Paranthetically Speaking

Aside from squabbling all day Monday (the last day of a four day weekend is always the worst), and aside from the weather turning cold (would it just please decide to be warm or cold? This swapping back and forth is the pits), the week wasn't too bad. Just busy (then again, did you expect anything else?).

We had a movie-heavy week, though none were watched on Monday... Russell and I watched Food Inc. (in which I can really see the argument for local food. Get to know your farmers/ranchers people. And afterwards I returned the icky store-bought chicken breasts. Never again!), Whip It (which was more fun than I expected, but not a particularly great movie), and Iron Man 2 (meh; the first one blew stuff up better and actually had a plot), and Megan put together an Om Shanti Om (yes we bought it; we also need to buy Dil Bole Hadippa) party for a few of her friends (they thought it was okay, but none were as enamored as Megan is). Caitlyn and Megan have taken to watching America's Next Top Model (why? I don't know, but they like it. I was dubious, until they told me they sent a girl home for being too skinny because it sent the wrong role model. Okay. I don't particularly like fashion and modeling, but I can accept a show like that) as well.

Kristen, on the other hand, has discovered the magic that is Winnie the Pooh. We've been listening to House on Pooh Corner in the car, and she has fallen in love. We got out the Disney movie, and she watched it on Friday. Then turned right around and watched it again. Thankfully, we still have all our stuffed animals (going back to when Megan was a baby!), and Kristen has declared that they are hers. It's all very cute.

Alison's had a hard week; it seems that everyone and everything is against her (nothing new). Aside from her good cooking lesson on Tuesday, she's spent the week feeling put upon. It came to a head on Friday when they went to bingo night and her friend won the cooking basket that Alison desperately coveted. Then her friend refused to share. Period. It's hard being seven. (It's also hard being not-quite-eleven and not knowing what to ask for your birthday when all you really want is a Nintendo DS or an iPod Touch and your mom has said no to both of those. What is there left to get?)

Thursday, I spent running crazy (thankfully, Kristen was a wonderful gem). I'd been asked to do the cake for the Blue and Gold Banquet (I'm capable, remember?) and I spent the morning trying to get that together. Except I kept being interrupted, and it took longer than I wanted it too, and and and and... yeah, I survived, the cake turned out adequately (another good adjective for me), and it's done and gone. The girls were just sad we couldn't eat any of it (not having any cub scouts and not going to the banquet). On the other hand, I had messed up on a cake the day before, so they didn't really complain too much.

And that's about it. (Except that I will never go to Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday night again. Ever.)

Hindi Music and Other Enjoyments

I do wonder, sometimes, what my sixth grade self would think of me now, eating Indian food, watching Hindi movies, listening (and dancing and singing along as best as I can to) Hindi music. I wonder if she'd be appalled or amused or confused. Possibly all three.

Early this week, I downloaded several Hindi songs from a couple of movies we've enjoyed. I figured the girls would like them for their MP3s. Little did I know that they would be played constantly. Well, constantly when one of them are home. It's getting to the point where we can sing along, even if we really don't have any idea what "Fikar Karein Fukarey" or "Pretty Woman Dekho Dekho Na" means. I do recommend shouting HADIPPA! (emphasis on the "ee" of the I) for a random mood boost. It works wonders. They are also a ton of fun to dance around to.

Valentine's Day came and went, thankfully. I went to Kristen's school party; it's so funny to see how excited they all are about passing out valentines in preschool. Passing out valentines was optional for Caitlyn's class; she didn't think that anyone (besides her and a couple other girls) would, and was surprised at how many people brought something. Though, I really think we need to rethink Valentines as a second Halloween. The candy haul the girls brought home was completely ridiculous. On the other hand, most of it ended up in the trash.

Megan and I had a meeting with the gifted adviser on Tuesday. It was a much-needed ego boost for me (sometimes I do appreciate that my kids are appreciated!) to listen to him rave about how wonderfully smart, capable, talented and amazing Megan is. (I think she was a bit embarrassed.) He believes that she can get into whatever college she wants to, and wants to do everything in his power (hopefully we can finance what he wants her to do!) to help her achieve that. I talked to Russell afterward, and we both realized that neither one of us had that kind of support and encouragement in high school. Megan's so blessed to have great teachers in her corner.

Russell headed off to St. Louis for Model UN on Wednesday. He had a good time wrangling the "kids" and catching up with St. Louis friends. (The picture above is him, his students, and his friend Dave and Dave's wife at a Korean restaurant they ate at.) The friends did ask when the girls and I would be tagging along, but I'm not sure that'll ever be feasible. It'd be fun, though. We managed just fine without him here (it's getting easier as the girls get older). I discovered (I should have known) that watching a TV show about people going demon hunting is really not a good idea when you're home alone (ish). I lasted 10 minutes before I jettisoned it. So much for demon-hunting TV shows. (Probably good advice, period.)

It turned nice around Wednesday. I threw open the windows and sent the girls OUTSIDE. YAY! It didn't take them long to remember what being outside meant (I'm such a wimp about winter. Mostly it's because I hate all the clothes. Putting on, taking off, puddles of snow, all for about 10 minutes outside.), and they thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, Friday the girls were off and we went to the park for a couple of hours to just soak up the sun and enjoy being OUTSIDE. We're hoping it's the last of the winter weather, but (unfortunately for my poor plants) if past years are the norm, there'll probably be at least one more snow/ice storm (not to mention tornadoes) before spring is fully, finally here.

Thursday I actually went to the meeting formally known as enrichment (I think we should start calling it TMFKAE: tuhmumfkay?). They had asked me and another sister to make cake. The other sister came up with this really fun idea for making individual cakes... and so now I am the proud owner of a couple of cake molds. I should have taken pictures -- Russell had the camera, and I didn't think about it -- but they turned out really cute. And yummy. And neater than slicing up one big cake, though we made two flavors, and people ended up cutting the little cakes in half to get a bit of both. :-D The meeting was on talents, and they came up with an adjective for everyone. Mine? Capable. Yep. No surprise there. I do find it a little funny that that's what I project. (I suppose I want to, on some level.)

And aside from the Bollywood movies we watched (two so far; they have Monday off, so there's time for one more if we really want to), we mostly just played it low-key. My friend Karen took everyone on Saturday (except Megan) and went to the Exploration Place (they had originally planned the zoo, but it was raining on Saturday), and it was wonderfully rejuvenating to have a quiet afternoon with Megan, watching.... um, yeah. Actually, the one we watched, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, has to go down as the absolute sweetest movie ever made. This makes three -- along with Om Shanti Om and Dil Bole Hadippa that we need to own.)

And that's about it. Aside from the holiday tomorrow (the girls haven't gone to a full week of school since the first week of January. Granted, some of that is our fault, taking them on vacation and all...), it's a normal week. Thank heavens for that!

In Spite of Being a Curmudgeon

I got up at 1 a.m. (because that's when I remembered; Russell did get up with me to help) so my children would wake up and see this on Valentine's Day:

After all, Tradition trumps Curmudgeonry.

By the way, a vlog -- video blog -- by one of my favorite authors -- though I like him more as a vlogger -- hit upon exactly why I dislike Valentine's Day so much. If you want, take some time to watch it. (It's only a few minutes long.)

I'm Thinking That...

...watching campy Bollywood movies really is a cure for all the world's ills.

....the school board is full of a bunch of wimps, but when faced with adding yet another day to the end of school, they will in fact send kids to school in -5 degree weather.

....volunteering at the Humane Society is making the girls want pets more not less.

....volunteering at the Humane Society is changing my mind (albeit slowly) about dogs.

....short hair on Kristen is the best solution (and suggested by her!) to all our hair-combing woes.

....the promise of spring-like weather does wonders for my attitude.

....when your family says the cake is "just okay" and yet proceeds to eat it all, they must mean it's "good". Either that, or they'll just eat anything.

....it's *wrong* when it's colder in the house when it's 45 degrees outside than when it's -5.

....it's kind of fun discussing cake with someone who has more experience than me.

....words make big impacts. Even if you don't remember what you said.

....listening to books-on-CD is fun. Especially if the book is really good (or at least read really well).

....weird dreams do not make for restful sleep.

....Valentine's Day is a really lame "holiday", but one in which my girls get REALLY excited about. Thankfully there are school parties to fill the hole created by my Grinchy attitude.

....it's absolutely wonderful having great friends who put together cooking classes for a daughter who's into cooking right now.

....pretty much sums up the week. Have a great week!

A Picture of a Snow Day (or a few...)

Back in January, we thought the snowstorm was it. The one we get for the year. Little did we know, that we'd get two more, and that we'd be thoroughly sick of it a month later.

Here's how we managed to spend the last few snowdays, when the world looked like this:

They do get creative sometimes, and make costumes and choreograph dances. Kristen is a penguin

and Alison is a white tiger.

They're friends. :-)

Caitlyn was the mastermind, and the emcee.

Sometimes it warms up enough (and gets smushy enough) that we go out and make snowmoms and snow babies.


But mostly we just hang around the house in our pajamas, doing crafts (when Mom remembers to buy supplies)

Drinking hot cocoa (the high this morning was -5. That's COLD for Kansas.)

And watching TV on Hulu and Netflix and YouTube, monopolizing the laptop (but only after asking mom first.)

Exciting, huh?

Karma Bites

So, we go away, and they have 70 degree weather. We come home and it snows for two days, and school is canceled. I think it's our fate to bring snow with us. *sigh* It seems to happen often enough.

Maybe it's punishment for going to Hawaii in January?

Anyway, we made it home safe, sound, tired, and about 8 hours ahead of the storm. Good thing, too. I would hate to have been stranded in Dallas for the week.

We were actually kind of grateful for the snow on Tuesday (yes, you did read that right), because it enabled us to catch up on our time zone/lack of sleep. We caught a red-eye out of Kona and I didn't sleep. At all. (Except for about 45 minutes on the flight from LA to Dallas...) It's just SO hard to sleep on airplanes. The rest of the family didn't fare much better. So, we spent Tuesday being lazy (clothes? Why do we need to get dressed??) and watching the blowing snow out the window.

Wednesday was much the same. Everything was closed, we were lazy, Russell did manage to go into school for a bit (Friends was closed, too), and amazingly, we had enough good will leftover from vacation that we didn't fight.

Thursday, however, we started griping. I shall write this day down in history: it's the one in which every single one of my kids said, "BUT I WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL" when they found out it was canceled. We went to playgroup in the morning, then the older girls had a party here (while I went to work at the library), and the younger two went to friends houses. Thank heavens for friends who are willing to host and visit on the spur of the moment. It makes snow days go that much better.

Friday was back to normal. (And there was much rejoicing.) The girls got to go tell about their amazing adventure (interestingly enough, we were tan enough...) and I got to sit in silence in the house for a couple of hours. Bliss. We've started watching Downton Abby on Masterpiece Theater -- interesting bit of drama, though I have to admit we're all kind of waiting for something exciting to happen. Then again, we're only halfway through. Maybe it'll get better. The girls also watched The Hobbit for the 12th time this week; Russell put it on for them earlier in the week, which inspired Caitlyn to pick up the book. And the younger girls even wander around talking about Golum (whom they think is cute) and Smaug. Ah, I love my geeky family.

Yesterday was just cleaning and being lazy (hmm... maybe I should have titled this Lazy Week?). It warmed up enough for Alison and Kristen to go out and make a snowman out of what was left of the snow. It melted a bit, but it's still out there. And we all crashed early (still catching up on sleep, I suppose).

Today was nice; nothing special, except it was good to be back in our home ward. It's nice to go on vacations, but perhaps one of the reasons is that you become really grateful for home.

Have a lovely week! Stay warm...

One Last Hawaii Picture

From Sunday, before heading home. It was a lovely vacation.