Conversations from the back seat.

While driving this morning:

Me: humm, there goes one of my freshman, I wonder if he really is a freshman. I might have to look that up.

S1: I thought a freshman was a 9th grader?

Me: Well, it can be a 9th grader or a 13th grader.

S1: MaaOmmmm.

Me: Ok, there can be high school and college freshman.

S1: What are they men. Why can't we have freshwomen?

Me: Well, our language tends to be male dominate. It's because

S1: I know, women were in the home until WW II.

The conversation continued about how we are changing things a bit. She way too smart for a 4th grader.

This weekend was our community's annual festival to celebrate the bridge that joins our two communities. Being a small town, we have parades, lobster dinner (we are in the midwest, a lobster dinner is a treat), activities, etc. We also have fireworks.

We've never been down to the activities, but last year we took the girls to the fireworks for the first time. Hopefully next year we will be able to do some of the activities. I would have this year, but between the garage sale I was involved with (and will do again next year) and Sarah's ball game which was from 2-4, we just didn't make it. Then again, it's not DH's thing.

Last year, we started to take the girls to the fireworks. This is a bit of a big deal because we don't have sunset until 10:30. They loved it last year, so DH wanted to take them again this year. We sent them to bed for a nap at normal bedtime (and S2 pissed DH off when she wouldn't go to sleep) and got them up about 10:15 so we would have time to drive to a friends house, feed her cats, set up their hammock and wait for it to be dark enough. The first fireworks started at 10:45. The girls had an absolute blast!

Earlier this week, my friend Sandy and her family came to visit us for a day. They live in Virginia. Sandy and I have been friends since I was 16 and she was 17. I remember when her kids were born and she and her daughter came to see me in the hospital when S1 was born. I've not seen them since we moved from VA exactly 9 years ago this month.

Man it was good to see them. We had such a nice relaxing day. They were were camping up on a campground on Lake Superior. The came in on Wed night and I headed up to see them while we watched the sun set. Thursday, we picked up some breakfast and headed back up to the lake. The kids (my two and her two teenagers), played on the beach together for several hours before we made them take a break for lunch. Then, I drove Sandy and the kids down to see our house. The girls and J (who is 14) started playing Wii and K (who has me unsettled a bit because she's 17 and I can't believe we were so young when we met) wanted to go back to the camp to take a nap. So, J stayed at our house and played with the girls while I drove people back. I then made some dinner and we got S1 ready for her baseball game (which everyone came out to watch). It started to rain and we called the game at 2 hours and 20 min (this was a game that started at 7:15 and ended at 9:35 when the kids were too tired to get an out. I adore our coach, he calls it when its time and doesn't have to 'play to the end.') So, we ran back, got changed, picked up my DH and went back to camp for dinner and s'mores. It was a very long day and the girls didn't get to bed until midnight, but boy was it a great day. I'm sorry they couldn't stay longer, but it was a fabulous time.

Ice Show

Ice Dancers Jane Summersett and Todd Gilles skated at our local Ice Show this weekend. It seems that Jane is from our area and skated with our skating academy when she was little.

Jane and Todd are the alternates to the U.S. Ice Dancing team for the 2009 Worlds next week in Los Angeles and stopped by our little ice show to skate their programs from the 2009 U.S. Nationals. They are so nice taking pictures and signing autographs. In fact, they spend most of their time standing in the hallway where the skaters dressing rooms are rather than hiding in their own room - so all the skaters can stop by and talk to them, take pictures, and ask for autographs.

Here is the link to their pic at nationals:

http://www.universalsports.com/PhotoAlbum.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&PALBID=59504

And here is a picture with the girls. We took this at intermission. After Sarah and Sydney got Todd's autograph, tomorrow we will get Jane's.



The girls did a great job at the show. But, I'll be a bit happy when the show is over today.

Kirsten

The party cake

In some ways, parties are getting a little easier. The kids just played in the pool - we set up the food, watched to make sure no-one drowned, and corraled them later for cake and presents. We had a few no-shows, but just sent their bags home with a couple of kids with siblings.

Everyone had fun, and I'm really pleased with Sarah's cake. I made this myself. I used a metal bowl for the top, licorice for the eyes, and fondant for the spots.

If I were ever to attempt this again (or another tiered cake), I'd do a few things differently. But, all in all I'm pleased.

I give you the Mario Bros "1-up" cake (and for those of you not involved in playing Mario Bros (which would have been us at Christmas), the 1-up is the character that gives you extra lives

Sometimes she's a generous spirit

Sydney is truly a wonderful child. She loves to push her sister's buttons, but is equally generous with her.

Yesterday, she exceeded many of my expectations.

On Christmas Eve, Syd discovered she had a loose tooth. This was even more exciting because her kindergarten teacher gave each child in her class a tooth fairy pillow. Sydney was so excited to hopefully use it before she returns to school.

While I was at work yesterday, Sarah lost a tooth. Sydney had already offered to let Sarah be the first person to use her tooth fairy pillow.

That child is a wonder sometimes!

Christmas meets Hanukkah

One of Sarah's best friends is Jewish. A couple of weeks ago she was at dinner with them and they called to say she'd be a little late because they were teaching Sarah about Hanukkah.

Normally, I'm not good with her being late, but in this case I was thrilled! I love her learning things, and she's be curious. She came home with some gold wrapped chocolate coins from the driedel game.

Fast forward to today. Months ago, Santa decided to buy a few gold coins for the stockings this year.

Sarah finds them and says: "I can't believe Santa gave me Hanukkah coins for Christmas!" I love that kid!

Have a great day, no matter what holiday you celebrate!

Chance meeting

Friday, I decided to stop in to our local bakery to pick up a bagel (they only have them on Friday's). I was chatting with my friend who works at the bakery and commented how much I had to do and how hard it was going to be to get everything done with the girls home.

She mentioned that she was having set of sisters babysit on Monday and did I want to drop the girls off? um YES!

After confirming that the sisters were ok with 4 kids rather than 2 (I think the double money was appealing!), we discussed that their only request was that we provide food that was ready made.

This morning, I slept in some (graded until 1:00 am) and then started grading while directing the girls to get ready. I asked Sydney if she thought she could make her lunch.

She gathered everything and YEP! she assembled a pretty good lunch all by herself. Sarah also made her lunch and I didn't have to!

Yea to growing girls!

Sarah says. . .

The girls are playing school. I heard this from Sarah as she was talking to her 'students.'


"Art is about imagination. Maybe you see snow as pink, maybe you see the sky as purple, maybe you see the clouds in magenta colored pink, and maybe you see the world in swirls. That is the point of art. And tomorrow you are going to paint the way you see your classrooms."

I love my girls!

Grownup

"I feel more grown up than I ever have before" Yes, this was my daughter's quote. I let them have their Izze Sparkling Juice in a wine glass - they were really impressed when I had them used the cut glass ones ("You mean we get to use the fancy ones?"). This was partially because they are heavier and the stem is less delicate than my other stemware, plus they aren't as tall. But, they thought they were special.

They asked to sit at their little table with a tablecloth, so we had more space at our table. Everyone used the china and silver(plate).

Before dinner, Sarah told us the history of the first Thanksgiving. It was a perfect recitation.

Dinner was good (except for once my Turkey was done first - about an hour before I was ready).

All in all a good day.

Oh, and I ordered a new Macbook Pro (my HP is indicating that it's tired and time to think replacement.) I'm so excited and I can't wait for it to arrive.

Happenings

It was a tiring weekend here.

Friday was Halloween. It was so nice outside (normally it's snowing), we had our Halloween parade at the school outside.


Sarah carved her own pumpkin (on the left with the square and triangle eyes). Sydney couldn't quiet manage to carve hers, but she did draw on the face (on the right, with two triangle eyes) and I cut around the lines.


In the past week, Sydney has been chewing a lot of gum. She has taught herself to blow bubbles. She's quite proud of herself and has only gotten gum in her hair occasionally.

Last week we had Sydney's weekly appointment. Her right arm is doing really well. We are hoping to have it out of the cast in 2 more weeks. Her left arm isn't healing quiet as well. We are hoping that it will start and that we can go down to a short cast in two more weeks. We see the doc on Thurs to see what is happening.

On Saturday, Sarah's basketball camp played some games. They really enjoyed it.

On Sunday, I took the girls to see High School Musical 3. It wasn't too bad. I did like the message that "You have to pursue your dreams, not your parents, not your your boyfriend/girlfriends, and you can't give up what you want for your high school boyfriend/girlfriend."

And now another week begins.

Weekend projects

Sarah and I have been working on sewing her Halloween costume. This is what we have accomplished so far. Originally we planned to enter it in the fair, but I'm thinking she might do better perfecting her ability to sew before we enter something. This also took some of the pressure off of us because I did sew in the zipper (something I'd never done before). Sarah was ready to stop for the night after the zipper, but I talked her into 4 more seams - which allowed her to sew the shoulders and arms. She reluctantly agreed, but was so thrilled when she was able to try on the costume! We just need to finish the neckline, arms, and bottom hem.



I realized that I had a high school letter in my basement. The colors work nicely. I'd rather had borrowed one of my sister JV letters as they are a little smaller and would have looked better, but it will still work. She really likes the idea.

I still need to sew the skirt before I leave Friday (I'm going to a scrap booking overnight), but she gave me permission to just sew the skirt without her. She did sew a lot of the trim herself!




When I finally finished sewing for the day, it was on to project number two. Sydney's teacher gave her a piece of paper, some orange paint, a black marker, and a paint brush so she could work on the project she would miss on Friday when she was having her second cast put on.

She made her pumpkin all by herself. She included the 'bump' at the bottom (the little dip) all by herself. She also proudly painted her drawn pumpkin 'kindergarten style - keeping in the lines.' After it dried, she painted on the face.



I'm so proud of both the girls!

The kitties

We got two kitties yesterday. They are sisters. Sarah named hers 'Spots' and Sydney hers 'Princess Sparkles.' But, based on how quickly her kitty runs, she's thinking of renaming her 'Princess Speedy.'

We are having a tough time reigning the kids in so they let their kitties have some space. Sydney's kitty (the little grey one) is the runt of the litter and at one point the rescue organization wasn't sure she was going to live. She is one fast kitty!

They spent a bit of time hiding in and under furniture yesterday, but by last night they were really starting to get comfortable with the house.

In fact, last night they found their way into the bookcase with the legos.They are so very curious and alot of fun.

Lots to say. . .

I'll have to write more later because I need to tell you all about our new kitties.

BUT,

First.

I have to tell you

that on the last game of the season,

that after playing soccer for 5 years,

Sarah scored her first goal ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I even managed a picture of it (yes Melanie, I'll send it to you after it is developed.)

Then, her coach, know hard she has worked for this, had the team carry her off the field. I missed that picture.

I'm so, so very proud of her.

Waiting. . . or why I want to be a fly on the wall

At the girls school last year, they started handing out orange tickets to the kids. You were given a orange ticket when the staff or teachers catch a student doing something good, helpful, etc. These tickets are issued to the students (name written on the ticket), by a teacher (name), and signed by a parent so the parent knows what good they were doing.

These tickets are placed in a bin by grade and each week they draw one ticket per grade and the child gets a prize from the school store.

The other night at dinner, DH was speculating what would happen if the girls gave tickets to the teachers and staff. Sydney was on board immediately, Sarah took some warming to the idea. She is always concerned about breaking rules (real or perceived).

So, last night while I was teaching class, DH and the girls made purple tickets. After some discussion, it was decided the tickets would be issued to teachers (name written on ticket) and signed by the principal (after all, if the parents learn what good the students did, the principal should learn the good the teachers did). The teachers are to return the tickets to Sarah and Sydney and each week they will draw a ticket and award a pencil from our vast collection of pencils.

I want to be a fly on the wall, I can't wait to pick the girls from school and see what they did and what people thought.

Sarah was so excited she couldn't sleep! I hope the teachers had fun with my girls today.

Helping a friend

Meritt, who had a blog everyone should read (even if she is a bit conservative ;-) ), has entered a 'dream job' contest.

Housewife Barbie dream vacation video entry

Everyone should take a wander over to her blog and watch her presentation and then vote! often!

In other news, Sarah had decided that she wants to be a cheerleader for Halloween. I decided that I could make her costume rather than buy it. And Sarah gets to help. WHAT HAVE I DONE!!

School shopping Internet syle

This week, we got the letters with teacher assignments. Sydney will end up separated from many of her friends next year, but with half day kindergarten, and most of her friends requesting morning, I knew they would be. Sydney has afternoon.

Sarah didn't get her favorite third grade teacher, but all the teachers are really good and I understand that hers is no exception. She tells great stories and really challenges the kids.

Sydney's teacher is high energy, lots of fun, and keeps lots of order.

So, knowing that school is a few weeks off, it was time to start ordering "First Day of School" outfits. It's a tradition in our family that no matter how many clothes we already own, we always buy one or two news outfits (for reasons I don't understand, our school system has a afternoon only day on the first day so it almost feels like we have two first days).

So, I usually spend a couple of days roaming around the websites we typically buy clothes from finding the options, then sit down with the girls and let them shop. It's fun watching the girls taste in clothes evolve. FINALLY, Sydney is starting to chose what she likes rather than what Sarah chose. I did start having them shop with my alone than together.

Yesterday morning, Sydney chose a pair of shoes and a pair of boots that she fell in LOVE with. When I went to order them last night, I discovered that they were out of her size. I had fun trying to determine what size shoe she wears. She was asleep when I tried to check but amazingly enough I was able to put shoes on and off her feet and finally printed the shoe size sheet and put her foot on it - and she never woke up!!

I'm home

I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I have a killer headache, my house is a mess, I'm so thrilled to be home!!

I have missed sleeping with DH. After 11 years of marriage and 2 years of not always sleeping alone before that, I don't always sleep well without DH. I guess that I spent much of last night snuggled up to DH (or as he put it, pushing him out of bed).

The girls did well on our flights home - esp considering that we were flying at bedtime and landed at our home airport at midnight. I had asked my mom to check the girls room to see if I forgot anything, unfortunately, she checked the beds REALLY well, but didn't look at the hooks on the wall. Sydney's pink princess cowboy hat was left in the room. Thankfully, our layover at the airport in Minneapolis occurred such that the shops were still open, so we bought a new one. At $10, it was about the same price as mailing it back to us as to buy another one. I'll post a picture of it later this week.

My dad taught Sarah to play chess this week. She really enjoys it. I might have to see if I can find an online game for her that will play at her level. I suspect there will be one out there.

My mom worked with the girls on making some ceramic tiles. Unfortunately, they didn't dry in time, so she will have to fire them then mail them to us (I just hope she can do that before the fair next month!) I'll need to find someone here to finish the firing after we glaze them, but since I have two friends who do ceramics, I think I'll be able to.

Considering that the girls were sharing a room, not home, and were all out of their normal routine, they did really well!

They had a blast playing with their cousins, almost enjoyed playing in the bay (except for the various jellyfish stings they both received), loved kayaking (Sarah even took a boat out by herself, with an adult in the water with her),

I even managed to exercise every other day!

Back to reality. I think I'll head to bed now, as there is so much more I want to say, but I'm not completely coherent now.

Tomorrow, Sydney has a followup appointment with the ENT and on Tuesday we drive down to Marshfield to see the neurologist for Sarah. I don't think I've mentioned it much, but Sarah has some nervous tics we want to have checked out.

She's too smart for our own good

Our house is on a main highway into town, meaning our driveway is off the highway. The speed limit in front of our house is 45 mph. A while ago, probably within the past year, the girls and I were talking about kitties and that the reason we didn't have one was because I thought we needed indoor kitties with the traffic in front of the house, but that DH didn't want indoor kitties because he thought that indoor kitties were schizophrenic.

So, last night DH was asking if our friend's DD was going to get a new kitty. There kitty was killed earlier in the week. I said that I thought they were, but not for a few weeks. Sydney looked at DH and said "I think we should get an indoor kitty."

It doesn't matter how long ago I said something, Sydney files it away for later use. Note, she didn't just ask for a kitty, but the indoor one!

Last night Sarah had baseball. Wednesday night they were playing in the playoffs and after a little over an inning, a nice bolt of lightning flashed ending the game for the night. Last night we were to finish. At starting time, it was raining pretty good but since this was the playoffs, they decided we should play. Thankfully, the rain stopped just as the game began and didn't start again until the game ended. Unfortunately, almost all of the other team showed up and only 5 of our team. So, it was 5 players - 8 players for a while. As a result, we didn't have as much of the field covered. They only batted as many players as we had, but had better field coverage. Eventually, a 6th player showed for us, which helped, but the damage was already done. They had 2 innings of batting right at the grass line and without outfield players, the infield just couldn't manage to stop them.

So, for the playoffs we've pulled bad luck and will be playing this morning for last place honors!

The first game, they had the bad luck to draw the best team (purple) in the league. They will win the title today as one of the three strongest teams. The three strongest teams in the league were the purple team, the red team, and the light blue team. The light blue team played us last night in the loser bracket, and the purple and red played last night, so the "championship" game will be played by the best team and one of the other five teams. We are a pretty good team, but we still lost the first round to the purple team 23 - 6. For reasons that escape me, they didn't call the game on the mercy rule.

If I sound bitter, it's because I am. The coach of the purple team is also the board president. His team was made up of older 8 y.o. to older 7 y.o. (In this league, you have to be 7 or 8 on May 1st to play). He didn't have a single younger player. I wondered how he managed to pull a team of older players, but then I found out that he claimed 5 assistants meaning that of the 9 players on the team, he pre-selected 6 kids (his plus 5 assistants' kids). So, in the 'general' draft, he only had to select 3 kids. Many of the coaches only pre-selected their own kid because they didn't manage to find an assistant.

I'm seriously thinking about contacting the district to review our rules. There were many other things that occurred, but this is the one I can actually manage to change. I can see "freezing" two kids - coach and one assistant - but MOST of the team? Just unfair.

On the other hand, we've been able to help Sarah with playing our best even when things aren't fair.

And I actually had a camera with me

This has been a bad week. I'm tired, I'm stressed, I'm frustrated. The house is a mess and I don't have the energy to clean it. In fact, as soon as I post this I'm going to sleep.

Last night, the girls were waking a bit and at times I couldn't get back to sleep as my brain engaged. At one point I wished I could have rolled over and turned on the light like my friend Merrit does, but instead I popped on the wireless headphones and listened to Murphy Brown while I tried to stop thinking.

Tonight was Sydney's last t-ball game and Sarah's first playoff game in the loser bracket as they lost the opening game Monday (but that is a rant for a different day - I'm almost calm enough to write about it). So, I was sticking around Sarah's game tonight to see how things would go. There was a rain storm rolling in and we could hear rumbles of thunder. All of a sudden, we saw a large crack of lightning immediately followed by a LOUD crack of thunder and all kids were pulled from the field. The parents and kids stood around a bit while the coaches chatted. And then the rain came. It wasn't just rain, it was down pour as we all ran to cars. It was a short and intense rain. The girls ended up with DH because his car was closer which left me driving alone.

All of a sudden, I looked up and saw a rainbow through the rain. I pulled into a parking lot and took some pictures. Then I drove on to see if I could find a shot that didn't include the telephone wire through it. It was almost gone, but there, so I took it too. Then I kept on driving and low and behold, down along the lake was a full end to end rainbow. I couldn't fit it in either of my lenses, but it should be pretty nice.

It's regular 35 mm film because my digital doesn't take action shots so I can't see what I got until I have it developed, but I think I might have some fun pics.

Maybe it's the sign I need that my decisions earlier this week are the right ones. All I can say is that I've never had camera and rainbow occur at the same time.

The gift, the power, the reminder (oh and the kids)

The gift: The other day, I was commenting about something from work that had frustrated me. My very sweet husband reminded me that I could walk away from this job any time I wanted. I don't have to work, I can do what I want.

The power: It's nice being in a position that I can do what I want. I can just decide to teach my one course a semester, I can work only on the grant that we were just awarded, I can keep working in my current capacity. I have the power to walk away whenever I want!

The reminder: Yesterday I had my first meeting with the faculty members of the new grant. We were going to discuss the database I was setting up for them. I spent about an hour the night before looking over the proposal and setting up fields to collect all the information that was necessary. We only could manage 1/2 meeting, so I knew we needed to start with something to modify rather than from scratch.

We had a lovely meeting where we discussed things that needed to be modified, changed, or deleted. All of them were necessary changes and not just change for change sake. J commented how thrilled she was with the work I had done and how surprised she was that I came in with a solid product. She was expecting that we would talk about what was needed, not modify something that was already started.

What a interesting reminder of how it is be to treated like a professional!

The bonus (I mean the girls): Yesterday was haircut day. Sarah has wanted her hair cut short for MONTHS. We told her that we need to wait until dance show because I wasn't doing a ballet bun with short hair. Then, she was planning to try to grow it long enough to donate. She finally decided she couldn't take it anymore and low and behold she wanted it short enough that we could just eek out 9 inches which one group will accept for donation. I'll post pics after I take them.

(and the weird): When we got the stove, I had cut the box open with a razor blade, which I promptly lost. I was stripping the wax off the floor, so the kitchen was torn apart and I never found it. I finally decided that I must have dropped it into the empty box and didn't think about it until last night when DH walked into the kitchen and called to me (I was in the living room) asking if I wanted to leave the razor blade on the kitchen floor [yea, that was my plan - rolls eyes]. I didn't see it there 1/2 hour earlier! Really weird.