Email from Addie's teacher

I got an email this afternoon from Addie's teacher with the subject line being "Addie." I was a little worried opening it up, for fear that she was sick or something.

This is what it said:
Just wanted to let you know that Addie sang the star spangled banner for the entire first grade lunch and the principal on the microphone today and did it beautifully. She is quite talented!!

So that made my day.

Information dump

Sorry for the lack of form of this post, but I have a couple of things I want to mention before I forget them!

1. Of course the girl ended up talking to Ben. She was 10 and an identical twin. By the end of the night, she was taking him to the bathroom for me and she even shared her clay with him.
2. We've been playing hangman a lot recently. A couple of Addie gems-- the first puzzle was only three letters long. After guessing all of the common letters, Brian and I were convinced she surely had misspelled the word and therefore resorted to racking our brains for any unused letters and possible kindergarten-level interpretations. Ultimately the word was "won." Yup, seriously. It was pure genius on her part. Wanting to be sure, I asked her to define it and she said, "You know, when you win something." Bingo. Another puzzle she gave us ended up being "Daddy has smelle toenals." Then yesterday morning just as Muddy got into the house Addie explained that she had a hangman for Muddy. The word had six letters in it. As Muddy guessed away, I started to think "geeze, this isn't really looking much like a word I know," so I asked her to whisper the answer in my ear. She did and I just shook my head, because she was right. The answer was "bolyah." What? Did she seriously choose "boo-yah" as the word?! What a nut.
3. Ben's current favorite I-can't-help-it-I-need-to-dance song is "Forget You" by Cee Lo Green. He just can't control himself when it's on. We even had a fun time playing it on itunes randomly to see what he'd do and he busts a move without fail. His whole body is jamming along, sort of like a rag doll,because the music just moves him so much.
4. Onkteb was down for the weekend. The kids had a blast with him, as usual. On Sunday as we're driving to ice skating, where Onkteb was going to be leaving from, Ben said, "When my favorite people get ready to leave, it makes me feel weird inside, like I'm sad." Isn't that so sweet?
5. Addie had another snowday yesterday. Really. That makes 7 for the year. They've had so many that they've actually taken back a teacher inservice that was scheduled for March!

Watchin' Ben

Tonight was the monthly PTA meeting at Addie's school. They serve a dinner first. I had both Addie and Ben with me and we were waiting for the dinner to be served. Ben was sitting very quietly over at another table and I went over to him and asked, "Ben, what are you doing?" He looked at me plain-as-day and said, "I'm just sitting here cutely so that the girl in the purple shirt will speak to me."

When I texted Brian (who is at work still) with that story, he wrote back, "That's my boy, smart like his dad. That's how I got you."

Ch-ch-chaaaange

Au-natural hair color, which it turns out that I'm allergic to the "protein- based" product...so I'm covered in hives from my neck up. I can't even wear my new hair down, because it irritates my skin so much. Hoping the more I wash it, the less irritated it becomes. I'm happy with the color though.

Happy Valentine's Day!

From your favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Rafael.

made by Muddy, of course. Isn't that the cutest thing?I can see boys (and girls) everywhere wearing them.

Wii boxing

We've had the Wii for several years, but we haven't really played it that much. This weekend we brought it out to see how the kids did with it. Well since then, each night, we've had Wii sports playing. Whether it's the Wii Fit yoga or the Wii Sports' boxing, they are exercising each night before bed. Enjoy the video of them boxing. It's funny to see how much their booties move while boxing.

Valentine's store

Ben and Muddy went shopping yesterday for some little Valentine's Day decorations. When I came home from work he showed me his loot. There are Valentine's stickers and a pack of heart shaped doilies. The package says "AC Moore" on the doilies. So I said, "Oh you went to AC Moore?" Ben looked at me and said, "No. We went to the Valentine's store." I said, "Right, but it's AC Moore, they sell Valentine's stuff there." He said, "No, it's the Valentine's store. There were hearts everywhere." I had to explain to him that it was actually the same store where he wore his Dancy the robot costume and won the contest on Halloween. Funny how he thought it was a whole store just for Valentine's Day. His response was a nonchalant, "oh."

Good old fashioned Hangman

Addie and I spent the half-hour before her bedtime tonight playing good old fashioned Hangman. It was quite a lovely way to spend time with her. Her spelling isn't 100% correct, which makes it even more fun to play-- it's sort of like a major guessing game and then she'll say "Oh I forgot one space" so you get to start over again. See if you can follow the conversation. She is such a good girl. (Her second tooth is hanging on by a thread- and her adult tooth is already through behind it, so I'm trying to get her to just pull it out....)

Addie's 2nd marking period report card

Not surprising, but still nice to see. She's an excellent student.

Addie the art-eest

I thought this was so cute. She's really understanding the concept of drawing the whole body now; not just stick figures.

Cute Ben

Last night as Addie and Ben were long asleep, Brian and I were watching tv downstairs. We hear the patter of footsteps and a sleepy-looking Benjamin comes in and says, "All I can think about is steak from Hibachi but I know it's too late to go there." So he's been upstairs in bed, thinking about steak from Hibachi for several hours, which was preventing him from falling asleep. So cute. And yes, today we got to go to Hibachi for steak.

Student of the Week part 3

So last week was Addie's 2nd go round with Student of the Week. Wednesday she had an early dismissal because of the snow and then she was off on Thursday and Friday because of the snow. So in all honesty she didn't really get to relish in the moment of being SOTW. Sunday night I did make some brownies, for her to take to school on Monday to make up for her SOTW treat, which was supposed to be Friday. But then Monday she was home with Scarlett Fever so we ate the brownies ourselves. Then yesterday was another snow day, so I made brownies again last night for her to take in to school today.

She was very curious who the new SOTW would be. When she got into class, Ms Brown announced Addie was still SOTW! They all enjoyed their brownies.

The best part of Addie being SOTW today was what she told me when she came home. The SOTW gets to choose a friend each day to eat lunch with at the special SOTW table. Having joined Addie for this in the fall, it really isn't that exciting but there's some sort of prestige associated with it. Anyway, she had to choose her person for today and she chose Liam.

Now Liam is one of the two children who has not been SOTW yet, because let's just say that Liam has a hard time following the social cues of kindergarten behavior. I was surprised when she told me that Liam was her chosen friend, so I asked her why. Her answer, "because he's never been picked before." Could she be anymore of a social worker's daughter? She just made me so proud of being her mom when she said it. I did the same thing as a kid.

Fun times sledding

The best one is where Ben was heading straight for the tree and luckily Brian was down there to save him. Initially we didn't think it mattered if someone was down there, but boy am I glad that Brian went down to catch us. One time when I went down there, Brian had to stop me from sledding across the street even!