Game day

Movie stars

The kids were interviewed for a movie that will play at the annual spring fundraiser. The fundraiser is roaring twenties themed. So the questions were like, when was the last time your patents went to a speakeasy? and who is your favorite gangster? They will edit it in such a way to make the answers hilarious. Or not. Who knows.

The rainy day swing

The rainy day swing actually being used on a rainy day.

Friday Read-In

Every Friday in kindergarten the parents are invited in to read with the kids. Sometimes there are projects or art work the kids can show us too.

Today we got to see the sculptures they had created as well as some stories and art work on the walls.




Elizabeth's sculpture was called Tower of Symmetry and Miranda's was called The Dust Machine.

For those of you that don't read kindergarten-ese, Miranda's says:

I went to New Orleans and drove a mule.

Elizabeth's says: I went rafting in Yellowstone with the boys.

They keep the previous stories underneath so you can track the progress. It is pretty cool to see how far they've come.

Guess who did this one?

And this?

Dry Land Workout

When the pool is closed for one reason or another, the kids have dry land practice for swim team. We've only done it twice, but both times they did races, relays, tag and other fun stuff that Parker loved. Today they had dry land workout because the high school was having a swim meet. Parker was so excited.

But then today, they did Yoga for the whole hour instead of the fun stuff. They did poses, stretches, and other yoga nonsense. I didn't watch much of it, but Parker gave it a good try and said he was tired afterwards.

I'm guessing he won't be so excited about dry land workouts anymore.

Seriously?

I volunteered in the girls class today.

On at least three occasions, a boy came up to Miranda and said, "Are you Miranda or Elizabeth?" Even though the girls were wearing matching outfits and hair styles that day, I was surprised that a kid who has been in the same class with them for 6 months couldn't tell them apart.

I'm so glad they will be in different classes next year.

Kindergarten

Elizabeth

Elizabeth says funny expressions sometimes.

Seriously is one of them. You'll say something like, "Oh you have a playdate tomorrow," and she'll say "seriously?"

Then tonight at dinner, someone said something and she said, "Wow that is funny. Not funny HaHa, but funny strange."

I know I say these things, but it's funny (HaHa) to hear them come out of her mouth.

Zeke eats another strange thing.

The other day zeke had to eat some of my pistachios. The weirdest part was that they were mostly shells.

Getting up

The whole family has been sleeping a bit more these days. The first couple days after the time change were rough but now everyone is going to bed at the regular time but waking up later... Closer to seven than six. Like right now I'm in bed at 6:42 am and it's quiet in the house. Amazing.

I am a marathoner.

It was hard and I never want to do it again, but damn it, I did it.

Thanks to Ebba for watching the kids all night long and today.
Thanks to Michael for taking my jacket, bringing me water twice, giving me support and telling me I could do it. And for letting me sit around after.
Thanks so Susan and family for cheering me on at mile 12.
Thanks to Sara and April for running with me so much before the race.
Thanks to Kym, Sara, Jack, Ellen, Collette, and Leigh for cheering me in at the finish.
Thanks to April for doing it with me so I wasn't being a crazy person alone.
Thanks to the big black guy with dreads who told me I could "do it" at mile 25.

Now I rest.

Ballet in Ballet Class

They did some actual ballet in ballet class today (what a concept) so I thought I would show you all. Elizabeth is still better able to control her body and get it to do what she wants it to, but Miranda still has more "natural" talent for ballet I think. She has a nice arch to her foot, longer arms, slightly more gangly (which is good for ballet) and can bend a lot. (You can see what I am talking about it the second picture. Elizabeth is straining to keep her leg up, but Miranda's leg just goes up freely.) But she is a total spazz and doesn't pay attention. Elizabeth pays so much attention she was running the class today when the kids and the teacher forgot the steps and where everyone should be.

Chess tournament

Parker's little league game was rained out so he is doing a chess tournament instead.

At halftime Parker is at two losses and one win, which happens to be exactly where his buddy Jack is as well. Together they make up team wildwood. Three more matchups to go, and the boys are pumped up.

Lots of Kids

The kids are off school today for parent teacher conferences. So of course, I invited over some kids and now we've got 7 here. With the exception of some girls vs boys nonsense, they all get along pretty well.

Here they are preparing to play hide and seek. They had to decide who was it, so the oldest one, our neighbor and a second grader, had everyone put their feet in and did eenie meenie miny mo.

Miranda

Miranda was a complete delight on our trip to New Orleans. With the exception of a few minutes of screaming when she bit her tongue during the wedding dinner, she was almost perfectly behaved the entire 2 and a half days. She was patient and never complained about all the waiting in lines at the airport, or in New Orleans while we decided what to do. She didn't argue about what we ate and even tried new foods like crawfish and oysters. She was perfectly behaved in all the restaurants. She didn't ask for snacks when we weren't eating. She wasn't shy about hanging out with strange people like Uncle Mike or Aunt Claire. She asked questions during the wedding, but she wasn't loud. She slept when she was suppose to and even slept late one morning. She didn't argue about all the walking we did and we did a lot and she was very appreciative of the fun stuff we did. One day Amy and I took her to a park on the trolley. We saw they had an amusement park in the park so starting walking over there. Miranda got distracted by a neat looking tree and asked to go play on it. She played for a good while, just running around, talking to birds, skipping around and climbing the tree. She was happy to just play by herself. I knew she would be the best kid to take on such a trip but I didn't think it would go as well as it did. It really made me appreciate her so much.

Then we got home.

And everything went back to "normal". She was whining. Arguing with siblings. Complaining about going to the bathroom. Being cranky in the morning. Being a victim to Parker and Elizabeth's taunts. Spilling soup on herself. Saying she was thirsty as soon as we get in the car. And generally being a little shit. It is so frustrating and I wish I better understood what, besides having siblings, causes it all.

In Flight Entertainment

Same Freeway.

Attempt at 10 sign for Peter and Oliver.

New Orleans Day 2

Oyster Breakfast/Lunch




The four brothers

Trolly Car Ride to Park and Walk through Sculpture Garden

Wedding!

Miranda danced for a long time with anyone who was willing.

Purple Pig

Parker wrote his own piano piece recently, and he spent much of the weekend practicing it. I don't know where this came from, or what he was trying to say with it, but I think it's pretty cool that he saw composition as a natural part of his experience the piano. It's evidently a tricky piece to play, because he was never quite able to play it through.

He was very pleased with himself when he finished the composition, and Elizabeth and I encouraged him to give the piece a name. After some short deliberation, he decided on Purple Pig.

Chaos Tower

Parker got the Chaos Tower quite a while ago, and it's seen a lot of use. Recently, it's been neglected to the point where we were thinking of getting rid of it. But I suspected it still had some life left in it, and when I went to go straighten the set out for possible sale, Parker decided it was time to build him some chaos.

2nd cousins

Playing with ducks at dinner.

Of course

So Parker has been keen to get his hands on some chalk so he can mark his Around The World course on our driveway. ATW is a basketball game consisting of increasingly challenging shots in a specific order and Parker spent a while yesterday writing out his ATW course, and then he taped it on the wall of the garage as a reference, which you can see in the shot below.

But today Elizabeth went to a birthday party, and the goodie bag contained a big egg-shaped sidewalk chalk, which she promptly went and gave to Parker so he could mark his course on the ground.

Naturally, he did it in Roman Numerals.

Miranda ready for wedding

Favorite numbers

We were talking about favorite numbers, and Parker said his was 400. When I asked him why he said, "You know how I like music, and music comes on CDs, and also how I like Roman numerals better than regular numbers? Well, 400 in Roman numerals is CD."

Interestingly, I was reading old blog posts the other day and saw another instance where music and numbers collided weirdly in Parker's brain. See for yourself.

New Orleans day 1