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!

Yesterday we had Syd's birthday party. One little girl commented several times that "it was the best party ever." While everyone arrived, they just played and my friends helped me finish getting everything together.

Then, once everyone arrived, it was time to decorate the fleece pillows I made. One little girl decided the pillow was so nice, she didn't want to add anything to it.



Then, as the girls finished their pillows, we painted nails, had a snack, opened presents, and then it was time for the cake. I was pretty impressed with how well the cake turned out. I've never tried some of these frosting techniques. The base coat didn't quite come out the way I wanted, and so the rest wasn't quite as pictured - but it tasted great.



Most importantly, Sydney thought her party was a success!

Up late/Up early

Today is Sydney's "Fancy Nancy" Soiree.(I'll leave it to you to google her name if you don't know her. And, if you have little girls, you MUST buy her books. We are having an 'at-home' party. The girls are all coming in their fancy clothes. (I just hope I have enough time to get dressed myself.

I decided to go to bed early and get up early in the AM to clean the house. Needless to say, that just as I was trying to fall asleep, Sydney woke up crying because her ear hurt. I gave her motrin and a decongestant to clear out the pressure and sat with her while I waited for the meds to take effect. She whimpered and told me how much it hurt. I kept counting the minutes until the meds would take effect. She fell asleep 21 minutes after she took the Motrin.

She lost her 2nd tooth at school yesterday. Good thing the Tooth Fairy remembered to come.

So, I got up early today and I'm working on drinking some coffee and having yogurt before I start the intensive cleaning of the house so I can get the food ready and set up the play centers.

I'm so excited for the party. The cake is decorated - not bad for a first attempt with some of the cake decorating techniques. I've also made 11 crown shaped pillows out of purple fleece. I've written each girls name on the pillow with fabric paint. Later today, each girl will decorate the pillow with ribbons and buttons.

We are also going to paint their nails and have a dress up area. A bit of the time will be spent just playing whatever they want.

I will post pictures later.

But, it's time to get cleaning!

And now it's her turn!

Silly (aka, my youngest child), lost her tooth today. She was so hoping it would be on the 1st! She's so excited to get her first dollar and her tooth is already in her pillow.

(picture removed)

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!

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. . .

Sydney came running into the kitchen today and announced that she has her first loose tooth. We expect that her teachers present to the kindy class (she made or had made tooth fairy pillows for both her classes!)

Sydney is beyond excited!

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!

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.

Delayed update

Oh, I forgot to update on Sydney.

On Friday we saw the doctor. He first cut off the cast. Sydney immediately started to move her arm. The doc told her to wait until she had the xray before she moved it too much, so Sydney plastered her arm across her chest like she was saying the Pledge of Allegiance. The xray was finished and read and the new bone was proclaimed ready enough to be without a cast.

Yesterday, I got a bug up my butt that I was going to get the kitchen clean - I mean really clean it. Cabinets got emptied out, drawers cleaned out and re-arranged (I moved the cooking utensils to the chefs table so they were between the counter and stove - I've been tired of walking around the chef table to get things I needed for the stove). I've not finished the job, but it's really looking nice.

Unfortunately, I think we will have to go to the vet tomorrow. Sparkles had a paw stepped on by accident yesterday. She's not walking on it yet. We'll see how she is doing tomorrow.

And, I'm thanking the producers of the TinkerBell movie for making a movie that isn't so obnoxious that I can't stand watching it after the 10th viewing. With Sydney still down, she has been watching a lot of it, which means so do I. LOL.

I managed to recover one of our dining room chairs yesterday. Only three more to go! And, I have to finish grading nine more papers (more like eight and a half because I read one as a draft and so I just need to grade the components).

Last night, we went to a sock hop to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our preschool. They had a contest to see who could hulahoop the longest. Sydney came in second in her age group. Sarah came in first - which was even more impressive because they competed in two groups and she won the first group and had to repeat her performance for the second group. She was really proud of herself.

Off to start my list for the day!

Hopefully one down!

Today, at 3:15 EST, Sydney has an appointment to check her right arm to see if its ready to have her cast come off today.

Wish us luck!

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.

Mad Men

Tonight, in class, I gave a short lecture/introduction on Corporate Culture. I related this back to organizational culture.

I've never found a great way to have the students apply the terminology to the topic - until this summer. I was at my mom's house hanging out with her after I put the girls to bed. She was watching something on "On Demand." It turns out it was the first episode of "Mad Men," a show on AMC. It was perfect. A 1960's Madison Avenue Advertising agency. Talk about a great corporate culture. Everything was shown - some of it in ways that don't exist in today's corporate environment.

Originally, I was going to turn the show off early and let us talk about it tonight, but I knew there were really good things to come that would make the discussion better.

Unfortunately, I'm a class period behind and we are watching this on Thurs and we don't meet again until Tuesday.

The best part is that one of the students asked me about when the show is on regularly.

It looks like my lesson plan for next week will have to shift some as I need to find a good way to use the assignment they turned in to me and they need HELP.

Tomorrow, we have to go back in to have Sydney's arm reset. The bones shifted and we can't leave them the way they are. I feel so bad for the kid. I also need to finish sewing Sarah's Halloween costume and get ready for the scrap-booking overnight. I may finish part of the skirt tonight, and the rest tomorrow afternoon. I'm just so very tired. I may just go home, go to bed, and get up early tomorrow.

Sydney update - edited

Sydney is getting along ok. We are working on figuring out the eating thing, the bathroom thing, and the sleeping thing.

I've bought some clothes that zip up the front so we can easily get them on her. I just need to work on cutting the sleeves off so we can get them on her.

I'm going to call the OT on Monday to see if I can figure out some adaptive silverware that we can use for meals. If anyone has suggestions - I'm open to them.

Thanks for all the thoughts. I'm still feeling a bit guilty that I didn't say "maybe we should x-ray both" originally. I thought it several times but never said anything.

She's occasionally going through the "I hate my casts" thing, but generally pretty well natured.




ETA: Sydney is pictured with her new Tinkerbell slippers. I told her the night before her second arm was cast that I was going to get her new slippers. She was going to have her IV in her foot and I didn't think she'd want shoes. I asked if she remembered the once she saw at the store. She told me they were blue, fuzzy, had no back, and Tinkerbell on them.

I looked at Walmart first and found slippers just as she described except with this bunny character on them and in adult sizes. So, I went to try the other store in town. I spent the drive praying that the slippers were there and more importantly that the store was still open as I couldn't remember if it was open until 9:00 or 10:00. I almost broke into tears when I found the slippers that were almost perfect at the store (that was still open) and I bought them. She admitted they weren't exactly what she saw, but loved them anyway.

By goodness if she was going through this twice, she was going to have something to make herself feel good.

next verse same as the first

Today we took Sydney in for her one week followup after her broken arm last Thurs. Last night, it became VERY obvious that she needed her right arm xrayed as well as checking her left to see how it was healing.

OK, Doc comes back in after the xray, comments about how with it being broken it should have REALLY hurt, not just hurt a little. Merit, I thought of your kids with this one. In fact, in the back of my mind I was thinking - humm, Merit said that if her kids are complaining that it still hurts after a week it's probably broke.

Tomorrow we go back to the hospital to set and cast the right arm.

He's hoping that he will be able to put a fiberglass (note pink) cast from the elbow down rather than the full arm immobilized one on the left arm.

I think he felt bad that he missed it last week (he glanced at the arm but it didn't appear broken.

DH walked up to me tonight and told me that he would tell me that I wasn't a bad mom for not noticing this if I would tell him that he wasn't a bad dad. He also told me that when I mentioned last night that I thought it was broken (Sydney fell on it last night), that he suspected then it was broken but didn't see any reason to take her into the ER last night when we were seeing the ortho today.

He did splint it so it wouldn't further displace before tomorrow's surgery.

I am so not looking forward to trying to find a way to manage a child with two casts. Dr. Danielle - any advice from your end of the hospital?

I also told DH (and he agreed) that I will re-arrange my work hours so Sydney and I are home in the morning and she will only go in for kindergarten, not daycare. This way she won't exhaust herself at school. She is going to be super bored without her friends.

I'm off to walmart to buy some button down shirts and leggins and some new slippers (her others are getting small) for the hospital tomorrow. The doc already was looking at her foot to put the IV in tomorrow morning. I'm going to bet she's like slippers better than shoes tomorrow. I wonder if I can find jammies that will also work with two casts.

Poor thing just cried when I told her that she was going to need not only one cast but two. She was already tired of the first one.

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.

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.

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.