Christmas Program

Millie had her Christmas Program this week at Westfield High School. First I want to say a big THANKS to my mom who drove up just to see it. Rick was out of town and Millie was pretty upset that he was not going to see it. So thanks Mom, you rock!

This program was so funny I was laughing out loud. These kids practiced so hard everyday for about 2 months and it showed. I was very impressed and entertained.

Here are some photos of mine and a few a friend sent me because she was much closer to the action than I was.

A Few Chrsitmas Photos

This was the first night I was playing with my new lens. I still have a lot of learning to do and perfect focus is such a hard thing for me to master. I think it's because I don't see clear so it's impossible for me to use manual focus. Oh well, guess it just won't ever be perfect and I will have to live with it.

Karate Central

Reed needed an activity, the poor kid has nothing going on these days. Of course I knew if I signed Reed up, I would never hear the end of it from Millie so I now have 2 students of Karate in the house. Their uncles and Rick better watch out!

Snow Again

We had a a few inches of snow a few weeks ago. I guess I will get used to it and eventually I won't keep posting blogs every time it snows, I promise. But my kids get so darn excited about it so I can't help myself.

Reed wanted to shovel a pile of snow, that's what he told me. So I shoveled the entire driveway which was more ice than snow so that he could have a pile and re-shovel it into the yard. He was thrilled. Millie was at school while all this fun took place, poor thing.

Smart Boy

Reed is not nearly as easy to teach as Millie was so of course I try not to compare them. I am proud of Reed and how quick he learns, he just won't let me teach him for hours at a time like Millie did. So of course he is learning a little slower than she did. I think he is every bit as smart as she is, he just doesn't have the thirst for perfection that she did. Once I finally got him interested in trying to write letters, he took right off. He wanted to play his sight word game on my phone today and I said he had to learn to write his name first. He grabbed his aqua writer immediately and wrote this for me all by himself. His response was "See, told you I could do it, now can I play on your phone!?! "

Millie Is Thankful

Millie brought this work home from school last week. It cracked me up, especially that she put ages on the pictures she drew (sorry mom) and the Thanksgiving is...page. Where did she come up with that? I asked her if those were things the class said together but she said no, they were her answers. "Family chatting"?? Where in the world did that come from, so silly. And I don't think she has ever been around an apple pie. I have to believe some of those answers had friend influence!

Black Friday Fishing

Millie and Reed went fishing today with Grandpa Alan and Rick. They both caught 2 fish. Millie named her both of hers.

Reed's Thanksgiving Feast

Reed had a cute little Thanksgiving Feast at his school today. We got to go and see them sing some songs then they ate. Of coursed Reed ate and ate and ate. He had 3 plates but we had to cut him off because it was time to go. That boy is going to get really expensive to feed real soon. We may not only need our own cow but we may need to start raising our own pigs too!

Merry Christmas To Me - f1.4

I bought myself a little early Christmas gift and it came in the mail yesterday. A new lens for my camera, woohoo! It will take some getting use to because this is my first prime lens. What that means is it won't zoom. The only zooming that will happen is with my feet. So it will keep me moving but it will allow me to get so much more light in the camera so indoor shots and low lighting conditions will be possible now.

Here is an example. The first photo is with my old lens which only had an aperture of 3.5. See how Reed is blurry because I just didn't have enough light so the shutter had to stay open longer which caused the camera to record Reed's (and my) movement - thus, blurry.

Here is the same shot with my new lens. Same amount of light, same distance apart. My new lens has a larger aperture (1.4) which means more light will come in so the shutter does not stay open as long. See how much more clear (and goofy) Reed is?

I am very excited about this! Are you? I bet so!

Children's Museum

My mom, sister and nephew came to visit this past weekend and so we all had fun at the Children's Museum. The Museum really is too much to try to cover all in one day but we did our best. The kids had a blast and after our third trip there, we still have not seen everything. Good think the kids have a pass.

Reed was busy making DNA from wheat.

Random Things like Addition, Ham, Legos and Snirt

This is going to just be a few random things that I have not mentioned yet along with some photos of our random blizzard we had the other day...

Millie's school has a math and reading challenge for the students. Millie has been working on both very hard and finally passed her math challenge a few weeks ago. For first grade the math challenge is for them to successfully answer 50 addition problems in less than 5 minutes and 50 subtraction problems in less than 5 minutes. She was very excited when her and another friend in her class passed. She really wanted to be the first one to pass but she was just as happy with a tie for "first". She got a Math Whiz t-shirt and got to appear on the morning announcements and speak with the principal.

There is never a dull moment with Reed and it's impossible to keep track of all the funny and thought provoking things he comes up with but here was a little conversation we had the other day...

Reed - "Mom, I want a new house."
Me - "Okay, what kind of house? One in a neighborhood with lots of friends to play with or one in the country so we can farm?"
Reed - "In the country so we can be farmers."
Me - "We could even have a garden and grow some of your favorite things like sweet potatoes, spinach, and broccoli..."
Reed - "...and HAM!!! I love HAM! Yes, we need to plant ham in the garden."

He does love ham...and bacon and sausage. He's really a big fan of most pig products.

Both kids are totally in love with Legos right now. I got out my Legos from when I was little (and not so little) and they love them. We have a city built in our living room complete with roads, houses, restaurant, police station, King Aurthur's Castle, spaceships, 2 giant reindeer and a horse stable.

Now, about this random snow storm we had last week. Totally unacceptable. However, Millie and Reed were in Heaven. Millie was excited about 2 things when we said we were moving to Indiana: The Colts and Snow. I'm glad 1 of the 2 things isn't letting her down. When she got off the bus the other day, it was very lightly snowing. By the time her and Reed got bundled up, it was snowing so hard I couldn't believe it. The bad thing was it wasn't cold enough for the ground to be frozen so I ended up with Snirt all over the house. What is Snirt you ask? Here are the words from Millie's song she has been learning in school: "S-N-I-R-T, we're making a mess where the snow used to be. S-N-I-R-T and you can have our grimy grunchy recipe. Take a little snow, add a little dirt and what you get is what we call Snirt." So that's Snirt and it's all over the rug and hardwood floors. I need a cleaning person S-T-A-T!

Oh Pinterest...

I've done it. I have become hooked on yet another website. Someone help me! Here is my idea of what Pinterest is...you know when you see something on the web that you think is yummy/pretty/creative/or crafty so you bookmark it in your favorites in the hopes of one day making it and then never look at it again because the bookmark tells you nothing? Pinterest is a way to bookmark things by using an image of the thing you liked and then this site saves them all for you. So one glance at your "board' and you recall all those wonderful things you wanted to remember. Just click on it and you are back to the original link. I have made a vow that I have to make at least one thing I bookmark a week or I am not allowed to pin anything new. That's what it is for right, to actually follow through and DO something? So this is my first project from Pinterest.

It's a Mommy/Daughter Journal. I bought a composition notebook from Walgreens and made it pretty with my scrapbook supplies. And for all you pinners out there, please don't pin this blog, it has my kids on it, thanks.

I wrote a little letter in it explaining it to Millie so it will be where we are each others pen pals and we write back and forth to each other. I'm pretty fired up about it. It was going to be a Christmas present for her but I can't wait so she gets it today when she gets home from school.

Here is the link to where I got the idea.

Halloween

If it's not obvious, I don't go all out for Halloween, I barely do anything at all. Sorry kids. Reed was a Doctor, he got the costume from Uncle Vince for Christmas. Millie was a butterfly. She was happy so I was happy. She will look back at this when she is older and tell me what a lame mom I was. I did have a fire in the fire pit though, does that help my case at all?

My Not As Stupid House

I've talked about the house before, it needed a lot of TLC! We are slowly getting there. And by we I mean I keep a list of stuff I want done and Rick humors me and keeps making it happen, he rocks. So our latest task was crown molding. I just felt like the house seemed naked without it. Of course, I had no pictures on the wall so I'm sure that didn't help either but I will just let these photos speak for themselves. Thanks Rick! And just for the record, I did paint it all and was even in charge of the nail gun toward the end!

Dining Room Before.  Notice the ugly light.

Dining Room After - We are still going to put up wainscoting but that will have to wait.  Painted light.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

My fancy corners I asked Rick to do. There may have been a few curse words in the process but don't' they look good? He's so good to put up with all my ideas.

Player of the Game

That's my boy! Maybe in a few years he will grow into his mouth guard.

Tennis Troubles

It's really hard to get photos of Millie playing tennis. The lighting is poor and the movement is fast and that all makes for a blurry Millie.  She is playing but we are really having a tough time finding a clinic that is challenging for her. You would think being in a larger city, we would have many more options. We kind of do in a way but we are getting ready to try our 4th class option (second club) hoping to find a group that will challenge her so she can keep learning and improving. So far all we have seen are a bunch of kids who can not behave and can not even hit the ball over the net. It's really stressing me out and hopefully soon we can find the right fit.  If this next class does not work out for us, I am going to strongly suggest and ask that she be placed with the 8-10 year old intermediate groups.  That will be our last resort because we have tried everything else.  And no, private lessons are not in the budget at age 6.

My Little Pig Farmer