Penguins - Take 2

Molly's class is knee deep in a unit on penguins. She's become a mini-expert on things like brood hoods, rookeries, creches, and all species of these little black and white creatures! Today they were having a penguin party to celebrate their class' adoption of a real penguin. (Of course the near hysteria that news brought on was completely dashed when they discovered that their new pet would not be coming to live in the classroom! Mind you the poor thing is about to be named Barbie, Hannah Montana or R2D2 so perhaps the little thing wouldn't exactly enjoy it's time with these darling 5 year olds anyway!) Anyway, I was drafted to make penguin cupcakes that we made last year for Molly's birthday. So after a quick trip to the grocery store, I made the girls my kitchen helpers and we whipped up the perfect treat for the Kindergarten darlings . . .

The Golden Pen

Only Brenna can make anything a milestone! At her school the 3rd graders can start using pen for their school work this semester but only after the teacher personally gives them the okay. Her teacher decided to make it and earned privilege and will award 5 pens per week to students who prove themselves worthy by doing neat work. I don't know how my eraser queen did it but she managed to snag one of the coveted pens ery first week and is now on cloud nine.

She's also been asking if earning her pen merits a dinner at McDonald's as a reward. At this rate she'll want a car if she makes Honor Roll next year!

Open House

It's Catholic Schools Week and we are running around crazy at school with special activities and such every day throughout the week. Today was Open House and I was able to pop my head in quickly to see the girls. Conventiently though I was tasked with taking some candid photos so I snapped a few of my own kids in their classrooms. Too bad they didn't come out so hot - neither wanted to be photographed! I just like having a few pictures that show them in normal evryday activity at least.

Grave Injustice

Today was costume ordering day at dance class. The dance teacher was showing all of the parents the music they'll be dancing to and the costumes she's chosen for the recital theme "Seasons".

Both girls have cute costumes - Molly's will be a pretty blue with white fur at the neckline, wristbands and headpiece. (That costume also came in red and even though all the adults wanted red, the girls picked blue and who's about to argue with 16 5-year-olds!!) She'll be dancing to Winter Wonderland for ballet and Jingle Bells for tap. Jingle Bells has a Rockette-like kickline that they'll be doing that will either be totally adorable if they pull it off or hysterically funny if they don't!

Brenna's costume will be deep pink and looks like a sort of old fashioned bathing suit and/or a funky swing top and bike shorts depending on how you look at it. That works well because she's dancing tap to "We've Got the Party" by Hannah Montana and "Fabulous" from High School Musical for jazz. That just about put poor Molly over the edge though that Brenna "gets to do two cool songs! Isn't one enough for them?" I told her that she had to wait until she gets older for the dance teacher to pick "cool" songs. I guess it's just hard to be a younger sibling and know about popular things and not be able to participate.

Pilgrimmage

Brenna's Girl Scout troop took a trip to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception today as pilgrimmage celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Blessed Mother's appearances at Lourdes. The Shrine is one of the 10 largest churches in the world and the largest in the Northern hemisphere. In addition to the Great Upper Church and the lower level Crypt Church, there are more than 70 chapels and oratories. While we were visiting we saw dozens and dozens of priests gathered to celebrate Mass together as Archbishop Broglio was formally installed today. Quite an impressive sight! The girls were wonderful, the tour was amazing (one of our parents arranged it with a friend of hers who did a great job with the girls) and we ran into one of the deacons who served in our parish over the summer. Actually our pastor concelebrated the installation but we couldn't see him in the crowd of priests. Personally my favorite piece is the Christ in Majesty mosaic at the rear in the north apse. It is absolutely stunning and simply enormous. The face alone is over 7' across! Brenna really enjoyed it and all of the girls left with new rosary beads blessed right there. Here are few photos - I could post a million though. Beautiful place.

Five Friday Favorite Fotos

As we wait for some snow - here's one of Brenna, age 6
Probably one of my all-time faves - Brenna age 2.5 meeting her new baby sister
There's those blue eyes again. I miss those chubby cheeks!
Here's Brenna in the snow even earlier - 4 mos. old
How about waking up to those eyes peering up from the crib each morning! Molly 8 mos.

Oldie but a Goodie!

I'm cleaning out my email files which is where I usually find little gems like this one. This I sent to my friend Joanne (who was my Catholic school best friend and a fellow rule-follower!) regarding Brenna's first day of Gr. 1 (by the way, her teacher was a nun) . . .

On Day One I ask :

Me: “Where's your desk?”
Brenna: “In the front row.”
Me: “That’s good. Where’s Sophia?” (her best friend, they're joined at the hip)
Brenna: “I don’t know”
Me: “What do you mean you don’t know? How big is your classroom that you lost Sophia?”
Brenna: “Well she’s behind me.”
Me: “Oh. Right behind you?”
Brenna: “I don’t know”
Me: “What do you mean you don't know? You don’t know where your best friend is?”
Brenna: “MOM! The rule! Eyes in FRONT! I can't look behind me to find out where she is!”

So Brenna knows that Reid is on one side of her and Zach is on the other and 27 other kids are somewhere behind her but she has no idea who they are or where they sit. The back of the classroom could be in flames and she wouldn't turn around to find out! Oh how I love Catholic school and my little rule-follower!

Well let's just say that Gr. 3 is proving to be a different experience! Her teacher this eis young and hip and really is bringing Brenna out of her shell. Hopefully not too much though!

Five Friday Favorites

In the absence of new photos, I think I'll instead share 5 of my favorites! Maybe I'll even do this every Friday! (Actually I've been going through old pictures and shamelessly just need an outlet to show them off!) One of my all-time favorites of Brenna. It's just so spontaneous

and her eyes just sparkle!

I love their expressions here!

My bald Molly.

Brenna age 2

I still love those blue eyes! - Molly age 1

Snowy

The girls are out now enjoying the snow we got today. But because tomorrow is a scheduled day off for them, they're hoping the snow stops so we don't "waste" a snow day.

I left my camera cord on my work computer so I have no new pictures to share. When I get back to school and get the cord I'll post some shots of the girls at their skating lessons. Brenna loves it and does incredibly well for a kid who has only been on skates twice. Molly is doing much better after a long practice session. She has that personality that she gets ornery when she can't do something well right away (remember that tempermental baby that didn't walk until 16+ mos. and didn't talk forever?!) I was hoping to get them back to the rink in the morning for another practice since it shouldn't be crowded at all. We'll have to see what the weather brings though.

We've had a busy week with quite a few school projects due so things have been busy. Brenna and her friend Maggie have also be out hoofing to sell their Girl Scout cookies. Never a dull moment here!

Yahoo!

No time to blog lately. The past 2 days have been sunny with highs in the 70's. If feels like spring if you weren't looking at the calendar! The girls had their scooters out today for a good long time enjoying the day.

Back to reality tomorrow.

Dribbles

Today was the first day of basketball clinic for Molly. She really doesn't care one way or another about the sport but this is a great (read: inexpensive!) clinic that the dads run for 9 weeks in the winter. The kindergarteners meet at 9am for an hour followed by Gr. 1 and then Gr 2. It's hard to say who has more fun - the dads or the kids!

So I figured it's a good way to burn off some energy on cold winter mornings as well as a way to learn some skills that she'll be using in gym for the next 9 years (The PE teacher loves basketball and with this nice new gym floor it's a common activity in gym class - much to Brenna's dismay because she hates basketball). Molly on the other hand was more interested in the fact that most of her friends are doing it and that she gets a Tshirt. So she was happy to sign up and really enjoyed herself. And I'll really enjoy myself next week when I stay home and let Dean take her!

Strumming

And just in case the vegetarian thing doesn't work out, Molly has another career possibility looming . . .

She's actually pretty darn good too - well, until she was until she lost her guitar pick and started using a quarter. That sort of grates on the strings a bit too much for my ears.

It doesn't bother her a bit though. She keeps saying, "Want to hear a new chord I learned?" How does she know what a chord is?

Career Day

Along with the leopard pajamas for Christmas came several new stuffed animals. When I say Molly is an animal lover, you can't even begin to grasp how much. How many kids asked Santa for a fox? It's basically the only animal she didn't already have! Brenna of course knows of Molly's penchant for pets and picked out the perfect gift for her sister - an animal care kit.

Molly was thrilled and immediately started giving her animals routine checkups and called Uncle Don with the exciting news that she had a new "vegetarian kit! Because I just love animals and growing up to be a vegetarian is a good way to do that, right?"


We laughed so hard that I just couldn't correct her.
She's growing up way too fast as it is and I just want to hang on to these last little girl treasures while I can!

Chew on this!

My kids don't like foods that are "mixed up" like stews and casseroles. Purists at heart, they are! Tonight I made beef stew and Dean was cajoling Brenna into just trying any of it aside from the bread.

Finally I said "Girls, I'll give you 5 extra minutes before bedtime for every piece you eat on your plate."

Molly quickly started tasting things (without completely eating any of it though) while Brenna stared at her bowl. Dean was encouraging her "C'mon that could be a lot of extra time if you just eat the carrots!"

She looked at him, the plate, me, the plate and rationalized, "Well . . . I probably do need my sleep anyway . . ."

Little bugger.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

The girls stayed up to greet the new year. We watched the ball drop in Times Square and Brenna is now insisting that we need to go there in person some year.

Here's hoping that 2008 brings happiness and health to all those we love and peace and prosperity to the world we share!

And best of all - back to school tomorrow!!

(And did you notice that the lamp behind Brenna is shining right through her hand? It must be a quirk of the digital image because I swear she's not transparent! Weird. And yes Molly is again wearing the oh-so-traditional leopard print Christmas pajamas. She's our animal girl!)

He Came!!

Granted Brenna did get coal, but she also got a lot of other great presents! Molly too.

Our living room at one point contained a scooter, roller skates. a guitar, an IPod, loads of new clothes (for girls and dolls alike), new baseball gear, more Polly Pockets and Littlest Pet Shop things that you can imagine, books, videos and a gazillion more things.

Santa was very good to all of us.

I just feel bad for the kids he must have missed in order to leave so much here! I just don't remember them being THAT good all year to receive all of this! I think it helps that they had all four grandparents here that day and there was just a teensy bit of spoiling going on . . .

Catching Up - Dec. 22

Could it be??
There are few things that send us scrambling outside on chilly winter nights. The sounds of fire engine sirens just before Christmas are one thing though.

Not that we hope they are coming to an emergency, it's just that our awesome local firefighters are known to bring Santa around on a little scouting mission each yar. We are quick to get out there and show him just where we live so that he'll be sure to stop here on Christmas Eve!

Uh Oh

Brenna got coal!

Christmas on the Frontier

Yesterday was a half day at school and the last day before Christmas vacation. The place was a madhouse! Kindergarten had parents in helping with a gingerbread cookie party. Grade 2 had parents in for a nativity play. Grades 3 through 5 and about 50 of their parents had taken over the lunchroom for Pioneer Day (why that particular day was chosen is beyond me but it was a awesome event with tons of food and activities all morning long). Grade 8 was having a pizza party and Grades 6 and 7 were exchanging Secret Santas. And of course every class also had a Christmas party and kids were wandering everywhere delivering teacher and staff gifts. But it was a good, fun kind of mayhem and everyone was enjoying the day.

Christmas Concert

The girls had their school Christmas Concert last night. It was wonderful - of course! Molly's class sang three songs including Birthday of a King which is one of my favorites. Brenna sang two with her class and another three with the school choir. Last year their concert was canceled due to the very sudden death of their music teacher. They remembered Sr. Jeanne in a special way by singing one of her personal favorite Christmas songs - "Joseph's Song." It's a beautiful song anyway but it was especially touching to hear it last night.
The concert was held in the church and the 8th grade does a beautiful tableau of the Nativity which is a nice way to really get in the Christmas spirit. They also sang a beautiful song from the movie "The Nativity Story." I really must rent it - I think Brenna especially would like it.