One...

… of the strangest quiz days ever – but just one of them…

I never imagined that life would be quite like this when my kids finally hit the magic quiz age.  Maybe I live in a dream world, but what I’d hoped for at one time (directing their district) has been replaced by reality (sitting in the hallway, waiting to hear scores, shushing babies)…  Now don’t get me wrong.  I love these little people:

 Ian... 

who was terrible all day long and then capped it off 

by insisting that he quote a memory verse to Debby, 

one of the district directors, 

so I kind of had to excuse his behavior after that:

 Miah...

who frequently asks if we are "going quizzing"...

I think she secretly likes being allowed to watch cartoons all day long:

And Caleb...

who spent most of the day with his new friend, 
also named Caleb.

This one is going to learn to keep score pretty soon:

But it must have been painfully obvious, today, that I was miserable, because one of our district quiz directors actually stopped and asked me how awful it was.  I am going to secure a babysitter for the duration of the quiz year, because I just cannot do this anymore.  If I’m going to be there, I have to be doing something… something quiz related.  As I pressed play for yet another Dora episode for the stroller ridden baby, it occurred to me that I would be happier running water bottles to the officials… but quizmastering would be better.

At any rate…  That’s me and my day.  Now about the quiz…

Grace had a really rough morning.  She studied – hard – throughout her Christmas break and reviewed what she already knew, but what it amounts to is she kept getting jumps like, “When did Jesus…” and, “Who did Jesus…” and, “What did the disciples…”  By round three she was in total breakdown mode, and I could hardly blame her.  Hmmm…  This brings back memories:

Seth had a really incredible morning, and I have to admit that sometimes I just don’t “get” that kid!  I am crazy proud of his 5^th place finish (the highest on the year), but I’m telling you he didn’t know much of anything as of last Wednesday night, and his multiple quiz outs and other various questions came on good jumps!  Here he is, smiling to beat the band, in the top 10 (where Grace is absent for the first time this year):

If Seth carried Grace on his back through the morning rounds (and he did), then she returned the favor during the tournament rounds in the afternoon.  Our district uses a point system to determine the first place team for the month, and so… with a narrow margin of 10 points…  We brought home the traveling trophy:

Not bad Seth and Grace (and Coach)… not bad at all…

L.

The Return…

... to our regular lives.

Ordinarily, our Christmas vacation lasts right up to a Monday.  However, we resumed normal (or what we call “normal”) activities, today, with Ian’s music class.

I had a really strange, brief moment in which I felt like my mom.  This happened as we were pulling out of the driveway without enough time to scrape the ice off the windshield.  It may seem odd that some of my best childhood memories of my mom are in the car, because she really never drives over 25 mph, and it took us forever to get anywhere.  But I laughed at myself, and thought of my mom, looking through the little space that the windshield wipers had created, as I drove down Broadway…

As it turns out, we were early and there wasn’t anywhere to park, anyway, so I probably should have just taken the time to scrape the windshield!

Undoubtedly, the quote of the day was from Miah, who only saw her friend Owen's monster hat and did not see his face when we entered the studio.  Apparently she thought he was a real monster, because as he walked out the door with his mom she exclaimed, "That was close!"

At any rate, I thought I’d get some pictures of Ian at music class for today’s post.  Although I did get a couple, I mostly got shots of Miah waiting for class to be over:

Miah loves her friend Rocket.  He always brings snacks!

She wasn't so sure about his crashing tower, today, though:

Trying to unlock the studio door with my keys...

It never gets old:

 Of course, Miah loves the last 15 minutes of Ian's class

when she gets to come in 

and either pretends to be a big kid or runs around the room screaming.  

Today was sort of a mix of both:

 And there he is... Making music for an ensemble!

I am really thankful for our music program in more ways than I can count.  But just to name a few:

• Almost every friend we have here, we met at music class.
• Grace is 11 years old and legitimately knows that she wants to be a piano teacher when she grows up.  Granted, that could change, but Grace strikes me as the kind of kid who will probably follow her dream all the way to fruition.
• It can be difficult to set aside special time for each child when you have five of them.  Baby and toddler music classes have allowed me to do just that.  (I am probably going to cry when Miah graduates to preschool music at the end of this school year)…
• Having had several kids go through the music classes, I have fond memories when the activities are repeated.  As an example, today we did a dance that I vividly remember attempting while pregnant with Miah.  I was much better at it this time around… I think…
• And last, but certainly not least, I have found an amazing mentor and friend in Nancy, my kids’ music teacher, and that is hard to come by.

We have the best… studio… ever…

L.

Today Didn’t Go Exactly As Planned…

Then again, few days do…

I’m not sure exactly how I expected our last real day of Christmas vacation to go.  I think I had some convoluted idea that I might actually get some things done that I wanted to get done.  I’m not bitter or anything.  I actually had a lot of fun today, and it probably panned out exactly how it should have.

My list of accomplishments includes:

• Watching the Strawberry Shortcake movie with Miah…  (and the four other children who showed up and pretended not to watch).
• Cleaning about ¼ of the national disaster area we call Grace’s room…
• And updating the Miis… which was really, really important, because Wii Fit is super mean, and Grace had grown 8 inches since we last updated…  Miah is irritated that we gave her hair and wants to know where her hat went.  I have no idea why Grace is suntanned.  But here’s my pic. of the day:

And just so you know, this might be the kind of thing that ends up on this blog more often than not, this year…  It’s all good…

L.

Today Marked The End…

… of our family’s “sacred week”… or sacred nine days as it was… it varies a little bit from year to year… 

I’m not exactly sure how this got started, but basically we come home (or send people home) from whatever our last parsonage family type responsibility is before Christmas, and we close the door, take a deep breath, and sort of disappear until January 2^nd.

This year I was not ready for it to end.  This is sort of ridiculous, because I had not spoken to another human being outside of my home or immediate family in 10 days… well, except for a brief trip to Wal-Mart on the 26^th in which I felt completely claustrophobic… and the quick phone call to Dominos on New Year’s Eve when I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around the concept that they were closed… and, oh yeah, the few sentences exchanged with Keegan (age 6), who called my cell to find out if Ian could come to his “party” on New Year’s Eve…

I told Keegan we could set up a play date for later in the week.  He left me a voice message early the next morning.  I sent his mom a text message and asked them to come over today… January 2^nd…

And I’m really glad I did, because I probably needed a play date as much as Keegan did… (Keegan… who woke up his whole family at 5:00 today, because he was so excited that he would get to play with Ian…)

There’s just something about “lifelong” friends.  The truth is, I don’t really have any, but I do have a few who go back as early as 2^nd grade.  I also have some who date back to the youth group years, and I was blessed to connect with quite a few of them, via Facebook, this New Year’s Eve, as some old pictures were uncovered, dusted off, scanned, and shared.  Old friendships are really good.  And perhaps that’s one of the reasons I dug my feet in 20 months ago when life circumstances threatened to rock our world… and stability… again. 

More than a handful of people have asked me why I wanted to stay in this town.  Let’s be clear.  It’s not the town.  I haven’t completely lost all of my senses!  But we do have something here… or perhaps, better (but less grammatically) put, we have “some-ones” here…

And even though I emerged somewhat reluctantly from sacred week…  It’s good that I was met by friends when I did. 

I want my kids to have lifelong friends.  Ian and Keegan are a good example of that today, because even when you’re only six years old, anybody who was around for your first birthday party definitely counts!

 Ian and Keegan

Then: 2007

And Now 2013:

 

 L.