Wax Museum

Gandhi - starring Jeremy



Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Forewarned: There is a lot of loud background noise in this video. It was taken in a school cafeteria with about eighty kids talking at once, each saying something different. It was hard enough to hear when I was standing right in front of him. But he worked so hard on this that I just wanted to give him his moment on the blog.

About five minutes after I took this video I realized he was sick and we left school (previous post). He can't be sick next week.

Natalie was a little overwhelmed by the whole thing, but she smiled when she saw her brother.

Perhaps I should explain a little about what a wax museum is. Every child in the second grade has to choose a great leader. Then they research (Jeremy learned the importance of keeping track of your research. He had to start over.) the leader and make a timeline. Then from the timeline they had to write a speech. Then they dressed as the leader (optional, but practically every child was) and stood in lines in the cafeteria. When they were tapped on the shoulder they would recite their speech, looking at notecards if they needed them.

This was the first time it was done in the cafeteria. I think it echoed too much. I think the classrooms would have been better.

Update on the keys

If you like to read things in order skip to previous post

Jeff just called. He's camping with the scouts. It's cold. So he took his coat. The same coat that he had this morning at work. And checked to make sure he didn't accidentally have my keys at work.

I have torn my house apart looking for these keys. I have blamed Natalie, poor innocent Natalie, for trotting off with them.

Jeff just put his hand in a pocket of his coat at the campout. Guess what he found!!

At least I don't have to spend tomorrow combing through the house inch by inch. I can now simply clean up what I tore apart today.

Of course, the question of why he has my keys in his coat pocket in the first place will probably never be answered.

one of THOSE days

• 6:30 wake up
• 6:45 make pancakes
• 7:20 put boys on bus
• 7:30 amazingly the girls are asleep so I shower and get ready for the day in peace
• 8:35 put Anna on bus
• 8:40 put Natalie in van have to be at Jeremy's school before nine.
• 8:50 call Jeff in a panic when I still can't find my keys, pull Natalie out of van
• 9:00 call a couple friends to borrow a van. Becky will loan me hers to go to the school for the musuem and to pick Brenden up. Jenny will loan me hers to make it to my doctor appointment (she's already watching my kids for it)
• 9:15 arrive at school late, Jeremy looks sick, figure he's nervous
• 9:30 realize Jeremy is actually sick and is going to need to see the doctor today. That means I need my van.
• 9:45 fly down the interstate (almost get a ticket (went to the truck in front of me)) to do an hour round trip to Jeff's office to get a key for the van. Make Jeremy a doctor's appointment via cell phone on the way
• 10:45 pull into the roundabout ten minutes before Brenden gets out of school. Phew!
• 11:05 drop Brenden and Natalie off with Jenny
• 11:10 pick Becky up, she drives me back to my house and I transfer Jeremy and purse to my van and fly again
• 11:25 five minutes early for my appointment that was reschedule from Wednesday ten minutes AFTER I arrived at the office. Leave Jeremy in waiting room. Didn't know what else to do with him.
• 12:25 pick Brenden and Natalie back up, thankful that Jenny has fed them lunch
• 1:00 pick Anna up from friend's house (she got off the bus there because of my appointment)
• 3:00 pediatrician confirms Jeremy has an ear infection
• 3:45 arrive home to help Jeff finish packing for scout camp tonight
• 4:15 rush back to the pharmacy to pick up Jeremy's perscription, fifteen minutes before Jeff has to leave. I left him with all four children.
• 4:35 pull back into the garage worried everyone was waiting on me. Should have known better.
• 5:30 Scouts pull away finally ready to begin their adventure
• 5:40 put dinner in oven

I can only hope tonight is less stressful. My keys are still missing. The only good news is yesterday was trash day and I know I used my keys after Jeff took the trash out. I'm sure Natalie walked off with them. That's what I get for putting them where she can climb to reach them.

FINALLY!

It snowed late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning. Enough for sledding down a hill. Jeff called before the boys left for school and told them he would take them sledding. Only to home from work a few hours later sick. There was no sledding wed, Thurs, or Fri-even though he told the kids each day it would be the next day. That's just what happens when you're sick.
So today we tried to sleep in (didn't really work) and then loaded everyone up to go find a new hill we'd been told about - vaguely. We found it! And it was a lot more family friendly then the hill we usually use. Just ask Kelli about our old hill...
Natalie is in layers. She loved the snow - but she can turn purple after a bath in July. Yes, she's wearing two hats, two pairs of socks, multiple tops and even two pairs of pants - one a jumpsuit. Despite all this it wasn't even cold enough to turn her cheeks pink. But at least I knew she was warm.
Climbing up the hill in anticipation.....

...Anna going down....
...Brenden going down....
...Jeremy going down....
....even daddy and Natalie going down! The hill was sloped enough for speed, but even Kristiana could drag her own sled back up the hill without a problem. We sledded for an hour. At the tail end a husband and wife(?) showed up with inflatible inner tubes and let the kids use them to go down. It was a lot of fun.

Even the tree at the bottom didn't slow anyone down. Jeremy was the only one that hit it, and not at full speed, he was trying to turn the sled. Anna flipped once and it scared her, but she got right back on and kept going. Natalie couldn't be taken down fast enough. She would say "whee" on the way down and laugh when she reached the bottom.

The bottom was the best part of the hill. It sloped down right into another hill - so you would bank in a semi circle up this other hill and slow down. It was perfect. And even though it cost to get in - the hill is inside a state park- I think this has become our new hill. It's only five minutes from home.

Fun Time

Kristiana's preschool teacher has been out of school for the past six weeks. Wanna guess why? This past Tuesday she brought the baby to school so that the kids in the class could see her. It was kind of funny to watch. Last year anytime I brought Natalie in the classroom we were surrounded. None of the kids moved. They just stared. I suppose they just aren't used to seeing their teacher with a baby. Kristiana is part of a developmental preschool - that's why I can get her bused- as a peer friend. Anyway Amy is coming back on Monday and Anna is excited.
She also came home and promptly named her baby doll which has forever been Baby, Olivia - after her teacher's baby. It was cute. She's also written a story for baby Olivia which she plans to give her teacher on Monday.


Ignore the needs-to-be-folded laundry in the background. This picture was taken on Thursday and the laundry is still there. This little stinker in the picture has us all running on fumes. She's cutting teeth and her nights are spent crying. I feel bad for her, but while she sleeps during the day I have to take care of things - although I have been getting a small nap. She found these sunglasses in a pile of papers and put them on. She didn't want to take them off!

Random

I know I've been lax about posting pictures. I could give the excise that I'm busy. True. I could give the excuse that I'm tired. True. I could even say I've been feeling sick lately. True. But the whole truth is that I've been sucked into this series of books that apparently has exsited long before I ever heard of them. So that means that right after I finish book one, book two is right there. Literally. I believe I have up to book nine on my bookshelf just waiting to be devoured.

But I am forcing myself to slow down. My house is suffering. Blogging is suffering. But most of all my children started suffering - from quick dinners, forget to follow up on homework, and in being rushed to bed so that I could open the book. For one book I can justify that. Not six, that's what number I'm on now. So, on with the post. Here's a small update to get caught up.

This was how February greeted us. It was supposed to be a HUGE snowstorm of eight inches or MORE!! There wasn't enough to even warrent driving all the way to the sledding hill. It's a drive from here, so we were creative.

Anna had to eat the snow. We've taught her it has to be untouched.
Jeff is pulling the sled. You can't see the twine, but when he got moving it was quite fun. He's going slow because Natalie is sitting between the boys.
Then is was time for the boys to pay up. They were moving pretty fast considering.
Anna's jumprope from her stocking came in handy for the second sled. The girls didn't want to go fast so I moseied around with them. Thankfully our neighbor is very tolerant of my children on her property. With the houses so close together and snow covering everything boundries are "forgotten".
Anna even pulled Natalie around nice and slow. Perfect. Can you even see Natalie's face? Poor Jeff. He was so excited for snow! Big snow! BTW, they said we were supposed to have SEVEN inches of snow this past week. We received a little more than what you see in these pictures. We aren't going to believe them next time. Oh, yeah! We were supposed to get snow this weekend. Um, it's well over 32 with not a cloud in sight.... Good thing we didn't get our hopes up...

Frustration can lead to inspiration. This is the only wall we have to hang towels on in the kids bathroom. I've been trying to figure out how to hang all four of their towels on this one wall. So far all of my ideas have only resulted in tears. Not to mention aarguments over who gets what towel. Then I found these towel rings ($5) and these towels on sale ($4). So now each child has a color and two towels, so one can be dirty. And a place to hang it. No more towels on the floor!! Or in the tub!! Or clean towels put in the dirty towel basket!!! Or wrapped around the bottom of the toilet!!! Even Anna can hang her own towel by herself...Luxury:)
This past weekend was a time for birthday parties. Jeremy went to a skating party where I forgot the camera. And Anna went to Chuck E Cheese Monday night. We turned Anna's into a family affair and all went for FHE. It's easy to keep only the invited child at the party when you hand tokens to the older kids. They did however join the party for cupcakes. It was a lot of fun. Natalie loved putting tokens in and hitting buttons. There was a game where you put in a token, hit a HUGE red button and won a prize. Natalie won cotton candy. This is what she looked like when she was done eating it the next night. We couldn't give it to her fast enough. We started telling the older kids to eat theirs faster so it would disappear.

That highchair has solved our dinner problems. My friend had it on her table and when we discovered that Natalie loved it, and that my friend was selling it, life was suddenly good. It's the small things. I think she likes being on our level - at the table. Mealtime is much better now.

Tagged

So my friend Stephanie tagged me and since I have absolutely nothing interesting to write to about (unless you really want to hear how I finally have Brenden excited to learn to read) I decided to indulge and be a good sport. So here you go. Things about me you probably never wanted to know.

Two names I go by:
1) Mommy
2) CB (no, I'm not going to explain that one. Ever)

Two things I am wearing right now:
1)Sweats
2) a nice sweater

Two of my favorite things to do:
1)blogging
2) thinking about writing a book everybody thinks I should write

Two things I want very badly at the moment:
1)be at the beach
2) visiting my sister Kelli right NOW!!

Two favorite pets I've had:
I'm not a pet person.

Two things I did last night:
1)put together valentine bags for my primary class
2)Did the dishes

Two things I ate today:
1)fruit loops (the store brand) 2) tuna

Two people I last talked to:
1)Jeff
2) Brenden

Two favorite beverages:
1)choclate milk
2) strawberry milkshakes

Can't Catch a Break

This is where I should post a picture of her foot x-ray. And I would, if she had ended up getting a foot x-ray. Thankfully, the doctor didn't think she warrented one. By the time we arrived at his office she was able to hop on her injured foot. Apparently hopping is a lot harder than walking on a foot, so he doubts it's broken.

Since she can't/won't tell us what she did to hurt it - she was by herself in her room- we can only guess as what is wrong. A bruise? A twisted muscle?

At least she'll be fine.