Another Weekend Over Too Soon...

1. Yesterday we spent a vast amount of time at Concord Mills mall -- my first trip there, and herding two kids through a giant mall is a time consuming task in and of itself. On our to do list was to get Joel some shirts for work, and to figure out what we're all going to wear for the family portrait we're getting done next weekend. Accomplishing the first chore was pretty painless and the sales girl at Brooks Brothers was multi-talented and in addition to helping Joel pick out shirts she made balloon animals for the kids (a stegosaurus for Ben and a turtle bracelet for Becca). Picking out our outfits for the picture was totally not painless, rather painful, but we finally managed that as well.

2. Last night Joel and I went to dinner at Rooster's and then attended a show to benefit the preschool called Mark Stone's Mentalmania (Mark Stone's grandchildren attend the preschool). Rooster's, we decided, has potential, but I think we ordered wrong. Mark Stone was entertaining, but I don't buy the ESP thing ;)

3. Today Joel spent the morning cleaning out our kitchen cabinets and refridgerator and then grocery shopping, and the afternoon working on a presentation for work. I took Ben to soccer, where he's becoming a lot better on defense but still tentative on offense. Still, it was a tie game today.... I think the first game his team hasn't lost outright. Not that we're supposed to be keeping score....

4. After soccer the kids spent the afternoon playing at one of our neighbor's houses with their two kids, where they have a hose with a water cannon hooked up to their play set. So the kids took turns with one aiming the gun down the slide, and the others sliding down the water slide. They all got thoroughly soaked. When I commented about what a cool idea the water cannon was, our neighbor gave me an extra one he just happened to have in his garage. So now all I have to do is buy an extra hose to hook up out back and mount the cannon, and the kids can turn our slide into a water slide this summer too.... awesome fun!

Feeling Like a Monday but Someday I'll be Saturday Night

Joel and I met friends for dinner last night at Nix (highly recommend the french fries with cheese, bacon and gravy) and then saw Bon Jovi at Time Warner Cable Arena. This morning I am pretty exhausted after a night of conjuring my 16 year old soul.... And, by the way Dad, I am sorry for making fun of you for bringing earplugs to the Bon Jovi concert I drug you to when I was 16... I think my ears are still ringing. But Jon Bon Jovi is looking as fine as ever...

Report Cards

That's plural, because both kids got report cards - Ben got his today and Becca got hers last week. Becca's consisted of the very subjective word "great" for all categories except for the one about "controlling my emotions" next to which her teacher wrote "working on it." There was a little written section where her teacher expressed that Becca is a delight to have in the classroom, gets along very well with her classmates, is a leader without being bossy, and loves to do art projects. This was followed up by a brief parent teacher conference where I expressed my doubt that Becca is not bossy while in school, because she totally bosses everyone around at home!

Ben's grades of course are quantified a bit more objectively on a 3-2-1 scale with 3 being "Consistently meets Kindergarten expectations", 2 being sometimes, and 1 being not at all. This quarter he was graded on 22 subcategories, most of which fall into the headings of "reading and writing", "mathematics" and "character development" (with one lonely entry each under science and social studies). He got 3s in 19 of the 22, with a 2 for "writes several ideas that are connected, uses words that name, show action and describe; uses basic punctuation." His teacher wrote that he needs to work on leaving spaces between his words. He also got 2's under the Character Development section for "takes care of materials" and "works independently" (which he also got 2's for in the first and second quarter).

His teacher did write though that he has "continued to grow academically" this quarter, citing especially his reading progress - now at level 10 - and said he is doing a "great" job in math.

So I think that calls for a "good job Ben!" and a "good job Becca!" too.

Weekend Highlights

1. Friday was Joel's birthday, and we celebrated yesterday with the kids and Joel's parents. We ate ice cream cake and gave Joel his presents, then the two of us had dinner at Enso (while the kids went out for pizza with Nanny and Papa). The food at Enso was good, but overpriced, and our waiter had some forgetful moments (such as forgetting to bring our drinks, and then forgetting again to bring the second round of drinks...)

2. Ben has struck up a new friendship with the daughter of one of our neighbors; of course he has known her since we moved here almost 3 years ago but he never played with her any more or less than with any of our other neighbors until recently. Now it seems like every time we set foot out the front door to play out front, it's not ten seconds later that she's outside too and they're playing together. Yesterday he spent an hour and a half playing over at her house, during which time Rebecca was napping, and I sat blissfully on the front porch sipping an iced coffee and enjoying the peace and quiet.... before eventually feeling guilty and going over to get him.

3. Yesterday morning we took the kids to Imaginon for the Children's Theater production of Goodnight Moon It was Rebecca's first theater experience, and she lasted through about half of the hour-long performance before dissolving into hysterical screams and demanding to "go bye bye". I took her outside, and Ben and Joel followed shortly thereafter. So. Not a rousing success. But, at least we tried. On the way to the theater, slightly confused by the GPS's directions, Ben sensed we were slightly lost and announced, "Well if we get hungry, I see a Bojangles." Which totally cracked me up because we have never set foot in a Bojangles, despite their prevalence down here.

4. Today we did not do to much, though I feel extraordinarily tired probably because I am also coming down with a cold. We spent the morning playing outside, then went to Ben's soccer game where, with Joel helping to coach, I spent two hours placating Rebecca by various means, and when the juice and cookies ran out she amused herself by pretending to lather sunblock over every exposed part of my body. Then we came home and played outside some more. The pretend sunblock doesn't seem to have done the trick, as I am feeling a bit burned...

5. Upcoming events to remember: Bon Jovi, Hawkfest, Mark Stone's Mentalmania, and (for Joel, one of his birthday presents) Bobcats playoff tickets. More information to follow.

Congratulations to My Orange Belt Boy!

(Performance edited for brevity's sake!)

Spring Projects

This weekend Joel and I (mostly Joel) undertook a massive (for us) landscaping endeavor in the front yard. Now, you must put this in perspective -- I mean, after all, in order to undertake this endeavor we not only needed to purchase plants, mulch, and soil conditioner, but also basics like a shovel, gardening gloves, and yes, a hose (I ran over our old one with the car and ripped it so we were without a hose for the last couple of months).

The weekend started out like this:

ME: Let's go to Home Depot and get some hanging baskets for the front porch.

JOEL: Let's go to Pike's [garden center] instead so we can ask the guys there what kind of plants would be good to landscape the front yard with.

ME: Okay so long as I can get my hanging baskets too.

Three hours later we found ourselves in the front yard without hanging baskets, and surrounded by $400 worth of shrubbery and piles of dirt and old pine needles.

In the midst of all this, just as Joel was wondering aloud what he'd gotten himself into, on this his first day off from work in like 14 days, and as the children were shoveling dirt onto each others' heads, and as I was complaining about my lack of hanging baskets -- the shingles for our new roof arrived and were deposited right in the middle of our driveway.

It was about that point that I panicked and told Joel he'd better have this whole mess cleaned up by the time the roofers arrived to start making their own mess. So Joel spent much of the weekend laboring in the yard, and I spent much of the weekend supervising from a lawn chair and taking pictures. Yes, some of us worked harder than others (as you will see from the pictures below)... But in the end, Joel got his landscaping done, I got my hanging baskets, and we even got a new roof today... The final picture below I took tonight, with new roof. Not that you can probably tell, seeing as how one roof looks pretty much like the next... anyway, very exciting stuff :P

The Next Bobby Fischer?

Apologies for the substandard image quality - I took this pic on my phone during what's lately become a nightly game of chess between myself and Ben. I didn't have any idea he knew how to play chess at all until I walked in to pick him up from his after school program last week to find him setting up a chess board with another boy. He said his counselor Marcus was teaching him how to play and asked if we could get a chess set. So I got one for him this past weekend and have had to play about a dozen games of chess since then. At first I had to remind him how some of the pieces move, and explain the object of the game, but I was surprised at how quickly he seemed to catch on.

Our games began with me giving him the opportunity to "do over" his turn a lot, but now he usually sees when he's about to put one of his pieces in jeopardy and corrects his move himself. And, I go easy on him and sometimes overlook an opportunity to take one of his pieces. Still, he did win last night - actually got me in checkmate with no help from me. He did however trick me out of my queen, by saying very seriously, "If you put your queen right here, I'll let you take my castle on your next move. I won't take it, I swear. I just want you to move your queen out of the way." Hmmppf. That's the last time I trust a five year old's word on that.

I Think I Need to Get This Kid an Agent

Movie Star, Take 1

Movie Star, Take 2:

A Beautiful Spring Morning!

Don't Even Bother Saying it - I Already Tried

"Hey Rebecca - your sunglasses are -- [screech] -- I just want to fix -- [squeal] -- Can we just turn them -- [scream] -- But they're upside-- [screech screech] upsi-- [SCREEEEEECH!] OKAY, OKAY.... geez... have it your way... I won't try to touch them again!"

Dance, Becca, Dance!

Last night marked the return of live music on the weekends to many of the shopping and restaurant areas we frequent.

Becca's friend Amelia met us there for the dance party -- the only thing cuter than watching Becca dance alone is watching her dance with a friend!

Happy Birthday, Ulysses!