Where I've Been!

I've still been baking, but the weekly recipes and photo shoots were getting to be more of a chore than a pleasure. And while school life always gets busy this time of year, there were a few extra events throwing our schedule off track, such as ...

The honor of traveling to Michigan State University last month for the Odyssey of the Mind World finals! Our middle school team won their regional competition ... then WON states (holy cow, that was so cool) ... which made them eligible to compete against 65 other teams from all over the world. Dora and Theo are both on the team and Mr. Hotcakes is the coach, so we all hopped the bus to MSU! It was an amazing experience, both in what they learned and how much fun they had. I really can't say enough good things about the program, it's incredibly hard work, but also incredibly rewarding.

Clark has had a many ups and downs lately. While he did great on our trip to Michigan (for the most part) the last three weeks of school were incredibly challenging. He also celebrated his First Communion (praise the Lord! I was worried all year about whether he'd go through with it.) and bridged to a Bear scout. He continues to be a big thinker and makes me laugh every day. Always trying to understand what's going on in that little walnut of his. 

(And look! Cookies!)

I've also been working quite a bit (yay). Did you know that my updated work can be found here? The spotgirl.net website is long overdue for a change, that's also on my long list of projects. I've been having a lot of fun working by hand and have been using Instagram and Tumblr to post those works in progress. I don't have any of my own materials that I'm currently marketing and am hoping this playtime helps point me in the direction of what to do next. 

Thanks for tuning in. More soon! 

Summer Art Challenge – Portrait

Finding time and the motivation to draw more has been on my to-do list. I've gotten in a bad habit  lately of only working on assignment projects and neglecting my own stuff. Happily, Dora came home from school with a Summer Art Challenge! I'm in!



Instead of making a drawing of "your family," I made a drawing of my friend's family. We've been close since high school but don't get to see each other very often, due to our opposite coast residences. She has twin boys who are almost exactly the same age as Theo. The few times we've gotten together, the kids have all really enjoyed each others' company. She's been on my mind because we unfortunately missed each other during her most recent trip east (stupid long school year!), so I made this for her as a birthday / new home / miss you surprise.



It was very satisfying to work on, and I can't wait to do more!

Portraits

I'm usually the one behind the camera, but happily got caught inside the frame a few times this month. (I almost said caught on film - that's not accurate at all!) 

Heading out to the Mother Daughter Dance with Dora. This was our sixth year attending. The crowd at the dance is mostly younger kids, but she hasn't outgrown wanting to go yet! Always a great time.



Making waffles with Clark on a rare Saturday morning with no plans, what a treat!



At the park with Theo. When he's an adult, will he look back at pictures from year ten and wonder why he was always making this face?

… and here I am back behind the camera, caught one morning before school: Penny neglects her alarm clock duties, distracted by a warm bed.

The Winter That Kicked My Butt

This spring, I'm going to eat lunch outside. Read on the back porch, take the dog for long walks, get Clark off training wheels, and bribe the kids with ice cream so they'll go geocaching with me. But all these plans are fantasy for now, as we're currently getting more snow on top of the snow that we've had for weeks. (Twenty-one inches in the backyard … Clark measured.)

And yes, we've had our fair share of fun. But really, this winter can just end already. It's not the snow days – I actually prefer those days, because we get a free pass from all the running around – it's the parade of cold, grey days ... weeks and weeks of them. The bitter, biting, minus zero days. Walking the dog at 7 am and feeling my nose hairs freeze. All things that make me just want to curl up under a blanket and eat cupcakes. The low motivation does not play well with the fact our household also happens to be crazy busy right now. 

Jeff's regular job has ramped up, so the last two months have him working nights and weekends (!!!), which I know is the norm for lots of families, but it's new for us. Plus he's teaching a class for the first time this semester, so if he's not doing work-work, he's doing class work. If he's not doing either of those works, he's coaching two Odyssey of the Mind teams. Oh! I forgot to mention that it's OOTM season which means my dining room is full of balsa wood, paint, cardboard and duct tape from January until March. No dining room table means I can't even break out a good puzzle to make the blahs go away.



Early dismissal today rather than a snow day, since our district is dangerously close to adding days to the school year because of all the snow. Which means that during the worst bit of weather today, I had to go pick up the kids from school (x2). The car couldn't get up our hill, so I backed right back into the driveway and did the back and forth on foot instead (x2).

Counting my blessings but at the same time counting down the days. 

More Movies

Recent selections from Movie Night ...



Jeff bought this for me for Mothers' Day and then forgot about it until a few weeks ago (bonus gift for me!) The kids all loved it, though Clark went to bed before the end - it's another long one. I love the scene when Chessy realizes that Hallie is really Annie - tears every time! It's such a sweet movie, but sad at the same time, because of the loss of Miranda Richardson and the craziness of Lindsay Lohan. We liked the DVD bonus feature that explained how they filmed the twin scenes.



Totally stupid, but the kids all love it. At least it's short.



This was my choice - Jeff and I took my little cousins to go see this in the theatre when we were dating. The movie is just okay, but the music is great. A recent addition to movie night is the Rolling Credits Dance Party, when Dora and Clark typically bust their moves to the final song, and this one had them hopping!

Family Movie Night

We don't have a lot of rituals and traditions over here, but the few that we do have are precious. Giant cookie on the first day of school. Wrapped books left on everyone's bed on Little Christmas morning. Grilling hot dogs and hamburgers for Dora's January birthday.

One that we really enjoy - Family Movie Night. Jeff and I have always had a bad case of the Sunday blues, and all sitting down to watch a movie is the perfect way to chill out at the end of the weekend and before the start of another busy week. We keep a little dish with everyone's name on little slips of paper and take turns selecting who will make the movie choice. Dora rarely chooses movies - she finds most of them to be too scary - and will usually opt for Looney Tunes, The Flintstones, or Schoolhouse Rock. Clark is a big Pixar fan and Theo's favorites are Megamind and Monsters vs. Aliens. Jeff and I usually pick something that we haven't already seen a zillion times.

So, I'm going to start adding reviews of our Sunday night movie pics - here are some recent titles that have been big hits!



Dora had a party this week for the last day of her Independent Study program (the last day ever, because the program has been cut, but that's a rant for another day) and they watched this movie. She LOVED it. She was entranced. She could not stop talking about it. Happily, it was one of the DVDs included in Clark's big prize basket that he won last year, so we owned it but hadn't watched it yet. I can't say that I really enjoyed it, though it seems like the kind of magical, sappy story that is usually right up my alley (maybe I couldn't get past Dustin Hoffman's weird lisp?) but love that Dora loved it. Good news: NO scary parts at all. There's one scene where the store has a "temper tantrum", but Dora found that more funny than scary.



We watched this a couple months ago and all loved it - Clark was shouting "ham!" at random moments for days afterward. Dora was a little tense during the flood scenes, but overall a sweet movie.



This was more enjoyable than I thought it would be. I love, love, love, love this book and expected to be fairly disappointed by the movie. Happily, the alterations to the original story made sense and I appreciated how many scenes from the book had been recreated. Dora (and I) didn't like the end when they had to battle the machine - that weird tentacle thing that grew out of it was creepy - but Clark and Theo loved it. 



Yay, yay, YAY, I love this movie. We checked it out of the library last week. I realized as we were watching it that I had only ever seen the edited for tv version and there are two songs in the original cut that I had never seen before. We had to do a bit of fast forwarding - it's 2.5 hours long! But was so happy that the kids really enjoyed it. They told me the next morning how much they liked it and Clark's teacher said that he was even talking about it at school ... BIG thumbs-up from everyone! I love Angela Lansbury. I used to wish that she could be my third grandma.

I Heart Dad

We had a nice low-key Father's Day at home this year.



Dora made an acrostic poem. Did I know that kind of poem was called acrostic? I did not. Thank you, 8-year old!



Theo's card. He was so proud! I love how perfectly he captured Jeff's little peninsula of hair up top.



We're working on the g's.



Water balloons. These little suckers are a PITA to fill! The kids loved soaking Dad.



A-pple Pie! A-pple Pie! Made with help from my new food processor. Oh, where have you been all my life? This was the easiest apple pie ever!

I had finally given Jeff the green light to watch Star Wars with Theo, and he thought that Father's Day would be the perfect opportunity. Then came the realization that we didn't actually have a DVD of Star Wars! After a quick run to Best Buy, Jeff and Theo snuggled up on the couch with popcorn for the afternoon while Dora and I hit the craft store to stock up on some supplies for summer vacation, which we have now officially started. More on that later ...

Christmas Highlights

Finally starting to go through pictures from the holidays. Here are some highlights ...



Cookie trays 09. Supposedly, there are fewer varieties this year, see how skimpy the trays look?



Two of the cookie helpers, my adorable aunts.





Christmas Celebration #1.



Getting ready for the pageant.



Santa!!!





Christmas Celebration #2: Favorite gift of the year: Lazer (with a "z") Tripwire. Theo is now much more calm and relaxed, knowing that his stuff is protected.



Red and purple box of goodness.



Christmas celebration #3: trying on new slippers.



Another favorite gift, Bakugan Xbox game.



Dora's awesome gift from Grandpa. It's purple!



Onsie for baby Elijah.



Mini golf morning.



Moments before the meltdown. We're now two-for-two with meltdowns and mini golf. Do we keep trying, or avoid mini golf forever?



Me giving Clark a KO while playing soft block boxing.



New Years' Eve toast, a rare moment of sibling happiness. Of course, alcohol is involved. (Just kidding!! It's grape juice!!)



Dora got her birthday wish ... snow for sledding.

Why We're Idiots

Two things are happening with our television right now. The first is that Jeff is trying out a series of external hard drives in an attempt to expand the minuscule amount of hours currently available on our Time Warner box. The experiment ... is not going well. Things record for awhile, but then the drive shuts down and programs previously recorded become no longer available. Imagine the awfulness of a weary mom and a cranky three-year-old, going to turn on the tv, longing for a few minutes of quiet, hoping to relax with the gentle comedy of Peep, only to find that THERE IS NO PEEP, PEOPLE! Bad things happen.

The second happening is my doing. In the fall, excited by the upcoming Seinfeld "reunion" on Curb Your Enthusiasm, I decided to order HBO for the first time ever. I called Time Warner to find out the price.

Me: How much for HBO?
TW: X amount.
Me: GAH!
(Pause)
Me: Any - ahem - deals or specials going on right now?
TW: No. Suck it.

I went ahead and ordered it, because hey, Jerry's worth it, right? We got to watch a few episodes of the new season before the DVR decided to poop out. Luckily, the new season is available on the HBO On Demand channel. Ahh, I can relax knowing that the new episodes are tucked safely away on channel 920.

Fast forward through December ... life has been crazy busy. Lots of orders plus getting ready for Christmas, plus everyday stuff like keeping the children bathed and fed (they're so demanding!) No time for frivolous things like television.

And finally, last night ... new year, guests have gone home, to do list is (slightly) shorter. It's time to sit down with my hubby and watch some tee-vee.

Me: Hey! Why don't we get caught up on Curb tonight, so I can finally cancel HBO?

(I think you can see where this is going.)

Curb is no longer available On Demand. And all the episodes that we had recorded are being held captive by our Home-Improvemented DVR. Which means I have just paid GAH! amount for HBO for the last four months and didn't even get to see the show I ordered it for.

These kinds of things happen to us ALL THE TIME.

The only silver lining to the whole event is that our short time with HBO did allow us to get hooked on Flight of the Conchords, so I am trying to look at the bright side. (Don't mention that the price I've just paid for four months of HBO would buy both seasons on DVD. Don't even go there.)

Caterpillar Spring

Lots of family in town this weekend, we spent a beautiful day at the park. The kids loved playing in the water, Clark especially. We walked back and forth along the shore many, many times.



Our awesome cousins took Dora and Theo on a big paddleboat ride, which they said was the "best time of their life!" The afternoon ended with some caterpillar collecting - meet our new pets, Tickles and Crawley. The kids found them fascinating - Dora let hers crawl all over her arms and shirt.



Dora and Tickles



Showing him off to Dad and Clark



Theo and Crawley

The caterpillars came home with us and it was decided that they should live in the little tree in our yard. Dora noticed that once Tickles was in the tree, he didn't want to go back on her finger again.











We finished the day with a trip to the baseball game - lots of shouting and cheering and a run across the field. Today was a trip to the race track and a picnic with friends. Beautiful weather, great company and ice cream ... and the weekend's not over yet!