Weekend Top Five

The weekend was quite uneventful, other than trying to finish figuring out Christmas shopping. I know it seems strange me being so centered around Christmas shopping now, but I need to get it done so I can caught up on our mortgage and other bills. I like to get the sale prices as they come, and I like to be done early. Then I can actually ENJOY the holiday preparations without the worries of shopping.


Especially with our anniversary four days before Christmas, as well as the big music performance in which my bells are playing six pieces.


So yeah, some of the top five is centered around this obsession.

5. Friday- Bakugan Mania

Since I was sick on Thursday, I ended up teaching a few lessons on Friday. It was strange to come home and still have it be dinner time. We ended up doing movie night with the boys with the Pirates Movie again and then I did head back out to the mall with Deb.

Since I am wanting to finally establish the "three presents" rule with the boys for Christmas (which is getting considerably stretched...I'll explain in a different post), I want to be sure that the three are what they want and not just "some present". It is making me work a lot harder to make sure that they are three things that count.

Noah wants everything.

But before he even knew what they were called, his first thing on his list was: "the thing that is a little ball and opens into a creature."

HUH?

So when he started looking through the catalogs when they came, he found what he was talking about and showed it to me. I am quite picky about what the kids watch and play with, and have even outlawed Pokemon just because I don't understand them. We don't have cartoon network and I can't imagine he has even seen the show or knows there is a game centering around this whole thing.

When he showed me these Bakugan things, I figured, okay those little balls to play with, no big deal, right?

Wrong!

Apparently, they are the thing this year for little boys. I still don't intend to let him get all wrapped up in it, but if it's just little balls rolling around at each other, I guess I can live with that.





Meijer, WalMart and Target are officially sold out of them, so when I found a starter package for $10, I scooped it up. I didn't want to spend the money on the $30 "arena" so I saw in the Walmart Exclusive catalog they had a "flip open" one for $15.

Perfect...the price is right and it will thrill him on Christmas morning (even though I still don;t understand how the game is played). I am excited that I can make his dreams come true...

until Deb and I get to WalMart on Friday night.

I asked at the service desk, who called a super WalMart about the ad. Apparently, WalMart can't even keep the things in stock and told me to order it online and they wouldn't charge shipping to the store.

Online, they are all out.

Shouldn't they have figured on this before they put it in the Big Toy Book and had every kid on earth asking for it?

I know Noah will still be thrilled with the little balls (I found a set at Target while there were still three left), and it is weird being part of a "trend" I thought I had a few years, and I thought it was strange since I had never even heard of these things. I probably should still try to figure this whole "arena" thing out though.

Is anyone else facing this on their little boys Christmas lists? If so, start looking now!

4. Lost and Found MP3 Player

Again because of this whole "three presents" thing, I locked myself into the bedroom for a short time on Saturday to go through and make sure I really was done with shopping for the boys. I really have no hiding places in the house so I brought up a separate bin to put each boys' stuff in while I sort and wait.

Last March, my nephew Patrick got an Ipod for his birthday.

Noah wanted one desperately.

Well, there was no way that was in the budget, but about six months ago, I found a user friendly MP3 in metallic blue on sale for $20. It was back ordered for at least another month or two, so when it finally came, I was thrilled to have the one thing he really seemed to want all summer long.

When I went to go sort through the stuff, I couldn't find it ANYWHERE.

Slight panic, fight with Steve, and a broken dresser later, I resigned to give up for awhile and stressed over trying to find the money to get him another one and wondered if I would ever find that kind of deal.

Later Saturday night, I had an epiphany...

Sure enough, I walked straight up to one of the bags that had a different toy hiding within and pulled it right out.

Huge relief and NOW I can say, that I am done and can start saving for the mortgage.




3. Leaves

We had absolutely NO plans for Saturday, so we were pretty much sitting around the house all day. About 2:30, I looked outside and noticed that the six bags from two weeks ago that the boys and I raked were no longer sitting in our front yard.

When I asked Steve about them, he said that while Noah and I were at the library that morning, a guy drove up and offered to take them away for his compost pile. And then Steve said that he offered to take anymore if we wanted to finish the yard.

BAM!

No more words needed.

"Boys, let's get outside and get the yard done.

This time, we actually let the boys PLAY in the leaves before bagging them up, and a good time was had by all.

Steve and I were amazed that we finally have boys who are at the age that the help they have to offer is wonderful and we got the yard done in less than half the time than any other year, thanks to giving the boys jobs, and rewarding them with "teamwork treats" when it was over.





2. Noah's Watch and Children's Time at Church

This was quite an adventure all weekend as well.

I am he lunch mom on Fridays at Noah's school. This Friday when I left, Noah kind of flipped out a little about wanting to come home then instead of waiting. So I took off my watch and gave it to him and said I will be back in three hours. He was thrilled to have the watch all day and when I picked him up, he begged for a watch just like mine. Not one with characters or digital, but with a real face like mine.

While Deb and I were at WalMart, she was also looking for one for Abby so when we found these perfect watches for $6 we were both quite happy.

She is saving Abby's for Christmas, but Noah has now had THREE PERFECT WEEKS at school so I decided Saturday morning to present his to him as a reward for such great work at school.

He was SOOOOOO happy. All day long, he was reading time, showing everyone he saw all day, and kind of making me wish I had saved it as his only present for Christmas, he was so happy.

So I let him wear it to church Sunday morning, which turned out to be a BIG mistake.

During children' message, something apparently burst inside of him, and when our youth director told the kids about the food parade that they will be doing next week to collect food for local food pantries, Noah launched into a HUGE soliloquy in front of the entire congregation about "we're going to be in the Christmas parade at school and I'm going to wear a Christmas hat and mommy's going to wear antlers, and I can tell you when we'll line up because I have a new watch...etc" at the top of his lungs.

I haven't been that embarrassed in church in ages. No less than six people came up to me after church, "Noah sure isn't shy" and comments like that.

I know he was excited, but I am quite ashamed and he will not be going up for children's message for quite a long time.

1. Bells

No big story for this one, but it was fun having my sister and niece come to bell practice after church today. They are filling in for a service in December and it was fun having them there.



For a boring weekend, it actually came away with some silly stories. This week looks pretty boring other than STILL trying to find the money to pay the mortgage.

But if anyone sees a Bakugan flip open travel arena anywhere in the blosogphere, please throw an email my way.

Otherwise, have a great week.

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.