Junpin' on the Bandwagon

Seeing as how everyone else has posted their snow day pictures, I thought I might as well too. I was actually planning to do it yesterday, but the batteries in my camera died before I could upload the pictures. So after an expensive trip to Target today, the camera is equipped with new batteries. Some of the pictures are from yesterday, some are from today. As many of you know, we had a big snowfall Thursday afternoon and all that night. School was canceled Friday, so we had an unexpected vacation. We spent the morning cleaning and a couple of neighbor kids came over to play. I had planned to go to a friend's house that morning, but I was waiting around for the snowplow to come down my street. I think it came very early in the morning when it was still snowing so the road was just covered up again. Those of you who have been to my house know that I live on top of a big hill, so I was a little concerned about going down it. Well actually, going down might be a little too easy, it's coming up that's the hard part.

Anyhow, the plow wasn't coming and I was tired of waiting, so I got out the shoveled the driveway while the kids played in the snow. We then went to a friend's home and proceeded to go sledding down the awesome hill in their backyard. We had a great time and got thoroughly tired and wet. I had brought a change of pants to change into after sledding since I didn't have any snow-pants. Well those extra pants proved very useful. After changing into them, we had hot chocolate - I made a major mess while trying to put the lid on William's sippy cup filled with hot chocolate. Enter the original pair of pants now in the dryer. So after cleaning the hot chocolate off of the stove, counter, floor, wall and cabinets, I went downstairs to retrieve my first pair of pants from the dryer and change into them. After I changed and rinsed out my other pants in the sink, I realized that I had locked myself in the bathroom. Claire heard my desperate knocks, retrieved my friend and after a little bit of work, my (I'm sure a little exasperated) friend freed me from the bathroom. Now all of this could have been embarrassing had this kind of stuff never happened to me, but seeing as how it does, I just laughed a lot.

I hope all of you had a good weekend. I had better get going since I have 7 chapters to read in the Book of Mormon and then the lesson to prepare; my Saturday night routine.

William tackled Claire and then proceeded to head-but her in the stomach

SNOW!!

I don't know what William's doing here, but he looks very cute.

Beautiful Claire

This was from today. I shoveled the front driveway (yes, we have two) so that William could ride his bike while I worked in the garage.

Messy Day

For some reason, some days are messier than others. Today was a messy day. I went through a entire pile of rags, which I have to wash tonight so that I have a fresh pile tomorrow. After cleaning a few messes, I decided to document it. Here are some pictures of the fun.

This is the work of William -
don't ask me why he did this, but I was not happy (that's cheese and milk)

The kids making a good mess in Claire's room -
William was in the middle of a coughing fit, so his face and eyes were all red

We are always getting on Claire's case about sitting in her chair on her bottom at dinner. She's always all over the place. Well tonight, she knocked her bowl of sweet and sour sauce off the table and onto her, the chair, the floor and the wall.

William loves shredded cheese and this is what I have to clean up

Another mess I clean up several times a day - cars

There was also two chocolate milk spills and a few other things.

Claire has recently said some funny things: we were watching some documentary on Niagra Falls and they said the number 100,000 and Claire said "Wow! 100,000! That's a lot. I bet that's older than you and dad!"

We were eating Chinese food for dinner tonight and William was being really loud at his train table and Claire said "I feel like I'm at a restaurant that's not very fancy and is really noisy."

Another one..."I bet being grown-up is the worst part of your life." I asked why and she replied "Because you have to do all of that boring stuff." True, true.

Whatever

I don't have anything in particular to write about today, just a few pictures.

This is William playing with the original Polly Pockets that were mine and are now Claire's.
I was washing Claire's sheets and William made himself comfortable in her room.
She would not be happy if she knew about this.

I love pictures of sleeping babies.
His blanket, mom and his bottom lip are all that William need for a good long nap.

William and a little friend playing together; they get along very well.
They just look so cute in this picture - what sweet boys!

A Few Movies

I am trying something new - now that our camera takes movie with sound, I am attempting to put one on my blog. I took one of each of the kids today - nothing special; this is more of a trial run.

Lessons and music stuff

Ryan and I bought a new digital camera with our Christmas money. Our old camera only had 1 mega-pixel, so our pictures were very grainy. It's been a good little camera, but it is nice to have this new one. The only problem is: I don't really know how to work it. So I only have a few pictures to share that I haphazardly took before church and a few pictures from our old camera.

Today has been busy; Wednesdays always are. I have six students on Wednesdays and they all need something different (reeds, help finding solos, audition music, etc). One of my students also plays tenor sax in the jazz band and his parents will only allow him one private teacher - so I got to teach a sax lesson today (and find him a solo). So now I teach bass clarinet, Eb clarinet, and sax in addition to my normal clarinet students. Lots of fun. I picked up two new students last week and one more today. The reason for these three new students is simple: the band just had their big semester try-outs and all of my students beat the pants off of everyone else. My students now sit in the top chairs of both bands and one of my students in the lower band beat out a kid I don't teach in the top band. That shook this kid up a bit and he is now one of my newly acquired students. I guess we're doing something right.

Now I know a lot of you reading this were once in band/orchestra/choir - so you understand what I'm talking about - sorry to the rest of you. I also know this is a very boring topic, but seeing as how I had nothing to write about, this is what you get. Now to reward you for putting up with this post, here are some cute pictures:

Claire before church last Sunday - new camera

Her hair does this naturally when I put it in a pony-tail. No curling iron folks.

William looks angry, but he was just trying to get up. He had been sitting there watching TV while Ryan took a nap. In any case, I think William has very expressive eyes.
That is quite "the look".

While trying to get over my cold Monday, I took a short nap on the couch while William watched cartoons and Claire was at school. This was the first time I've fallen asleep while William was awake - alone. He was a good boy and I was not in a heavy sleep. Anyhow, he was watching Spongebob and I guess a scary part came on because William came over to me and whispered in my ear "scary...scary...scary" over and over. It was really funny. When I got up, this was how I found him in front of the TV and yes, that is a bag of crackers dumped on the carpet.

1982 vs 2007

So as we were on the lookout for the bus from our dining room this morning, Ryan calls Claire over to the computer to look at the recent pictures of her cousins from Ryan's side of the family. They are two of the cutest little kids, but I made the comment that they really don't look like our kids at all. However on my side of the family, a lot of the cousins have my family's look to them. Does that make sense? Anyhow, I pointed out that Claire looks a lot like me when I was a little girl and William looks a lot like my Dad did (William's Grandad). Claire asked if I had any pictures of myself when I was little and I could only remember having one. I quickly pulled it out of my scrapbook and showed it to Claire. It was the first time I've looked at this picture in years. I was quickly struck by the fact that the little blond girl from 1982 (maybe '83) looks a lot like William. For those of you who know William, you know that he sucks on his bottom lip when he's nervous and/or tired. I tried to find a good picture of William sucking his lip and this is the best I came up with. So here they are:

William - Oct 2007

Susan with a little friend - 1982

Does anyone else see the similarity? Crazy.

Journals

As you can see to your right, I am trying out a poll. I am very curious about the whole journal/diary thing. My parents bought me my first official journal when I was eight. I have kept one ever since. I am very inconsistent in my writing; the regularity really depends on the busy-ness of my life at the time. I have tried large journals, which didn't work so well because I felt obligated to fill the whole page and that was too much stress. I have tried small journals, which tend to work better for me. I've tried lined, unlined, spiral bound, spine bound, cutsie, serious looking, etc. My newest journal is an unlined sketchbook. I cut out pictures from magazines that I like for whatever reason (homes, clothes, appliances, whatever) and glue them in. I also include notes and pictures that Claire's made me, notes from Ryan, to do lists, recipes, paint swatches, bits of fabric from my sewing projects, my menu for that day; basically whatever I feel like. I write funny things the kids said, what I did that day, what the weather was like, projects I'm working on, doodles, who I talked to, etc. I like to think of it as a little clip from my day. In the past, I found that my journal entries would end of being a list of what I did that day without anything very interesting (because essentially, I do the same things day after day). My entries were also written in an essay style, which tended to be mundane. But with this new journal, I'm including things that show my mood, thoughts, and other tidbits from my life that are not the same every day. It has really worked for me. I also like to think that one day, when my kids (or whoever) looks at this journal, they will enjoy seeing the decorating styles, appliances, clothing, etc. that were popular today. Here are some pictures of my journals - I know the pictures are really grainy and the lighting is terrible; sorry.

My first journal - given to me in 1988 for Christmas

A sample of the inside

All of my past journals, in chronological order - the smallest one is a journal entitled "What I Read" I list the books I've recently read and what I thought of them.

My current journal with my latest entry. Some pages are more colorful and creative than others. This is an average page.

Another recent entry.

My lovely sister is an avid writer - she always has been since I can remember. I'm guessing she has around 15 to 20 filled journals. The girl went for years without missing a day. Amazing.

There was this lady is my past ward in St. Louis who always carried a cute purse around with her filled with gel pens and her journal. She was always writing and drawing in it whenever she had down time at church (and no ladies, she did not have any children and the ward had more active people than callings). I only caught a few glimpses of her journal, but it looked amazing. She was obviously very creative and a great artist. Each page was a work of art and literature. It looked like something that should be published. I have come to accept that my journal will never look like hers - but at least I can try to make mine interesting in my own way. I would love to hear your comments and thoughts on journals - be sure to post one!