OK, maybe this first guy will be a little old in 2018:
But check out these guys:
Oof, not sure this one ended that well:
The best part, though, is the facial expressions:
Mark and the boys went to Dubuque on Saturday to snowboard, and then out to the farm on Sunday for a repeat. I think they might have had more ufn on Grandpa’s snow piles than they did over in Dubuque, too many idiots on the trails over there…
I was on my deathbed, the pictures were taken by Mark or one of the boys. Mark said it’s a pretty amazing feeling to be flying through the air. I think I’ll just take his word for it.
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I haven’t even been able to get to my quilting machine for most of the last week, but today I finally reached the bottom of the piles and started trying to catch back up on some quilting. This little cutie was a quickie. It was made by a young lady whose grandmother brought it to me to quilt. I think the quilter was in the 8-10 year old range, but I’m not positive. Freehand allover swirls (in lime green thread!) were easy to do and helped hide the little bit of waviness around the edges. It was actually pretty well pieced: I wish my first quilt had been that nice.
I’m not really sure how this happened:
There was Mark, taking off his work shirt, and there was the dog, wanting attention, and the next thing I knew, we were sticking her arms in the sleeves and I was running for the camera.
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A week and a half off for the holidays, 3 days back at school and then BAM.
Snow storm.
Yesterday, I made it out to the shop, and then tried to come home for lunch. I kept driving right on by, as there was no way I’d make it into the driveway. When Mark got home, he almost didn’t make it in with his truck.
Luckily, the boys know how to make peanut butter sandwiches, and I don’t think they were too disappointed to (a) have yesterday off and (b) not have Mom around.
I’m not really sure how much snow we got, but around here it’s not so much the snow as the wind…luckily the wind has died back down, but it’ll take awhile to dig the country roads back out, so…another day off for the school kids.
Will “needed” my computer a little while ago to look up something for his brother (they figured out that the Internet is a great place to go for hints on how to get through video games…). I told him he could use my computer, but only if I could take his picture.
What a rough life. Always having to put up with his annoying Mom. I wish I felt sorrier for him.
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Oh, we were SO ready to get back to a normal routine. Well, what passes for normal anyway.
See — look how excited Joe was this morning.
Yeah, I didn’t believe that look either.
This looks more like it:
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No pictures, because I forgot to take the camera. Plus, we were at the far end fo the gym, andf rankly, the boys need haircuts so badly right now, their pictures would probably scare you.
Oh wait, here’s one that shows how scary they are:
(taken Monday morning, school was delayed 2 hours.)
Anyway. Holiday Concert. The 5th grade band starts things off and they did pretty well.
After the 6th grade band is done, the Kindergartners come out and cute us all to death.
They sang Must be Santa (Dave and Deb, do you remember endless listens of Mitch Miller and the Gang?), with hand movements (too cute!), and then they did this really sweet medley of star poems and songs: star light, star bright, first star i see tonight…, a song I didn’t know, twinkle, twinkle, little star, and then they started saying “Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don’t Let the Bed Bugs bite” — and then they continued with one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard:
And if they do
Then take your shoe
And knock ‘em ‘til
They’re black and blue!
It was hilarious, especially because they were totally into it, acting it out. I nearly died.
After they leave, the First through Third graders come out and each grade sings several songs. After the 2nd graders were done, one of the little boys walked up to the edge of the stage and suddenly Mrs. Kent was turning him away and trying to sidestep: the poor thing threw up right there on stage. He’ll never forget this year’s concert, I’m sure.
After that, the rest of the event was pretty…uneventful. Oh, except for the part where most of the parents show how rude and inconsiderate they are. After the lower elementary kids are done, there’s a pause while the upper elementary kids come out. Most of the families who don’t have upper elementary kids get up and leave. Rude. Rude. Rude. This was our 6th holiday concert and it’s the same every year — and we have always stayed for the entire thing. They wouldn’t leave in the middle of a football game, but clearly this isn’t important enough.
Rant over. Sorry.
It’s been kind of a long obnoxious day, so I should probably quit while I’m ahead.
TTFN-
Suzanne
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Yesterday, we pawned the boys off on my in-laws and set off for the big city for some serious Christmas shopping. Us and everybody else, apparently.
At one point, Mark said something like “Even though we hate it, maybe we should shop in October so we don’t have to do this.”
And I replied “Yes, we tried that one year, and we just KEPT shopping, because we kept finding cool things.” So this is really cheaper, if fraught with insanity.
When the boys walked into the house last night, Will gave me a big old grin. You could tell he was looking around, hoping to catch sight of something we might have forgotten to put away. Little did he know that the very next morning, he’d actually get the opportunity to SEE some of what we bought, because we decided to forget about waiting until Christmas Day, plus Mark wanted to use their gifts today, so:
All THREE boys got fancy new snowboards and boots. Mark has been using a board that was too short and narrow for him, and the boys hadn’t had boards of their own since the time we bought some cheap ones and Target and ended up taking them back because they were really terrible. I’m not sure they could slide more than about a foot at a time on those, so that was pretty much useless. They loaded up the truck and headed off for the mountains this morning to give those boards a workout. We kind of figured that if they didn’t go now, we would have an unseasonably warm winter and they’d never get to use them at all.
That means that I have the house to myself, today. (Well, me and the dogs…) And in between working on binding the Radiant Star (which is almost done!!!), I’m messing around with MY Christmas present.
Prepared to be NOT surprised that I picked one out in Candy Apple Red:
It’s a Fender Sonoran SCE, acoustic/electric. It is very shiny and much prettier in person. And when the guy in the guitar store played it, it sounded pretty sweet.
I’m running into a few problems:
1. I’m a perfectionist, and want to be good RIGHT NOW, not in a few weeks and months after consistent practice.
2. I’m also a hypocrite, because I teach longarm quilters and am always telling them not to be perfectionists, and that they can’t expect to be good until after they’ve had weeks and months of consistent practice.
3. As a pianist, I’m going to struggle with finger numbers. On the piano, finger number 1 is your thumb: on the guitar, number 1 is your pointer.
4. Speaking of that pointer. The one on the left hand. Some blonde dingelhoffer sliced the edge of it off with a rotary cutter a few months ago and it is still QUITE tender. QUITE. And it’s even MORE tender after trying to learn how to use it on the guitar. Ouch. Oh, how I wish I could go whisper in her ear and tell her to be a little more freaking careful with her rotary cutter.
Well, back to work. I have about 3 feet left of that binding to go. Y’all are going to be so impressed with it. The binding, I mean. Maybe the quilt, too.
Later -
S
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Found, whilst cleaning my desk:
Dear mom,
Can I get a pet pheonix as a pet? Then I could have a pet that never dies. We could teach him so he wouldn’t fly away when we went for a walk. And, we wouln’t need to go to the hospital ’cause a pheonix has tears with healing powers.
Love,
Will
[spelling reproduced from his handwritten note]
I’m thinking this isn’t such a bad idea, considering the cost of healthcare these days.
I didn’t think to date his note, but it’s within the past year, probably sometime last spring.
On Saturday before I left for my grocery shopping trip, I asked if they had any special requests. They started to list some things (video games, a new football jersey). I stopped them: “Guys, that’s your Christmas list. I just wanted to know if you had any special food requests.”
With one voice they said:
“TWINKIES!”
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The ISU Alumni Association has a fan photo gallery on their website. Mark submitted a picture of the boys:
Boys with Bronze Cy
We are multigeneration Iowa Staters here. All of four of OUR parents went to ISU, and we met on a blind date our Senior year.
I remember when I was in school, my Dad got a call from one of those students who had to call Alumni and beg for money.
The student thought her day was MADE, when Dad informed her that he’d send thousands of dollars to the school.
She was understandably disappointed when he broke the news that it wasn’t a donation: it was just my tuition.
I’m not looking forward to the day when we are paying tuition. All I can say is that the boys better study hard and get good grades and hope for lots of scholarships.
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One musical down, 2 to go. The first and last are my reward for surviving the one in the middle.
Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Mamma Mia! It was terrific, and when they were done, I wanted them to go back to the beginning and start all over again.
In two weeks, I’ll have the pleasure of seeing Wicked on Broadway. Oh! I better stick the soundtrack on my iPod, so I can be sure to know all the words by heart.
In the middle? My local friends and family are going to be so grateful when the high school performance of Once Upon A Mattress is finished. They keep reminding me that I was complaining before Grease (two years ag0), but I don’t remember my complaining being quite so desperate back then.
Yes, I volunteered to do this, and yes, they will probably pull it off and it will be fine, but I have to make it through the next week before we find out if they happened. Someone yesterday said something apt: teenagers still have an underdeveloped concept of the passage of time. They don’t get that TWO weeks is really like NOTHING in the grand scheme of doing a good job at a performance. It helped my mental health to be reminded of this, and I’m just going to do the best job I can. I can’t make the performers do their job, and it’s their performance: I can’t run up on stage and sing it for them.
It also helps to put things in perspective: when I did Grease: I didn’t slice a big chunk off the side of my index finger a month before the show, I didn’t have to go to Ohio for 3 days, I didn’t get SICK after getting back from Ohio, and I was home, not in a shop for part of every day.
Oh, look at the time. I’m out of it, and must head to the big city for groceries. THe boys think they need to eat, and since I have the day off, I guess I’d better do something about that.
Stay tuned, tomorrow you are in for a rant about how the Arts and Academics have to take a back seat to King Football. Either that or a rant about small-town politics. Aren’t you excited?
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My sister’s blog shows pictures of unbearably cute Halloween cuteness, and I’ve got:
partially out of focus pictures of a cute kid, but wearing a last minute Halloween costume that wasn’t really his first choice because it’s not complete: he doesn’t have shin guards. (The part I thought was funny is that is t–shirt and hat are from the Minnesota Twins. He was a TWIN. He didn’t find it is as funny as I did. Especially not when I kept telling people about how funny it was.)
I’ve also got:
a partially out of focus picture of another last minute costume, cobbled together from the Jawa Robe I made several years ago and the mask and gloves from their cousin’s skeleton costume from a previous year. That robe touched the ground the first year it got worn.
Finally, I have:
a partially out of focus picture of Thing 1 and Thing 2 as Pillowcase Heads. Aren’t they cute?
So, Halloween is over, time for the next holiday, right? At least this year, most of the houses they went to gave out good candy. You know: chocolate….
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