A St. Paddy's Day Tale

"If I caught a Leprechaun..."

"I really caught a Leprechaun! But I'll tell you how I caught em then all tell you what I did with him. I was walking in th epark. I saw a shodowe figere. I ran over to it and it was a leprechaun! I ceped chasing him un till I caught em. Then I thot I saw Miss Tepper but it was just my aunt.
Back to the leprechaun. I took his gold and bouht an IPad. Than we saw a movie and played video games until he was gone!"

Jack

Pi day.

Short Stuff and me

Getting ready to head out with the nephew for day-care time.

Shamrock

Just like leaves on each shamrock I see,

there are three parts to the Holy Trinity.

First is God the Father,

then Jesus his only son,

and the Holy Spirit

together

as one.

Jack

Jump Rope for Heart

Jack's school participated in the Heart Association's recent fundraiser - Jump Rope for Heart. As of yesterday afternoon at event time, the school had rasied over 5,000 for the organization! Go kids!

Participating kids were divided up into groups and Jack was on the Blue Camero team.

JTO during one of the jump rope activities.

And, Little Man won a prize for participation! He picked out a brand new jump rope so he "can keep healthy at home."

Jumpin rope to keep his heart healthy and to earn the donations he gathered! Go get 'em!

I can't figure out how to post the video of the kids warming up to YMCA. Jack has told me before "I. Don't. Dance." After a while watching the other kids get their silly on, Jack joined in the fun. If I can get it figured out, I will post the video but right now something isn't cooperating.

WARNING: DANGER AHEAD.

Do not fall for these big blue eyes and blank/bored expression with the hint of accusation accompanied by "Can I please play on your phone if I can't leave while Jack is jumping?"

Wy is too young to participate in Jump Rope for Heart. I had volunteered to be a parent helper and so I couldn't leave. Unfortunately this meant Wy was condemned to an entire hour of BOREDOM in the gym.

I caved and gave him my phone.

After I got my phone back, I couldn't find my contacts for 20 minutes.

Pie Day

What better to do than to enjoy a slice of pie with your men-folks on Pi day!

Blackberry pie was enjoyed by all - except Stephen.

He refused and opted for a banana.

Guess who got Stephen's piece of pie?

Little ole' me!

Getting carded

During our crazy Snowpocalypse the other week, I decided it was finally time we actually got around to getting the library cards I keep thinking we are going to get. I packed these fellas into the car and off we went. The librarian was very impressed that Jack filled out his own paperwork. She also thought it was pretty cool that I made Wy sit with me and answer each question on the form. He had to spell his name, tell me his address, promise to take care of his books and bring them back on time. After we were set up with their new fancy cards we had to go check out books.

Wyatt wasn't very interested in looking for a book until Jack had picked up something on cars and robotics. After that it was a frenzy of picking out something that related to vehicles. Wyatt decided on a car about pocket bikes (miniature motorcycles that grown ups ride/race). He tried reading his book to Stephen - really he just showed Stephen the pictures and talked about how cool the bikes are.

Soccer-time!

Just a reminder for those of you who might be confused about Stephen - he is my nephew and he is staying with us for a while. Since he is in the 'Park grounds, he deserves some blog time.

2nd graders started soccer practice this week. Jack was thrilled to be in official practices. He and his classmates practice every day at recess, but these are official "with my coach and EVERYTHING!" Wyatt begged to go so he could play on the playground. Stephen tagged along and was desperate to join the big boys. He stood and watched the goings on for a good long while and then he started charging the field. I had to run to catch him.

After a few times of what I like to call 'catch and release' - I catch Stephen from charging into the middle of a soccer practice and release him on the sidelines - he opted to play with one of the extra balls. He actaully played a baby version of soccer - he acted as goalie and threw the ball into play and a couple of dads would kick the ball back to him. It was very sweet of the fellas to play with him.

When he was finally done and done with soccer he let me know it was swing time.

I will try to catch some soccer action of your favorite boys during upcoming practices. I might be preoccupied with little cutie pants here though.

Reasons I cry at 1:00 in the morning.

Little Stephen has had some nasty ear infections and while the various rounds of antibiotics have cleared up the infection, there is still fluid in his ears. His ENT has recommended tubes and that will be happening late next week. In the meantime the poor kid just has a hard time sleeping at night. Monday night was rather difficult for the little guy. He just kept waking up and was not able to settle down. Mom and I gave him some Tylenol to help him selttle enough to get back to sleep.

I usually sit with him in the rocking chair in his room on his more difficult nights but I was uncomfortable and opted for a more comfy chair and a blanket in the boys’ room. I thought Stephen had finally dropped off into a deep sleep and was thinking about moving him back to his crib when he woke up wailing. Jack sat straight up in bed and immediately started crooning to little Stephen “Don’t cry. No, don’t cry.” Stephen started looking for Jack so we went and sat on his bed. Jack started petting Stephen's hair and his arm.

My Mom has made up a little song for each of the kids when they were babies. She sings Stephen’s little song all the time so I nearly started to cry when Jack started to sing it to him there in the dark “Stephen, Stephen, Oh what a lovely boy you are. Stephen, Stephen, I know that you will go far!” After a few times through Stephen stopped crying and Jack laid down but Stephen wanted to hold onto Jack’s hand for a bit. It was all I could do to keep quiet as I started choking up from all the sweetness. We stayed there till Stephen was out and I slipped him back into his crib.

Recitals, recitals all around

Jack and Wyatt had a recital on Sunday. This is Jack's 2nd but Wyatt's very first recital!

Jack was going to play a Mario Bros piece, but the piece is just a bit too advanced for him. He is able to play the right hand and left hand parts seperately quite well. Put them together and it just isn't happening yet. He is quite upset about not being good at playing with both hands. I keep telling him to practice and be patient - he will get there. If you have any advice to pass on to this little man it would be greatly appreciated. He is being pretty hard on himself.

For this recital he played Vacation Days by Thompson and Down the Road by Fletcher.

And here is Wy's first time at bat. He did a great job with both of his pieces: The Flyer and The Steamboat - both by Fletcher.

And here are the boyos with their teacher.

Stephen loves to play piano just as much as the other fellas. He often pulls himself up onto the bench to play along while the boys practice. He also hauls himself up there to play solo throughout the day. I decided that if the boys were to have a recital, then Stephen deserved a recital as well. Here he is preparing for his World Premier of Ode of Odes!

And, the boys decided that if they were all giving recitals that it was only fair for Mommy to give a recital. Here I am playing my cutle little uke.

I played Albequerque is a Turkey (to the tune of Clementine), Tonight, You Belong To Me, Blowing In The Wind adn Fur Elise. Believe it or not everything was quite recognizable. I might not have maintained a consistent tempo at times but that has more to do with shifting between chord shapes and holding the uke than my ability to keep time! One of these days I shall post some video of all the musical stylins going on in Owenland Park.

Preparing for First Communion

Jack and his classmates have been busying themselves preparing for their upcoming First Communion. They met last weekend to learn about the Ciborium and the Chalice and to create their own from clay.

We had a pretty big day with his Communion meeting at 9:30, Mass at 11:00, his piano recital at 1:15 and then my recital at 2:30 so we just got him dressed up before we even left the house.

We did not know he would be working with clay and he gave me an earful for making him dress up. He at least had the sense to take off his vest and tie before really getting to work with his block of clay.

Cousin time

Stephen appreciates a helping push. That is a good thing because Jack likes to push him around the house on this little bike-thing.

And well, fair is fair isn't it? Unfortunately for Jack, Stephen doesn't handle turns very well and they wind up crashing into walls, the fireplace, the piano, ottoman, sofa, table...

And here are the big boys making sure Stephen stays safe as we do some shopping. They asked if they could hold his hand and walk him into the store "just to be SURE he is safe, Mom."

100 seconds.

Here are a few examples of what Jack can do in 100 seconds.

Let us know what YOU can do in 100 seconds!

Papers

Self explanatory.

Wyatt's class spent last week learning about Dinosaurs. Here is Wy's dino-work.

And I can't figure out how to get this darn thing to rotate but I had to include it because Wyatt's teacher gave him an award for his great ideas!



Playing with the King of Hearts

The Kinder teacher elects 1 boy and 1 girl every day in the month of February to be the King and Queen of Hearts. here is Wyatt making his stand as the king.

A closer look at his necklace/badge/thing tells us that he is a good friend and hosts fun play dates.

As Wyatt would say..."Duh."

Ukuleles, rulers and snow.

The boys had been asking to practice on my ukulele but weren't that interested in my showing them any chords. I found out about a free beginner's lesson at Guitar Center and took the boys there of a Saturday morning. Jack did really well until it came time to put the chords together in a song. The instructor went a bit too fast for Jack to get his hands to comply. Jack decided it was too embarassing, gave me the uke and sat down at the back of the room. Wy kept trying though he really only did strumming. I can't blame him: it is quite a lot to hold the thing, strum with one hand and make the other hand form chords...too much. I let them play with mine at home and Jack seems actually interested in trying to learn a few chords. We shall see where it gets us! In the meantime, John is making a guitar/ukulele stand for me. (You may or may not remember but we got Jack a kid guitar for Christmas a year ago - we haven't done anything with it, but we have one.) Now that we have two stringed instruments they really need a nice looking home. I will post a pic once we get the stand together.

I am in love with Pinterest which means John's Honey-Do list is getting longer by the day. He recently finished this height chart/board thing for me. As you can see, we put it to use immediately. Then I pulled out our little Winnie-The-Pooh chart and transferred all their little heights onto the board. It is SO cute!

Here are my menfolks with their snowman a few days into the Snowpacolypse.

And the poor headless snowman a few days later.

Spelling Sentences - 2nd grade

I had a baseball game and I got to pitch.


After the game we went to the beach.

Each of us got to go even my dog Patch.

Me and dad had a match playing beach volley ball and I won.

After that we went fishing and my dad helped me catch a fish.

Then I got to call Grandma and Grandpa on the phone.

After that I had a penut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.

Mom had to fill in a big graph. Boy she was tired.

Later my Dad got the flue so we had to leave the beach to go to his docter.

The docter said we couldn't hug or touch him for five weeks.

The end.

Jack