In tune

Not long ago, we took the plunge and purchased a piano. People have asked who in our family plays. Well, the answer perplexes most when we say, no one. I grew up playing flute, Alan plays guitar and our children at some point will be made to play an instrument - hopefully of their own free will. We both, however, grew up in families that had pianos in the home. In fact, that was part of what made it a home to us. Alan's mother was an understudy pianist for the Boston Symphony so their piano got a good workout. My sister played piano a bit and my mom played as well. We were a family that liked to belt out a tune now and again and we weren't above trying out for various roles in school plays that mom would accompany us in practice.

My goal in my adult life is to learn the piano and I now have a tool to get me closer to that goal. Music in a home fills the soul and so our souls are now closer to being in tune with the whole.

We had to wait for the piano to "settle" before we could get it tuned. When we finally had someone come to tune it, Kiira was fascinated with the process.

Dancing with the Stars

I confess, I am hooked. Dancing with the Stars is the only reality show that I watch. This past week was spring break and I let Kiira watch with Alan and I (we have it on TIVO). She gets into it just as much as we do and loves to predict scores, attempt dances and shout yeh or nay for a particular dance attempt. This past week has been a family event with Rennie on the couch (as usual) as well. He turns into more of an ottoman as 3 people and one dog, even on our large couch, can get a little crowded.

Easter aka spring celebration

So, the actual day of Easter turned out to be beautiful. Kiira worked up to the day by coloring easter eggs. She had on a dress and I asked her to take it off to color the eggs. I thought she would put something else on but lo and behold she just colored eggs in a pair of tights.





Easter day the kids, Alan, Jenny and I went to brunch at a quaint hotel (more like a b&b though) in San Rafael called the Panama Hotel and Restaurant. I picked it because it had outdoor space and I thought that with that reprieve the grown ups could actually enjoy their brunch while the kids wandered in the garden. Mission accomplished.









For more photos of our "spring celebration" party - click here!

Flying high

Recently I jumped the highest I have ever jumped. Rhett and I did a series of gymnastics where the last fence was about 4'-0" with a 1'-0" spread. The most I have jumped before this is 3'-6" and that was when I was a teenager. I think that the reason I dared jump this high was purely because I have such a talented horse. I just love him.
I am so proud of this.

Haircut and Dora

Evan was in need of some new shoes so he and I took an excursion to Payless. I was thinking this would be a nice time but I quickly realized he is now of the age where he has an opinion. We came home with brown and pink Dora sneakers. He does love Dora.

I love you's to the east coast

Here's some love goin' out to the east coast cousins from Kiira.....

Surprise!

Often when I am not watching a get a few surprise photos. This is both shocking and delightful. This is what I found most recently. I think we should title them, "Self-portrait".

Blackie for the Regatta

I'm not sure I ever posted a photo of our regatta project - here is the famous Blackie group effort of Mrs. Ritola's kindergarten class. Templates made by Heidi, watercolors by each student.

Rainday

I know we need the rain but none of us are enjoying right now. We are ready for sunshine, flip-flops, shorts and outdoor dining.

Tuckered out

After all this celebrating, Rennie and Alan are plum tuckered out. Time for a nap.

Workout

Who needs a gym when you have 35 lb weights and 55 lb weights at home to work out with?

Passover

Easter and passover tend to fall around the same time and this year we did "spring celebration" at our house and Passover at our friend's Gideon and Nancy. We read from the Haggadah and they made a delicious dinner. The kids actually sat for a good while at the table while we celebrated.

Alas just Kiira and I went as Alan graciously offered to stay home with a sick Evan. Rennie kept a constant vigil.



Before we went over Kiira and I talked about what Passover was and afterwards she drew a picture of the mean king.

Giddy up young cowboy

Recently Evan has been coming with me to the barn because our babysitter is on vacation. He actually really likes it and similar to Alan's tennis, he will sit on the bench for a good 45 minutes watching. He has no fear and to illustrate this I caught him walking under Rhett's belly, pointing up, and saying "tunnel". We quickly cleared up this was one tunnel that he was NOT to go underneath.

Easter windows

Our newest art is window painting. We decided to do some for Easter.

Spring Celebration

Evan and "Na-Na" aka Ginger

Every year, much to Alan's chagrin, I have a spring festival (aka easter party). Never having celebrated Easter as a kid, this is somewhat of a large pill for him to swallow. We have compromised though and he seems to accept it more if I phrase it as a celebration of spring. For better or worse, each of us in our playgroup have "claimed" a holiday. Nancy has Halloween, Meredith Christmas, and I do Easter. I guess I just like throwing a party.

The previous years I have made a bunny cake. Previous years I have also had my mom here visiting. This year mom is coming in June for the big 4-0 celebration for Heidi and for Evan's 3rd birthday which is a couple weeks before. So, needless to say, I didn't have her help and the bunny cake did not get made. I did make some pretty killer cupcakes though (Barefoot Contessa knows her cupcakes!) and Easter cookies as well.

After some "keep the kids out of trouble" crafts and "settle the tummy" food before the massively frosted cupcakes, the kids lined up at the door to hunt for eggs. Now, Kiira has asked me whether the Easter bunny hides these eggs. To be honest, I can't coordinate stuffing the eggs (they are little plastic eggs that I fill with fuzzy chicks) and hiding them (there are a couple hundred) without her knowing so I settled on the following answer which she seems to have bought. I said that the Easter bunny is too busy before Easter to hide all of the eggs so mommy helps out. On Easter day though, the Easter bunny comes to hide all the real eggs. Phew. Innocence preserved for a little longer I think.

Anyway, the egg hunt lasts for about two minutes. However, in the actual chaos of 20 kids looking for eggs it feels like 15 (!) minutes. Usually I put the big kids in our postage stamp sized front lawn and the little kids on the back deck so that everyone can get some eggs. Luckily for us, there was no hair pulling, no dress ripping and no pushing and shoving. Kids were good too.

Thanks to all that came and we are looking forward to next year's party!

Keep checking back for the link to all the photos from Easter - I just haven't had time to upload them yet! Ok - here is the link!

Chums

I feel so lucky to have my "peeps" as I call them to lean on. My girlfriends give me endless support from serious to mundane. And best of all - we giggle. Like only girls can. This photo of Kiira and her friends Emily and Samantha (it was Emily's birthday party) made me think of that. When I see her with her little group of friends, I feel so happy. And I thought I could giggle.....these girls put me to shame.....

Day five - student of the week

Day five - the big finish to student of the week! Friday is special guest day. Kiira chose Evan as her special guest which I can't help but feel a little misty about. Sooooo cute. She also wanted to teach her class about challah so mommy made her first challah to bring to class. In our bag of tricks we also had a candle, the kiddish cup, a havdaleh candle and Kiira's special homemade challah cover.

Several of her classmates were actually in her Sunday school class which makes it kind of nice for her. The kids loved the challah, were really interested to look at the Hebrew letters and were fascinated that you read Hebrew right to left.

Alan, Kiira, Evan and I sat at the front to tell the story of Shabbot. There were three little chairs and a stool. At luck would have it, Evan ended up with the stool. Apparently he wanted to be a "big kid" and without any complaining, just walked over and got himself a chair too. Little kid carrying a big chair - or rather big chair compared to little kid.

I thought Kiira would be shy but she actually talked about Shabbot. We were all VERY proud of her. On another day, the teacher has invited us to come back and teach the kids how to make and braid challah (there wasn't time that day). We promised to come back whenever we were invited and take on the challenge of teaching 21 kids how to braid challah.

Reed Elementary School Open House

Kiira's snail drawing on display in the multi-purpose room



"Blackie" project done for Reed school's regatta

It's time. The kids have learned to spell, learned to write, learned to count, learned to use all the colors in the rainbow. It is now time to show these skills off to mom and dad - publicly. So that is what we went and saw. We also got to see Room 1's Regatta project which myself and another mom in Kiira's class have put together. We had the kids do a watercolor picture of Blackie in different poses. We then put it all together in one big frame. This will get bid upon in a silent auction at Reed School's annual Regatta fundraiser. Hopefully for a bundle. If it's good enough apparently it will get chosen to go to the live auction and get bid upon with paddles and the whole shebang. Stay tuned for that.....

Now - who is Blackie you ask? Good question. Blackie is the famous horse that stood STILL down at Blackie's pasture until a ripe old age of 40. He even had a book written about him - "Blackie, the horse that stood still". His pasture is right below our house and there is a lifesize bronze Blackie statue that young and old come to visit while taking a stroll along the water's edge.

Our kids (and most everyone else!) likes to sit on Blackie and pretend they are riding the REAL Blackie. Heck, if someone would give me a leg up - I'd be up there too!

Day four - student of the week

Today the class each made a special picture for Kiira in "centers". This is made into a book. Aren't you excited to see what all her classmates said about her? Me too. They leave you hanging though. It's not sent home until the end of the year. Geeeeezzzz.......

Going to the dogs

When Alan and I first got married, we had a spacious comfortable bed. It was a queen. Then we had Kiira. We got a king bed. It is the most comfortable bed in the world. She sleeps in there occasionally. Not as spacious as it used to be. Then we had Evan. He's really pretty good about sleeping through the night. However, there have been those nights where both kids have had nightmares and I'm just TOO tired to try and get them back to sleep. So, there they are in the bed. It's getting tight at this point. And yes, Alan is there too.

But c'mon! Rennie has now just convientely forgotten that he has a nice comfy dog bed that we picked especially for him. And we KNOW he likes it. He has slept there for the past 5 years!!! And has he also now shunned the "nest" where Kiira is supposed to sleep when she has a nightmare - a little ladybug tent with pillows and comforters and blankets that was once forbidden fruit for Rennie but has now become yet another place he sleeps because I don't have the energy to shoo him out anymore. Does he feel left out when all the rest of us are in the bed? Does he feel he is soothing the young, nightmare ridden tots that have worked their way into the bed? We will never know I suppose.

We do, however, know this. I have learned to sleep in the fetal position. Not for fear of the unknown, a nightmare or despondence over not finding the right mate. But the fetal position has been born out of necessity. It is necessary for me to curl my legs around the dog who, despite the whole bed, only sleeps at my feet. It is necessary for me to make my chest concave so as to accomodate a sleeping child's head. And it is necessary for me to tuck my head to my chest so as to protect my face from flailing arms or the leg that seems to find its way around my neck. Yes, those of you who are parents are also familiar with these strange Cirque de Soliel positions that only children can get themselves into and out of. Our personal favorite, and also most dreaded is the "H" position when each parent is the vertical, teetering on the edge of the bed, while the sweet sleeping child assumes the bar in between.

We as parents, are only the rock of strength that our children wrap themselves around.

Now Rennie, well, that's another story. I'm not sure he needs this rock of strength so I'll go out on a limb and say he just likes the body heat.

Day three - student of the week

Day three is book day. The student of the week gets to pick a book to bring in and get read. What to pick? Educational? Fairy book? Fancy Nancy? Well, Kiira chose "Make Way for Ducklings". It is a really sweet story about a family of ducks that settles in the Public Garden in Boston. I think it actually gave her an excuse to talk about her beloved cousins, Caleb, Johah and Isaac who live in Boston. Also a good time of year though since little ducklings remind me of spring.

Day two - student of the week

The day started out a bit rough. Today is "show and tell" for the student of the week. Kiira's show and tell is Rainbow Sunny, our fish. Now, most of you who follow my blog know that I am not good with fish so needless to say I was a little nervous about changing ANY part of this fish's routine such that it could end up belly up.

However, the bowl that Rainbow Sunny lives in at home was going to be too heavy for Kiira to carry so I changed her out into a smaller bowl. I put some saran wrap over the top (with an airhole) so as to prevent two catastrophies. #1 - bowl spilling and Rainbow Sunny ending up in the Tiburon sewer system and more importantly, #2 - Rainbow Sunny jumping to her death (yes, this has happened to me). I was nervous on the ride to school but I parked and walked Kiira to the classroom to make sure everyone got in safely. There were many ooo's and ahhhh's as Kiira brought her fish in and her little chest puffed up so proud to be the center of attention. And points for mom, despite feeling nervous about letting her carry her the whole way, I let go and just gave Kiira the fish. This was her moment to shine and she wanted to show her friends how grown up she was without a hovering mom. As I thought about the pros and cons of letting go I realized that I needed to put things in perspective. This is just a fish. She is 6 yrs old. This is the easy time for me. It will be when she is a teenager and faced with much more difficult decisions that I should be agonizing over how much to let go. So for now, today, I let go of my little 6 year old and let her shine. And shine she did. Rainbow Sunny made it back home just fine.

Mom - well that was a different story. I realized as I was about to go meet a client at 3 pm that I had been wearing my shirt inside out all day. Hmmm....go figure. I guess it was a blessing that I made a quick stop for coffee.