Complete 180 Turn

After having a snow day on Monday and a delayed opening due to ice the following day, the weather took a turn. Temperatures started climbing and we were in the 70's Friday and Saturday and then 78 today! So while the snow pants and gloves we're still being washed and dried, we were instead pulling out short sleeved shirts and capri pants. Welcome to the mid-Atlantic where spring comes and goes a few times before settling in for good.


Things are busy as we gear up for some busy days. Brenna has a few Irish dance commitments coming up - par for the course around St. Patrick's day I guess. She's busy with school work and listening to her mother gripe at her. :) Molly's ready to start baseball practices and patiently waiting to see what team she'll be on this year. She started a science class afterschool on Wednesdays that she really likes. I have to say I signed her up purely for my own sanity. I'm chairing their school's Gala and Auction this year and am quickly realizing the amount of work I have to do in a very short time. Since Brenna has choir on Weds. that means they're both occupied for an hour and I'm officially off the clock at work. I can squeeze in some Auction time in hopes of heading off some of the late nights that usually come with this turf. And I'm going on record as saying I'm officially retiring after this year. I love the work - getting to use some long dried up skills and talents - but it's definitely too much now that I'm working every day.

More Snow!

We got our biggest snow of the year in March when we are usually seeing temperatures rising and crocuses popping. The girls enjoyed a day off school today playing in the snow and just loafing around the house.

But shhh . . . I'm not telling them that I already know there's a 2 hour delay tomorrow morning! They can just head up to bed and read for a bit longer than usual. :)

Alms! Alms for the Poor!

Molly came down to my office after school on Monday. When she walked across the room I noticed the back of her tights had a hole near the heel. A big hole. Several actually. And they were in such an odd location on her leg that I couldn't imagine what had happened - especially since the tights were brand new that morning.


Then I remembered she had gone on a field trip that morning. I was praying that she hadn't looked that bad at the theater!



I asked what happened and sighed relief when she said these holes "just sort of happened" but that it was after lunch. Phew!


But then she added that the holes in the front started earlier. I was sitting at my desk and from my angle I couldn't see her from the waist down. Good thing because when I finally did, this was what I saw . . .



Holy cow!!!! The teachers are probably secretly taking up a collection to help me adequately clothe my children!


Especially since the following day we had a hectic morning getting out of the house. It wasn't until the end of the day when I saw the girls standing side by side. It was painfully obvious that they had somehow swapped jumpers. Brenna was sporting a hemline that probably had the nuns shaking their heads in shame while Miss Molly looked like she was wearing a plaid Hefty bag that dropped past her knees!


So there you have my total ragamuffins. Donations being accepted.

Where's my head these days?

In the past 48 hours I've really dropped the ball on several "bloggable" events.

On Friday my Junior Girl Scouts (Brenna's group) presented a fabulous project. Every Feb. scouts worldwide celebrate a multicultural event but I just didn't have it in me to plan something. So I told the 4th graders they had to do the whole thing. All I said was each girl needed to prepare a "station" for 30 younger scouts who would travel through their "fair" and that their station should teach 3 facts about a country and have some type of activity for the little girls to do. We had no other meetings and I sent out a reminder email once. At 2:50pm Friday I still had no idea what the girls were doing, if anything. None of them had been in touch with me (although I knew from Brenna that they had been talking amongst themselves) and I really just left it all in their hands. Frankly I was just hoping we could pull off something reasonably interesting. Well all 12 of my darlings had prepared amazing posterboard displays, 6 had brought food samples, all had activities. It was AWESOME! The little girls did a Greek dance, learned Japanese words, had Norwegian food, did Aboriginal tribal art on a cardboard boomerang, dressed in Indian saris, learned a hoop game from Egypt, colored on American frontier bandanas and a bunch of other things. At each station they had their passports stamped and took home worksheets. All completely pulled off by the 4th graders. I was so impressed with their initiative and creativity. But I forgot to bring my camera. Bummer.

Saturday I was taking Brenna to a special scout event at the International Spy Museum. Neither of us had been to this museum before so we were looking forward to it. She's really big into spy stuff these days so she was especially excited. I remembered my camera this time. But no photography is allowed in the museum. Bummer.

We raced home from that and Bren quickly changed into her Irish dance costume for a performance. She can be so timid at times that when she does express an interest in performing, I like to make it happen for her. So after a quick change and hairdo, we raced out the door. And I forgot my bag with the camera. Bummer.

Then today her Children's Choir sang at Mass with the Adult Choir. The Children's Choir sings to a piano and from the floor just to the side of the altar. Today they sang from the choir loft with the organ and they were amazing! It was such a neat opportunity for them to be a bit more professional (our adult choir is very classical and formal) And finally I remembered my camera! But the batteries died when I was trying to make room on the memory card. Bummer.

I think I need to make more room on the memory card in my brain! :) Oh well, all in all it was a good busy weekend even if I don't have any pictures to show for it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Brenna wasn't in the mood for posing, but

she wishes everyone a Happy Hearts Day too!

100 Days

In our school, grades 1 and 2 celebrate the 100th day of school together. They parade through the building singing special songs while all of the other classes and teachers line the hallways and cheer for them. After the parade, they go to the school hall together and have a bunch of activities at various stations. It's always a fun day!

Spring?

It was almost 70 degrees in DC today so we headed outside!

Dean had to go downtown for a bit so the girls and I found a great parking space right at the Capitol (see D and Brenna walking back to our van?) and decided to hit a museum while we waited for him. Of all the choices, I was surprised they wanted to do the National Gallery of Art. We breezed through and they seemed to really enjoy it. Molly claimed her favorite was some random dog sculpture we saw and Brenna opted for one of the Degas "Little Ballerina" sculptures.

We stopped at the gift shop and looked at a big display of posters. I was surprised that Brenna recognized so many of the artists by sight - clearly the Meet the Masters program at school has been a huge success! We didn't stay long, but it was a reminder that we really need to carve out more time to enjoy the city during our free weekends.

Scout Sunday

Today we had our parish's Scout Sunday Mass. Both girls had parts - Brenna

as a flag bearer in the Color Guard and Molly did a reading.

It's always so nice to see all of the Boy and Girl Scouts (well over 100 of them) in their various uniforms all together. Even the altar servers served in scout uniforms. Scouting has been a nice activity that the girls enjoy and I'm happy to see them doing all of the neat activities.

This has got to be sacreligious . . .

The girls hauled out all of Molly's Littlest Pet Shop pets and were playing all weekend. After a while I noticed this setup and heard them singing.

Yup. It's church. Complete with monkeys for the priest and deacon (I can't wait to tell our priests that one!), hamster and cat altar servers, a cat in the choir and a sheep as a lector. I especially like the dog in the front row who wore a purple top hat to Mass!

I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to find this funny or not but I just cracked up at the careful attention to detail!

Sneak Peek

Molly came home with her recital costume this week. It's early but since they came in the teacher decided to send them right home. Molly loves it and so do I! (I think the boot covers are hilarious!)

Molly's been dancing with this teacher for 4 years now and she seems to have a spot spot for my little darling. Candi said for some reason she's always wanted to put Molly in a cowgirl costume but was waiting for the right year. Since the class started jazz this year, it seemed a good fit.

So for tap she'll be doing "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" from Annie Get Your Gun. Jazz will be "Oklahoma."

It's going to be a fun show!

I'll post Brenna's costume and numbers when they come in.

Snow Day #2

Everything from yesterday . . .

Just ditto it for today!

(and evidently they like posing in this hat!)

Snow Day

Any bit of snow in the DC area means a sure-fire day off school! We spent the day hanging out at home both inside and out!

The girls are real snowbunnies and would have been outside at dawn's first light had I let them. Luckily I encouraged them to sleep in a bit longer because we all needed the extra rest. It's icy and sleeting now so we may get at least a 2 hour delay tomorrow. Stay tuned . . .

Last Call for Cookies

Anyone else for Girl Scout cookies? $3.50 per box

Buy some for yourself or to donate - Brenna's troop will be donating to the Children's Inn at NIH (which is like a Ronald McDonald House for kids being treated at the National Institutes of Health) and Molly's troop will be donating to troops overseas.

Lemon Chalet Cremes
Trefoils
Do-Si-dos
Samoas
Dulce De Leche
Chocolate Chip
Tagalongs

Sending the order in on Sunday night!

We Stayed Home

We never intended to go downtown today and boy am I glad! It was too cold, too many people, too much headache. So we stayed home in our pjs, drank hot tea and watched the whole thing on tv. Brenna was full of questions that I was happy to answer from the comfort of my couch rather than standing in 18 degree weather for 7 hours.

The quote of the day came from Brenna just before the oath of office. She sees the Chief Justice and blurts, "Hey, that's the guy from donuts! Why is he there doing that?"

You see, John Roberts and his family attend our church and he's always in the thick of things helping with Sunday morning coffee and donuts after the children's mass. To her (and to many of us as we often see him in the grocery store, at our girls' Irish dance classes, etc.) he's an ordinary dad and she was stunned to see him on the podium. I had to explain that his "day job" is important enough that he gets a spot on the stage. Chief Justice or Donut Man?

I think she still appreciates him more for the donuts though.

Special Guest

We had a special visitor at school today. The First Lady, Laura Bush, came to visit our classes as part of our Blue Ribbon celebration year. This is the last school visit she'll make as First Lady and she was wonderful. She's just as warm and gracious as she seems. The books on the cart are from her personal collection and she inscribed each of them for our school library.

looking at a picture of the Children's Choir from their trip to the White House a few weeks ago

some of the teachers

Molly is on the floor on the left side

Grades K-2 singing for Mrs. Bush

Our Principal and Archbishop (oh yeah! he came too!)

Security was amazing and the kids really enjoyed watching the Secret Service sweep the school yesterday and today - especially when they brought in the dogs! I was able to get a special security tag to be allowed to take photos (our custodian had a tag too to be allowed to access places in the building. He and I had fun teasing the rest of the faculty about our super-secret positions!)

Mrs. Bush first addressed Grades 8 in the School Hall (my pictures from that are still at school) and then went up to the Music Room where the little ones sang to her. She was so wonderful with them and was the one who suggested a group photo with the teachers and kids.

It was a wonderful experience that I sure hope they'll remember.

What an opportunity for our school!

In the past 24 hours I have heard the following from Molly:



M: "Tomorrow we are going to learn about compound words."

Me: What words? (She didn't exactly articulate it clearly and it sounded like "compow")

M: You know - compou(nd) - just like compou (kung pao) chicken!"


And then:
M: "Grandpa said he worked for 6 presidents. George Bush, Bill Clinton, Reagan, ummmm. I don't remember the rest. He didn't name Abraham Lincoln though . . . "
(My poor father-in-law! We had no idea his Secret Service career was so lengthy that he protected Lincoln!)

And finally:

M: "I sang for my music teacher today."

Me: "What did you sing?"

M: "Beyonce. You know - the song that goes "All the single ladies! All the single ladies! If you like it than you should've put a ring on it! oh oh oh oh oh oh!"

Great.
Molly's music teacher no doubt loved it.
Especially since she's a nun.
I'll have to face her tomorrow so I'd better have a good story to explain this!

Science Project

Oh and I'm supposed to tell you all that the reason one chipmunk has a big head is to illustrate the fun fact that a chipmunk can stuff 4 acorns in each cheek. :) So there you have it!

(Finally getting around to posting this)

Brenna recently had a science project to do. Each student had to choose a vertebrate and write a report as well as make a model of it. It was due the Monday after Thanksgiving so she scrambled to get it done before we headed to Boston (although she was secretly hoping 2 of her Boston cousins who are special effects masters would volunteer to make the model for her!)

Here are Chippy and Chipito, as she named them.

We found this sawdust like material which when moistened makes a material somewhere between paper mache and clay. She used photos from a Ranger Rick magazine and scultuped these little darlings on a Sunday. By Tuesday they still weren't dry but we were leaving for Boston so I made her paint them anyway (and then spent the holiday worried we were going to come home to a moldy mess of a model that was due the next morning!) Alas my worries were for nothing and the 2 models she made actually wound up being very popular on display in the hallway.

She didn't bring them home though. Her teacher asked if she could keep them to add to her permanent classroom display!

Hockey

Dean and I both really like hockey. We were regulars in "Rally Row" of the student section during our BC days (they had really good teams those years) Sadly it's not nearly as popular here in the mid-Atlantic as it is in the northern part of the country. Still, Washington has a great team (really great this year!) so when we were offered tickets to last night's Capital's game, we scooped them up. The girls were very excited to finally see a "real" game. I hadn't realized that we haven't exactly prepared them for the reality of live hockey. As we were leaving Molly asked if we were going to stop at the grocery store. When I asked why she commented that she wanted to buy some roses. Huh? "To throw on the ice at the end of the game. I saw on tv that people do that!" Oh Lordy.

We had to have a long talk about hockey vs. figure skating to convince her that the Caps would not be very interested in picking up her roses.

It sort of reminded me of the day they watched the Superbowl.

Poor Dean. Living with girly girls has it's drawbacks. On the upside, they both really enjoyed the game. And what a game it was! Lots of good skating, 11 goals, a few fights (one really bad injury though) and a penalty shot. Basically a bit of everything you can see in a hockey game. They're both very excited to see another game now.

Let's go Caps!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Well, we ushered in 2009 happy and cozy - but that almost wasn't the case. Just after 9AM the wind started howling and we lost power. When we heard fire trucks we knew it had to be a doozy. Sure enough, a huge tree had fallen just 3 houses down from us. It was enormous, having taken down all of the power lines and poles near it and completely blocked the street. One of the neighbors had the bad luck to be parked the wrong place as well.


Just after the fire trucks left, another tree came down at the opposite end of the street basically blocking us in. A quick-thinking neighbor chainsawed some branches on that one to open a lane so at least we had a way out. That was especially helpful since the estimate was that power wouldn't be restored until 9AM - on Saturday. WHAT?! I grabbed the girls and headed out to find some errands to run instead of sitting in a cold dark house. On our way out we say a 3rd tree around the corner that had come down across a neighbor's front yard. With the entire back of our yard being thickly wooded, we were really lucky not to have any damage ourselves.

Luckily we have a great power company (okay, maybe it was just a group of guys wanting some serious overtime pay!) and after seeing six of these rigs working at one time on our little stretch of street, we were happy to have the lights and heat back on around 11PM.

Bummer about the car though. So much for their new year. At least no one had damage to their house and there were no injuries. This is what was left today after the tree removal company did some chopping and hauling. These are just the outer limbs that landed in the neighboring driveway!