Mother's Day Morning

From Brenna:



The card says: I hugged it before I put it in the envelope! Brenna is so full of affection, this card simply spoke to her. She cuddles and loves me like I am the best mom in the world. I only hope it stays this way through the next ten years!! The roses in the vase behind the cards were my mother's day gift and part of what I woke up to this morning.


From Noah:


The card says: Please have a happy Mother's Day! I don't want to have taken a bath for nothing!

You don't know how appropriate it is from Noah. He is in a 9 year old boy stage that he doesn't want to get showers ever! I mean it, unfortunately! Not after a soccer game, not after wearing helmets and unicycling, not after a hot day and running around at recess. Not ever. So, he took three showers yesterday. And hence, the card is hilarious for its timing.

From Tobin




The card says: Happy Mother's Day Mom from the best kid in the WHOLE world!
Inside: What do you mean "who?"

Tobin has turned out to be such a funny person; he loves to make people laugh and enjoys finding opportunities to do so! He knows I can be serious, so sometimes he loves, loves, loves that he can get me to laugh when I am being stern mom, or serious mom. I love his humor and see him being like Andy in that way!!



Mother's Day evening


This pictures was taken after our mother's day breakfast, after church, after our mother's day brunch at Manish and Katie's where we really didn't see the kids at all. I know they played rockband and pool, and after they were messing around downstairs--having fun! This was great because there wasn't one sour note during their playing. It helped make it a good mother's day

Mother's Day begins early

On Friday, Brenna's reading class at school had a mother's day tea for us. Brenna was very worried that I don't drink tea and what was I going to drink. (So cute, right?) I ran home from work on Friday afternoon, grabbed my camera and ran up to school. I got to Brenna's class a little late and was one of the last mom's to arrive. As I walked in and sat down, Brenna beamed and ran to me and jumped into my arms.

Not sure why, but lately Brenna clings to me whenever she sees me (and she is back to sleeping in bed with who ever will let her! Lately, it has been Noah in his twin bed!). However, the chairs in Brenna's reading room were little, meant for little children, and I didn't want to live the literary experience of Goldilocks and break the chair, so I had Bree get up and go sit back down on the rug where her classmates were sitting.

Things happened so quickly and Brenna was up in the stool next to the chair of "honor" meant for the mother's to sit. Brenna was so excited and called me up to the chair and really started reading before I even had a chance to sit down. So, by the time I was comfortable and ready to listen, it was over! That was okay with me as I really wanted to read the poem (I use the term loosely) Brenna had written for me later on in private. As such, I wasn't all teary eyed like I usually am at the end of these things, which is a great thing!!

But then I sat and listened to the other children read their poems to their mothers and I became an overflowing watering can! The unique relationships that these children revealed through their words was touching. Although they all loved their mothers, it was for different reasons and revealed that mothering encompasses so many experiences. One child loved his mother because she made the best (this is significant) spaghetti, another daughter loved her mother because she played cards with her and let her win, another boy loved his mother because she took pictures of him, and Brenna loves me because I cuddle with her when she sleeps!! If you say you don't need a tissue right now, you have a heart of steel, no actually you have no heart like the grinch.

If you need images, here are some I took that I love.





More on mother's day later.

Brenna's dance recital

Brenna's dance recital was April 30th and it went something like this:

"Wait, do we walk out together or at the same time?"

"Which song do we do first?"
"Let's Dance" (this is the answer and is a song by Vanessa Hudgens)
"I can't dance if I don't know the song!"

"Can we trade places in line?"

"I'll only dance if you do."

"Do you like my hair? My mother made me wear it like this!!" (This was Brenna, of course).

"Ms. Christina, can you dance with us on stage?"











I wish I could have been a fly on the wall backstage, right as they were about to go on stage. Brenna looked so darn cute, but as noted above, after I had done the two ponytails, she decided against them. I thought I had spent way too much time on them to just take them out without having anyone's eyes look at them, so I told her it was too late, she had to wear them. But in typical Brenna fashion, the minute she had her last bow, before she left the stage her hand was in her hair pulling out the ponytail holders. Why?

The dance was painfully cute until I figured out the secret. I'm not sure what the expectations should be at this age, but watching misstep after misstep was hard. I know they practiced, I know they knew the steps, I know they were excited, I know they were nervous, and I know they were performing; I just wasn't prepared for the recipe it cooked up! It seemed like they had a little too much nervousness and excitement. They seemed like they had forgotten every practice they had had. And then.....

And then....I looked at Brenna's face and it wasn't so hard to watch anymore! Her smile and her eyes were all I needed to know this was a heart stopping, moment of joy for Brenna and for me. When you watched their faces the steps faded away as something in the background that didn't quite matter. Bree was having a great time up there on the stage!

New Place, same Job

Hi all!! I don't know why I have been sitting on this good news, but here it is. With the economy as it is, my position as a second media specialist got cut from my current high school. So, I had to go through the excruciating process of building my resume, interviews, and waiting....oh the waiting.

Unlike most years there were only 5 schools with media specialist openings, two high schools and three elementary schools. There were 6 of us interviewing (all 6 of us had our positions cut), who basically wanted the two high schools! Three were men and we were all highly qualified, so the only thing I felt I had going in my favor was that I was the youngest one interviewing.

To make a long story short, I got offered both high school jobs!! I couldn't believe it. To have my pick of either one felt great, but caused me a lot of angst. There were pros and cons to both, but ultimately I chose the one I have always wanted to go to, but is a little risky because I am, once again, a second media specialist, and if they need more budget cuts for next year, my job may be on the chopping block, yet again. But, the media specialist, who is there, is a person I went to grad school with and I think she is great!! We will work very well together and while I have been focused on raising my children she has focused on her career, so I have a lot I can learn from her. She rocks and the opportunity to work with her was too much to pass up.

The other thing about this position is that I will be going to Andy's high school!! I always joke that Andy and I would never have dated in high school, but I may make him take me to his high school prom next year!! Lucky me.

Brenna's brownie trip

Hi all. So yesterday's fiasco of uploading pictures makes me think it is my computer because it just took about 10 seconds to upload these pictures. Not sure why that is, but it has been so frustrating.

Anyway, Brenna had an absolute delight at her brownie field trip yesterday. The only mishap happened at the begining because she forgot about it!! So, she went home as usual. Running late myself, I was already behind when I called to see if she was at home. I told her to hurry up and run to school (it's a great thing we only live a block from the school)!! As I saw her running up to the parking lot (sans Brownie uniform), she was wearing a Redskins jersey with her leggings. She looked so cute with her hair flying behind her. It reminded me how lucky I am to have these years with her. As she ran closer I could see she had been crying. It was so hard to see sadness written on her face when she should have been happy to be out on a beautiful day going with friends to see nature.

When she got to me, I pulled her close and hugged her sooo tight, asking her what was wrong. She said that she had had to leave the house so quickly (because I told her to) that she forgot to tell Daddy where she was and she was afraid he was going to be mad at her. If only...they could stay this way. I looked into her eyes, and they were liquid and sad and i wanted to fall into them. I settled her fears by telling her that I would tell Daddy.

She jumped into my friend's car with these red splotches on her face that she gets when she cries and a smile to equal them as she saw her three friends already waiting in the car. And I don't know why, but as I walked home, tears fell down my face.

And she returned with that same smile, only slightly bigger from all that she had experienced in the last two hours. And everything seemed right in the world.

Hands up for Caring

Brenna got to put her handprint up for caring. She is an amazing little girl and loves to help (except at home with her brothers, it seems). She loved having her hand on the wall along with her friend Caroline. She was so cute and all smiles.


I can only say I am so frustrated with blogger as it has taken me 6 1/2 hours to upload these pictures. I know I need patience but this kind of trial is not a fair trial; I've been hung out to dry!! :)

Pictures of Noah's soccer game

So here's the story to go with these pictures!! In the second picture you see Noah right up against someone on the other team. You can't tell exactly what's going on, but let me tell you that the other team is holding Noah. And he kept doing it. So, Andy heard Noah say at one point, "The kid keeps pushing me."
Unfortunately, the other kid decided to say, "Too bad." Now at this point, I must digress to say that nothing infuriates me more or gives me more insight that his parents are doing something wrong. I'm sorry, that may be harsh, but what kid thinks like that? I would have expected something like, "no, I'm not," or "I can't help it." But nothing as malevolent as "too bad," which shows no remorse. He was also kicking Noah in the back of his leg. Anyway, back on track.
So, as I said unfortunately the other kid said this which made Noah take matters into his own hands. The next time Noah saw this kid coming at him, knowing that the kid would grab him to hold him back again, Noah decided to lunge at the kid, kind of do a little juke at him. When the kid realized that Noah was willing to come at him, he changed his tune and left Noah alone for the rest of the game!! I also have to say that after Noah did that he looked at Andy, saw that Andy wasn't wholly upset and smiled as if to say I took care of it.

Now, I have to say that I really hate it that Noah resorted to implied violence, but on the other hand, talking didn't work. The other team player had no interest in what was right or following rules and Noah wasn't willing to have it continue the rest of the time. I'm not sure what Noah should have done. I actually fault the coach and parents of this other kid for not being aware of what was happening and stopping it.