Fashion!

Elizabeth made a tape dress today using a pattern and form and then transferred it to Barbie!

Christmas

Christmas was as expected. Early morning wake ups. Excitement by some (Miranda for the giant horse) and Elizabeth (for all "the cool clothes!") and some disappointment from Parker ("I didn't get as much as I thought....") which was actually kinda true.  We just bought all sorts of stuff for his bday so were a little light for christmas for him.  They all got stocking filled with all matter of crap and I made the standard coupon books "one eating dessert without finishing dinner, etc"

He did get a laser spy thing that shoots laser light across small mirrors to protect a room from intruders. If someone breaks the laser beam, an alarm goes off. It's been a big hit all day.

Miranda got an assortment of animal and art related gifts and exclaimed with glee each time she opened one.  The "paint a horse" thing was a real winner.

Elizabeth did get lots of clothes, which was the only thing she wanted. But Santa also brought her some "fashion-related" crafts.  She kept saying, "Boy, Santa really know what kinds of clothes I like." Yup, Santa does.  Clothes for a 6 year old going on 14.

Parker also got some more legos, RISK, a couple science projects and a small telescope.

I got a new comforter and pillows from the kids and an ipad from Michael.

Michael got an umbrella from parker, some hand written books from the kids (one called Powems) by Elizabeth, and yet another plain navy sweater to add to his collection.

When I was at the pet store yesterday getting some dry cat food, I picked up a catnip toy for him. Miranda wrapped it and put it under the tree. Last night after the kids were in bed, Zeke found it and ripped into it. He was high on catnip quickly rolling around playing with it for a good portion of an hour. You wouldn't have guessed he is almost 14 years old.

I went back to bed after all the opening since I got pretty much no sleep last night. Michael entertained the troops with projects and other such nonsense.  When I woke up, we cleaned the house and packed for the snow trip.  Michael made a chicken dinner which the kids all hated, but that was delicious.

It's rained all day here so we never left the house.

Negotiating

Parker: Can I go play wii for an hour?

Me: No way.

Parker: (running to look at the clock)....ok it's 7:21 so how about for 37 minutes?

Me: No, 20.

Parker: 35?

Me: No, 20.

Parker: 27 1/2?

Me: Done.

Running out of room under the tree

Bullshit Nutcracker

Took the girls to the Oakland Ballet Nutcracker.   I'll accept up front that I am a nutcracker snob, but jeez, this one sucked.  There were so many missing nutcracker elements.  No Mother Ginger or skirt. No Prince pantomime at the beginning of act 2.  No chinese dancers (it was a bird!), no nutcracker getting broken, no cracking nuts with it (despite the fact the score has nut cracking sounds in it), and they cut out a good portion after the grandfather dance. The party just immediately ended and she falls asleep on the couch.  It wasn't even clear what the story was for a good long while. And it seemed like the choreographer didn't even listen to the music when he made up the dancing. Big symbol crashes in the sugar plum fairy pas de deux were met with lame ass turns rather than huge lifts.  Plus it was glaringly obvious why these dancers were in the Oakland Ballet rather than somewhere else. The men didn't seem to know what turnout was.

And no crying mouse after the mouse king is killed.  Seriously?  No crying mouse?  That's just wrong.

I'll get off my high horse now.

Random

Parker finished Harry Potter last night so we rented the movie today and watched it together. I still think it's pretty lame, but it was nice to watch a movie with him since movies are not his thing. After that he watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which he has also read.  I did not watch that with him. Ick.  He does seem excited to read the next one.

Taking the girls to see the Oakland Ballet Nutcracker tomorrow. They are also excited and each was reading a nutcracker book at bedtime tonight.  One of Miranda's christmas presents is her own nutcracker.

It's raining a lot here. A lot.

School is out for two weeks.  We are hanging around here then going to the snow with Amy and her family and then back here until school starts up again.  I was looking forward to it, but with these last two weeks being stuck home with sick kids, I might go crazy with two more.

Elizabeth read a book last week that had poems in it. She really liked one of them and copied it 23 times to give to all her classmates. It was called the rainbow and it took her about a week to do. When I asked her how it went giving them out, she said, "Good except some kids just threw them in the trash." And then she teared up. It was heart breaking. We talked about it for a while afterwards and discussed strategies to make sure the other kids knew what is was better next time she passes something out.

I played Parker at chess tonight and it was just pitiful. I told him that I need to have a computer help me play next time. He liked that idea.

I also played Elizabeth at checkers. I was winning for a while, but she started to get a little sad so I let her win and she was very happy hugging me afterwards, saying, "I'm sorry you lost mommy.  I'll let you win next time."

Miranda has been asking for alone time lately.  If she doesn't get to play in her room alone with her animals for a good 30 minutes to an hour each day, she gets very cranky.

I went to Michael's office party last night. Everyone seemed to know me, but I can't keep them all straight. Michael refers to them not by name, but by activities, "She's the one who just got married." "She's the one going to costa rica." "He's the one on performance review."  "She's the jehovah's witness."  So when I said, "Oh are you the one who wore the sex pistols shirt to the client meeting?" it wasn't the best, since Michael wasn't at the meeting and only heard about it from his partner.  Ooops.

Chess Press!

Parker made the local paper. Made it seem bigger than it was, but he was pleased nonetheless.

Sick kid

After missing Monday and Tuesday, Parker rallied Wednesday and went to school.   But today, he slept until 8am, which is a sure sign something is wrong.  He's coughing a bit and is a little sluggish but otherwise Ok.  He decided to build a volcano not noticing it took 2-3 days to dry.  Then he wanted to skateboard. Then he had to play some wii. Just a regular day at home.

Parker Birthday Part 3

Parker had about 12 boys to Bladium for a soccer party. They just played soccer for an hour. They loved it.  Then they got access to basketball court and giant inflatable slide for an hour with pizza and cake. We didn't know it at the time, but Parker was getting sick so he was melting down a lot. Complaining about his friends being jerks. (Which some of them are.)    I did the annoying plastic crap in a goody bag and all were happy.

Next year, small party with just a few close friends. 

I really enjoy him picking his nose here and eating it. A nice touch on his 8th birthday.

Birthday Part 2

Fentons with neighbors

Skate rat

Sleeping pig

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1-4 for the day. Happy.

Chess tournament liveblog 11

At the tournent today it's played by grade level, and at the award ceremony the top 10 kids from each grade get trophies and the top 10 teams. Since there are only 7 teams in 2nd grade, Parker is going to get a trophy. When he heard this he pumped his fist, and said yes!

Chess tournament live blog 10

This is what kids do during the breaks at a chess tournament.

Chess tournament liveblog 9

1-3. His pal Jack is 3-1.

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Sitting in my car with the engine running to charge my phone during round four.

Chess tournament liveblog 7

1-2

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0-2.

Happily the Advil kicked in and he's I'm better spirits. Sounds like it was a good game.

Chess tournament liveblog 5

Ready for round two, nursing a fatigue headache from the long birthday weekend.

Chess tournament live blog 4

0-1. Time for a snack

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We are definitely the ethnic minority in the competitive chess community.

Chess tournament liveblog 2

It was a pandemonious throng of people trying to push into the ballroom, with inadequate guidance from the staff, but we finally make our way to board 197 where Parker's day begins against what look like stiff competition. His opponen brought his own clock and game journal. I reminded Parker to be a good sport, and moved out to the parent waitin pen.

Chess tournament live blogging

At the start of the day anything is possible....

Birthday... Part 1

Parker opened presents from family this morning. He got a skateboard, roller blades, Legos, books, wii game, Star Wars DVDs, and the strange German board game.

He was happy.

Fentons tonight.
Party tomorrow.

Jim

Jim Nastix.

A book by Elizabeth Long

German game?

Someone sent Parker a German board game but no one will own up to it.

Anyone????

Mock meet

Parker did a "mock" swim meet this morning, which meant that his whole swim team went through the steps of doing a meet so the newer/younger kids could get experience.

Parker swam in 5 events.  All four strokes, 25 yards for the 8 and under kids (only 5 of them). Then a 200 yard relay.  Although he started in first place in the first three events, he came in fifth/last in all of them.  I think he has a good start/dive in, but then he slows down half way across the pool.  He did come in second in backstroke though. When he finished, he looked at me and said, "Did I beat someone?" I said I thought so but would have to wait for the results.

He enjoyed the meet aspect of it with all the events, heats, lanes, relays, results. Lots of numbers for him to process and he processed them all morning long.

Yup, those are our kids.

Last night I flew down to burbank to see some high school friends in a musical that one of them directed. It was a mash up of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer with Doors songs.  I flew in, went to hotel, took a nap, had dinner, saw the show, went back to hotel, woke up, had breakfast (at bob's big boy) and then flew home. Totally worth it. Fantastic show. Great to see old friends. Definitely going to do it again. (Next up is Midsummers night fever dream...Shakespeare and Beegees mash up.)

Anyway....the kids were suppose to get their report cards yesterday so I texted Michael, "How were the report cards?" around dinner time.

He said,

"As you would expect. Miranda needs more work than Elizabeth, and Parker don't know nothing about no report cards."

Exactly our kids.

And speaking of exactly our kids, I found this blog post of the kids playing with the blue chair (that has been a favorite for about 7 years now, but that is getting too small for them.  I loaned it to friend for her 20 month old but told her I couldn't part with it permanently so she would have to give it back.)  This video of Elizabeth and Miranda jumping off the chair is classic.  Elizabeth was such a little mean girl from early on.   I especially like Ebba's comment.

http://chezlong.blogspot.com/2008/07/blue-chair-keeps-on-giving.html

Presents under the tree

A box from Grammy and Ginny today had our first presents for under the tree. Then Elizabeth put another one under there for Miranda, which she bought today at Thrift Town. I told them today that Christmas was as much about giving gifts as getting them, and we'll see how much they agree.

Adopt a Family

I organized an Adopt a Family project for our twins club. We get matched with a local family and buy things for them on their wish list.  We got two families: a single mom with twin babies and a single mom with a 2 year old living with her sister's family (father, two daughters).  So there were a lot of presents to wrap. All the presents were purchased by the twins club members (all twin and triplet parents). People who couldn't buy wrapped or donated wrapping paper. It was a big successful project and we deliver the presents to the agency on Wednesday next week.  They are going to have a merry christmas for sure.

The power of tv

The kids watch the big bang theory on a somewhat regular basis. Which is really strange since it's all sex jokes or science jokes and they understand neither.  I asked them why they like it and they say, "those boys are funny."

During one recent viewing session, a commercial came on for the clapper.  Miranda immediately decided she wanted one.

Tonight she wrote a letter to santa telling him she wants one.  That's it. Nothing else. So tonight Santa ordered one on Amazon.

Accurate

Me: Parker, you swam very well today.  You were in the third lane with all the older kids.
Parker: Yeah, I'm a pretty good swimmer for my age

Indoor skating

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas