Teacher Bags

Last day of school, and I just finished up the teacher bags in time!!!

For Mrs Roesch - a Bookbag, sort of courier style. Blue and Brown.

For Mrs. Jordan, a Pink Romantic Ruffles Handbag:

Ruffles....

Weird kids

Not proud moment. But I know they do this for the annoyance factor, since they know I hate it.
Anyway, they are too smart for their own good.

A Bike Milestone

Way back at the end of April, Elise rode her bike without training wheels for the first time! And she didn't even crash. Not for a while, anyway.

Summer bikerides, here we come!

(Now I can sell that trailerbike, woo hoo!)

HAIR!!!!!

Owen finally got his hair cut. It was getting a bit, er, ungainly.

Elise had hers cut earlier as well - just not as drastic a change.

LOST TOOTH!!!!!!

Here is lil sweet potato Elise showing her first lost tooth!!!!!! She made it - just before the end of the school year.

It's quite interesting, how my two children lost their first teeth within DAYS of each other in the school year, in spite of the two months less than 3 years difference they are in age, and the fact that Owen got his first tooth about two months earlier in his life than Elise (not that I am into comparing my children in other ways, especialy as a judgement - just the fun stuff, like teeth).

So, they both lost their first tooth during the LAST week of school of their first grade year.

Woo hoo!!!

PS I'm not even going to mention how behind I am in posting (;-p), everything that has happened in the past month or so will just show up here as I find time to post it.

Ballet Recital 2010

It's that time of year again - Recital Time. The theme this year was the movie Pocahontas, and Elise's group was Hummingbirds. Again, since I can't video or photograph during the actual recital, I videoed the dress rehearsal (in the gym at our rec center). In the middle of it some small child tried to walk in front of my camera, and he fell down, and my camera jiggled around - but it gets better again. Of course I mostly focused on Elise, but everyone did a wonderful job. They are all 6 or 7 years old.
Elise view
All view

Here are the Hummingbirds at the actual recital, backstage.

Some of the older girls (yes, Elise is now in that category!) got to dance in both shows (this year the show was split into two to accomodate the large number of dancers....) so we had some time to kill in between.

Running!

Spinning!





The pink hummingbirds:

The blue hummingbirds:

Playing cards!

They were almost as cute playing cards as dancing in the recital!

Almost.

The shows were fun to watch, there are some many little girls dancing - they are so cute. And two soloists, older girls who have had a great deal of practice. One was dancing as Pocahontas, and they were both very good.

I didn't even include a video of the finale, since it wasn't that exciting this year, and you can't see Elise at all in any of the videos (older classes stand in the back, and Elise is short!)

The Hummingbirds danced amazingly, no one forgot their steps, they looked wonderful.

Very proud of my Elise today.

After the shows:

Moooommmmm! Enough with the pictures!

Okay.......

Elise's congratulatory "bouquet" -

Hugging brother after dress rehearsal!

So I asked Elise on the drive home what she thought of the recitals. She told me she really enjoys them. I asked if this was something she wanted to continue, and she told me - she would keep doing them until SHE was Pocahontas!

Lofty goals she has. I believe she will if she wants to.

Another view of their dance - practice in class the day before the rehearsal. They are good, aren't they? (PS they were missing one hummingbird in practice and dress rehearsal - but she made it for the recital.)

How to Train Your Chicken

They gave up on the hula hoop - too difficult.

Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Just finished a really good book, and had to share. Barbara Kingsolver is my favorite author, and I've had this book checked out before, but at that time reading this one wasn't a priority. This time I read it through, slowly and thoroughly.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle profiles this family's journey through a year of eating locally. This includes utilizing local sources of foods, as well as growing their own. While the family had many reasons for their journey, ultimately it came down to trusting our instincts. Eating locally is not a new phenomenon, it's just been forgotten in our era of corporate agriculture and world travels.

The book is non-fiction, but is written as a story. And Barbara Kingsolver writes a great story - try any of her novels, series or short stories, or her non-fiction essays. So many, and all wonderful.

What a great time of year to be inspired by reading this story! As I was planting my seeds for my garden this year, I read as the Kingsolvers were doing the same. Her description of brand new chicks is dead on, I was giggling along, remembering our little girls just a year ago. I have many more ideas for my garden this year - and the motivation to actually start and finish them this year.

Beyond the growing of vegetables and animals for eggs and meat, this story goes into depth on where our food really comes from. This is approached in a straightforward manner, using many examples along the way, and real people and families. If nothing else, I think more now about where the item I am buying was grown and/or produced. I am taking a hard look at those bananas, and contemplating whether someone living so far from the equator should actually be eating them (even though I haven't stopped buying them - yet).

We read this book for book club, and although I missed the actual gathering to discuss the book, I did get to enjoy some of the discussion. One issue that came up is the family's use of animals for meat on the farm. And the fact that many cultures today DO rely on animals for subsistence. My feeling on the matter is that this family has great respect for their animals, treating them humanely, and slaughtering in a manner that preserved dignity for all. They also researched all the sources of their meat and other animal products used from other farms. I can only respect this approach. I also believe that if we needed to, I would eat our chickens. Although no one else in family would allow that ;-p - and I have absolutely no urge to eat chicken anytime soon.

In many ways, I feel that my family is a step ahead of most people (in the US anyway) in the direction of the Kingsolver family's eating style. Maybe even a big step ahead. And in other ways, wow, a long way to go. I have no doubt that we as a civilization cannot go on with our food industry the way it is, without something serious, in a major way, really bad happens. I don't know what, but keeping this knowledge, and finding the ability to use it is imperative.

Spring Break - SNOW!

Spring Break - Skiing!

For the end of spring break, we took a small ski vacation. I went up Thursday with the kids to Solvista, a small resort that caters to families with children (and is also much less expensive! than the big resorts). We ended up spending the whole day on the bunny slope, which costs only $10 per person. The kids gained a lot of experience skiing, as well as with riding the lift. Thursday was a sunny, warm, beautiful day (I got sunburned ;-p).

We spent the night at a condo in Winter Park. The patio of our condo had the biggest icicle ever, and Owen had to pull it down and play with it.

John joined us after getting delayed for about 3 hours on I-70 due to an accident.


Here we are having a lovely french toast breakfast at our condo.

Next day we went skiing at Winter Park - not a cheap proposal. But the kids felt they were ready to go up a big mountain, and Winter Park has a lot of variety in the green slopes (less so at Solvista).

We got a fun gift for Christmas this year - Video sunglasses. So, John wore them while skiing this time.
Here we are on the lift:

They aren't exactly the smoothest video camera ever, and John never seems to look directly at someone with them. But they're fun!

Next comes a pieced-together video of the end of our ride up on the lift and then down the mountain. Unfortunately, one whole fun section in the middle would not save in to the format I need to upload here. It involved a massive yard sale with John and Elise ....

I also see that I got one section in here twice. Ah well, I spent too much time editing this video t oupload here, and I am NOT going back to fix it.

Not much video of Owen skiing, as after Elise and John wiped out, Owen got way ahead of us - he thought he was behind - and we didn't catch him til nearly the end.

And, at what seems to be the top of the world.
Actually, it was only halfway up the first mountain at Winter Park.