Author: Erica (Page 41 of 269)

We hosted our Easter gathering yesterday, so the house was full of people and food, and eventually full people.  Ha!  The kids did a small Easter egg hunt even though it was cold.  And we had a battle of hard boiled eggs–my way of making eggs versus Lisa Baker’s way.  It was hilarious.  And I will admit they turned out basically identical–which was a little disappointing–but it now gives me a much faster way of making hard boiled eggs!

The big kids and I colored some eggs on Saturday and had a blast.  I love that they are finally at the age where they understand how to not make a mess.  Of course, that will all change when I let Maddie start helping, but we did it this time while she was napping. 😉

The other day I took a few pictures of the two Littles as we were going about our day.  I thought you might enjoy seeing the pictures too.

First we started with breakfast.  Look at those sleepy faces…

Then onto playing before naptime.

Then after naps we went on a walk.  But it was pretty windy and chilly so I made them wear snowpants while they were sitting in the stroller.  One was more excited about wearing matching snowpants than the other…

And finally all bundled up waiting for me to get my shoes tied…

After our walk we had lunch and discovered Levi had a very small allergic reaction to something (later discovered it was the same allergy we already knew about–a very slight allergy to egg whites) but I took a picture to document it.  It’s hard to see, but there is a rash on his chin. (Also, don’t feel bad for him in the picture–he’s only crying because I wouldn’t let him have my phone… ha!)

Then, of course, there was more playing.  On this day Maddie had found Josiah’s clipboard and was making her own list.

…and Levi found Tim’s reflective vest he has to wear at a job site.  He really liked playing in that.

Today was the first day of Spring Break here!  Well, I guess you could say that Saturday was actually the first day, but it was the weekend, so it felt normal.  Today was the first day they didn’t have to go to school.  Unfortunately I had to teach as a make-up day so I had 16 lessons.  Yikes!  I know it’s just normal work day hours, but it’s a lot of lessons in a row…

But now, it’s 9:00.  And my last lesson just closed the door!  So, NOW I’m on Spring Break.  🙂  I’m totally going to live it up by…. um…. probably going to bed early. Hahah!  I’m so exciting.

In other news, we’re doing a bit of schedule rearranging this week since I’m not teaching.  We’re sliding some naps a little and removed Levi’s last night bottle and graduating Maddie to a bigger bed (ok, it’s the same bed, but more freedom in her bed.  If you want to know that full story, you’ll have to call me.  😉 ) So, it’s going to be a big week.  Hopefully all the transitions will be smooth.  Or at least not terrible.

Well, I’m off to celebrate with a bowl of ice cream!

Happy Monday everyone!

During contest weekend I was roaming the halls on the lower level (near all the judging rooms).  We were extremely short on volunteers so I was hovering between 3 different spots where volunteers would normally sit.  As I wandered back and forth I smiled and helped people to their rooms and kept things orderly.  After 20 min or so I noticed a girl, about 10 years old, sitting along the wall watching me.

I smiled at her and she seemed to finally get the nerve to ask what she had been pondering for some time.

She pointed at my name tag.  “Are you the Erica that signs all of the certificates?”

I had to think for a moment what she was talking about.  And then it dawned on me that every student that participates in contest earns a certificate–both at preliminaries and finals.  It’s mailed to the teachers with two signatures on it already and a blank for their teacher to sign as well:  the President of MMTA and the Program Director (me).

I laughed and said, “Yup, that’s me!”

“Wow!” she whispered to herself.  And she watched me walk away with eyes wide, as if she had just met a movie star.

It made me chuckle.  I suppose that’s what it must feel like being famous.  She probably doesn’t know that my signature is actually printed on all 3,200 certificates by a machine.  I don’t actually sit and sign them individually… But still.  It was fun.

Contest has now come and gone.

It went very well.  There were the normal/expected hiccups you encounter in events like this:  one angry Mom reamed me out, one student came on the wrong day, a serious lack of volunteers kept me running like crazy on Sunday, and the doors didn’t auto unlock at the right time… but there were positives too: no one seemed to forget the time change this year and we ended up with an overabundance of teen volunteers on Sunday afternoon which helped us get ahead of schedule on the grading process.  We’re still dealing with a few random emails from teachers (now contesting the results or missing critiques) but it’s pretty much all wrapped up.

I always forget how wiped out I am the following days.  After I got the kids on the bus on Tuesday morning I put the “Littles” down for their morning nap and took a 2 hour nap myself.  It was needed. Then it usually takes a couple days to get things back to normal.  By Saturday night things were finally feeling normal again.  Of course, we cleaned like mad on Saturday morning to get things back in order, but everyone helped out and we enjoyed watching a family movie that night = “Ferdinand.”  Very cute.

Sunday evening we had some church friends over and made boneless chicken wings and angel food cake.  It was very delicious.  We watched “Wreck It Ralph.”  It’s one of my favorite movies.  And did you see that there is a “Wreck It Ralph 2” coming out in November?!  Yeah!  It’s called “Ralph Breaks the Internet.”  Hehe!

I had missed cooking last week when I was so busy–I didn’t realize how much I do enjoy it.  So, today I made stir fry for the first time as well as a chicken broccoli braid for supper.  I also made chocolate chip banana muffins on Friday (we had a lot of brown bananas I needed to use up) and a quadruple batch of oatmeal waffles (to freeze for breakfasts for the kids) on Sunday morning.  It takes me over an hour with two waffle makers to make a so many, but the kids LOVE them and I feel better about them having oatmeal to keep them more full at school.  Plus we freeze them so they’ll last for a couple weeks depending on how often they eat them.  I try to enforce a “you can’t eat the same breakfast 2 days in a row” rule.  So if you have waffles one day the next day you have to have cereal or oatmeal.  I know.  I’m so mean.  Ha!

Our Spring Break is next week but I always teach that Monday to do make up lessons for the Monday I have to miss because of Piano Contest.  Right now it looks like I’ll just have a normal day of teaching–almost everyone will still be around.  Then other big plans for our break include:  our tax guy coming, getting ready to host Easter, and I want to try and be social that week and let the kids hang out or go see some friends that week.  We’ll see how much I actually get done…

I guess that’s about all for now.  We are all eagerly awaiting the arrival of Spring around here.  There is still quite a bit of snow on the ground, so we have a bit of sloppy yards ahead of us, but it will be so wonderful to be able to let the kids play outside and on the deck again.  Levi and Maddie in particular LOVE being outside and they have had to deal with the brunt of having to stay indoors.  On Saturday it got up to just about 50 degrees and Levi and Maddie both enjoyed just playing on the deck for a long time.  Levi kept going back out–and was so excited about it that he eventually didn’t even care enough to put on shoes or even a coat–and it didn’t bother him at all!

Levi is continuing to be our biggest! He’s now passed everyone (at that age) in weight and height!

Things were grooving along nicely with contest stuff until Sunday.  I had been saying how much easier thing were getting… and then….

• We had a big computer glitch that scheduled a whole ton of Sunday student the opposite of their time request, which meant….
• The office had to complete redo the schedules for Sunday (a very big undertaking), which meant…
• I couldn’t get the materials last weekend to start putting everything together into the designated, but that actually turned out ok, becuase…
• I had NO volunteers to help me on Sunday.  None.  Well, unless you count Chloe, Josiah and Jennifer (who were very helpful, by the way!).  But because no one showed up…
• I had to work on doing contest stuff basically non-stop from Sunday – Thursday in all my non-teaching hours.
• Oh, and the kids had a snow day on Monday and a late start on Tuesday.

But I don’t mean to complain.  Things could be much worse.  And I have learned a few valuable lessons this week:

•  Chloe (and Josiah to some degree) can be good helpers with contest stuff now!
• We actually get a lot more done on volunteer Sundays than I thought
• I really do need to get the sheets of information before Wednesday the week of Contest.  There is a lot I need to do with those sheets, and 2 days is just not enough time.
• Time on contest week seems to pass quicker than normal time.
• Our family likes potato & ham soup.  I made it in the crockpot this week and it was a hit.
• I have stress eaten a lot this week.  I’ll have to get back on track soon otherwise I won’t have anything to wear soon!  Eeeeks!

How is tomorrow the last day of February already?  I feel like January and especially February have just FLOWN by.

We are officially less than 2 weeks away from the Piano Contest.  So, life is about to start getting a little busier.  I’m supposed to have volunteers coming this Sunday to my house to help get things ready, but at this point no one has signed up to come.

Tim has started gearing back up for the work season.  It seems to get earlier every year.  He even went on a few bids in January and February!  I don’t expect to need nannies for a while yet though.

We got a bunch of snow this past weekend.  And the best part is that it’s been nice and warm (in the teens and 20’s) so the kids have actually been able to play in it!