Catching up

The blog has been a bit blah lately huh? Yes I know. It's the whole life thing getting in the way. A combination of being busy, a really hateful, slow and uncooperative computer, and being overwhelmed with all there is to post, so posting nothing at all. That's my specialty.

But there are some things that bear recording.

We had our first snow day of the year. (Whohoooo! I do so love a snow day) and we did us some sledding. Some at night.




(The child I was riding with here claimed that I was choking her by holding her too tight on the way down. I'm sure I don't know what she means. Look at my confident, unafraid grimace expression.)



Some during the day.





Gabe got his first violin, and can already play something on it. (Thanks to our friend Dallas on both counts.) Look how swept away in the drama of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star he is. A true artist.



Our string quartet is well on its way


Gracie started piano lessons and can already play something too. She is as expected, a very diligent little practiser.

Finny continued to be cute

Benj was in the spelling bee at school. Ok can I just tell you that watching a spelling bee is freaking torturous. I held my breath and agonized for each child participating and had big sweaty patches on my shirt when I was done. I have sweat less running 10 miles at high noon.

WHEN WE FINALLY GET THE STUPID CABLE FOR OUR STUPID VIDEO CAMERA and I can show you video you will hear my whispered commentary every time Benj stepped up to the podium. It is highly unsupportive. "Omih... he'll never do it. Oh! Whew Good job Benj. " (It's not that I don't have utmost confidence in the genius of my child, it is that when in doubt, pessimism is my go-to reaction, my defense mechanism, if you will.)

I must give a shout out here to my good friend Jill who supported me through this difficult time. I don't know how I could have made it through "cauliflower" in round 2 without her.

This is how it looked when he started. Sadly I cut off the other side of the stage (but just imagine the same on that side. With different kids of course. We celebrate individuality here.)


And as things progressed

And progressed some more. He may look cocky but as his mother I know this is his, "focused" position. What? I am serious.


Until he was in the final 3. As I mentioned in my facebook update:

Benj came 2nd out of 29 contestants....the word that got him? "Alcohol". He can spell "schadenfreude" and "conquistador" with ease though. Obviously he is just a really good Mormon boy.

We thought that was pretty funny and he was totally cool with it.



(I did make an appeal on the grounds of trauma/brainwashing/religious discrimination but...no go.)

And that brings us to the end of this extended news update. Thank you for reading. We will resume regular programming tomorrow.

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