRACTICE before Christmas Day! I still have to get to the post office to mail off some things my sister accidentally left at our house. There is a traffic ticket I TRIED to pay back in September which came back because I didn't main in the right paperwork, but meanwhile the right paperwork has disappeared and I have to figure out what to do, but I can't because I have to actually make some phone calls during business hours, or else go to the county courthouse or some other such nonsense, so meanwhile the traffic ticket remains unpaid and I'm paranoid I'm going to be pulled over and hauled off to jail. I haven't done a single speck of Christmas shopping. I haven't even made lists for Christmas shopping. I haven't finished with the family Christmas photo I took for my sister over Thanksgiving, and I haven't taken the family photos I've promised two other families in our ward. Or mine either, remember? I need about 2 or 3 uninterrupted days to get all of this stuff done, but those 2 or 3 days are not forthcoming. So I'm burning both ends of the candle and trying not to make myself sick. I got 4 hours of sleep last night, and if I went to bed right NOW, I'd get six hours tonight. But I still have to feed the lizards and the frogs and wash off the kitchen table and locate the cat and put ointment on the cat's leg (which she really loves) and stage another Elf on the Shelf scene and of course finish this really important blog post that definitely represents the best use of my time right now. So anyway! Good night!
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Annie!
The boys and I watched Annie tonight. It was so fun. Except when Joseph started talking about "all those old-fashioned movies when you were a kid." What?! The movies I watched as a kid are old fashioned now? Well, I guess so, but still, ouch. Anyway, watching it brought back such vivid memories of my childhood. It was one of the first movies I saw in the theater. E.T. might have been the first-- they came out the same year. I remember going to see Annie for a birthday party for a little girl in my class. And then we got the record and my sisters and I spent many hours dancing to all the songs from Annie, and looking at the pictures from the movie in the cool record album that opened up with pages of pictures inside.
The inspiration for this movie night was another dog that we're dog-sitting, named Sandy! This Sandy is a girl dog, however. She's a sweet thing. This dog-sitting business is getting good for the boys!
This morning the boys and I went to the dentist for our 6 month checkup. Every time I schedule the next appointment, 6 months in the future seems like suuuuuch a long time. And then it's here before I know it. No cavities for anyone today, happily, although both Joseph AND Brigham have been recommended for an orthodontics workup. I've known that Joseph has some orthodontic work in his future due to a lower jaw he inherited from his dad, but I hoped Brigham would be spared. Alas, I see orthodontist bills in our future. :-)
Mosey tested for his green belt tonight. I know he was a little worried. He wanted to review one of the forms they do, but we couldn't find anything online, and the quick warm-up they did before the testing wasn't very helpful for him. I think he did well-- he did forget one of the things they did, but I don't know how much that will count against him. One thing that did happen was that at the end of one of his forms (I'm not sure I'm using the right terminology here), instead of holding the position, he ran back to his spot on the floor. One of the judges called him on that and told him to go back to his end position. I could see Mosey deflate right there. It is embarrassing to get called out in front of a lot of people, especially for someone like Mosey who prides himself in being good at everything he does. For better or worse. Anyway, for the rest of the testing I could see his expression-- the slightly hurt, slightly sullen expression that told me he was sort of emotionally checking out of the whole thing. I remember being horrendously embarrassed whenever I was called out on ANYTHING in front of other people, even something very small like talking to my neighbor in class, so I feel for him. He's got to learn to keep it together, though, and redouble his effort to be even more professional and on top of things than he was before, instead of checking out. I guess these are hard lessons for 7 year olds, though, and he's got time left to learn them. I hope he passes. He's really enjoyed Tae Kwon Do and I'd like to keep it that way.
The inspiration for this movie night was another dog that we're dog-sitting, named Sandy! This Sandy is a girl dog, however. She's a sweet thing. This dog-sitting business is getting good for the boys!
This morning the boys and I went to the dentist for our 6 month checkup. Every time I schedule the next appointment, 6 months in the future seems like suuuuuch a long time. And then it's here before I know it. No cavities for anyone today, happily, although both Joseph AND Brigham have been recommended for an orthodontics workup. I've known that Joseph has some orthodontic work in his future due to a lower jaw he inherited from his dad, but I hoped Brigham would be spared. Alas, I see orthodontist bills in our future. :-)
Mosey tested for his green belt tonight. I know he was a little worried. He wanted to review one of the forms they do, but we couldn't find anything online, and the quick warm-up they did before the testing wasn't very helpful for him. I think he did well-- he did forget one of the things they did, but I don't know how much that will count against him. One thing that did happen was that at the end of one of his forms (I'm not sure I'm using the right terminology here), instead of holding the position, he ran back to his spot on the floor. One of the judges called him on that and told him to go back to his end position. I could see Mosey deflate right there. It is embarrassing to get called out in front of a lot of people, especially for someone like Mosey who prides himself in being good at everything he does. For better or worse. Anyway, for the rest of the testing I could see his expression-- the slightly hurt, slightly sullen expression that told me he was sort of emotionally checking out of the whole thing. I remember being horrendously embarrassed whenever I was called out on ANYTHING in front of other people, even something very small like talking to my neighbor in class, so I feel for him. He's got to learn to keep it together, though, and redouble his effort to be even more professional and on top of things than he was before, instead of checking out. I guess these are hard lessons for 7 year olds, though, and he's got time left to learn them. I hope he passes. He's really enjoyed Tae Kwon Do and I'd like to keep it that way.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
No voice
My voice is still shot. It's a little disconcerting to be made so painfully aware of how much I depend on being able to yell at the boys to keep order around here. :-)
Today we had our art group at our house as usual. The normal teacher for this unit is out of town, so I was going to pick up the lesson for her. Except that I couldn't talk. So I had Joseph and Brigham study up on the topic and teach the lesson for me! It worked great. As it was, we only did one of the planned projects, so Joseph will have to do his part next week. We talked about color today and did a project mixing paints and making a color wheel. Wow, that was a hit. Actually I think anything that involves paints and mixing and making messes would be a big hit with this crowd. :-) Afterward, Mosey and Natasha were still fixated on the mixing thing, and ended up making a "witch's brew," a nasty concoction of paint water, this and that from my kitchen cupboards, frog pee (yes, really), dirt, vinegar, and who knows how much of whatever else. When I was a kid, I liked making perfume. Similar process of raiding my mom's cupboards and cabinets, but the goal was to make the NICEST concoction, not the vilest. Ah, well. It ended up outside anyway, which is where it's going to stay until disposed of.
Mosey's teacher didn't show up again today, and didn't respond to emails. What to do?! I don't want to fire the poor guy, just getting diagnosed with cancer, but I suspect maybe he's overestimating what he'll be able to keep doing during treatment. I tried to give him a nice "out," by saying that we do know of another teacher that we can go to for a while if he needs some time to recover from surgery and get his bearings. But if he doesn't check his email or listen to messages, I'm not sure how to convey that. I'm trying to move forward in teaching Mosey, but I'm really NOT qualified.
All I want for Christmas is for my kids' music teacher headache to be taken care of. :-)
Today we had our art group at our house as usual. The normal teacher for this unit is out of town, so I was going to pick up the lesson for her. Except that I couldn't talk. So I had Joseph and Brigham study up on the topic and teach the lesson for me! It worked great. As it was, we only did one of the planned projects, so Joseph will have to do his part next week. We talked about color today and did a project mixing paints and making a color wheel. Wow, that was a hit. Actually I think anything that involves paints and mixing and making messes would be a big hit with this crowd. :-) Afterward, Mosey and Natasha were still fixated on the mixing thing, and ended up making a "witch's brew," a nasty concoction of paint water, this and that from my kitchen cupboards, frog pee (yes, really), dirt, vinegar, and who knows how much of whatever else. When I was a kid, I liked making perfume. Similar process of raiding my mom's cupboards and cabinets, but the goal was to make the NICEST concoction, not the vilest. Ah, well. It ended up outside anyway, which is where it's going to stay until disposed of.
Mosey's teacher didn't show up again today, and didn't respond to emails. What to do?! I don't want to fire the poor guy, just getting diagnosed with cancer, but I suspect maybe he's overestimating what he'll be able to keep doing during treatment. I tried to give him a nice "out," by saying that we do know of another teacher that we can go to for a while if he needs some time to recover from surgery and get his bearings. But if he doesn't check his email or listen to messages, I'm not sure how to convey that. I'm trying to move forward in teaching Mosey, but I'm really NOT qualified.
All I want for Christmas is for my kids' music teacher headache to be taken care of. :-)
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