Dance Videos

Now they work! I had a little trouble registering the email address I used but now it's done!

Shelly inspired me to post some video clips. Here is Brenna the first time her dance class heard their tap song for the recital (they had learned some steps but not to the music.) It was a lot faster than they expected but they're doing great learning it. Watch Brenna here though - I think she was stunned! Her arms never move and she looks shell-shocked but she does pretty well.



Here's jazz class. I fear she gets her sense of rhythm from me. But again, darn good for 1st year jazz! This isn't their recital dance - just some step combinations by a few of them. Excuse the part where she dances right of the screen - Molly was distracting me! :)



Here's Molly's class doing "A You're Adorable" as a warm up:


I'll try to get some better video after they learn their recital dances better.

"My Godbrudder"

Molly's friend referred to her godmother's daughter as her "godsister." Molly was happy to hear that she has 2 "godsisters" of her own from her godfather and 2 "godbrothers" from her godmother. Here is her new"godbrother."

Meet Brody. Isn't he a doll? We'll get our mitts on him in the next 2 weeks when we head to Boston for a visit. Can't wait!

Brenna was a bit bent out of shape about "godsiblings" since neither of her godparents have children. She was more than pacified though when we told her she was lucky to have two "goddogs" and a "godcat." That more than made up for it. She's still bragging to her friends that she has "godpets"!

So Much for That!

For the past few months, my friend and I have been going once a month to Let's Dish - one of those dinner prep places that are popping up all over the place. We make 8 meals to bring home and stick in the freezer. Because the meals feed 6 people, I usually divide mine in half. That means we have 12 dinners each month that are wonderful, but a bit more adventurous than the meals I usually prepare. I love it and we've all benefitted from trying lots of new things. Plus the food is really good!

Tonight I made "Sesame apricot chicken with rice." Neither of my girls like sauce of any kind - no ketchup, no gravy, no spaghetti sauce - but they do like Chinese food so I figured they'd at least try this. Molly ate her rice and then gamely took a bite of the chicken. Slowly she chewed, swallowed it and wiped her mouth in her napkin. Then she looked up at me with those pretty blue eyes and sweetly said,

"Well, that was just about the worst piece of chicken I've ever had!"

Well okay then! I'll take that as a "no" vote on this dinner!

There was no face-making, gagging or any of the other usual accompaniments - just a matter-of-fact statement. So blunt in fact that I almost laughed (partly because I didn't REALLY make the dinner so my feeling weren't hurt per se!)

But the really funny part? I convinced her to try one more piece (We have the "one bite to taste and one bite to decide" rule on trying new things) and lo and behold she wound up eating it all! I wish she were always so cooperative!

Getting Older

I've been teasing Molly a lot lately about my not wanting her to get any older. Her standard response is always "Well I'll always love you no matter how old I am."

When her alarm went off today she was being lazy so I crawled into bed with her for a few minutes. I told her that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do this much longer since she would soon be turning 5. I asked if would she consider staying 4 forever. Today she said, "Actually. . . I'm getting bored being 4. I think I need a change." Poor kid huh? Bored to death at 4!

Oh and then she said, "But I'll never be a teenager, okay? That would be just sooooo boring!"
Now that I should have tape recorded!

She's just a funny old lady trapped in a (boring) 4 year old body!

Picnic In the Park

I survived my third year as the Auction Business Manager at the girls' school. It's tiring job in the week leading up to the event since every piece of paper from the catalog to the bid sheets to receipts comes from me but the really bad part is that I wind up missing 99% of the event since I'm holed up in the office (although I did get someone to bring me a dinner since the food was amazing!) Above is the cover I designed for the program and catalog (the real version has the school name and address on it but I didn't want to publish that online) It was really well-received which made me feel good. I think this may have been my swan song because I'd really like to actually be able to attend and enjoy myself next year. I'll still help in the planning but I want to actually be able to sit with my husband for a change. He was threatening to bring a date this year!

The girls were thrilled because we won 2 cool items for them. We got a skating basket for Brenna that we split 3 ways with 2 of her good friends. It was for 3 girls to have a special lunch followed by a skating lesson with one of the school's 7th graders who is a competitive skater. The basket also had a skating dress, necklace and some other goodies that we'll just divide up between the girls. She really wanted that (if we didn't get her teacher's offering which was a trip to the zoo but that went too high for us!) For Molly we split her teacher's offering with her best buddy's family. The teacher comes to the winner's home with cookies and milk, has a little "party" then tucks the kid into bed and reads a bedtime story. She agreed that Molly and Francesca can have a "sleepover" and she'll read for both of them. They both just adore her and are so excited that she'll be coming! It was nice that they let us split it too since the bidding gets a bit high. Even with the split I had to gulp a bit at the cost. But it's for a good cause.

Oh, and the bookcase - it went for $1,200 in the Live Auction! Needless to say, we didn't get that!! We joked that it will come back to us someday though since Harrison's parents bought it and we all have money on an eventual Molly/Harrison wedding. Instead of an engagement ring, she'll be getting a bookcase!

So it's back to life as usual tomorrow. Easter and Spring Break are coming up so some fun times are on the horizon.

Here are some quick shots of the PreK bookcase I did with Molly's class to go with the photo book as their class Auction project. It's just too darn cute! It's running hand-in-hand in the popularity contest with the amazing canvas painting of DC that Gr. 5 did. The photo below doesn't come close to doing it justice - the incredible attention to detail, the colors . . . It's hard to believe 10 & 11 yr olds did it. We'll make some good money on these Saturday night!

Still here . . .

It's been a quiet week with the kids - just school and dance and what-have-you. Today Molly came home with a big report on Patty and Timothy the Leprechauns who apparently had been leaving messages all week in the classroom and last night snuck in and did a lot of mischief! I love this age!! Brenna is off on a trip to the police station now with her scout group which is leaving me the chance to get some laundry and misc. stuff done. It's been a busy week for me with some extremely late nights working on their school auction but at the same time it's been fun. Today I was in Molly's class working on the bookcase that they are doing as their class project. It has cute stick figures of all the kids and we let them fill in the clothing and hair (with a great deal of help to keep it neat!) and then each kid wrote his/her name under the figure. It is cute, cute, CUTE if I say so myself. Their handwriting at this age is so precious and come next year in kindergarten will become so much more formalized so I'm glad we "caught" it now. I'll get some photos of it because Lord knows we'd never bid enough to win it! We've asked every child to being in his/her favorite od then will top it off with the photo book I made (well, it's still away being printed and had better be here by next week!) which is an ABC book. I'll post some pages below. It was fun, but I'm tired! More from us later . . .

Hitting the Ice

Since today was a day off from school, Brenna's scout troop had a skating party. It was Brenna's first time on skates and she was so excited! They broke into 2 groups based on experience and started with a lesson followed by a free skate time. She got all laced up and followed her friends - right into the group of experienced skaters! She more than held her own though and had a great time. There were a few tumbles - some of them quite hard - but she kept getting back up and moving on. I was honestly very impressed with her and how well she did. Now she's begging for skating lessons. Which we'll fit in between dance class . . . Irish step . . . scouts . . . homework . . . Oh my!

Dance Visitor Day

Today was Visitor Day at the girls' dance classes. It's always fun to watch them dance and get a glimpse of their recital routines. Molly's class will be doing a ballet number to a song from Charlotte's Web and Brenna will be doing a tap number to the Miss Victory song from the American Girl movie "Molly on the Homefront" and a jazz number to a song yet to be finalized. Brenna's class in particular has come a long way in their skills. The teacher is wonderful and is very disciplined in the way she teaches all of the fundamentals. Brenna's 2 numbers are really difficult so it's a good thing they have a while before the recital!

I'm trying out some new digital software so here are some photos I took in collages. I'm hoping doing my scrapbooks digitally will help me get up to date! You can still click the photos to make them bigger.

Living on the Wild Side

Molly is my animal girl. She beelines straight for the animal books when we're at the library. She wants to pat every dog we see. The leopard costume back at Halloween should be proof enough that her wild streak is more than skin deep!

Yesterday the girls and I went shopping with my mother-in-law and Molly found a skirt.
A corduroy skirt.
A corduroy leopard-print skirt at that.
Simply put, she wasn't leaving without it. It was a size 4 which means she'd wear it once and that would be the end of it. But at a mere $.99 (gotta love those clearanc racks!) I agreed because any mom knows that buying a kid's happiness for under buck is great deal no matter what they want!

Today she was going to a friend's horse themed birthday party. Last week I convinced her she should wear her cowboy boots and denim skirt. That was fine until the leopard skirt entered the picture. Today there were no ifs ands or buts, she was wearing "her animal skirt." We conveniently found a scrunchie that was white, black and leopard print (I told you we had loads of hair things - this we got for a safari party that Brenna went to last year) Here's my little hoodsie all dressed after the party . . .



Actually I think she looks quite cute.

Which is a good thing because I think she plans to wear this skirt almost constantly until it will no longer fit her bony little hips!

Oldies but Goodies

It's raining and miserable so these 4 pictures are scrolling across my screen to remind me of summer. (click to see them bigger - I love the water drops on Molly and the freckles on Brenna!)


. . . which reminds me to send in our pool membership. It wouldn't be summer without that! Plus it saves me from having to send them to gazillions of camps. They will both do Vacation Bible School this year and Brenna may do a Girl Scout Camp if she gets a spot, but mostly we just hang out and relax. Ahhh - only 3 months 1 week and 1 day until summer vacation says my counter!

Cutie

Molly does a warmup dance each week at her dance class to the song "A You're Adorable." She loves the song and I hear her humming it all the time. Just the other day she decided to sing the words and I realized that she doesn't quite know all of them. She sings "A you're adorable, B you're so cute-able . . . "

It's just another one of those things that I can't bear to correct her on because well, it's so cute-able!

(This picture was taken last week at a school basketball game. She insisted on wearing Brenna's gym pants with the school initials and this basketball shirt that still swims on Brenna! She looked disheveled but at least was sporting some school spirit!)

Lesson: Don't make plans!

Things are busy around here so I tend to live by my calendar these days. Losing nearly a whole week to snowdays means my errands are all backed up. I turned down coffee with an old friend for yesterday morning because I really needed to get the van's oil changed and the dealership is in the next town. I still can't understand why my girlfriend didn't want to bring coffee and sit with me there . . . :) I had some running around to do after that but Molly was going home with a friend so I had until 3pm instead of the usual 1pm. Well Miss Molly woke up feeling cranky and feverish. Back to bed with her, playdate cancelled with tears from both kids and my calendar rescheduled. Molly was lethargic all day and just wanted company so not only did I not get the oil changed but the laundry and housekeeping didn't happen either and I wound up watching a lot of Disney Channel with Miss Cranky Pants. Then I went ahead and cancelled our playdate for today with the neighbors because I didn't want Molly around their babies since I didn't know what she was dealing with.

Today I had scheduled a morning meeting for the school auction with several folks helping me with various things. Molly woke up feeling great but Brenna was down for the count! So I called school and told them to reverse my message from yesterday of "Molly absent, Brenna coming in" to "Brenna absent, Molly coming in" and called to cancel my meeting. A shot of Motrin and some juice and by 9am Brenna's "headache was gone" and she was begging to go in after all. Since I believed her it was a headache I agreed. Minutes before we walked out the door the phone rang. Molly's teacher. "She's covered in hives and scratching like crazy." (Not the "bees" again - she's been fine for a week!) Off we go to school. Brenna goes to class with the promise she'll call if she feels bad later on. Molly looks fine despite the hives so I dose her with Benedryl and send her back to class. Her teacher poked her head out and I said "Scratching doesn't merit dismissal in my book - I drugged her and she's coming back to you!" She knows I'm a bad mom so she just laughed. Given the state of things (and that I had to be back there at 11:30 since it was my scheduled day to help with lunch and I luckily hadn't switched yet - I was about to make calls when Brenna announced she was better), I decided to stay at school (there's a big rummage sale there on Sat. so I just went and helped with the sorting) and make sure everything was okay.

All's well that ends well and both girls seem better. I'm butt tired but that's to be expected. Now I have a meeting to reschedule, laundry not done and I still haven't gotten the oil changed. It's times like this that I'm so grateful not to be a "working" mom though.

I need to go eat a box of Girl Scout cookies.

School Day

Since it never dropped below freezing last night, the roads looked decent and we escaped with a 2 hour delay today.

I like 2 hour delays. That means the girls don't go until 10 am. So today everyone slept in until 8:30 which was needed after a weekend of later-than-usual bedtimes. I made chocolate chip pancakes instead of the usual cereal or toast. Both girls got fancy double french braids instead of a quick brush and a bow. They even got to watch a bit of some cartoon before heading out the door.

And I didn't have any meeting or anything beyond a quick grocery run so I spent the day tidying the house and packing up some stuff for the school's rummage sale. Molly even carpooled to dance class so I was free until 2:50pm.

Great day all around.

(Mollyism of the day: She was singing a sweet lullaby-type song that she learned today. When I told her it sounded nice she said "Of course - Am I the most precious singer you've ever heard or what?" She's precious all right! She uses the funniest words - not what you'd imagine a 4 year old would come up with!)

Here We Go Again!

We were forecast to get some freezing rain today with areas

north of the city getting up to an inch of snow.

The sleet started at 9:15am.

Ummm . . . here are the girls and our neighbor at 1pm.

That's a bit more than freezing rain! About 6" more actually. Needless to say the girls were thrilled even if it meant that Brenna had to miss a scout event today that she was looking forward to. She loves the snow so this was a fair enough trade for her!


It was good heavy snow - perfect for playing and building. The kids set out to make the world's biggest snowball and came pretty close. This is about halfway . . .

They (with some help from the photographer!) eventually got it as high as Brenna's nose before it got too heavy to roll.

We finished the day with a birthday party for their friend who luckily lives right down the street so the show went on despite the weather. So now we wait to see what the decision will be for school tomorrow. The road crews got a late start clearing things so the kids may have a day off potentially or a 2 hr. delay at least. I'm hoping for just the delay though so their dance classes aren't cancelled too. The teacher promised photos of Molly's class' costume and I really want to see it!

Getting back in the groove . . .

the girls are back to school and we're getting back into action again. It's this time of year when I realize that I've really overextended myself though. Brenna has 4 field trips with scouts in March so that's a lot of hassle dragging Molly around or trying to do carpools. I've tried to back-burner all of my scout duties for a while because now I'm in auction mode for the girls' school. I do most of the business end of things for this huge fundraiser which is on March 24. Even Dean knows that I'll be stuck to my computer between now and then! I enjoy it though and it's a way to dust of some skills that I sometimes feel don't get used since I'm "only" a stay-at-home mom. The other big thing on my plate is a photo book that I'm doing as part of Molly's class' auction project. I know I never signed up to be on the Class Project team since I know full well how busy I am during auction season but the room mom swears my name is on her list! Anyway, we're doing a bookcase with little pictures and signatures of all the kids and having each child donate and inscribe a favorite book to add a starter collection to the shelf. The big book though will be a hardbound photo book called "The ABCs of PreK" which I'm doing with my digital software. I have a page for each letter with photos specific to the kids, classroom and school for each letter. It's been fun to stage all the photos and it will really be a nice memory book. For exaple the receptionist keeps a drawer of lollipops for little ones who come in with their moms. Since 98% of Molly's class are siblings of older students, they all made countless trips to Mrs. Kelly for a pop to keep them quiet while the mom filled out forms, volunteered, etc. So instead of just putting in a clip art "L is for lollipop" I took a photo of her holding some - much more personal! I got a great picture today of Molly and a friend with their hands on their knees for K. The cute part is they were both wearing skirts, ankle boots and funky tights so it's a colorful shot. It's been a fun project but I have a list of 2 dozen photos I still need to stage and I hate busting into the classroom to do it. I want to make sure I get all of the kids represented in an equal number of photos though. Remind me again why I take all of this on? Oh yeah, because I love my kids and I love having this time with them to be able to do it! Even if they won't remember any of it when they're older. I'll just remind them!

Oh yeah, the kids! All is well and they are doing great. Molly is happy to be back at school with her friends. Brenna is happy they didn't have a spelling test "even though the spelling state for the week is Utah and that's a whole lot easier than Massachusetts!" She will be celebrating Thinking Day on Friday with her scout group. That's a day that scouts worldwide study international things and reflect on scouting worldwide. She's especially excited because our troop chose Germany and Canada to study and her cousin Emma sent a package with goodies from her Sparks Girl Guide troop that Brenna gets to give out. It's been a great activity - even if I've spent 2 weeks trying to get 30 Canadian dollar coins only to find no bank, credit union or currency exchange can get coins. Argghhh! I draw the line at calling the Consulate!

So that's the long-winded version!

Sign on the dotted line . . .

Molly has been learning all of her lower case letters in school so her latest hobby is writing her full name on any slip of paper she can get her hands on. She grabs every one of those little subscription insert cards in magazines and fills them out. Today she was even kind enough to fill out the envelope for the Archbishop's Appeal at church - conveniently checking off a $25,000 donation! - good thing I intercepted that!

Earlier today she was filling out some credit card applications that came in the mail when she started making rows of numbers. I was quizzing her to make sure she could properly write every number when she said, "Watch this - I can do something cool!" She started making a capital S and drew two lines through it. "See Mom, this is the way I make cash!"

I have no idea where she learned it but it could be a good thing. She's going to need that cash when her subscriptions, donations, book-of-the-month clubs and credit cards all start coming!

If God wanted to punish me . . .

He really didn't need to do it by sending the kids 3.5 consecutive snow days! Oh yeah, you heard right - no school AGAIN tomorrow! Because the county hasn't been able to effectively plow away 2 inches of snow (well, and maybe there's some ice too but it's not that bad!) New Englanders like me were not meant to move to the Mid-Atlantic. We just have no patience for this.

(please note the depth of the snow!)

Our schools operate on a county-run system. Our county is long and ranges from higher elevations way outside the city right up to the DC line. If a flake falls out there in the boonies, we're all affected. It's especially hard for us when 95% of our school kids live within 2 miles of the school and our roads are clear.

So then imagine my surprise when I opened my datebook to reschedule yet another day and realized that Monday is ANOTHER DAY OFF! Who created these holidays? Arghhh! So when the kids go back on Tuesday (and so help me God they WILL go back!!!) they will have had 4 hrs. of school in the previous week. They're also at their snow day limit now so anything more starts cutting into summer vacation.

So now I'm trying to come up with a plan for tomorrow. Today we loafed around and went to freinds' to play for a while. Maybe we'll do some hard-core sledding on the big hills behind a nearby school - since Lord knows we won't be DISTURBING anyone!!! Right now the girls are thinking they're cool by having "a sleep-over" on the pullout sofa in the downstairs family room.

Honestly though I really don't mind these days. They are playing nicely together and we're all enjoying the downtime. And the best part - everyone gets to sleep in!

Be My Valentine

Despite not really feeling like Valentine's Day since the girls didn't pass out cards or have parties at school yet, Daddy did surprise us with flowers. I fussed over them a bit telling the girls what each flower was. Suddenly Molly threw herself at Dean and said "Thank you Daddy, these flowers just made my day!"

No doubt that her comment was what made HIS day!

Snow Day . . . and another . . . and another . . .

We knew it was going to come eventually and sure enough, here's winter! School closed early on Tuesday as a storm moved in and stayed closed today as the snow and ice continued coming overnight. We really didn't get a lot of snow but it is frozen solid and the plows were having a hard time getting things done. Now everything has iced up enough that they've already called off school for tomorrow. It's getting really windy and many streets still aren't plowed so it's the right decision.

So needless to say I have 2 happy gals! They don't realize that Valentine's festivities are on hold although Molly is well aware that she'll be missing her "girl of the day" honor tomorrow (but I'm happy not to have to be making 2 dozen cookies to send in for snack!)
They were out sledding most of the late morning/early afternoon and then I took them with me while I did some work on the school auction. Conveniently I was meeting at a house where one of Brenna's classmates and her kindergarten age sister live so the girls all got a big playdate out of it.

Then only downside is that they were scheduled for a half day on Friday and Brenna was supposed to be going skating with the Girl Scouts in the afternoon. Because of the snow days the school will now be having a full day on Friday so skating is a bust and I'm not sure how they can reschedule it. Oh well - small price to pay for the extra day of sledding she's getting tomorrow!