The Tree Goes Up and Up and Up and Up...

Saturday morning Rich made a mistake. "Nichole, do you want some help hauling the tree upstairs?"

It was done, he said it so he had to do it. A little background on this tree. I shopped for two years to find a 12 foot slim pine to fit in my front living room. Last year I found it (more importantly could afford it) and bought it--only to have it sit in the box until this year. This was the first thing we found..

We were a little worried.

 But with some work, no swearing (shocking) and a ladder, the tree was up and in place in less than a hour.

Once it was up the real work started.. but the kids did it all...

Diary of a Whimpy Kid

I don't get this book but millions of kids around the country have been waiting for it to come out. Tuesday was the big day. I think this is number seven in the series. Carter and Jensen counted down the days until it was on bookstore shelves. Grandma B (who's a big time reader and will do just about anything to keep her grandkid's noses in a book) preordered the book at BN, drove there after work and delivered two bandnew copies around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday. When I got home from Anja's dance class both boys had their noses buried deep in the pages. By 7:45 p.m. Jensen had finished the 250 page book and called his grandma to tell her. By 10 p.m. Carter was also finished. Jensen has since reread the book twice.. it's not even a week old.

Here's the moral of the story. If you are the mother of boys and you want them to love reading, buy them whatever book they want even if you think it is ridiculous! Trust me, I've heard all the jokes from this book six times and I still think it's stupid. The hardest part to swallow? The guy who wrote this probably agrees with me, but doesn't care because he's got a few million bucks in his bank account this week.

Going Private

The writer in me hates this on so many levels. I don't believe words should be locked up in a book, in your heart, or in your mind. But, as I get more involved on the radio, politics, education and all that goes with it toes will be stepped on. So despite my reservations as an activist for freedom of speech (or wondering onto someones blog for an interesting look into their lives)  the mom in me has won and we will head into the hills for cover in a week. Want to still watch, wonder and roll your eyes? Send a comment with an address, I'll link you over.

Piano Recital

The fall recital was slightly different than years past. Since August we've been working on group pieces to play. It took a lot of work to get all the pieces memorized (mostly), coordinated then the kids used to several people at the piano at once. It was a huge task but our teacher did a wonderful job of getting it together. Jensen played four pieces, here are his two favorite.

Last year at this time he was still only playing the right hand. We've moved on to both hands, reading music and writing his own music. He hopes to enter his song called, Worms, into this years Inspirations contest.

This piece was designed for students on different levels to all play together. You can't see her but our piano teacher, Miss Julie, is at a second piano playing at the same time.

This piece called The Balloon Polka was by far the hardest to coordinate but the most fun to do. Four pianos, four players, four different parts. It was like trying to coordinate cats. It was soooo hard. Once we got the music down we had to add the balloons. Then there was preparing the students for all the "what ifs" what if your music falls, what if your balloon doesn't pop, what if you loose your place. Miss Julie did an amazing job getting us to this point.

Congrat's Jens, well done!

Bywater Halloween Party

As if grandma doesn't do enough this time of year, she decided to add a Halloween party. It was so much fun to do something Sunday night with the gang. When grandma B decides to do a party, she really throws a party. Missed you S&S and M&K!

There were three kinds of soups to try. I loved the Pumpkin soup!

Carter enjoyed several helpings of Chicken Noodle.

Then there were cookies to frost.

And we even went outside to play grandma's version of a pumpkin stomp (balloons tied to your ankle) while jumping around to Halloween music. When grandma asked Nadia what she wanted to do for games, Nadia said, "How about a water fight?" Lucky for us, grandma convinced her to use balloons without water.

Three kids, three classroom parties, one mom

Crazy day!

Gutting pumpkins

I love Halloween but I hate carving pumpkins. I hate the work, the smell and the clean up. If the kids want jack-o-lanterns, dad's got to do it; and he did.

YUCK!!!