I spent all day today learning the ins and outs of being a dance mom. Lexi joined her middle school dance team this year, and today they performed at their very first competition. They were the only middle school team, so their performance was just an exhibition, meaning they weren't judged, but it gave them a chance to practice in front of a larger audience than just their coaches and a handful of parents. There are only 9 girls on the team, but they got up there in front of all those high schoolers and the packed audience and brought their very best, and I'm proud to say they rocked it!
I heard several people comment on how sassy Lexi was (she's the last one to take her place - you be the judge). She was definitely in her element. She loves performing, and today I'm so thankful that she has the chance to express herself, and to be a part of a team while doing something she loves.
(I have four posts in my drafts folder right now. Only one of them is not a Random Thoughts Thursday post. I don't know what's wrong with me that I can't complete a single blog post these days. It's been over a month. I think I'm just burned out from too much sitting in front of the computer while I was taking classes. Or, at least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. But, so help me, I am determined to actually hit the "publish" button before the day is done. I don't even care any more what the post looks like. So, you know, heads up :) )
Today is Mother's Day. It's also my birthday. I'm...old. Okay, I'm not really that old. In fact, I'm younger than most of my friends these days. But I'm older than I've ever been, and while I think I'm handling it fairly well, it's still kind of a big number. Chris and I have a kind of mutual agreement that we don't need to make a big deal of each other's birthdays. Mostly we just don't have the energy, but when your birthdays fall a day apart, the celebrating just gets to be too much. So we typically don't do a whole lot, and that's understood without needing to be said, and we're both okay with it.
Even with all that, though, I woke up this morning feeling a little bit bummed - knowing that it was two big days in one, and not much was going to be done to celebrate them. And knowing that I couldn't complain, because that's just how we roll around here, and because Chris's birthday is tomorrow and I still have no idea what we're giving him (love you, honey!)
We do have one Mother's Day tradition, however, which is that Chris & the girls always make me breakfast in bed. So even though I generally wake up when Chris gets up, I stay in bed and pretend to be asleep so they can "surprise" me. I love it. And that's what happened this morning. They came in with a tray, two cards, and - what's this? - a great big box. They made me read the cards first, then an extra card taped to the top of the box, and then I took a closer look at the plate my breakfast was on, and I slowly realized something.
Our plates don't have words on them...
And realization came stronger and stronger as they unpacked the box. For Mother's Day, for my birthday, they made me a set of plates, each one depicting a different illustration from a children's book, hand-painted by the girls, Chris, and our good friend. For weeks, my children and my husband, and, as it turns out, several of my friends, have been lying to me. While I thought they were having playdates and providing free child labor for our friend, they were painting, glazing, and, in Vicki's case, driving all over the place getting these plates ready to surprise me today.
The backs all have something special on them, too, but I was in a
hurry and didn't get a picture
They're beautiful. They're amazing. They make me smile and cry and smile again. They are, quite possibly, the best present I have ever received. And I refuse to think about the number of lies I was told in order to make it happen. They were definitely lies for a good cause, and I will cherish the knowledge of them just as much as I will cherish these plates. They make me happy, and they're a reminder that my family knows what I love and are willing to work hard to surprise me with something they know I'll treasure.
Now I'm just sorry I don't have something equally as epic for Chris's birthday tomorrow. I guess there's always Father's Day...
One part of the Girl Scout Law states that Girl Scouts are friendly and helpful. We discussed it at Ellie's troop meeting two weeks ago. As a parent and a Girl Scout leader, it's nice when I get to see something like that being taken to heart.
See, it's long been a source of pride for Ellie to know that she has the longest hair in the family. Lexi once held that title, but she had to relinquish it after suffering a self-inflicted mullet. Ellie has loved her long hair and has been the most willing of all my girls to let me play with it, so I've loved it, too.
Then, about a month ago I was shampooing her and she said to me, completely out of the blue, "Mom, I want to get my hair cut and give it to that place that makes wigs for kids who don't have hair."
And I was blown away.
I don't know where she heard about Locks of Love, but I'm glad she did. On Saturday we went to see my friend Erica and, after wavering a little bit, Ellie decided to go ahead and give the long hair title back to her sister.
Before
During (Thank you, Vicki, for the cell phone picture! Mine didn't turn out.)
After!
She's so excited to mail her ponytail to Locks of Love so another little girl can have beautiful hair. I'm so proud of my girl!
The following items may or may not have actually been on any bucket list I may or may not have actually made. But even if they weren't, they should have been.
1. Ring in the New Year in an airport.
Thankfully, no one got a butt shot of me
For Christmas this year, Chris's parents gave their children a Caribbean cruise. We celebrated New Year's Day by watching Miami slowly disappear into the sunset.
Of course, before that, we had to celebrate New Year's Eve in the Salt Lake airport, waiting for our 1am flight to Atlanta. By the time we arrived in Atlanta for our 4-hour layover, and despite (or, quite possibly, because of) the sleeping meds we took to help us on the red-eye, we were exhausted. After a surprising breakfast at Chili's (I know, right?), we staked out our spots and crashed for an hour or two before it was on to Miami, where we boarded the majestic, if badly decorated, Norwegian Pearl and set off on a beautiful adventure on the Caribbean Sea.
2. Visit the Bahamas
Paradise, anyone?
Our first stop was Great Stirrup Cay, a private island owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines. They schedule the island so that only one ship is there at a time, so we only had to share this little piece of paradise with the 2000+ other passengers on the ship. We snorkeled a bit, but mostly just enjoyed the temperature difference between Utah and the Bahamas.
3. Bowl at sea
Yes, it is possible to bowl on a cruise ship. It is not necessarily possible to bowl well, but at least on a cruise ship when you bowl badly you can blame it on the sea.
4. Zip line through the jungle
Those things are FAST!
When we went to Alaska, one of the excursions offered was a zip line adventure. I really wanted to do it, but I was outvoted and we went on a float plane ride instead. I've never regretted that, because it was pretty amazing, but I've still always wanted to experience the zip lines. They did not disappoint. And I think flying through the Jamaican jungle canopy was probably cooler than flying through Alaskan treetops, anyway.
5. Eat authentic Jamaica jerk chicken
It was really hard to get a clear picture, due to all the smoke, but those
are chickens splayed out on tree branches above a giant smoke pit
and covered by corrugated tin.
Oh. My. Word. Our driver in Jamaica took us to this little place called Scotchies, where I ate the BEST chicken I have ever had. I highly recommend it if you ever visit Ocho Rios.
And, as a side note, everyone in Jamaica really does say, "Mon."
6. Find out of Grand Cayman really lives up to all those John Grisham books
Cemetery Beach. Gorgeous. Peaceful. Happiness.
Okay, I couldn't honestly tell if it does, since I wasn't there to embezzle company funds. But it's beautiful and the snorkeling is awesome.
7. Get a fingerprint sunburn
Oops.
8. See a spotted eel off the coast of Cozumel
Me, Mel, & Erica rockin' the snorkel gear
Snorkeling in the Caribbean is like swimming in an aquarium. The water is amazingly clear and the fish are pretty friendly. The spotted eels, not so much.
9. Do pretty much nothing but eat, sleep, and read for an entire week
Oh, yeah.
10. Spend an amazing week with some of my favorite people
Thank you, Ron and Perri, for a fun, relaxing, rejuvenating, much-needed and thoroughly enjoyed vacation!
Two Random Thoughts Thursday posts ago, I alluded to a phone call that chased away any lingering doubts about starting Vicki in school when we did. Today I get to talk about why.
Vicki has always been bright. She has always been eager to learn, and determined to succeed at whatever she put her mind to. Crawling wasn't getting her to where she wanted to go quickly enough, so she started walking at 9 months old. Speaking one word at a time didn't communicate her thoughts clearly enough, so she started speaking in complete sentences long before anyone expected her to. She learned the basics of reading pretty quickly, but once she really figured out that if she put it all together the doors to new worlds would open, she started really reading in the space of almost literally a weekend. One night we were reading chapter books to her, and the next, it seemed, she was reading them to us.
At this point we had just moved to Oregon, and suddenly we found ourselves faced with the fact that we had a four-and-a-half year old who was, as far as we could tell, ready for kindergarten. We talked it over with the school, took her in for the kindergarten assessments, and spent some time on a conference call with the wonderful principal, who took us through the pros and cons of starting kindergarten early, made his recommendation based on her assessments (which was to go ahead and start her), and left the final decision up to us.
And we've never truly regretted sending this little baby:
with the backpack that's almost bigger than her
off to kindergarten.
She was pretty much the tiniest kid in the school, but boy did she love it. From day one, school was very clearly her thing.
Over the years since then, Chris and I have talked about that decision we made for her, and whether or not we still thought it was the right decision. And we've always felt good about it, and pretty sure it truly was the right decision.
Fast forward to a week and a half ago. I got a phone call from the principal, the same one who helped us make the decision to start her early nearly six years ago. He said Vicki had been chosen by the 4/5th grade teachers as the outstanding student of the year, an award that is presented annually by the local Masonic Lodge for one boy and one girl from each of the elementary schools in our district.
the sign in front of the school (the boy's name is on the other side)
In that moment, I knew, without a doubt, that we were absolutely 100% right in sending her to school when we did. Not only did she hold up in all academic areas, but socially as well. She may be the youngest 5th grader in the school (she's actually younger than a few 4th graders), but she carries herself with a maturity that more than makes up for the age difference.
with her teacher Mrs. T and our amazing principal Mr. L
It's moments like this that make parenting feel so worth the effort. I don't believe that Chris or I did anything out of the ordinary to help Vicki achieve this award - it was all her hard work and dedication, but our award was getting to listen to her teacher's speech about why she was chosen for it.
This was a morning that made me feel like I've been doing something right as a parent.
Maybe not everything, but something.
I was up all night with Ellie when she was sick, and I didn't really get any sleep during the day yesterday, because she was holding me to a very strict schedule: a teeny-tiny spoonful of frozen Pedialyte ("juice slushies") and ice chips every 15 minutes. That's what the advice nurse said to do, and since I wouldn't let her have anything else, those incremental treats were incredibly important to her. At the most, I had maybe five 5-minute catnaps all day long.
25 (broken) minutes of sleep in a 36-hour time period does not a happy mommy make.
I collapsed into bed at 9:00 last night. It would have been sooner, but Chris had an unavoidable church meeting, so I still had to get the kids in bed and the house in a state I didn't mind waking up to before I could crash.
This morning right before Chris left for work he mentioned that it looked like it hadn't warmed up quite as predicted. Apparently he knew this because the tree in front of our house was awfully shiny. Also, the car was covered in ice. I asked (it might have been more of a command, really) him to bring me my phone, and there was a text message saying school was canceled, so I just rolled over and went right back to sleep. This was at about 6:30am.
I vaguely remember hearing the girls' alarms go off at 7:00, but since I knew there wasn't any school, I didn't worry about getting up to force them to help them get moving.
At 8:00 Vicki knocked on the door, fully dressed, and told me she and Lexi just wanted to let me know that they had gotten themselves breakfast and were all ready for school and just waiting for their ride to come pick them up.
And I dissolved into a puddle of mushy happy mommy right there on the bed.
We're always talking to them about responsibility and self-reliance, but they don't often have the opportunity to demonstrate those skills in such a major way.
They were a little bummed when they found out that they didn't actually have school today. Well, okay, Vicki was bummed. She said, "You mean I got all dressed and ready for nothing?" Lexi just said, "Woohoo!" followed quickly by, "Can I play the Wii?"
The rest of our morning hasn't been quite so perfect and parentally blissful (at least one child may have been banned from the Wii for the rest of the day, and someone might have been sent to their room at one point to gain control of their emotions), but at least I know that my kids really do listen (at least sometimes) and take what we teach them to heart.
You were a good year. Sure, you could have been better, but you most definitely could have been worse.
These three are definitely the highlight of every year for me:
But 2010 has had its specific ups and downs. Thankfully, they've mostly been ups.
Despite pay cuts, we've managed to (sometimes barely) stay on top of bills and we've always had enough food to eat.
Because of my babysitting, we've managed to enroll the girls in Girl Scouts, gymnastics, dance classes, and piano lessons. They've had a blast, and we've had fun watching them do it.
I've been able to volunteer more at the girls' school and get to know the community there. We have a good school.
Thanks to some wonderful friends who were willing to watch our girls for several days in a row and my wonderful in-laws, who provided a place to stay, Chris and I were able to take a vacation by ourselves.
Thanks to our Netflix account, we've watched some great movies. And some not-so-great ones (I don't recommend Pi: Life in Chaos, although Chris does).
I've read some wonderful books, and I'm excited to read more now that I'm part of a book group.
Most importantly, I feel like I've taken more steps in my personal spiritual journey this year than I have in the past. I have a stronger understanding of who I am and where I fit in in the grand scheme of life, and a deeper sense of gratitude to my Father in Heaven for the blessings I enjoy, and to His Son, Jesus Christ, for paving the way for me.
I'm so glad I took so many pictures in 2010. I may never do anything with the majority of them, but I will never forget the year. I can't wait to take more next year.
So, here's to what I hope will be a happy, fun, photo-filled 2011!
We’ve gone through a few cars in our 11 years of marriage. Our first was a 1989 fire-engine red Audi 5000. It was an old boxy grandma car (truly, it was. We bought it from Chris’s great-aunt and -uncle, who bought it from his grandparents) and we loved it. We drove it until the day it died, quietly and without fanfare, on a stretch of 7th East in downtown Salt Lake City.
After that we got a Toyota Corolla. It was small, simple, and reliable, although as basic as you could possibly get. No automatic locks, no cruise control (which, let me tell you, would have come in really handy on our move to Oregon), but still a great car for a family of four. Once Ellie was on the way, though, we realized the little Corolla just wasn’t going to cut it for a family of five.
So we upgraded to a Subaru Outback. And it was awesome. Three carseats fit in the back, no problem. It carried us to Utah and back 10 times in the course of five years. The cargo space was unparalleled, and, apart from the slightly ghetto driver’s side window, we never had a single problem with it. But it had a lot of miles on it and was beginning to show signs of its age.
Plus, the kids just kept getting bigger. And the car didn’t.
So, after squirreling away our pennies for three years (three very looooong years), doing lots of online research, and spending two days driving around to a variety of dealerships (from the slightly scary to the overly imposing), we are now the proud owners of a Toyota Sienna minivan! Yay us!
Our new ride.
The girls came along to help out. They were very discerning.
Test drive!
They approved of the bucket seats and “magic doors”, but were disappointed by the lack of drop-from-the-ceiling screen in the first car we test drove. And also the missing mirror from the driver’s side visor.
We did not buy this car.
But they liked the play area and free popcorn at one dealer and the free candy at another.
Vicki, who definitely has the most Ebert genes of any of our daughters, made a chart so she could keep track of the cars we looked at.
The second car we test drove (which did happen to have a drop-down screen – bonus!) ended up being “the one”. It had a few more miles than we were hoping for, but the price was good, and, most importantly, they made us an offer we couldn’t refuse for a trade-in on the Outback.
So we bid a fond farewell to the car we’ve occasionally referred to as “Kermit” (I’m pretty sure Uncle Scotty named it)
Goodbye, old friend.
and drove home in what has been dubbed “Kermit II”. I didn’t actually want another green car, but you take what you can get, and it’s already growing on me.
And we managed to strike gold and landed ourselves the luxury edition, which means leather seats (heated!) and an excellent surround sound system. It also means we get to enjoy my personal favorite part:
That's right. Our new car has a VCR. Not a DVD player, but a VCR. How many other people do you know with a VCR in their car?
All three of my girls share a bedroom that is slightly less than 10’x10’. We have a three-bedroom house, but we decided to use the third bedroom for an office/playroom. It’s even smaller than the girls’ room.
Our biggest problem here is storage space. There isn’t much. At all.
Vicki and Ellie share a bunk bed, and Lexi’s loft bed is perpendicular to that. Underneath the loft bed are their dressers. The only other furniture in the room was a bookshelf, which had books on the bottom three shelves, my old college stereo above that, and then a lot of useless space above that, since the girls can’t reach that high.
A few years ago for Christmas the girls each got a magnet board, shelf, and flower light from Santa. In theory, the shelf was supposed to be a good place to put things they wanted easy access to while on their beds. In reality, it was a good place to put a few things while they dumped everything else on their beds. It got so bad that Lexi didn’t even have room to sleep.
We’ve been mulling this over for a while, and the conclusion was that they needed more storage space, but we hadn’t gotten farther than that.
Until the new IKEA catalog arrived in the mail.
We should know by now that it’s a bad idea for us to even open the thing.
On Monday evening we took a family trip to YoCream for dessert. YoCream happens to be conveniently located right near IKEA. After indulging in the goodness of frozen yogurt mixed with delicacies like Nerds and gummy bears, we somehow found ourselves surrounded by inexpensive furnishings, trying to make sense of Swedish labels.
And we came home with one Expedit bookcase, six Lekman storage bins, three Trofast units, and 18 storage boxes containers to go in the Trofast units. And a garlic press, which was all we really needed when we walked into the store.
So the girls and I have spent the last three days cleaning messes (hoo boy, were there messes to clean!), building furniture, and totally re-designing the look of their bedroom.
Here are some before shots:
Chris moved it before I could get my "before" shot, but the bookcase (also from IKEA, by the way) used to be in the corner where the stereo is now. The ladder leads to Lexi's bed.
Vicki's bed. Yes, that is a cracked mirror on her shelf. She calls it the Mirror of Erised. Next to it is a Golden Snitch and at least one magic wand.
Lexi's bed. She wanted her shelf up high, which provides even less storage space. Also, I realize now I should have taken these pictures pre-deep clean. You have no idea what this used to look like. It was a hoarder's dream come true.
Ellie's bed. Because she's on the bottom bunk, she really only has the one wall there. Her shelf usually has a lot more than a water bottle on it. And I have no idea why she's lying facedown, but I like it.
And...drum roll...the afters:
Yay for more storage space! We have one of these in our living room and we love it. And I'm sure those empty spaces will be filled soon.
Really all we did here was move the magnet board so we could put the case above her head. But I think this shot provides an even better view of the shrine to Harry Potter she has going on there.
For Lexi's, I had to move everything. The magnet board had to move down a little so the shelf could fit over it, and the light had to move to make room for the case. I like it.
Again, I had to move everything. Ellie wins the coolness prize, though, because her lamp is now above the bed, instead of on the wall. The other two think it's no fair, but they have more wall space than her.
So, there we go. Three days' worth of hard work. I like playing with power tools, but I'm not very good at it, so there are a few extra holes in the wall. Drywall anchors don't go through studs, FYI. But we had fun, and hopefully we'll have a little less mess now that they have more places to put things. Fingers crossed. Now I just have to clean up the aftermath.
Portland is a great city for cyclists. Unfortunately, our particular neighborhood is not terribly conducive to bike riding. Our street dead-ends at the bottom of a hill, and it’s really narrow. After living her for nearly five years, we finally got Lexi to a point where she was comfortable riding her bike with the training wheels on, and as soon as that happened, no joke, the training wheels pretty much disintegrated.
We figured it was a sign that it was high time she learned to ride without them. She’s 7 (and a half - don't forget the half), after all.
So Vicki has diligently been dragging Lexi outside on the few afternoond and weekends we’ve had with nice weather, trying to teach her, but like I said before, our street isn’t the greatest for riding bikes, especially if you don’t already know how. But yesterday was absolutely beautiful, so we loaded the girls’ bikes into the car and went over to the park. After playing for about 2 hours, Lexi finally decided she was ready for Daddy to teach her. And so it began...
"Don't let go, Daddy! Promise you won't let go?"
(he, of course, made no such promise)
Taken about two seconds before she realized he wasn't still holding on and put her feet down.
You can see her thinking, "Okay, okay, I can do this, I can do this."
"Whoa!"
(I should mention that she's the only one of the three who didn't wind up with a skinned knee from falling off her bike. Elile found herself on a slanty path and tipped over. How and why Vicki fell we may never know, but fall she did, and fall Lexi did not.)
"Concentrate, concentrate..."
(You'll probably have to click on this one to get the full effect, but I love the tongue poking out between the teeth - priceless.)
Yikes! Don't crash into your sister!
"I did it! I'm doing it! I can do it!"
In no time she was riding like a pro, and the only thing that stopped her from riding her bike to school this morning was our current lack of a bike lock. The rain, she says, had absolutely nothing to do with it. I believe her.
I should, of course, mention that, being Lexi, the first thing she did after she successfully rode for any length of time was to stop the bike and put and both her hands up in the air like a gymnast who’d just stuck a perfect landing.
Go Lexi!
(Also, when I told her I was going to do a blog post on this, she grinned from ear to ear and gave me a HUGE hug. Oh, how I love my Lexi!)
