Little Blessings

By the time 7pm rolled around tonight I was feeling pretty defeated.  My expanding body brings with it challenges and limitations and as happy as I am to welcome a new little life into our family, knowing I have three long months to endure was a hard realization today.  I knew Justin wouldn’t be home til after the kids were in bed so I didn’t plan anything for dinner, but darn those kids still expect to eat.  So it was hot dogs and frozen southwest egg rolls for dinner and while the kids polished off the rest of the brownies from last night I worked on getting the dishes done and the kitchen semi-cleaned up (trust me, I had more than my fair share of brownies earlier in the day).  Before getting ready for bed I told the kids they needed to put away a load of clean laundry – with a warning that for every time I needed to remind them to stay on task they would go to bed 10 minutes earlier.  When I was ready to help Katie into her jammies, she was insistant on washing her hands.  Knowing she would likely use too much soap, or splash too much water on the counter I hauled her away from the sink and got her dressed anyhow.  She was frustrated which further frustrated me – something so silly.  We read scriptures and then I felt that of all nights I shouldn’t skip over our recent ritual of taking turns sharing something positive around the day.

Carly was happy to have been able to work on homework after school with a friend across the street

Abigail was glad that she and her partner were able to make significant progress on a project even though they’ve had less time that their peers

Jason was excited that he passed 900 on writing his number scroll at school

Katie was happy that she got to eat cookies today (yes, in addition to brownies we made TWO batches of cookies on Sunday to get rid of some expired chocolate and butterscotch chips)

I shared how happy I was that Katie used the potty today (more than once)

I asked Abigail to fill in for Justin tonight and play catch with Jason for a few minutes before reading to him and turning out the lights – there was no objections.  Carly was asked to read a story to Katie and get her tucked in – something she’s always happy to help with.  On an evening I felt I wasn’t giving anything to my kids, they reminded me how much they give to me.  I’m so grateful for them. 

I’ve recently started putting together our 2010 Family album and today I started working on the pictures from Katie’s birth.  A fitting reminder of the joyful day that lies ahead for our family.

Concerts

We’ve had some sort of school performance every week for the last three weeks.

First was Carly’s music concert: 

The following week was Abigail’s first band concert.  Let me preface this video by saying none of these kids had picked up these instruments before October.  They meet twice a week before school and this was their final piece at the concert:

Last week was Abigail’s 5^th grade music concert.  Her favorite song of the night was an original “mash-up” of the two songs “Home” by Phillip Phillips and “What makes you beautiful” by One Direction.  They started out singing “Home” which was actually a little emotional for me.  This is Abigail’s last elementary school music concert and the words to the song felt like we were closing the door on this chapter of her life and sending her down that "unfamiliar road".  Then halfway through the song it got crazy and they totally switched it up:

Abigail also participated in two other pieces – one with chimes and the other with bells.  The director of a local bells ensemble offered to teach a few songs to a small group of students – tryouts were held in the fall and they’ve been practicing twice a week during recess since November.  FYI:  Carly was our videographer.

Valentines Day

On Valentine’s Day, my sister posted the following on facebook:

“Happy unimaginative, consumerist-oriented and entirely arbitrary, manipulative and shallow interpretation of romance day”

I’ve never been much for celebrating Valentines Day and let’s face it, Justin and I are probably two of the worst gift-givers on any given holiday, anniversary, or birthday.  While I agree with my sister that having a day set apart during the year when you do what you should be doing every day takes away much of the “meaning” behind it – However, I did, for a change, want to make it a little more special for my kids – and not just because society told me I’m supposed to. 

I’m not a morning person so cooking my kids a special Valentine’s breakfast was not going to happen – especially since Abigail had early morning band.  Instead I made blueberry muffins the night before as well as pasta salad for them to take for lunch - they make themselves sandwiches 95% of the time so they are always excited to have something different.  They also had a few small treats on the counter to start their sugar rush.

Carly was excited to take the Valentine’s box to school that she and Abigail had decorated.

We managed to create the kids’ Valentine’s from candy we already had.  It was a little tricky coming up with clever slogans to go along with the treat.  Abigail had already taken all her Valentines to school before I took a picture – all of hers were made with the fun Skittle packs that I bought in Hong Kong – they are packaged in a neat triangular wrapper.  (Sad to think this is Abigail’s last year celebrating Valentine’s Day at school).  Jason gave the boys in his class gummy hotdogs and hamburgers (also from Hong Kong) and the girls in his class got Skittles.   We had just enough Crunch bars to create Carly’s Valentines.

Justin and I ate lunch at CPK that afternoon.  They had an awesome Valentines special with entirely too much food, but we managed to eat every last bit.  Katie was super excited about the carnation they gave us at the restaurant.  I love that we live close enough to Justin’s work to go out to lunch every so often.

The kids were sugared up when they got home from school so the Valentines cookies I had ready were appreciated, but unnecessary.   Justin and I were still pretty full from lunch so there was no big elaborate meal – though after the kids went to bed Justin prepared chicken enchiladas for me to eat the next day – yum!

Not to shabby for a “happy unimaginative, consumerist-oriented and entirely arbitrary, manipulative and shallow interpretation of romance day”

Business 101

Remember this picture from Christmas:

This doesn’t even include two additional rolls of duck tape the girls got from their cousins for Christmas or the duck tape handbag kits from Grandma and Grandpa Fletcher.  So what do two girls do with all that duck tape?  Apparently they start a business. 

Abigail and two of her neighborhood friends decided they would sell duck tape merchandise with their multitude of colors and patterns.  They created (with my assistance) an excel spreadsheet to track the custom orders and they started taking orders shortly before Abigail’s birthday.  In the first week or so they’d earned $39 – split into three ways that makes $13 each.  I figure they are probably just about breaking even or maybe even making a slight profit, but more importantly they are having fun and learning a bit about doing business as well.  

Last week Abigail and one of her business partners did a little reevaluating and it was determined that which ever girl creates the item, gets the cash – thus preventing anyone from cashing in when they weren’t doing much of the production.  I was a little nervous about her proposing this to the third partner, but thankfully she thought it was a great idea as well.  Geesh, doing business with friends is tricky.

Carly has been selling things on her own also, including candy canes from the 10+ boxes of candy canes Justin purchased on clearance.

Being a little business savvy myself, I’ve put in another Amazon order for duck tape to use for my own personal benefit.  I’m not above a little bribery.