Celebrations and concerts

Alright. It's about time for another post. I've been a little MIA on the blog lately. That's because the last two weeks might just win for busiest yet! (And around here, that's saying something.) One night this last week we had to move a piano lesson to accommodate two concerts and two soccer practices. We have had at least two things every evening. And that leads me to ...

218. General Busyness. I'm so glad that we are blessed to have the luxury of this busyness. It's the end of the school year so concerts and assemblies and such pop up with amazing regularity. It's amazing that we don't have more conflicts than we do! But honestly, this type of activity is so much more appealing to me than staying home trying to figure out what to do every night. It gives structure to what is going on. And it's so fun to see the kids growing and doing. The only sad thing about it is realizing this part of my life is flying by and won't last forever. Everyone is at such fun ages.

219. Dancing. And dress shopping. We went dress shopping to outfit the oldest for a dance. She needed something new for summer. We got one with a half an hour to spare! When she got home from the dance Lou asked who she danced with. She said, "This one kid. And this other kid." Lou, "That was his name?!"



220. TEETH. We've all been to the dentist lately. So far - no braces needed. (Mommy happy dance goes here.) And the big news - The S-Train lost his first teeth!! They have been hanging on by the tiniest roots for weeks! Tooth number one came out at soccer practice. (And amazingly made it home after being put in the pocket of his soccer shorts!:) ) Tooth number two came out the next night after he dribbled a basketball into his face in the church gym. (Maybe we should have played basketball sooner.)

221. Choir Concert. Sue had her end of the year choir concert for the parents. She is so excited because today the choir does a concert tour to several nursing homes and ends up performing downtown. They sound great!

222. Milk Jug armor. I meant to post about this earlier. We have a great knight helmet the oldest and the S-Train got together and made a couple of weeks ago out of a milk jug. It has a visor you can put up and everything. Unforturately it has led the S-Train to believe that he needs a whole suit of milk jug armor for Halloween next year. He is saving milk jugs in the basement. If he doesn't use them soon, I'll break his heart and dump them, or the recycling people will have to tip the basement into their truck! (They are all washed out.)
223. Cheerios Guitar. An after school project by the S-Train. So authentic he made a pick (out of a Krispy Kreme box) and mirrored the way it is held by watching his music teacher at school. A work of art.

224. Home Concert. To celebrate the loss of teeth the S-Train wanted to have a party. He's also been rearranging the house off and on for days to get ready for a concert he wanted to have with his cheerios guitar and drums his sisters made in art class. In fact, he had a three minute concert the other day when I wasn't home.

So yesterday he invited a friend over and we combined the two. He had music written out - for himself and for the drummer. And they made tickets.

Now I knew we had lots of tickets floating around from the previous concert. Not wanting to use up paper for another batch of tickets, I said, "Why are we making tickets? Don't we have a bunch already?"
The S-Train, "Those are expired!"

(He was so serious. I had to go in the other room and laugh.)

Then the concert. We had great announcers and singers.

They played two songs. "I'm a rock star" and "The S-Train lost a tooth." The best was when they were going to start the second song. The S-Train said, "STOP! I have the wrong notes!" He apparently hadn't switched from this to this.

After it was all over they set up an autograph signing station in the basement. The girls had knighted them (like McCartney or Elton John) for their contributions to music. So they needed to wear their milk jug helmets for the event.

And if you've lasted this long, I'll leave you with one more thing that made me smile this week.

225. Overheard in a meeting.
First person - says something quietly.
Second person - "What?"
"Oh, nothing, I was just talking to myself."
"Sorry. I was eavesdropping."

I cracked up.

Smiling People

217. Smiling at people. I love smiling at people in stores. It always surprises them. And I love their look of surprise, followed by a smile back. Sometimes I take it as a challenge to see how many people I can get to smile while I'm out shopping. I love being around people, even if it's just in line at the store. Little conversations I have with people, connections I make, are like liquid energy just poured into me. I come back from my excursion on fire and ready to tackle life at home. Someone smiled back at me! NOW I can do the laundry without flinching! (If I only stay home I wander around doing bits of this and that, and eventually pool in one place starting directionless projects.)

Flower Face Button confusion possibly resolved!

I think I may have figured this out. It took me awhile to get the flower button to work. I guess at some point I turned off the face recognition, but didn't realize it, and poof! Like magic, the white focus square I had been looking for appeared! I think at some point face recognition got turned on and I didn't realize it. So I confused the face recognition square (green) with a focusing square (white) and that is what has been driving me nuts! I thought I was focusing when it thought it was recognizing faces.

Also, the macro (flower button) won't work with face recognition on. Apparently they are mutually exclusive. (No close up faces!) So - I didn't know the difference and have just been frustrated. I think this is a case of "really cool camera gets ahead of the person it is SUPPOSED to help."

But here are a couple of pictures from playing around with it this morning.
MUCH better! and...
(What ARE these?)
And one more to show evidence of the crazy record breaking pollen count. (Notice the front flower is in focus and the back ones are blurry. THAT'S what I'm talking about!)
I guess the hard winter caused some trees to bloom late, so now they are all blooming at once! Sue's poor friend at school had to go home yesterday with puffy eyes and hives! I'm getting itchy just thinking about it! You know it's bad when the pansies and sidewalks are coated in yellow dust.

And a big thank you Tara who helped me figure this out from 1,000 miles away! (Just think what she can do when she's in your neighborhood!)

About the camera - I found the flower button that might give me close up pictures. It took a bit to find out how to get into the right mode so it would turn on. But then, it worked great for some things. Thanks Tara! It gave me this...

Pretty! But it also gave me this..... (which is pretty cool, actually, but not what I expected) and this..... The focus is closer, but not on my main subject. I'm sure there is something else I'm supposed to do to regulate the field of depth. How do I figure out where it focuses. It's like it has a mind of its own. I'd like to take a ton of pictures right then to get it right, but it's so hard to see the screen on a sunny day that I'm not really sure what I have until I get inside. Any more ideas?

I thought this shot of Grandma Rachel's roses was going to turn out. I'll try again to get the focus right. But at least you all can see they are growing. Go Mr. C. and his green thumb!

Spring Colors!

216. More Spring stuff. The red-buds are out.

Our mystery plant bloomed. Any idea what this is? A narcissus, maybe? A kind of daffodil?

Everytime I walk around the yard I find a new kind of tulip.

I had no idea we planted so many. Some may have been here before us, but who can tell now?

And does anyone else slightly obsess over the new spring color on the trees? I keep wondering how you would mix that. It's mostly white and yellow. But there must be a hint of blue somewhere in there to make it read green. Or is that just because it's sometimes next to darker green? (In this picture it looks yellow.) Maybe I'll have to ask the crayola people. They seemed to have nailed the spring green color.
I also wonder why the color is so different than at other times of year. It's almost yellow now, and will get deeper and deeper green until late summer. Then things will get all olive and tired looking until fall.
I'm sure that if you asked a scientist why the colors are so different they would start spouting something about photosynthesis. I just wonder if the colors are made to match the mood of the season, or if the mood we have at some seasons of the year matches the colors around us.



On a side note, my camera is driving me crazy! Taking pictures of things close up doesn't work. It keeps focusing on the background. The tulip picture looks like that. And it's not as bad as a bunch of others I took. Anyone have any solutions for this with a point and shoot digital? Is there just a setting somewhere I need to find? Or do I need to be very very good and ask Santa for an SLR for Christmas?

Conversations

213. Counting Spring? Walking to school today, the S-Train asked, "can you count all the petals on a flower, or leaves on a tree?" I thought I could do the flower, but I might lose count on the tree. The S-Train said, "I can! I could take a marker, and mark all the ones I counted already!"

214. Honesty. Lou, in Sunday School yesterday. The teacher asked, "How hard is it to be honest? Can you be honest?" Everyone said, yes, they could be honest. "What about being COMPLETELY honest?" Lou, without missing a beat, "Oh, that's harder."

215. Old jokes discovered. Lou is doing a state project. One question was, what is the main form of travel. Her dad told her it was the interstate. She thought a moment. "How do they have interstates in Hawaii?" Good question!

Outside

211. The yard. Oh the Yard! Mr. C has rototilled up everything, and planted the cold weather plants. Some from plants, some from seeds. We have cold weather veggies in, and pansies in the front planters. The zinnia seeds are planted, and he even brought me a raspberry bush!

Everyday something new pops out! The daffodils were gorgeous, but are almost gone. The grape hyacinths are out, and there are three types of tulips in bloom. (one kind is about gone, and one just barely bloomed today.) There is a different, ruffly daffodil out, and a mystery plant that is about to bloom. I can't wait to see what it is! New growing things. Ahhh.

212. Our neighbor, and our neighbor's yard. Mr. C had put out some flyers earlier in the winter offering to do snow shovelling or lawn care. Well, Tuesday, a neighbor called. He is the sweetest, funniest man. He turns everything into a joke. His 85th birthday is coming up. When he tried to mow the lawn that day, he fell and hit his head. (Got quite a goose egg.) He said it might be time to stop mowing the lawn. So Mr. C and the girls went over to take care of it. He was so sweet and kind. The S-Train tagged along with the bow he got one Christmas. Our neighbor showed the S-Train a bow he made out of lemon wood when he was a boy scout. He seemed to enjoy having the group around.

We'd like to get a consistent lawn per girl to mow this summer. That way they can earn their own money and learn a skill and how to work, etc., etc. Mr. C will go with them. I think it'll be a good mix all around.

Books! YUM!

207. Author! Author! DNA Lit Fest and The Reading Reptile. Is there a better children's book store anywhere? Every year they bring in the MOST AMAZING group of authors. Every year we go spend a small fortune on children's books. Everyone chooses a book. We get them signed and get our pictures taken. We have pictures with people like Jane Yolen and Brian Selznik and Mark Teague. (If you don't think you know those people, you'd be surprised, click on their names to link.)

This year there were lots of cool authors. Brian Selznick, Uri Schulevitz, (an icon in the world of children's literature. Up there with Tommy De Poala and Maurice Sendack. I missed hearing him speak. I'll get notes later from a friend who was there.)
Patricia Polacco, and Kate Klise (whom I had never heard of, but who gave a great talk at the Saturday conference.) I was so close to getting my mom here to hear Patricia Polacco, but things didn't work out. We had a great time anyway.

And in more detail...

208. Patricia Polacco. My mom's favorite children's author. She was so sweet to the S-Train while signing books. He kept showing her his new book by Adam Rex. She was patient and looked at it with him. (There was only one guy behind us waiting at this point, and he thought it was funny.) When we went to take a picture with her we tried to get the S-Train to put the book down and get in the picture. She kindly said, "Oh, don't disturb him." So - that's the picture we have. When she signed a book for my mom the next day, she said, "What a wonderful name!" She just seemed to like the sound of it. And...


She brought the keeping quilt! Apparently it will go to a museum in Finley, Ohio, this summer. Her daughter's quilt guild has made a replica for her to take around. She is sad about giving it up, but knows that to preserve it, that's where it will be taken care of best. She gave a beautiful presentation. Retold stories of her stories. She was magnificent and wonderful. I took lots of notes, and she ended with a sweet prayer/blessing from her grandmother.

The great take away was to never underestimate the influence of a grandmother or teacher, or understanding adult, on the life of a child. She couldn't read until she was 14. Now, because of a caring teacher, she writes books for children.

209. Adam Rex. The. Funniest. Books. If you don't know his books, you should. Great boy humor. I had never heard of him before. We ended up with three of the kids' books being his. Fabulous. I recommended "PSSST!" to the S-Train. He was unconvinced until I read it to him. Then he showed to to Patricia Polacco, and read it over and over all night - until he took it to bed with him!(Mr. Rex told the S-Train to put rabbit ears on him in the picture! Love it!)
The oldest and I laughed all the way through the book "Guess Again!" So that was her book. Here's a sample. If you've read books to very small children you'll recognize this type of rhyme. It's supposed to help small kids predict the next page in the book. Not here!

There is a silhouette of what looks like a rabbit in a carrot patch. It says...

"He steals carrots from the neighbor's yard.
His hair is soft, his teeth are hard.
His floppy ears are long and funny.
Can you guess who? That right! My...

Page turn

"Grandpa Ned!"

And the picture is of Grandpa standing on his head. What looked like ears are socks about to fall off his feet.

It's not nearly as funny here as it is in person. By the end of the book, you don't know what to expect, and it always surprises you.

Sue got "Frankenstein Takes the Cake." Which I didn't like as much, because I'm not all that into monsters, but she liked it.

210. Andrew Clements. Was not at the lit fest, but came here this week to promote his new book. Again, yea for Reading Reptile! Missed Activity Days with Sue and Lou and took a friend to go see him speak. He was great. And one of our favorite authors turns out to be just as nice in person as in his books. Can't wait to read the new one. But we'll get it from the library. The first book in his new series just came out. The second comes out in November. He held up the flash drive that apparently holds the third!! Wild. A whole book, right there.

He apparently writes in a 10X12 shed. It has an AC and a wood burning stove and a cot and a composting toilet. He says it's like a life boat. He never has to come out if he doesn't want to.


My favorite new quote.

"I don't make books. I put together free words on cheap paper. Then I send them to a publisher, and they send me money."

Ground Hog Day - or coming up for air after a long winter's sleep!

I'm not sure what happened. I fell off the blog truck. I think I have blogger performance anxiety. After all, originally I had just my sisters, who love me no matter what, reading this thing. Now I have like, 5 followers. Whew. The pressure.

But apparently not blogging leads to things like weepy introspection. Which, as we know, should be avoided at all costs, so we are back to chronicle the smiles in life.

First entry - getting in shape after hibernation.

204. Walking and Running. I've been doing this for years. But now I've taken things to a level that's been missing for about 4 years. It all started with Elder Bednar's talk. He talked about how Satan wants us to minimize our bodies. All right, I've been completely ignoring mine. Or whining about it with no action (somehow that didn't help, go figure.) I decided something must be done. And then, KG sent out an email encouraging people to train for the local half-marathon/10k/5k that is always on Saturday. (Yea for Saturday races!) I thought, oh, come on, but she promised there was a training schedule for all fitness levels. So I looked at the training schedule for walk/run and said, "I can do that!" So, now I'm walking and sometimes running. I'm planning on doing the 10K. I just don't think doing the 5K will motivate me enough to do the work that needs doing, and the half marathon is a little premature. The downside is that I didn't realize how much my shins would hurt!! They are rebelling, and it's going to take a little while to work up to running most of the way.

But it feels so good to be out in the fresh air. My body is saying, oh yeah, THIS is what we are supposed to be doing. It feels good to feel my muscles wake up, like sleeping beauty.

Mr. C has also started walking while waiting for the oldest at seminary and piano. He's getting in about 3 miles a morning.

Lou is also running. We go down to the school and run around the yard. She laps me, because I keep having to stop and stretch my shins out. She can run for a 1/2 hour straight now! There is a fun run next week. She is determined to get the most laps. There was one girl who got one more lap than anyone else last year. Lou says it's OK if she's behind her this year, as long as she's close - but next year....

205. Girl with a goal. Lou also passed the pull-up part of her physical fitness tests with two pull-ups putting her in the presidential category. Now we need to practice the shuttle run. She's never gotten to the presidential level there before, but she wants it bad.



(love how I positioned him just right, so he has an antenna!)

206. SOCCER! The S-Train and Lou are in soccer right now. The smile on the S-Train's face as he plays is about to split his face in half! He looks so happy. I think this may be a happy place for him. At his first game, I wasn't there to dress him. He definitely was wearing the shorts of an older sibling. Luckily they didn't fall off! He just kept hiking them up every so often!