Frosting Face

Last night we went to a fund raising dinner for the Boy Scouts. It was a pasta dinner with a desert auction afterward. Jeff made a cake to donate. It had the logo for the video game Halo, which included making black and blue frosting. After Jeff finished mixing the colors and decorating the cake we gave the frosting bowls to Rachel and Gabi, which they very much appreciated. It was written all over their faces.


We got a cake at the auction. It was a delicious Black Forest Cake.

Pizza with Parents and Les Miserables

Rachel's preschool class had a Mardi Gras/St. Patrick's Day party today. It was called "Pizza with Parents." Jeff couldn't go because he works downtown, and being at 11:00 it was not worth the extra driving and loss of hours on the job for him to go, but Gabi and I went. First we did an activity where we put Froot Loops cereal on a picture of a rainbow, matching the colors. Then we did a sequencing activity (okay, I pretty much did that one on my own) followed by a St. Patrick's Day art project (matching shapes).

Next the kids showed the parents some of the songs they know. They did a marching song, the did Old McDonald, they did Five Little Monkeys playing in the tree. Rachel was very cute and well-behaved. Must have gotten that attribute from me. Just ask any of my primary teachers what a wonderful child I was. Gabi joined in too. Even though she was at least a year and a half younger than the other kids she followed all of the instructions and had a great time with the other kids.


Finally it was time to eat pizza. We had pizza, apple juice, cookies and king's cake. It was a lot of fun.

Tonight I got to go see Les Miserables at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. It was AMAZING. I have seen it before several times, and I love it every time. It has been several years since I last saw it, and this time there were several staging elements that were done quite differently, as well as some other interpretations of the story that were different from what I remembered. That was kind of nice because it made it seem like it was the first time I had seen it. The singing was great, the acting was excellent, the special effects were fantastic, and the overall show was magnificent.

It's a hard-knock life

Poor Gabi. Yesterday she stumbled and fell and bumped her nose. Was she done? No, no she wasn't.

Today we met up with Amber and Rose at the Hounz Lane park. Gabi fell off the steps and landed on her head. It was an extremely scary thing to watch. She scratched up the side of her face. Was she done? No, unfortunately she was not.

This evening Gabi fell and hit her forehead on a cement block. She scraped up her head pretty good, and has an impressive goose egg to show for it.

Amazingly after each and every fall she cried for just a couple of minutes and then returned to her normal self. Even the last (and worst) fall she only cried for a little while, and then went back to playing.

She's tough. She gets that from me.

Chocolate

I was enjoying some peace and quiet. Rachel was playing quietly, and Gabi was still taking her nap. All of the sudden Rachel snuck up behind me and patted my cheek. I turned to look at her, and her hands were COVERED in chocolate. So was her face. Sure enough, I had a nice chocolate hand print on my cheek.
It's like I need to watch her all of the time or something! But if I were a better mom, I wouldn't have nearly so many fun stories to tell.

Random Things

Last week Jeff repaired one of our toilets, and replaced the old flush mechanism with a new, water conserving system. With the new system you flush up to dispose of #1, and you flush down to dispose of #2. (Flushing upwards uses half the water.) Anyway, it is requiring that Jeff and I try to change our habit of flushing without thinking. I taught Rachel that you flush up for pee pee and down for poo poo. She's catching on very quickly, and already is pretty consistent about flushing the right way. It has led to a problem, however. She thinks she can't pee and poop at the same time. This morning she told me she had to sit on the potty. I went with her, and after she finished peeing I wiped her bottom and she flushed (up) the toilet. Then she informed me that "now it is poo poo's turn," and sure enough she got right back on the potty and pooped.

Yesterday I took the girls to the dollar ($3) movie theater to watch Tangled. I was a little nervous about taking both girls by myself. I figured Rachel was ready for it, but doubted that Gabi would be able to sit through an entire movie. I was right. Rachel did great, but Gabi spent the last 30 minutes walking up and down the aisle. After all was said and done, I'm glad we went, but I won't go with both girls again for another year and a half or so.

This morning Rachel told me she wanted the meevie beaver. After a while I figured out she wanted the movie theater. Personally I like the name meevie beaver.

I made a few more quiet books. These are photo books. I printed the jpg files at Costco and put them is little $1 photo albums. I made a picture Book of Mormon, a book on the Prophets and Apostles of the latter-days, and a gospel ABC book.

Gospel ABCs

Book of Mormon

Prophets and Apostles

Sorry for all of the rotated pictures. I could probably fix it, but I don't feel like it right now.

Gabi catching up on a little reading in the laundry basket

The Veterinarian

I took Scout to the vet today. He is due for everything. When the office called to remind me about the appointment the girl told me they would need a fresh stool sample from Scout. Great. I expressed to the girl my concern that I might not be able to provide a fresh stool sample because Scout doesn't always poop on demand. She said not to worry, they might be able to get one there.

So I didn't worry.

When I put Scout's leash on he was so excited. He loves going for walks. When I had him hop in the car his emotions changed from excitement to fear. He's not a big fan of the vet. The whole (short) trip he was trembling. I kind of felt bad for him. Not that bad though.

When we got to the office they had me put Scout on the scale so they could weigh him. (15 lbs.) Scout decided that right then would be a nice time to provide a fresh stool sample. It was win-win. They got their fresh stool sample, and I didn't have to clean it up.

Sorry for not prefacing this post with a reader warning that it was about poop.

When we came home, as we turned down our road the trash truck turned behind us. So we had to stay outside to watch the trash truck do its work. Pretty entertaining! Rachel absolutely didn't want to go inside until the truck had finished our road. And our house was the last one.

Painting by fingers (and toes and nose)

Jeff here. I'm hijacking Noelle's blog for a moment. I do this rarely, but it is about the girls, so why not.

While Mommy was off to "no-no" practice, Rachel and Gabi decided they wanted to paint. After Daddy got some advice of we went. Here are the results!

Two Kids Are Better Than One

With one kid, you might think that parenting isn't that hard. Oh yeah, it's hard, no doubt, but you are at least matched one against one. It's not impossible to pretty much keep your eye on an only child (at least when they are little). With two kids, that changes.

After dinner today it was time for a bath. Rachel finished her dinner before Gabi, so she went downstairs to watch "The Swan Princess." I stayed with Gabi while she finished eating. When Gabi was done I took her upstairs to the bathroom and started running some water in the tub, then went downstairs to retrieve Rachel. Rachel made the very reasonable request that I carry her upstairs upside down. Sure, why not. When I got back up to the bathroom I found Gabi, fully clothed, sitting in the water in the bathtub. Not wanting to miss capturing the moment, I left her there and went downstairs again to grab my phone to take a quick picture.

Reverently, Quietly

A week ago I went to the Relief Society activity of the LaGrange Ward. My mother-in-law is the RS president there, and she invited me. It was pretty relevant because the activity was making quiet books for children of a range of ages to be educational, to help them learn the gospel and be reverent, or at least quiet during Sacrament Meeting.

They distributed CDs with several things to make, plus they provided the materials to make a couple of them there. I'm usually pretty horrible when it comes to making anything crafty, no matter how easy, but I was motivated on this one, and I managed to complete several quiet file folder activities.

I still have several more things to put together, but I'm planning on doing that tomorrow when I have access to my mother-in-law's photo printer. Maybe I'll be able to post more pictures of them when they're done.

After I finished the bulk of my project yesterday I told Rachel that we were going to take them to church. She has been asking to go to church ever since. I would like to guarantee that my girls will be reverent, or at least quiet tomorrow at church, but I am not so bold as to make that promise. What I do guarantee is that we will at least have more tools at our disposal to help them not disrupt the meeting too much.

Weekend happenings

Many years ago I read a book called "Up the Down Staircase." It is about a fresh from school teacher who gets a job working in a troubled inner-city school. In the book she asks her students to write an essay on the following quote by Robert Browning: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp." That quote has always stuck with me, and it came to mind again this weekend.

We bought face paint for Halloween. We didn't come close to using it all, so we have quite a bit left. Rachel managed to reach it, even though I had put it up high. Rachel firmly believes that her reach should always push the limits, and turns out she can grasp things beyond what I thought.

Anyway, she wanted to paint her face like a tiger. Artwork is Jeff's specialty, so he painted her face. He did a good job too.
Gabi is my good eater. (Rachel is most certainly not my good eater.) Gabi pretty much eats, or at least tries anything I put in front of her. She is so not picky (at least not yet) that she is willing to help Scout finish his food. This morning Gabi found this empty cool whip tub (I keep in the bathroom and use it for bath time) and wanted to wear it on her head. She got it firmly in its place, then joined Scout for his morning meal. I captured the moment.