Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Cinderella Ball

G-man's 1st grade class had a Cinderella Ball for their end of year celebration. Earlier in the year they read different Cinderella stories. The stories came from different cultures and Cinderella was not necessarily a girl. The compared and contrasted and wrote about the stories they read. For the Cinderella Ball they chose a character from one of the stories and dressed up as that character.Gregory dressed up as the Irish Cinderlad. He chose this character because the cinderlad has a sword and slays a dragon. Now I need to find the book at the library and read it. A lot of the boys dressed up as Joe Cinders, which is a character in a Cowboy version of the story. This is his class all dressed up before the festivities began.
They taught the kids the box step and the sidestep in preparation for the night. The even learned how to twirl the girls. Here is G-man trying to show Kiwi the box step. At one point he gave her quite the shove to get her to twirl like he wanted.
Chad had to come over to help G-man figure out how to end a dance with a girl. He danced with this little girl for quite a while. She's quite shy and I don't think she knew how to move to another partner, and neither did G. It's a lesson every person must learn at one point in their lives. I thought this was an excellent end of year activity. The parents went crazy taking pictures as the kids danced. It was so much fun to see them dressed up and I loved that they actually taught the kids how to dance. It will be interesting to see if his 2nd grade teacher can top this one. G-man will have all the same kids in his class next year, so expectation will be high.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

We're Seeing Blue

We opened the package. This is what we found:Actually, this is what Chad wrapped and gave to me before we opened the package. He claimed he found out the gender from my sister and bought these at the store. White socks. Sure honey. You're funny.

This is the kid's reaction to opening the box:This is what we found:It is a boy. Although Ruth didn't send the proof picture. I hope she can find it amongst her moving stuff. Not that I don't believe her or anything. Boy gender pictures are the funnest to see since they're pretty unmistakable.

A little brother to keep S company and keep me running for a while. Now I wonder what these little brothers will be like together. I guess Chad will have to start getting used to doing boy things. Camping, scouts, sports. They may even convince him to get a dog...Oh, I laugh to think about it.

I'm still not anxious for this little guy to be here. The longer I can delay being a mother of four, the better.

And here's a picture of me and my girl. I love taking pictures with her. She's so photogenic, and I think it rubs off a bit.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

The Package Has Arrived

I'm going crazy. I'm incredibly busy but insanely bored at the same time. This is what happens to me when I'm waiting for things. This is what I do when I'm pregnant:
For the past three pregnancies I've actually cross-stitched giant works of art to pass the time. I have finished two and a half of them. For some reason this time around I didn't even have the patience to do that. Now I have one and a half cross stitch patterns to finish before my children marry so I can pass them on as family heirlooms to be hid away in basements and closets.

But now, after a crazy trip to meet my sister half way, the package has arrived. After tomorrow I can focus my torment on picking names and imagining the change that will be coming. And I will finally know what color to buy for the new car seat. Because that's the most important thing.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Having a wheel-y bad day

The plan: drive two and a half hours to visit Luann's brother to attend his daughter's baby blessing.
The result: a wheel-y bad day.



As we were leaving Sunday morning, a short minute after getting onto the interstate, I hear this horrible noise. There wasn't anyone around us at the time, so Luann pulls to the side of the road. The right rear tire is totally flat (check out the slash on the tire). We pull off the read to get the spare on. I think that Dodge cut a few corners on the build of the van, since the cord that was to let the tire out from under the car wasn't nearly long enough to get it out.

After fighting with it for 45 minutes, and trying to find a tow company that was open on Sunday (no luck with that one), some random guy stops and helps me get it out. A moment later, we were on our way home. Once we told the kids that we weren't going to visit their cousins, there was lots and lots of crying. To help ease the pain, we promised all sorts of fun at home. The highlight was making pretzels with the kids.

And there was Light (and air movement)

With the weather being just perfect, I finally got to the project that we really needed in the front room. We now are the proud owns of a full set of bucket lights and fan. I spent a few nights up in the attic running wires, cutting holes, installing lights, fan, and switches. The front room was always so dark, even with the four floor lamps that we had just didn't cut it. Now, with the lights on, we can actually see things. And, no reaching up to change the fan speed! I love the easy-to-install fan switches. Even a "special" person like me can do it! :)

Post Script: It seems that back in 1964 they thought that insulation meant that a thin layer of fiberglass was sufficient. Now I see why the house gets hot in the summer. I need insulation, and lot of it.