Photo Story Friday;Two Boys and a Camera

A couple of weeks ago, a friend at Steve's work brought in a meal of Jambalaya for the office staff. Steve came home ranting and raving about how good it was and that he wanted to make it. So he went grocery shopping.

It was VERY spicy and all that sodium made us all quite sick within a half hour of eating. It was dark and cold outside so we didn't want to go for a walk, but we desperately needed to move some, so we broke out the American Idol dance mat that I got for Christmas last year.

I decided to take a few pictures, INTENDING to do a quick post about the jambalaya and it after effects (that lasted for about three days).

The boys took a turn first. They really don't "get it" about watching the arrows, but they like to pretend.











Then it was mommy and daddy's turn. I gave the camera to Noah to try to get some shots.


Not quite attractive of the mommy.












At least I'm smiling in THIS one.













But apparently the boys got bored, and decided that it would be fun to create some photos of their own, with Noah as photographer and Aaron the Ham as the "star".

I had no idea what they were doing, other than laughing hysterically behind us, until later that night when I looked at the camera. This is what I found:

A very close up of Aaron













A little further away














Many of the shaking your booty variety












And quite a few of the booty itself













Then come the silly show off poses




























And several that were taken looking directly into the light that I had to lighten up to even see Aaron's face.











































I love this one. It is SO Aaron.














Noah has asked numerous times for his own digital camera. I got him one of those toy VTech ones last year, but it is pretty bad quality and he is so good with the real thing that maybe next year we will figure out a way to get him one. Until then, I don't mind allowing him to use mine. He has a great eye.

Have a great weekend.

Tackle It Tuesday: Leaves

We have a HUGE tree in our front yard. It makes it much harder to have a healthy lawn and for some reason, the leaves fall later than every other tree in the neighborhood. While most people are raking leaves in September and October, we have to wait every year until November to start raking. So we knew it was going to get cold last weekend and decided on Friday afternoon to do our first raking of the yard.






We have a small yard, but it is very uneven so it makes it a little challenging for raking.











The boys were not overly enthusiastic about helping. I did all of the raking while they played, but putting all of the leaves into the bags proved a little more challenging, since we only had the small plastic leaf bags. I told them that they had to help me until 10 bags were filled. They were much more agreeable when they had a concrete responsibility.






It only took 6 bags.













Now that the yard is nice and green...














the tree still has plenty more to donate.


















What are you tackling today?

Weekend Top Five 11/10/08

It was a longer weekend, since Noah had Thursday and Friday off for conferences. I didn't realize how stressed I am about school mornings until I have several in a row where I don't have to worry about it. Then , the prospect of Monday seems even more daunting.




5. Thursday Morning With Mom

Thursday morning Noah and I got some time alone while Aaron went to school. We didn't do anything special but had fun playing Go Fish and then Noah found some fleece left over from some blankets I had made a while ago. He was so excited that it was so soft that he was carrying it everywhere calling it his blankie. So while he sat in the kitchen doing those fuse bead crafts (he loves them) I made one of those fleece tie blankets for him out of the material. Four days later, he is still carrying it everywhere with him.










4. Friday Night Out

After an afternoon of raking (see post tomorrow), we needed to get out of the house . So after a dinner of homemade mac n cheese (Steve and I loved it, the boys didn't), we headed out to the local mall to run off some steam. I called Deb to see if she wanted to join us with the girls. She said that the girls weren't interested, but that she would meet me there.

They definitely had steam to burn. So after they got out some of the energy at the play area, we went to the toy store and I found the one thing I was planning to get Aaron for Christmas for only $20 and I hadn't found one for less than $40 or $50 anywhere else. So after awhile, Steve took the boys home and Deb and I got some quality window shopping (other than the present for Aaron) together. It is amazing how therapeutic a few hours out without the kids can be.











3. Saturday afternoon split.

I had several student recitals I needed to attend so I was unable to attend my nephew Jamie's birthday party. But, I was able to convince Steve to take the boys anyway. That part wasn't hard. The challenging part was convincing him to take the camera so I had something to post about. He actually did a pretty good job.

Jamie turned four eight days after Aaron did and he is a big Thomas fan (as was Noah a few years ago) so he had a Thomas party, complete with "Pin the Number on the Engine".


They even brought me home a piece of cake and it was very yummy.

2. Saturday Night Movie Night


I tried SOOOOO hard to win a copy of Pirates Who Don't Do Anything during the blog carnival a couple of weeks ago. We went to it in the theater with my sister and several of her preschool kids over the summer. It still remains the only movie that Aaron has ever sat through, so I rented it to see if they still liked it enough to buy it for him for Christmas.










I don't know if you have seen it yet, but it is a very good move and the music video at the end got my boys dancing CRAZY. We are instilling the "three presents" rule this year for Christmas (same as Jesus) but I might need to figure out a way to put this in Aaron's stocking.








1. Sunday Church

Not so much at church, as on the way to church. My bells were performing so Steve dropped me off early to set up and decided to take the boys for a drive to stall before bringing them in to wreak havoc on the church. About ten minutes later, I hear the church phone ring. I didn't think much of it until a deacon comes into the sanctuary where we were just starting our rehearsal and says, "Kristi, Steve's on the phone." I immediately panicked worrying about a wreck on the side of the road.

He had run over a water pipe and blew the back tire. Of course, the spare was back at home in the garage. So was he was on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck, a church member saw them and stopped by and scooped up the boys to bring them to church while Steve stayed with the van.

Then, of course, the Sears bill hasn't been paid yet so Sears wasn't going to fix the tire until Steve brought that card up to date and Steve had to walk to a nearby ATM a to get the required cash. Apparently, it took Steve several hours and trips back and forth from the mall to the tire place before they would even start the repairs. Four hours later, we could finally get on with our life.

Why are Sunday mornings always an adventure?

At least the bell performance went well. I can't post them anymore because of the whole "church lurkers" issue but I will let you know that it went well.

So it was an interesting and story-full weekend. It looks to be kind of a boring week, other than a well child visit for Aaron and a preschool conference.

Please sign Mr. Linky to share you weekend events with others and have a great week.

My Job

I have used this blog to vent about my church

I have used this blog to vent about my in-laws

I have used this blog to vent about my kids

What I have never used this blog to vent about before is my job.

Or should I say one of my jobs. The one that generally causes me few problems that I have to think about once I walk out the door each evening. This is the job I have teaching piano at a local music store.

Before this I taught privately at my church.
Before that, I was a school music teacher.

I will not go into details about why I am no longer a school teacher and why I no longer teach out at my church. I will say that a year ago last September, I decided that rather than be a self employed teacher, I would become an "employee" again and let the store handle the business practices so I was free to teach.

The pay cut was quite significant, since they take 35 percent of what my students pay for lessons as their cut. But they were providing my students and it is SO much closer to home that I figured it was a pretty good trade off.

The nature of this business is becoming very shaky. I lose students at a much higher rate than I ever did before. And it isn't been due to my negligence as a teacher. It is usually because of money. People who are having trouble paying their regular bills cannot possibly justify the huge cost of private instrument lessons.

When I went in to teach on Monday, I had lost a student for that reason.

When I went in on Tuesday, I had lost another one because the winter sports schedule was becoming too busy to fit in piano lessons.

But tonight was the ICING ON THE CAKE. I lost yet another student.

Not because of money.
Not because of schedules.

Why did I lose this student?

Because the parent apparently called the store asking to have their child walked out to their car at night and the message was not delivered to me. This young lady is 17 years old and my last lesson of the night. I walked out of the building at the same time anyway. If the clerk in the store had simply mentioned to walk out with the student, I would have been happy to do that.

But no such message was given and I lose another chunk.

I can't AFFORD to lose students because of a store clerk's laziness. It would have been very simple for this clerk to put a little note in my mailbox with this simple request. But it doesn't matter to the clerk. He gets an hourly salary. What does it matter to him if each and every student I lose takes another chunk out of my ability to pay my mortgage? Apparently, he told the teacher of the student's sibling, who didn't even come on the same night. Was the message supposed to magically float through the air and reach me? Apparently the manager of the store called the mom to apologize for the clerk and ask for another chance to rectify and the mom was so outraged (I would be too) that she said no way.

I do understand the parent's point of view completely. When I first told my father I was making the switch, even he questioned the location of the store. But I am still upset that my direct income has now suffered because of another person's mishandling of a situation.



Okay, thanks for letting me have my rant.

In better news, Noah's conference went well today and I am thankful. I hope we can keep him on this good path as the year progresses. I am so proud of him.

Have a great weekend.

Thursday Thirteen: Signs That Christmas is Coming

Is is really November 6th? We broke out the warm weather clothes all week after they had been packed away.

And despite the warm weather, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (is the song stuck in your head now?)

Here are 13 ways that Christmas is trying to start already...

1. 95.7 WLHT and STAR 105.7 in Grand Rapids have switched to their all Christmas music format

2. The Toys R US Big Book catalog has already been defaced by two little boys with many different colored sharpies, displaying the countless toys they think they should get for Christmas.

3. The woman in charge of the Angel Tree project at our church made her first plea of the season for help this past Sunday.

4. The discussion has already taken place about what we should do about a curious little kitty and a Christmas tree. When Minnie was a baby, she climbed it, got stuck, strangled, almost died, peed all over the carpet out a of fear, knocked the tree over, needed to be CUT out of the tree, and left us with no Christmas tree for Christmas morning. (It happened about fifteen minutes before we needed to leave for Christmas Eve church services)

5. Deb and I have already started talking about our annual trip out on Black Friday for Christmas shopping. Even though I won't be doing as much shopping this year, it will still be fun to share the experience with my friend. Even being poor can't stop tradition.

6. Drawings have been done for the kids on both sides of the family for presents.

7. It's supposed to snow tomorrow

8. My piano students all bought their Christmas music books this week. I am a firm believer of starting them early so they can actually PLAY the songs by Christmas.

9. The neighbor took advantage of the warm weather this week and put her lights on her bushes. I may follow suit before it gets cold tomorrow. The only problem will be holding back from turning them on.

10. Flipping through stations of the television, QVC has more Christmas Gift programs than any others.

11. My cherub choir spent ten minutes singing "Happy Birthday Jesus" at last night's practice to get ready for their December performance

12. I just saw a commercial with Santa Claus in it

13. I need to believe Christmas is coming and to keep my heart focused on the real meaning.

So Merry Christmas and let me know if you have seen any signs around you that it is coming earlier this year than ever before. Please feel free to sign Mr. Linky if you would like to share your T13 with others.

Weekend Top Five 11/3/08

Another busy weekend, but much more relaxing than last week actually. Room cleaning became much less stressful than last week, partly because the toys are now spread among three rooms instead of two (Stay tuned for a Tackle It Tuesday to explain in the future). I am actually quite relieved to have Halloween over and get on with the REAL holidays. Two of our local radio stations have already switched to all Christmas music programming!

Here are the top five for this weekend:

5. NOAH DID IT!

A very excited 6 year old came home from school on Friday. Five perfect days at school for the first time. He keeps asking when he gets to school again so he can get his prize. I don't think it's the prize he wants, just the idea that he actually earned it.



How proud does he look?












4. Halloween

Yup, Friday night was the culminating event of the All Hallows Eve festivities. We fully intended to only go to the mall for a little trick or treating and then be done, which we did. They had a magician and juggler as well as stops outside of every store with people handing out candy.









We were done by 6:30 and still had the whole night ahead of us so we came home and our neighbor's party had just started and our neighbor kids were just starting to go out trick or treating so we joined them.
















3. Bowling (Oops, didn't happen, no lanes available when we got there)
3. Revised. Grand Rapids Children's Museum

When in doubt, Noah wants to go to the children's museum. I do believe that the $60 we paid for the children's museum membership this year has been paid back at least four or five times, between our visits to the museum and the dual memberships we got throughout this past summer. I think the novelty is starting to wear off though. Aaron chose to spend time "putting on a show" on the stage. Noah was more of a wanderer than a player today and at bedtime he said that it didn't seem to be as much fun as it used to be. It kind of made me a little sad.


2. Saturday Night Movie Night...Christmas Time Is Here (sort of)

As everyone who know us is already aware, we are Christmas freaks. We got married four days before Christmas, even though it about sent my in-laws to an early grave. Maybe in spite of the fact that this year we are having to reduce the gift load significantly, we are getting more into the spirit earlier than ever. We just had to get Halloween out of the way. There is one set of garland and lights that never came down last January and the boys have turned it on periodically all year long and "played Christmas", so of course the lights went on tonight when we turned off the lamps and snuggled into our blankets on the floor.

So we watched a classic from my childhood, Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas and a couple of shorts from Mickey Mouse's Twice Upon A Christmas.

BTW, if you watched Emmett Otter when you were little and got mad when they re -released it and took the scene where Ma Otter tells Hattie Muskrat to "fall off the dock", you can see it if you follow the link above. I know we were disappointed when we bought it and it was cut.

If you are starting the Christmas celebrating early like me, feel free to scroll down to the bottom of this site and follow the countdown. It is so neat, but it was too big to put on my sidebar.

1. Family Trip to the Library

The month of November has Sunday afternoon programs at our local library. This week was a mime.

Actually, a REALLY GOOD mime. Often, I sit through these programs thinking, okay, same ole, same ole, but this husband/wife team was very entertaining and kept BOTH boys' attentions for a full hour.















Of course, audience participation always helps. The boys got up on stage to act like monkeys during one of the story songs. Noah got into it big time. The mime said not to come up on stage unless you can "act silly". Not a problem for Noah the Ham.









I am assuming that none of you consider eating half (slight exaggeration)of the boys' Halloween candy as bullet worthy for the top five? I didn't think so :(

Well, next week is looking a little more strange since I will be gone all day Saturday for my students' Sonatina Festival. Who knows what Daddy will cook up to do with the boys?

As always, if you post about your weekend activities, please join into Mr. Linky below.

I Cried Happy Tears Today!

Disclaimer: This goes against my "Do Not Blog" Rule, but since it is positive about Noah, I am going with it.

We're coming into conference times, starting next week.

Last year conference time was so stressful. Everyone else was posting about how wonderful their kids were doing and how much the teachers loved them. I left both conferences crying last year because I was frustrated at how frustrated the teacher was with Noah. Academically, he was way ahead of the other kindergartners, but he was doing dumb things like throwing books across the room when he was mad and goofing around with other kids when he could easily have been paying attention.

By the end of the year, I almost pulled him a month early because you could tell the teacher just couldn't stand him anymore. It was enough to make a mother's heart break. Noah was part of a group of four boys that were messing around all the time. The problem was also that Noah isn't sneaky, and always the one getting caught. He would take the shenanigans of the other kids, add a bit of flair and spice, take it to the next level of obnoxiousness, and be the one who got in trouble. I started wondering about ADHD, even though I was quite sure that it wasn't the proper diagnosis for Noah.

At the last conference of the year, his kindergarten teacher actually told me that "Mrs. T is pretty worried about having Noah in her class next year." What a wonderful thing to hear, huh?

Over the summer, we played with his food selections and frequencies. We had an AWESOME summer. His aggression all but went away and he learned so much that I was hopeful for a good first grade year.

As this year started, two of the four boys that cause the trouble got sent back to kindergarten, one didn't return to Noah's school and then there was Noah. I was very hopeful. I was still concerned about the preconceived notions of Noah from Mrs. T and I worried that he wouldn't have a fair shake this year.

There have been many emails back and forth this year as Noah has settled into first grade. The jump from Kindergarten to first grade in work level has been huge. His teacher makes and takes suggestions and Noah is doing quite well. She has said numerous times about how much he matured over the summer.

Last year when he got in trouble, it was for being aggressive or rude; this year it's for talking without raising his hand.

This week is the first week he has gotten perfect behavior EVERY DAY so far and we have been praising it BIG TIME. But then I got this email from his teacher yesterday:

Kristi, Noah seemed kind of sad today. He talked about doing school at home tomorrow and said he did not want to come to school. Just wanted to let you know this. I asked him why and he just said he likes it at home. He didn't say if anything was bothering him. If something is bothering him, please let me know. Thanks! :) Have a great night.

I responded with:


Thanks for writing. I really appreciate your being so in tune with him. It shows how much you really care about our kids. I think he is getting really stressed out about being good all the time. Especially when he so close to having a perfect week for the first time all year. I asked him about it, he just says he's tired from working so hard all the time. I am glad that he's working so hard and learning so much. Please keep me informed if things get worrisome. I also think he's fighting a virus of some sort...he sounds scratchy even though he never admits when he's not feeling well. Thanks again for your concern. We are so lucky to have you teaching him this year. See you tomorrow at lunch. Kristi

And the icing on the cake was this morning's note from her:

I think something is going around. The kids have been coughing-on each other and on me-ha-and it's not even winter yet! He has been working very hard! I am proud of him. He did say that he wanted to sit at the yellow table all year. I told him he would probably want to sit with friends for some of the time, but he said no. I said that would be fine, but he freely moves back and forth which is great. I think he likes being at the yellow table kind of away from the "temptation" of messing around. I think he is such a great kid...he has a great sense of humor, he loves science, and learning. He is working really hard on self-control...good for him! See you soon!

(Note: The yellow table is the extra table in the class and I suggested to Mrs. T that maybe he would want to do his quiet work there to avoid distraction. I suggested it to his Kindergarten teacher last year and she wouldn't do it)

I am actually crying happy tears again as I re-read the note. It feels so good for others to see the greatness that I knew was there all along.

What a difference a year can make! I am actually looking forward to his conference next week.