While I realize that no one would ever be jealous of my feet (no comments directed towards my long toes, please), you just might be envious at the quality pedicure I received over the weekend. It will probably surprise you to hear that this fine job was done by a three year old. But she’s had lots of practice and is getting quite creative in her nail-painting skills. If you’re in the area, please stop in. Sadie is always looking for her next victim customer.
Friday afternoon, Sam burst in the house after school in tears. He ran through the house to find me and then held up his hand to show a missing finger. At first glance it looked real and he got every bit of the reaction he was hoping for. See what I have to put up with around here? Never a dull moment.
For his birthday in November, Sterling received Anakin’s Jedi Starfighter Lego set. I think the only reason he wanted this particular set was to get the blue light saber blade. Since that was his favorite piece, he played with it constantly. But as a result, he lost it the first day. We’ve searched the house to no avail and he is ready to buy a whole new set just to get that one piece. I tried to order a replacement on the pick-a-brick section of the Lego website, but they only have green light saber pieces available. I suggested that before he fork over another $20 for the set, that he try writing a letter to Lego and see if they could possibly send him the right piece. He wrote this letter without any help, straight from his sweet little 7-year old heart. I especially like how he included the “TM” each time he wrote “lego”. It melted my heart. Let’s hope it melts theirs!
(If you right click on the picture, you can see a larger image in a new window.)
We went to the temple in St. Louis yesterday. Sadie, as usual, had some great things to say.
At one point during the drive down, a car in front of us smelled bad. After getting a whiff of their exhaust, Sadie said, “Something smells like penguins!”
At the park before coming home, Jeff and I had a bottle of water we were sharing. Sadie wanted a drink but had just eaten a Hershey’s kiss. We gave up all claims to the water when she back-washed a nice chocolatey mouthful. Then we couldn’t help but laugh when she said, “Mmmm, It tastes like chocolate milk!”
No, we have not installed privacy glass in our dining room. This is our ice coated window from this morning’s icy rain. Brrrrr.
Last Tuesday, Sam came home from school informing us that his chorus/show choir holiday concert had been canceled for that evening due to icy conditions moving into the area. The concert was moved to Wednesday night instead.
The next morning, we received an automated phone call at 6:15 am from the school superintendent informing us that school was cancelled that day due to the icy roads. What kid doesn’t love a snow day? Well, it turns out that my kids don’t — at least not when it means that they’ll be missing out on fun stuff at school during the winding down days before Christmas break. But we made it through the day, a great violin recital that evening (the choir concert was again moved to the following evening), and then I ended up staying up until 11:30 that night getting the last of the teacher gifts wrapped so the kids could take them to school on Thursday. After all, another ice storm was forecast for Thursday afternoon through Friday morning and there was talk that school might be cancelled again on Friday.
Thursday morning, 6:15, another phone call from the superintendent. No school. Once again, the kids were upset. In talking to a few people later that day, there was some frustration that school had been canceled at all because the roads were not bad. However, the roads were quite icy when my younger kids would have been catching the bus so I’m glad they didn’t take any chances and that my kids, however frustrated they were at missing class parties, were safe. We went out later that evening for a meeting (no choir concert…again), and the neighborhood we were in was a total mess and it was difficult for Jeff to maneuver the van. When you think “Snow Day” you picture piles of snow. This was not the case. We had maybe 1/4″ of snow. But on top of that was about 1/2″ of ice. My kids were sledding in our yard and we don’t have any hills. By giving themselves a little push at the start of the very gradual slope from the side yard to the back, I was surprised with how far they were able to go.
Friday morning was a repeat of Wednesday and Thursday. We had an ice storm Thursday evening, and although it warmed up through the night melting much of the ice, the roads were still too slick during those early morning bus riding hours. If they could have called a one or two hour delay start to the school day they would have been fine, but it was another snow day and we got a very early – however unwelcome – start to our Christmas break. We’ll be attending a “holiday” choir concert in January.
If that weren’t enough, temperatures plummeted Sunday evening and we woke up to 1º on Monday morning. Wind chill took it to at least -17º. The pipes to the kitchen sink were frozen which made me very happy that Jeff is on Christmas break, too!
Not at all deterred by the weather, Sadie informed us this morning (as she has a few times in the past couple of weeks) that she wanted to get out the waterslide and go swimming. We tried to convince her that it was way too cold but she would have none of it so I finally gave in. “Okay, go get your swimming suit on and go out to the garage to find the waterslide and I’ll meet you out there.” (You can scroll up to remember what our dining room window looked like about this time.)
Sadie headed straight for the bedroom and donned her suit.
She was headed for the back door when she announced, “It’s too cold. I shouldn’t go.” Then she ran into the bedroom and got dressed. Whew! At least it was her idea.
We watched “Horton Hears a Who” tonight and were laughing through tears at the following twist of My Little Pony. A cute show!
Most of you are probably aware that our governor is in deep trouble (see this from MSNBC). I actually heard Obama say yesterday that the people of Illinois are “saddened and sobered” by this news. Actually, all the people I know are breathing a sigh of relief and saying, “It’s about time!” with a big smile on their face. I would imagine that Blagojevich is the only one saddened and sobered because he actually got caught. I’m not sure how he got reelected in 2005 (other than the fact that he was running against Cruella DeVil). My friend Tiffany, who lives just outside of Springfield and has nary a kind word to say about our hopefully-soon-to-be-FORMER-governor, said signs are popping up around town like the one above. She also had this great political cartoon that illustrates some of the things that have become synonymous with the word Blagojevich.
I read in one article that Blagojevich had thought of possibly taking the vacant senate seat for himself to improve his chances for the Presidency in 2016. If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will!
Sometimes Jeff plays Pictionary Junior with Sadie. They don’t play it the real way. Instead, Jeff usually tells her what to draw and she makes her best three-year-old attempt. Some of her drawings are very cute, but my favorite part is what she calls the game. “Daddy, will you play Pictionary Junior Mint with me?” So cute!
Jeff slept great last night.
That was to make up for the night before.
Jeff attended a conference in Louisville, KY on Saturday so Friday night he stayed in a hotel. I won’t name any names, but it was a nice hotel. He got in late, showered, and was anxious to get to sleep as the conference started early the next morning. Upon pulling the covers back, he discovered body hair in the sheets. Eeeew. After a call to the front desk, they said they would promptly find him a new room.
New room. Pull back the sheets. Crumbs.
Another new room. Pull back the sheets (this time with hotel employee still in the room). Hair.
Exhausted, Jeff finally asked, “Do you have any clean sheets?” Hotel Employee made a trip to the laundry room, brought up clean sheets, and he and Jeff made the bed.
Charge for the room? $0.
Sleeping in his own bed? Priceless.
When your 2 year old takes 2 hot dogs at dinner, holds one to his chin and pretends the other is a bow, you say, “Oh, that’s so cute. He’s pretending to play the violin.” When he does the same thing with 2 pencils, you say, “Hmmm, I wonder where he learned that.” When he does it with 2 screwdrivers, you say, “I think this kid was meant to play the violin.”
Four years later, at the beginning of first grade, Sam started lessons. While he’s a typical kid and hates to practice as much as anyone, I really think he was meant to play the violin. He just gets it. [As a side note, Sterling started taking lessons about 18 months ago just before he started Kindergarten. I decided I’d take lessons right along with him. A friend picked me up a full-sized violin at a garage sale and Sterling and I practiced together everyday. Sterling, like Sam, just seems to get it. He gets such a beautiful sound from his instrument and has made amazing progress in the short time he’s been taking. Me? I quit after 6 months. It’s HARD!!! It made me feel guilty for all the times I was so hard on Sam. I had no idea how hard it is to play! I screeched and sounded awful from the start. I was not born to play the violin.]
Back to Sam — He’s now been playing for 6 years and recently played in 2 concerts with the University Orchestra. There is a program here where “the exceptional Middle School and High School students” are invited to practice and perform with the University Orchestra. It’s an amazing program and one we really appreciate, especially since there is no orchestra in the public schools in this area. Sam has loved orchestra, has learned a lot, and has played some very hard songs -including the 1812 Overture- since he started playing with them at the beginning of the Fall ’07 school year. Because it’s on the same night as church activities, he only participates one semester a year, but it’s an amazing opportunity.
The last concert he participated in was Fright Night where the orchestra is all dressed up in Halloween costumes and they play songs like the Theme from Harry Potter (Hedwig’s Theme) and Raider’s of the Lost Ark (those were in last year’s program) and Night on Bald Mountain and the Planets (this year). Sam was the young King Tut this year. Sam has had the opportunity to work with some very talented and devoted people through these experiences.
And to think it all started with a couple of hot dogs!