Lent lessons

We've imposed a No Sugar Cereals rule on the kids for lent.  Lots of families do that year round anyway, of course, but we like our Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch around here.  The kids have had to tolerate speeches about the people who don't have enough to eat, period, much less their fav cereal in the cupboard every morning.  Nate came up with another idea for them during their bedtime prayers, too.  They each have to say one positive thing about the other.  It's kinda funny listening to their compliments.  "What I like about Michael is that, uh...umm...he was not mean to me today."  But it's been cool seeing how insightful they are about each other.  And they've learned to be more conscious of their positive interactions during the day so they can remember to mention them at bedtime.

We had a snow day yesterday.  I think it's been 3 years since the last one.  I had to console Nicky, who was actually bummed out because he had a Scholastic book order due to arrive yesterday.  We hung out and watched Jurassic Park.  In realizing it came out almost 20 years ago, I felt rather old.  Kids born in '93 are in college for Pete's sake.  Back in my day we had animatronic dinosaurs in movies, and CGI was yet to be overused.  And we walked 3 miles uphill both ways to the theater.

the Pope's last day

Today is Benedict XVI's last day in the chair of Peter.  Since secular news reports are generally semi-ignorant at best and riddled with nincompoopery at worst in regards to anything Christian, it's best to take them with a grain of salt.  Mark Shea says to take off 50 IQ points when the mainstream media reports on religion.  So, here are some of Fr. Barron's thoughts about Benedict's legacy:

recap of some recent junk

Had another bday recently.  That's a Cold Stone red velvet cake layered w/cake batter ice cream.  It was stupendous.  Took the edge off of turning 29 again.

Michael made this pillow case in his FaCS class.  That's Family and Consumer Science, or Home Ec to us old ogres.

This beastly ugly dog won the Westminster title this year.  Doesn't it look like Chewbacca?  I think mutts are usually cuter than all those fancy schmancy in-bred dogs.

We had some Nicky artwork framed.  The 3rd graders had to sketch and then paint something from the school garden last fall.

And the Oscars were last night.  We haven't seen any of the contenders except Les Mis.  Musicals are not really my thing, but the end was moving.  A really cool payoff.  (book snob alert)  The book is ridonkulously better than any cinema or stage adaptation, though (end book snobbery).  Anyway, I thought Peter Brady did a decent job of hosting. 

January concerts

It's nice to have a kid in the front row now.  So much easier to get a pic.  We have lots of pics at several concerts of the top of Michael's head in the rear rows.  Above, Adrienne and the Cheetah house kids are dazzled by the applause at the end.

It worked out that the kids played in different concerts last night, so we were there from 6:15 to 9 p.m.  It was nice, but we've had our fill of middle school band performances for a few months at least.

Happy MMXIII

A rocky start to 2013, what with the payroll tax hike and Kim & Kanye baby news.  It can only get better, right?  Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas 2012

a present for next year

Set to release exactly one year from today:

Anchorman 2 releases Dec. 20, 2013 with the reported bonus of Kristen Wiig involvement.  Of course, that's if Dec. 20, 2013 isn't the one year anniversary of the last full day the world existed.




Now if they'd only make another Anne of Green Gables movie next year...

return of the weather geek

We got about 10" of snow this weekend.  Other parts of the metro got around a foot.  The kids and neighbor kids all descended on the snow pile in the cul-de-sac after the plow went through.

I think all four kids have used the circa 1975 snowsuit that Zach's wearing.  He's getting too tall for it now...sniff.  So if the weather talking heads know their stuff, this is the most snow in a one-time event that we've had in almost 2 years.  During last year's wimpy winter season, our biggest total was around 4 inches.

Also spent time this weekend trying to get a family photo for the Christmas card.  Though we set the camera to take seven pics at a time and took almost 100 photos total, we still had precious few to choose from.  I do admit to having the lofty goals of everyone looking at the camera and having at least a non-menacing facial expression.  Here's one we didn't use:

Zach and Nicky were the biggest offenders.  And the dang cat wandered into this one.  Yeah, "Merry Christmas from all of us and Felix's rear end".  Zach looked like this for a whole series of 7 shots:

And poor Michael came pretty close to breaking my Non-Menacing Look rule.  He bared all his teeth in every photo.  One could imagine him growling or howling at the moon afterward.

Suzuki method

Nicky started violin lessons this past summer and he's doing pretty well.  At yesterday's lesson, he had to pick a card to determine which "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" rhythm he'd play for a warm up, and then pick a card to alter the rhythm somehow.  One of the alteration cards he picked was "Who What Where Why When" or something like that.  Nicky wasn't sure what that was about, and neither was I.  His teacher said she'd ask him questions while he played.  He said, "What... like 'who invented Microsoft?'  Like Bill Gates?"  Ha!  What a goof.  She just asked him things like "what month is Christmas in?," and so on.  No Jeopardy! stuff.  When he figured out he was just supposed to play through the distraction of her cross examination, he did okay.

'Prolly will get our Christmas tree this weekend.  If we win half a billion dollars tonight, maybe we'll spring for one of them spendy $80 trees at the tree farm.  On the other hand, maybe craziness like that is the slippery slope to bankruptcy.

Men's wear milestone

Michael and his 8th grade band compadres looked way too old at their concert last week.  And while out shopping recently, we realized Michael can fit into men's size small.  My 'lil baby, all grown up and wearing men's clothes.  And he's more and more particular about what he'll wear, of course.  He also complains about his 6th grade sister yelling "Hi Michael!" in the hallways at school every time they cross paths.  Awkwaaard.  6th graders are lame-o, and heaven forbid you're related to one of those peons.

Anyhoo, Thanksgiving's around the corner.  Have a good one!  I'm thankful for all sorts of poetic and sublime things, like Cold Stone Creamery's cake batter ice cream and Cinnamon Fire Jolly Ranchers.  And turkeys just taste fantastic.  And pumpkin pie.  Ahhh.