Movie Night

 Like most kids, my kids enjoy watching movies. And like most kids their age, that usually means something animated. Today, there is probably a hundred times more animated movies than I was a kid and they’ve seen a lot of them. This summer I decided we’d have an actual “movie night” on Fridays, an evening dedicated to watching the movies I watched as a kid: Swiss Family Robinson, Pollyanna and Old Yeller.(Okay, I haven’t shown them Old Yeller yet. That can be a really hard movie to watch…) We’ve continued the practice, although now Ellyson usually stays up as well instead of heading to bed early. It usually looks something like this:

More and more, Ellyson has to be right in the middle of everything Emry and Ethan do. It can be blocks, drawing, Legos, school, movie night, or even playing on the Wii. She is not about to be left out, and she is not shy about pushing her way in as needed. Just like another baby sister I know…

 

But this picture reminded me of another picture from long ago:

 

Emry and Ellyson (2021)

 

Melissa and Katey (1982)

Emry: WOW Student of the Week

By the time dance came to an end last year, Emry seemed to have lost some interest, curious more about gymnastics than furthering her dancing skills. That was fine with me as I want her to try many things and signed her up for “Acro” at her dance studio. Basically a tumbling class and only a time commitment of four weeks, she would at least learn the basics of gymnastics so she could decide if she liked it. Unlike me at her age, she doesn’t constantly turn cartwheels, walk across anything that resembles a balance beam, or flip over any set of bars within reach. So, I wanted to be sure she really wanted to switch before I figured out the cost and commitment of that. And while she enjoyed Acro, on the other side of it when I asked if she wanted to be on the B-bopper team again, she said yes and didn’t ask about Acro or gymnastics.  So, I signed her up.

 

I really like the B-bopper team because 1) I really love Miss Kelsey her teacher, and 2) it improves her skills for a whole year instead of two sessions and focuses on lots of practice, tons of improvement, and works towards a goal of competition. I wasn’t completely sure how she would do as the weeks went on, though. Much to my surprise, she’s thrived. I’m not a dance professional (I can only remember my first three positions), but even I have seen improvements. She loves the songs Miss Kelsey chose for both Winter Showcase and competition, and she’s excited about going each week. The other week I overhead two other moms talking about their daughters griping about practicing throughout the week and it dawned on me that Emry doesn’t complain about her daily practice. She might ask me if she can’t just do it later, but she doesn’t gripe. Practice has simply become a part of what dancing is all about.

 

This week, Emry was nominated as one of the three WOW students of the week:

 

W – Works Hard

O – Outstanding Attitude

W – Willing to Help Others

 

I’m very proud of our little dancer.

Fall Celebration!

Since I was nine years old, instead of trick-or-treating, my family would have a fall celebration. It included ordering pizza, dressing up, making and hitting piñatas, and other games involving candy. Since last year, the tradition now continues with my kids. I have to say I am grateful Grandma takes them to make the piñatas (okay, paint them)…I never did like that part.

 

This year Aunt Jenny also incorporated a cake walk. My sister Jenny has adored cake walks ever since she first heard of them when she was probably about Emry’s age. She made cupcakes, drew a huge circle with numbers in my parents driveway, brought out music…and the cake walk began!

 

I think my kids were as excited about that as they were the piñatas, even though they weren’t sure what a cake walk was. But it meant cupcakes in a box they had decorated, so whatever else they imagined it had to be great. And they all had great fun dancing around the circle to the music, even Ellyson for a short time. We won’t tell them the walk may have been rigged. I mean, it was a little suspicious that everyone went home with six cupcakes in their box…

 

Enjoying the cake walk!

 

This year even Ellyson got a piñata. She enjoyed giving it a couple of whacks with the bat before she got tired and Papa finished for her. She was very happy with her fruit snacks and lollipops. Especially the lollipops.

 

Ellyson with her piñata.

 

Emry the prairie girl, Ethan the storm trooper, and Ellyson the skeleton.

What to do When I'm not Working

I’m a bit of a workaholic. The person who brings her work laptop on vacation. The one who wished she had brought it to the hospital when she had her youngest (especially as we couldn’t leave our room for 48 hours!). Or brought it to her father-in-law’s funeral last year to find a bit of sanity in the insanity of those several days. So, when given a forced “vacation” this week…well, I’m rather at a loss on what I’m supposed to do with all my spare time.

 

On Friday, I only worked an hour. I’ve been putting extra hours in earlier in the week so on Friday I can catch up with other stuff. Rather amazingly, I didn’t touch it Saturday. But I opened it Sunday evening to do my weekly Sunday night task and…had no internet connection. In fact, my wireless card wasn’t reading any wifi in the neighborhood (and probably every house has it as I usually see at least a dozen networks). I tried all the basic troubleshooting. And then I stated searching my phone for the more complicated troubleshooting. When absolutely nothing worked, I emailed our IT guy and used my personal laptop to complete my weekly task.

 

On Monday, I spent 2 ½ hours troubleshooting between our in-house IT guru, my own research and a long phone call with our contracted IT people. It wasn’t easy since we only have wireless in the house so I couldn’t get online in another way to allow them access to my laptop. But in the end, even the IT guy concluded: the wireless card was damaged. I could do nothing until it was fixed.

 

Tuesday led to the immediate fix: order an external wireless card. But as that was still going to take two days to arrive at my house, I was left with hours on my hands to fill with…I wasn’t even sure where to start. I had one work task I could accomplish with my personal laptop online, stuff on my work laptop desktop, and a zip drive. A half hour of frustration on a task that would normally take me ten minutes. Same thing today as I continue to wait and hope the wireless card gets here early tomorrow versus late. Meanwhile…

 

It’s strange. I have lots of projects sitting around waiting to get done (blogs to post, various things to fix, documents to print, Christmas things to prepare, etc.), but I wasn’t sure which ones to conquer first. And aside from finally posting blogs, most of them aren’t getting done any faster than I usually get them done between my work hours. I’ve adjusted so well to working hours in a day and conquering tasks in between those hours that having endless hours in which to do them seems to lesson my efficiency. And I still can’t shake the feeling that I really don’t know what to do with myself if I’m not filling every waking moment with something pressing.

 

Basically: I don’t know how to rest and relax very well.

 

Ed keeps saying I’ve earned a few days off. I should sit down or something. Maybe tomorrow I will. I’ve been wanting to call Allyson for weeks but haven’t had time. And now , it seems, I have all the time in the world!

Carving Pumpkins

Last year when we carved pumpkins, Emry and Ethan drew me step-by-step directions. This year I guess we have advanced in our skills since we didn’t need directions. We pretty much just jumped into it!

 

Ethan and Emry both did a very good job cleaning out their own pumpkins once I cut the top off. Our little neighbor girl Ava came over to help, too. And once she was up from her morning “nap”, Ellyson wanted to be right in the middle of it all, too.  She was right in the middle of the pumpkins I cleaned out to use for breads, pies, and other things. 

 

Except for Emry, they then each drew the faces they wanted on their pumpkins. I did the carving, which is never very easy. But they all turned out well, and the kids were very happy!

 

                                                        Emry and Ava working on their pumpkins.

 

Ethan cleaning out his pumpkin.

 

Ellyson helping everyone!

 

The end results!