Thursday, January 30, 2014

Sneak peek

We've been working on a home improvement project over here.  It involved this...


We're nearly done and then I'll post more details.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Spelldown!

Back in the day, an oral spelling test was a spelling bee.  In the middle school, it's now a Spelldown!  More exciting?  More hip?  More reality TV?  I don't know.

Anyway, C came home from school a couple of weeks ago and said he was late to his 7th period class.  This is EXTREMELY unusual.  I questioned him.  Turns out, they had a spelling test in English.  Those who missed 8 or less got to come up to the front of the class for the oral spelldown.  There were 8 kids and C was the last in line.  The teacher gave them the first word.  Every student missed it except C.  He won!  :)  He got called down to the office for pictures with other class winners and hence was late for his last class.


So last night, I checked my email and there was a message from the middle school.  In spite of the weather delays, they were still holding the school spelling bee Thursday evening for the class winners.  Ummm.... There was a school-wide spelldown?  Hmmm....  So I showed the email to C and asked if he was supposed to participate.  He looked slightly guilty and said, "I think there was a form.  Didn't I give you a form?" which of course, he hadn't. 


No surprises there.  Standing up in front of a whole crowd of strangers?  All focusing on him?  Under pressure to spell random words out loud?  Sounds like his worst nightmare.  It must have been to make my almost perfectly obedient son deliberately "lose" his permission form...

So we will not be attending the festivities tonight, but C is content with his brush with spelling glory.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Monday holiday

We took our kids to the movie theater for the first time on Monday. 

I know.  It seems un-American, but movies are expensive and my kids have been pretty sensitive to scary things.  It's hard to find something that they all might be interested in that's worth spending that kind of money for.  We decided to take a chance on Frozen.

They were all very excited.  M&S sat on the edge of their seats most of the time, except when M sat on my lap or G's.  They liked the popcorn.  They liked the seats and the huge screen.

I thought the movie was pretty good, if a little too Broadway-musical for me.  The adult me saw too much merchandising (months before the movie came out) to be too enthusiastic going in (I hate being marketed to - see why we don't go to many movies?), but I did like the storyline.  I liked that the story ultimately was about the sisters, though it would have been nice to see more of Elsa.  I liked the secondary characters, especially the animals. (Is a snowman an animal?)  And the animation was pretty amazing.

Did our kids like it?  Well, we got out of the theater and no one said a word.  They were silent the whole way home.  We tried asking what they liked and what they thought.  No one would say anything!  I guess I'll have to try questioning them again and see if they have a response now.  :)

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Every once in a while, I'm fun

We saw a few of these "exploding sticks" videos online and on one of our snow days, pulled out the craft sticks to give it a try.  It worked! 

 

Building it was slightly tedious, but really not bad.  We used all the craft sticks we had and they all wished we had more.  We have lots of days off this month, so we might be trying this again.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Sunbeams!

 
 
For months, M has been ready to leave our church nursery and move up into the Primary.  All through December, she counted down how many Sundays she had left until she could move up with the big kids.  
 
 
Happily for her, the Sunday before the change, the nursery teachers brought the 3-year-olds into Sharing Time to visit.  She was beaming.  She loved it.  They even sang her favorite Primary song:  If The Savior Stood Beside Me.

This Sunday was the big day.  She was so excited, she chattered about it all morning.  She did so well.  She stayed in her seat, even when she realized I was there, playing the piano.  She was the loudest voice I could hear singing the opening song.  She even answered a question.  But I was most proud of her that night, when she said her prayers and prayed by name for two children in her class who weren't so happy about the transition.

(Kind of like this...)
And so we are finished with nursery for good.  I admit, I felt just a little wistful about that, walking past the room and not needing to peek in to check on anyone. 

And now we enjoy our last Sunbeam.  The girl who wants to be a superhero but is afraid of monsters and dragons.  The girl who is most often an animal instead of a girl -- or maybe more than one animal at a time.  The girl who so wishes she could be as big as her brothers, so she pretends she's already 6. 
 
 
Soon enough, my girl, soon enough.
 

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Baptized!



(Proof that I am amazingly behind - I found this post on the old blog, all lonely and unpublished....)

*  *  *  *  * 

J was baptized July 13th along with two friends-from-birth, P and M.  It was so fun to think that the first time I met Corinne, we stood outside that very church building in the sweltering heat, both with round bellies, comparing due dates.  And I've known Mendy even longer.  Here we are 8 years later, with our babies getting baptized.




J gave the talk on the Holy Ghost.  He did such a great job.  I wanted to cry, I was so proud of him.  He even looked up to quote the fourth Article of Faith, rather than just reading it.  The siblings (plus one cousin, N) all sang the closing song, even M, who was so excited to be one of the big kids.  You could even hear her sing!




It was a huge, exciting, beautiful day.  We couldn't be happier about J making this decision.








Mendy, generous friend that she is, made this baptism quilt for J. 

 I had so much fun planning the embroidery for it.  I used some of the same square designs that I made for C's quilt but added and edited a bit for J's.  It turned out beautifully, and he loves it. 

I hope it will be a reminder of this day and of his testimony and mine.
  

Blog Relaunch

Our last blog having died a painful, lingering death, I have decided to relaunch in the public domain.  Friends and family were having trouble accessing the private blog and I just lost the inertia to keep going with it.  I am hoping to do better with this!

For the sake of privacy, I will not be using names, just initials, for the kids, so if you could do the same, I would appreciate it.

Here's to a new year, a new blog, and a new commitment to blog more regularly!