This is a long post, but it allows for some parental pride. And someday it will prove to my girls that I did watch their gymnastics performances!

This week was "Expo Week" at gymnastics. After a full school year of practicing, we could see what they learned. Monday was Abby's night. Abby's been going once a week and this was her first time in class. Skills wise, she learned about what we expected. Watching her class, I was actually most impressed with her overall behavior and attention span. I'm not sure what was going on with the other kids, but of the 6, she was the most focussed and attentive - and that is NOT usually the case!

(Video of Abby not loading.....)

"My FIRST Trophy!" She was thrilled

walking on the beam

Tonight it was Katherine's turn. Katherine has been doing gymnastics at this gym since she was younger than Abby. This fall she was invited to try out for their team, and while she didn't quite make the cut for team, she was moved to the "Training Squad" --a smaller group of girls coached twice a week to prepare for team this coming fall.  Katherine loves gymnastics. She truly can NOT walk through our family room, she has to cartwheel. And there have been times when I have had to threaten consequences if she cartwheels,"just one more time!" She has LOVED going twice a week and working in a team setting with one coach and the same group of girls. And her skills have improved!

Here are the videos from tonight. You sometimes have to look past the strangers to find Katherine, as my view point was somewhat obscured, but you can see her pretty well in each video.

Katherine on the Bars: http://youtu.be/N4XaJUW_FfY

(Look past the other kid on the beam for Katherine on the bar to the right)

Katherine on Floor: http://youtu.be/SyaNOaQVlws

Katherine on Vault: http://youtu.be/Yo6THzozNlQ

(You might need to watch twice, she runs across from left to right and does a flip onto a mat)

Katherine on Beam: http://youtu.be/BF106Or1z1A

I was afraid she might not have the skills that her teammates did, as she joined this group halfway through the year, but honestly they are all pretty equal overall. I think Katherine was the only one who didn't fall off the beam! Most importantly - she was happy.

Ready to go!

Warm up

Warm up

Side by Side with her BFF Ashley - she's the one you can't see as well

On the bar - her favorite!

Coach Jill complimenting her form

With her trophy

Training Squad 2014

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People ask me all the time these days, "What will you do next year when they're all in school?" I have a variety of responses: work more/different hours, volunteer at school even more than I already do, celebrate, cry. But honestly, I'm sure that there will be days when I'm lonely!

Abby and I spent 2 hours doing errands today and she was cracking me up the entire time. Who will make me laugh next year?
We started at Barnes and Noble to pick up a birthday gift. But we can't get out of the store without a stop in the Children's area on the STAGE! Today Abby was thrilled to find cardboard cutouts of her favorite Frozen characters. I asked if she wanted to sing with Anna and Elsa, but she announced, "No Mom, today I feel like 'dahn-cing'" and she proceeded to do a rather interesting contemporary/interpretive dance routine.

 Next it was off to Bed Bath & Beyond. She was frustrated that we had to stop here, so I told her we would be getting a list to shop from (a registry) and it could be a treasure hunt. She was quick to correct me that if we were given a list of items we had to find, it was more of a scavenger hunt. She added that we would be going through spooky woods to find our items.  I'm sure the people thought we were beyond strange as she narrated our journey through the store. But it kept her entertained while we found our gifts.

 Our last stop was the grocery store. As we pulled into our parking spot, the radio changed and she squealed - "Don't turn it off!" I humored her for a minute while I listened and discovered it was John Legend, "All of Me." Before I could point out what I heard, she said, "Hey, it's the same song, but it's different! This has a beat, it's MUCH better for dancing!" Sure enough, this was a radio dance re-mix version of the song.   She took off her seatbelt and busted a move!

Once we finished her dance party, we went into the store to get a few items. As I was looking at frozen juice concentrate, she looked to the end of the aisle and shouted with excitement, "Hey Look Mom - It's BEER OF THE MONTH!" and took off skipping to the liquor area.  Thanks to endless Dora episodes regarding crowns, she correctly pronounced 'Corona' and I swear the 2 gentlemen who had witnessed this whole exchange needed a 'clean up in Aisle 18' because they were laughing so hard. The one man pulled himself together just enough to smile and say, "Enjoy this time, she's precious. My baby just graduated High School yesterday, time flies!"

We came home from our errands, had a nice lunch and then she read me "Put Me In The Zoo" before her nap.  As she was all snuggled and I was leaving, I asked if I could take her picture. "Why Mom?"
"Because, someday you won't be this little, and I always want to remember this sweet little Abby."
"Oh Mom, I'll always be sweet, I just won't always be little!"

I've been told that people are enjoying the things I've posted on Facebook, the random snippets of our every day life. I guess if there's an audience I can try harder to share.

Tonight's installment: There's no crying about laundry!

This afternoon, due to our busy schedule (including a leisurely lunch at Panera) Abby skipped her nap. She really wanted to watch TV, but I felt she needed to earn her TV time.  I gave her the job or sorting a basket of laundry, and told her when it was sorted into each person's pile, then she could watch TV. "Do I have to put mine away" she asked? "No, just make every person a  pile, we can put it all away later."  This is a daily job that the girls do. Usually they work together, but it was well within her ability to get it done.

I went downstairs and about 10 minutes later she came down and said it was all done and could she please watch her TV? Absolutely.

Simple enough, right? I never checked on her work.

The big girls came home, Chris came home, we re-set for our evening. The girls I went to piano lessons, Chris went to his Alverno class, the girls and I enjoyed a fancy dinner of hot dogs from the grill, eaten on the the deck, life was grand.

As I cleaned up dinner, I sent the girls upstairs to put their piles of laundry away, shower, get pajamas on, etc. Chris called to say his class was out early and he was on his way home. While I was talking to him I went upstairs to make sure the girls were doing what they had been told to do. I found Katherine sitting on the floor of my room, appearing to be doing absolutely nothing. I asked, (in an impatient way) why she was on the floor, and she exclaimed, "Because look, there's all this laundry under your bed!"

ARGH!

"Chris, I'm hanging up on you because apparently Abby sorted the laundry by shoving it under our bed, I have to go."
"Wait" he said " It's OK, just have Maggie or Katherine go under the bed."
"WHAT? WHY? HUH?"
"Please don't look under the bed, it's all OK, Maggie and Katherine can do it."

At the time it sounded like he knew that the laundry was there, and he had helped put it there, and it wasn't Abby's fault at all. (And also that he might perhaps be hiding something for me under the bed)
It was rather confusing, and in hindsight, I should have investigated my sources better. Instead, I called all 3 girls, not in the nicest way and made it clear that the laundry needed to be put away STAT. Katherine started crying that it wasn't fair, and I snapped, "There's no crying about Laundry - just do your job!"

Within 10 minutes Chris was home and I snapped at him something along the lines of "Who puts clean laundry under the bed?"

He was totally confused. And in the next few minutes all became clear. He had not put any laundry under the bed. But he didn't want ME to look under the bed. Abby confessed that she had gotten tired of sorting laundry today, and hid the laundry by putting it under the bed. Katherine was right that it wasn't fair- she hadn't done anything wrong, she had actually saved us all from finding the laundry a week from now (or longer?)

There were tears, moaning that it wasn't fair, and whining that it wasn't actually lying, and oh the drama, woe is me.

And then there were apologies, hugs, snuggles, and bed.

Really, it was just another night at our house.

My goal for this morning is to do a major grocery run.   Of course that's no easy task when you're as distractable as I am.
I just had one of those "If you give a mouse a cookie" moments (you know that book, right?)
Here's how it looks in my house:

If you give a Mom a trip to the grocery store, first she'll stop to make a list. When she stops to make a list, she'll check the fridge. When she checks the fridge she'll open the meat drawer, when she opens the meat drawer she'll be reminded that it is stuffed full and generally gross.  When she investigates the overfilled and gross drawer, she'll end up taking everything out. When she takes everything out she'll find a layer of grime on the bottom so thick it refuses to come off. When the grime refuses to come off she'll take that drawer to the sink and scrub it. While scrubbing the drawer she'll dump a large amount of water on the floor. When she dumps a large amount of water on the floor she'll curse under her breath, but then realize, "Hey, at least that part of the floor is now clean!"

WIN!

And then she'll go back to making the grocery list that started it all.......

So after I had that fun time, I finally opened the Grocery app on the computer (Our Groceries - love it!) and found, much to my surprise, that the list already had 2 items.  Nestle Quik and Honey Nut Cheerios.

Eureka! Maggie put things on the list! Maggie remembered that I showed her how to put things on the list. Maggie came close to finishing these 2 items while making her breakfast today and put these 2 items on the list!  Maggie followed through, took responsibility, and avoided the drama of her whining that we were out of something and my replying that I didn't know we needed it because it .....WASN'T ON THE LIST!

Oh happy day!

We all know Abby is quite the character. Add to that her ability to read far beyond her 5 year old level/frame of reference. She also happens to be fascinated by all things related to the human body, so we have a number of (kid) books that she likes to read. Every once and a while, she'll mention something that takes us by surprise.
For example, this morning when we were out of chairs at breakfast, someone suggested I sit on Daddy's lap, and Abby exclaimed, "no Mommy! You would break his FEMUR!"

(Thanks Abby)

Or at the waterpark when she suggested that the large family raft, circular in shape, was the "blood cell" ride because it looked like a red blood cell. We all became the oxygen riding on the red blood cell.

This afternoon, we were relaxing on the deck, enjoying this view.




Abby's head was resting on my stomach. She was giggling listening to the gurgles. She mentioned my food was digesting after lunch. Then, out of nowhere, she said casually, "hey mom, when a sperm cell and an egg cell meet they make a baby!"

Why yes, you are correct!

Luckily, she didn't say much more and we quickly moved on to other subjects.




This one. She keeps me on my toes!



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And look at that, another two months, exactly!  I'm getting almost predictable with this blog! Check back on May 6 for an update!

Just kidding.......maybe.

Tonight's post brought to you by the Tooth Fairy. Katherine has had a wiggly tooth, her top front tooth, since the school year started. She has been almost obsessed with having it fall out at school. Today her wish came true--it fell out during snack time. (Who knew strawberries were so rough on teeth?) It was a busy day for teeth in 2nd grade - there were 3 lost teeth before lunch!

To say she was excited would be an understatement. She had the attention of her teacher and the office staff, she got the coveted school tooth holder, and her tooth, finally, finally came out! Once again, the tooth fairy would come to our house!

As she prepared her tooth tonight, she decided she needed to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy. This kid, she kills me!

 In case you can't read it:
Dear Tooth Fairy, I have some questions to ask you. 1. Do you have a real name? Not tooth fairy. 2. About how many teeth do you have? 3. What do you do with all of the teeth? 4. Do people lose teeth every single night/day? 5. Do you like your job? I like your job. You are very kind. I hope you have fun at my house tonight!  - Katherine     PS Please leave my tooth case.

See that hole in her top teeth? That hole has made her happier today than anything else. I hope the tooth fairy comes through for her tonight!

I knew it had been forever since I blogged. I didn't realize it had been a full 2 months. But it's a new year, so it's time for a fresh start.

And what better time for a fresh start than on a day with record breaking cold temperatures?  This is one of those days they'll talk about for a long time. It went below zero air temperature about 10pm last night, and hasn't come back yet. In fact, as I write this, my weather app tells me it is Negative 14 degrees with a 'feels like' temperature of Negative 37 degrees. That's about what it's been all day long. And it isn't predicted to go above Zero until 1pm tomorrow!

Today was supposed to have been the first day back to school after Christmas break. Instead, all the schools are closed through tomorrow.  So our unusually long break became even longer. That's a LOT of time we've spent together over the past 2 1/2 weeks!

I decided that if we were going to live through record breaking cold, we could learn something and make memories.  We came up with various science experiments  as a way to pass the time between bursts of cleaning and playing games of CLUE!
And so, I give you or day in pictures. Videos in the next post?

Yes, I let them go out in the cold...in the name of science!

Tossing hot water into frigid air

We made our own cloud and tiny bit of snow!

An egg

Cracked onto an old toaster pan

left to sit on our front porch, with an ice cube tray of water

In the time it took to go inside and remove our winter gear (about 4 minutes) the egg froze on the tray.

After a few hours, when we cleaned up our experiments, Katherine held the frozen egg.

Many people on Facebook suggested filling water balloons with water, but we didn't have water balloons. I found 1st birthday balloons in a box in our basement. Did you know that if you put water into regular balloons they don't expand? No, first you must blow up the balloon, and then find a way to get the water in without letting the air out. And if you want to add food coloring to the water? Your best bet is to squeeze that into the balloon BEFORE you blow it up and fill it with water. 

 The balloons did freeze, but not until after dark, so the big reveal on those will be tomorrow.

Another friend suggested freezing a soda can. We've had exploding soda in our garage, so I wasn't keen on the idea, but I figure the mess will be in the snow, and we won't need to clean it up.

The top of the can stretched first

Then the bottom of the can. This picture was about 6pm, 5 hours after leaving it outside. As of 10pm it still hasn't exploded. I'm afraid the girls will be disappointed if it is still intact in the morning.

This picture tells the story of much of our break. Santa brought the game CLUE and we've played it multiple times every day since Christmas. But tonight we had a fire. Bonus!

Katherine was disappointed that her first Prep squad gymnastics practice was cancelled tonight. So she taught herself how to fall backwards onto the couch into a backbend. She tells me it's the beginning of a back handspring. Oh boy!

The girls and I ended our night snuggled into the big chair watching TV. We didn't use the TV during the day - so we vegged out to Kung Fu Panda 2 and enjoyed being cozy.