We posed for a picture after the talent show.

Talent Show

A funny one.

The girls and I performed a number in our city talent show on Saturday night. I played the guitar and they sang a Taylor Swift song from the Hunger Games Soundtrack. I've always been a nervous guitar player and let me tell you, shaky hands do not make for a clean performance.  So I worked really hard all week, practicing and visualizing a successful performance.  More than anything I didn't want to let the girls down, like I had in the audition when I totally messed up and threw them off.  

Our performance went pretty good. I was rather calm and was able to play with only a few mistakes.  The girls were nervous but were brave. After a shaky start (and some microphone issues) the girls singing really came in strong. They sang really good harmonies and their voices blend so well together.   Our performance wasn't the most polished, and we didn't have the best stage presence (I was too busy staying calm to smile), but we did it! And sometimes just doing something is a victory.   Next year we decided that we will do something more upbeat and entertaining.

Caucus Meeting

After so much press about attending our party causes meetings, Chuck and I decided that we would give it a try.  Unfortunately, we came away disillusioned but better informed.  In the end we learned that our little area caucus is run by some extremist folks and they had us middle of the ground people outmaneuvered before we walked in the door.  It seems that if a few people care enough, that they can basically hijack the whole caucus system.  I did end up getting nominated for county rep and I stood in front and gave a little speech about being moderate and that the middle is where things get done, but I guess in the end no one agreed with me because I didn't win.   Ah, well. I wasn't that disappointed as I hadn't intended on running in the first place.


Let the Construction Begin

Our kitchen cabinets have finally been ordered and are due to arrive the week after Easter. Before they arrive we have to rip out our entire floor and replace it, take out our cabinets and wire the wall for under the counter lighting.  Chuck started taking up the linoleum this weekend. Something about the linoleum dust and exposed glue made our whole house smell like Home Depot.  We have a long way to go from here, including a couple weeks without a kitchen.  Including no kitchen over Easter (pizza anyone?).

Cinderella

We've had a great time this week with the performances of Cinderella. Before shows things get a little hectic  with curlers and make-up; two girls, fake eyelashes, tiny bathroom, tights and heals. Chaos. They are loving every minute.

We had a fun family lunch on Saturday before the Matinee, with Grandma and Grandpa and some of our cousins. Thank you to everyone else who took the time to come; it meant a lot to Kaitlin and Ruth to see familiar faces in the audience.

Ruth is on the left in the front, and Kaitlin is in the back by the window.

Tonight (Monday) is their last show.  They are both pretty sad that things are coming to an end, though it will be nice to have things return to normal.

Update: Their last show was to a full house (all their shows were full) and it went really well. They were upset that it was all over but had a great time. 

There was a strict no photography rule but I was able to squeeze this one picture off before they caught me and yelled at me.

Cinderella

Backstage, ready for the ball scene.

The girl's opening night for Cinderella was Saturday night.  I helped with ushering that night so I was able to sit and watch much of the show.  The show was very good, and the girls did great in their chorus parts.  Kaitlin sang her one line right on pitch and in time; she was pleased that I was able to hear her line even though she was unmic'ed and I was in the back. All the shows we've done locally in the past have been on a cement stage in the out of doors, so it's nice to be in a real theater with curtains, flylines and back stage storage.

I painted this carriage.

There were some nice special effect in the show, like twinkling stars, a moon rising, and a clock tower that changed time.  The girls are having a great time and have made some good friends.  It was a hard decision for Kaitlin to give up the school show and do this one, it's nice to see that it turned out to be a good decision. There are four more shows: 6, 9, 12th and a matinee on the 10th.

Science Fair Disappointment

Ruth did great at the district science fair this week.  Her display looked great, she meticulously followed the rules, she had an excellent log, and her interview went well. Maybe I'm biased because this is my kid, but I really though Ruth's was one of the better ones there. We pretty much thought it was a sure thing until we found out that she only got 2nd place.  Because our district is so large, about 25-30 % of the entries get first place and move on to the regions, but for some reason Ruth was not one of them. My only guess is that the judge found something fundamentally wrong with the experiment. We will find out when we get the judging sheet back in a few weeks. Needless to say we were disappointed.


Back to Work

After a much longer than expected hiatus at church, I've been put back to work as a Cub Scout leader. This time I'm over Webelos, the 10 year old boys, which is a whole different beast than Wolves (8 year olds) was. It's much more complicated and time consuming.  A whole bunch of us were called to work in cub scouts today and of them, only I, and one other, have worked in scouting before.  It will be a sharp learning curve for our group. 

There was a huge dinosaur display

A Day at the Museum

There were lots of hands-on activities for kids to do.

This was our last week off track. We haven't done a whole lot this time, we went swimming and shopping but that is about it. So on Thursday when Ruth and Jared were bickering and fighting I said, "That's it! Get in the car."  We went to visit a new museum in the city that I had planned on taking the kids to all along but hadn't gotten around to it. We took a lunch and had a great afternoon exploring this huge and wonderful natural history museum.
We stopped at the gift shop on the way out and spent a dollar fifty on a geode and headed home.  The kids had a great time breaking open their geode, but were a little disappointed that it wasn't hollow, but it did have a few layers of rock and crystal that were interesting.




Cinderella

Opening night for Cinderella is this Saturday.  Because of scheduling problems with the city they've had to cancel 3 or 4 practices in the past few weeks. This is the first time I've ever been involved with a show that has had less practices than were on the schedule instead of more.  I've spent a few nights there painting set with my neighbor. We've painted several huge panels (stage backdrop sized) with pumpkin vines. The girls have been having fun; because the chorus only has 3 numbers the whole show, they have a lot of down time to hang out with friends. They have a few more dress rehearsals this week and then the show opens.  They are performing on  the 3, 6, 9, 12 at 7:30 pm and a matinee at 2:00 on the 10th.  The tickets are pretty pricy at $10, but I guess that is how they keep their little theater running.


Talent Show Auditions

The girls and I auditioned for the city talent show on Friday. They sang and I played the guitar. I'm such a nervous guitar player so I messed up quite a bit, and the girls just kept singing and did a good job in spite of me.  I also auditioned with a couple friends playing some mountain music. We will find out if we get into the show this week sometime.  If we do, the show will be on March 17th, and I think it's free.

Science Fair

Ruth's school science fair was this week.  We spent six hours the day before doing her board. She had finished the journal several days before thanks to a great deal of nagging from her mother.  Because science fair is totally voluntary at her school there were only around 50 entries (her school has 1200 enrolled).  Because the school can send an amount to districts based on its size about half of the kids who entered won a 1st place ribbon.  Not to discount Ruth's project, I think it was one of the best ones there - but I'm not biased or anything.  Ruth will go on to districts in two weeks (the same night as her final Cinderella rehearsal before opening night).

Here project was about music and campaign commercials.  She was surprised to learn in her research that a huge percentage of positive campaign commercials, like around 90%, used inspirational type music, not patriotic music, like one might suspect.  In fact, almost no commercials used patriotic music.   Her pole of 21 people showed the same result, the commercial in the inspirational music lead in every category.  Think of that next time you see an add. Her commercials are still posted on YouTube if you are interested in seeing them (but the survey has been taken down). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr_iiGxN3L4

This Week...

This was our first week off track for Ruth and Jared. We enjoyed sleeping in, going on shopping trips and doing some swimming. We got Ruth registered at the local middle school for next year. We've applied at the charter school but won't find out if she's been admitted until March.  The girls continued with their Cinderella practices. Chuck and I went to a district scout dinner and also to a scout awards ceremony for my friends Amy and Annette. 
 
Valentines

Kaitlin designed some cute valentines cards to give to her friends.  They are free for you to print and color.

6 cards. Print, color and cut apart.

2 cards to print and color.

Adventures in Decorating

Before

Our family room is large and square. I may have blogged about this before because it has been an ongoing struggle to find an arrangement in this room that works.  I had a friend over a month or so ago who is a decorator. Together we moved the furniture around into yet another arrangement.  It wasn't perfect, but it was the best so far.  "Big room, small furniture" my friend said.  We hung pictures on the wall, but it still felt lopsided and out of proportion.  "Wouldn't it be cool if we painted a big tree on that wall," I said to Kaitlin one afternoon.  As I was thinking about it, I started to wonder if they made vinyl trees,you know,  like they do vinyl lettering, but for the scale, I needed a tree at least 8 feet tall; did they make them that big?  A little research on the internet, a few clicks and five days later it arrived in a small compact tube.

Kaitlin hard at work.

It didn't take me long to discover that installing it was a two man job.  Kaitlin agreed to help me, and it took us two evenings of very tedious application to get the thing up.  Now it's done and we all really like it.  It adds the height to the wall and a warmth to the room that was always lacking.  It divides the room and makes it warmer.  We love our new PVC tree. 

Our finished tree and birds. (There is also a cat, but we haven't found a place for it yet.)

Updates

The girls had several nights of musical practice.  They are loving it.  The tickets for the show have gone on sale and they are reserved seating, so if any of you are interested in coming it would be good to buy tickets soon.

Ruth and Jared are off track so this past Friday was their class Valentines parties.  They both came home with big boxes full of candy.  Ruth also had an activity where she set up a shop and sold a product to the other kids in her grade. She made hair flowers and was able to sell almost all of them.

My float idea was presented for the main parade board and approved.  There has been several changes suggested, including having the woman knitting rather than weaving.  Some things I am happy to bend on but I am advocating for the weaving woman.  We'll see what happens.