This post might only make sense to my Dad, but that's OK.

There was an editorial in our paper today that referenced the musical "The Fantastiks." Chris and I were talking about it at dinner and I mentioned that I really only paid attention to the article because no one ever knows that musical, but since my Dad had been in it, I was quite familiar with it.

Maggie perked up and asked, "Pop Pop was in a play?"
"Yup, PopPop has been in lots of plays, he likes to sing and act, didn't you know that?" (I truly thought we had talked about this before)
Katherine giggled, "I just thought he liked to be funny!"

We went on with dinner. We had show tunes playing via Pandora.

Then, "A Lil' Ole Bitty Pissant Country Place" came on as the next song.  I said, "Oh, this is a song from a show that PopPop really likes, but he hasn't ever been in it before."

"What's it called? What show is it?"

Ummmmm, "It's about a hotel, in Texas. The Best Hotel inTexas."

What a day we had. We were excited to welcome Gram, PopPop, Edward and Daniel to our house today. What fun the cousins had together. Just playing outside was exciting. (So exciting I didn't get any pictures! Outside pictures that is, I still took a few other pictures!)

 Having lunch together led to many giggles!

 And then it was off on a ride/walk to our elementary school to enjoy the playground. Daniel was quick to point out that their caravan was a pattern - Bike-scooter-bike-scooter.  I think it was Maggie who added it was also in age-order.

 I asked them to stop right when we got there to take a group picture, figuring I wouldn't get another chance. They were surprisingly cooperative, but bolted once the camera stopped clicking!
(That bolting  may have caused Daniel's belly flop off the playground. But he recovered quickly and jumped right back onto the monkey bars, no harm done!)

We came home for a cookie before sending them back to Skokie. The girls calling 'Come back soon!' as the car pulled away.

Everyone took 1/2 an hour of quiet time and during that time, the mail came.  You can't imagine the glee as Abby pulled a box out of our mail box, looked at it and squealed, "It's for us! It's from Aunt Janet!"
(Aunt Janet has been sending the girls occasional packages of treats for their American Girl Dolls.)

 I'm pretty sure Katherine's and Abby's arms were twitching here, wanting to rip open the tissue paper, but being told to wait while Maggie read the note.

I had a clue as to what was in the package, so I was trying to capture the moment that they realized that inside the little bags they would find a super-special treat.   If you look closely you'll see Maggie and Katherine smiling as they see that Aunt Janet made each doll a necklace with the doll's name in beads.
(The packages were not marked with names [that I saw at least] and yet each girl happened to open the package with her dolls' necklace!)

 Check out their fancy dresses, with tote bag and necklace to match!

 Of course the dolls had to get dressed right away.

 And then we had to pose with the dolls.

 And finally the girls took their dolls for a late afternoon stroll.

Yes, I'd say it was a super special day in the Sepersky house. Thank you to our visitors and Aunt Janet for making it happen!

We've been talking about our deck for a long time. It's old. It needs to be replaced. This year, it moved to the front of the priority list and we contracted with a builder to rebuild it.
(Yes, we talked about doing it ourselves, but luckily, Chris agreed with me that it was better to let a professional handle this one.)

In order to save a tiny fraction of the total cost, we agreed to do the demolition.

Maggie, Katherine and I started today, intending to remove the lattice work around the bottom edge of the deck. Because of the many nails and screws that were exposed, I didn't let the girls do too much and Katherine quickly got bored. But Maggie was persistent that she really wanted to help.

After we got the lattice off, we decided to attempt removing the railings. Chris got us started and pretty soon we were pros. We made a great team with Maggie using the socket wrench to loosen bolts and my 'strength' to remove the railings.

Because the deck is so old, it didn't take too much effort, and soon we had all of the railings off!

Once we hear a firm date as to when the construction will begin, we will remove the rest of the deck. But for now, it's been declared a work zone and the kids are not allowed back there anymore. Unless, of course, Maggie wants to get some more work done!

Video of Maggie's glee while demolishing the deck.

last section of railing to come down

DONE! she got that last section down!

we laughed that she only had Dora gardening gloves to use - we need to get her some real work gloves!

Look at my tools! Fun times!

I decided to clean out the glove compartment of the Red car today.
I found an Illinois map from 1989.
The Iowa Map was 1995.
The road atlas was 1999- which makes sense as the year we got married and started driving together?
The Wisconsin map was 2008.
Also, a map of Milwaukee bike routes. Because you need bike routes in a car?
Also a collection of individual county maps Chris has printed over the years-he likes to be able to take back roads.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Ready for Camp!

Maggie went to camp this week, APPLE CAMP that is. Chris gets all the credit for finding this FREE camp for Maggie to attend at our local Apple Store.  I took her on Monday and discovered it was run by 3 eager 20-somethings and Maggie was one of only 4 campers that day.

Jack, Marie, and Hayley gave the campers their shirts and name badges, and cool flash drive bracelets, and then told us the campers would be filming a video and using Garage Band to create a soundtrack for the video. Parents would be "producers" helping the campers, but the campers were in charge.  As  group we created a story board for a sample movie and talked about the different camera angles, and learned the basics of Garage Band.  We then had work time to create the story  board for our own movie, and a little time to compose music in Garage band.

Creating her story board

Composing music

Then we were sent home with instructions to come back on Tuesday with film clips ready to edit to create the movie.  Maggie had a very clear vision of what her movie was going to be, which made it slightly easier for filming. But her crew of Dad, Katherine and Abby worked hard to get all the filming done!

On Tuesday, Chris took her and they put all the film piece together and made the movie. They also worked on the music a little bit, but ended up doing most of the music production at home.

Film Editing

While I was at work on Thursday, they did the finishing touches. Maggie composed some original music and used some 'pre-fab' music and sound effects from Garage Band. She will tell you it was tricky to get the music to match up exactly with the film.

But, in the end, she was thrilled with her movie. This morning, we all went to the Apple Store to watch her movie premiere.  And we clapped as she received her Certificate and Badges for completion.

No Autographs Please!

And now, because you're dying to see it, I present you, Maggie's movie...............

 THE SWIM

Oh Katherine, sometimes it's hard to be the middle child!  Tonight at dinner, Maggie was complaining about her bee sting (?) from earlier in the afternoon, and how much it hurt. And Abby was whining about her scratched off bug bite/band-aid on her arm. Both being rather dramatic, but Chris and I were working on ignoring them (nicely!)

I noticed Katherine hadn't been eating, and asked what was wrong. She looked at me with a quivering lip and whispered, "I need to talk to you in private!"

What the what?

OK, so I took her up stairs, and asked her what was bothering her. She burst into sobbing tears and managed to tell me that she was feeling left out, because she didn't have anything that hurt, and that we were giving all of our love to the other girls and didn't have any left for her.

Wwwwhhhhhhaaattt?

So, after I held her and let her cry for a moment while I squeezed the breath out of her, we got calmed down, and I reassured her that a Mom has enough love for all of her children no matter how many she has. And that even though I might have to help the other girls sometimes, I still always loved her.  We talked for a bit, particularly about Gram, and how she had SIX kids to love and we all got enough.
I told her even if I was in China and she was in Wisconsin I would love her, and even when she moved into her own apartment I would still love her. And she felt better, and we were able to return to our dinner.

It was crazy, and unexpected, but I praised her for telling me what was bothering her, and reminded her that she could always come and tell me when something was bothering her, no matter what it was.

But whoa, where did that burst of emotion come from?

Way back in January, I signed Abby up for a dance class. It met on Tuesday mornings, which matched well with her M-W-F preschool schedule.  She had been asking to do something, but I was reluctant, because, well, "Third Child Syndrome."  Money, time, quality of programming, money, time, sigh.
The morning of her first class, I captured the photo above and felt like the worst Mom ever that I hadn't had her in class sooner - look at the joy in that face!

She LOVED her class. 6 little girls and Miss Amy, the very patient teacher. Rarely did all 6 girls show up on the same day, so Abby always got a lot of attention.  One of the reasons I agreed to join this studio, was that their end of year recital was optional. However, joining in January gave me only 3 weeks to decide if we wanted to do the recital.

Knowing that at Abby's level, her dance would be very basic, and knowing that to buy her costume (which I found ugly) would be around $60-75, and knowing that to buy the tickets for our family (not grandparents, just family) would be $40, and knowing that I had no intention of putting a full face of make-up on her, and styling her hair - - it seemed an easy decision to say, "No Thanks" to the recital.

But, seeing her face crumble on the day the costumes were delivered and handed to each girl who WOULD be in the recital? And having to answer her pathetic, "Why can't I go on the big stage, too Mommy?" every week?  That killed me. She fully understood that she was 'missing out' on something other girls were doing, and it was very hard, for both of us.

At the end of April, they had a parent observation class when we could come in and watch their whole class. (Otherwise it was looking through special "windows" from out in the hallway)  Other than the recital it was the only time to see their routine. (I did sneak a video on the last day, but it wasn't very good quality, from outside the classroom.)

Seeing the performance took away some of the burden of being the 'Meanest Mom in Franklin' because I know I made the right choice to NOT be in the recital.

And I've already signed her up for GYMNASTICS for next year. She can go at the same time as Katherine, we get a family discount, and there is NO RECITAL! Just a welcome mat to watch whenever we want, and a final performance in June - during class time!