Shawn wanted to make a movie, but Lilly didn't think I smiled enough.

Lilly practices for Oma
I am a maple tree
growing at the school
And my roots go down, down to the Earth.

Fall Karate Tournament

Today was Shawn's Fall Karate Tournament. He didn't place, but we thought he did pretty well. He was absolutely the most intense in his division! LOL (Though his balance has needs some work.) Next tournament, he'll be a black belt (youth) or into the solid colors!
  

Videos from Shawn and Lilly

Shawn on Octopuses

Lilly dances ballet

Platinum Far Horses with the Eichholz Girls

Real Times Album link

Cantigny Gardens & Park

video

Summer videos

2015-08-07 Shawn's 3rd stripe test on single red belt

 http://youtu.be/VYgilqKTVas  

2015-08-06 Shawn's Lego Robotics week of projects (The Kicker, airplane, alligator, & spinning tops)

http://youtu.be/ej-SoPuHdgc

2015-07-31 Lilly dancing with a lion at Gymboree

http://youtu.be/ZN6jjJhyzos

2015-07-17 Instrument Petting Zoo at the Library

http://youtu.be/ZiC3V66Wjes

Summer

We were able to trade in Dadaji's car and my van and got me a new one! It's still a Nissan Quest, but a 2011 instead of a 2009. It has only 20,000 miles and had 1 owner. Though it's 2 years newer than my old car, it's got a lot of perks my old one didn't have. I was secretly pleased that we never used the DVD player in the old car a single time. (My new car doesn't have one.) The kids love the fact that their windows open, their doors have automatic open/close buttons, and digital climate control. I was hesitant about the height for loading the harp, but I was able to test drive and the harp slid in with no issues. The (leather!) seats in this car fold completely flat, whereas my old car had a slight slope that required a little heft to get the harp in. (Not that I'm performing much these days, but still.) I'm still getting used to the keyless entry & keyless start, but having a new car is fun. (It's reassuring that Dadaji isn't driving anymore now, too.)

Shawn's been working hard on his morning & night routines, independence, & follow through. He's on a sticker chart reward system & so far he's met his goals each month. He's picked Legoland (he still has a free pass from his 5th b'day), GameWorks arcade with Raj (Lilly & I didn't ...have to... didn't get to go). Today we're off to Six Flags for this month's reward & to cash in a free pass he got from a reading program in kindergarten. Next month's reward is 2 treats a week from the candy bowl, rather than just 1. (I was getting nervous that each incentive was involving such big outings, but Raj & Shawn figure it out at the beginning of each month, so I try to stay out of that decision.) Shawn's pediatrician also suggested fish oil vitamins to help with his ability to focus. So, he's taking a kids' gummy fish oil & I'm trying capsules, too. (Shawn doesn't seem to mind them at all, but I get a gross aftertaste.) Though Ms. Johnsen never had any academic concerns about him in kindergarten, she scared me when she said she was worried if he could be successful in first grade because he needed so much prompting. I hope all this is helping him so he can better focus & follow directions independently in first grade.

We went on our annual Puri cousins' weekend away. We've been going to Lake Geneva but were ready for a change. This year we went to Wisconsin Dells instead. I was initially excited about all the things I had read about and talked with friends who knew the area. There's so much to do! Unfortunately (not surprisingly), I was completely outnumbered in my preference for a cheaper hotel & variety of experiences. We ended up at a waterpark resort & barely left the property. We got there on a Friday evening & left on Sunday morning, so there really wasn't an opportunity to do a lot. I was a bit disappointed. Still, the kids had a great time at the waterparks. Though Shawn hasn't had swimming lessons in forever (& needs them!), he's become very comfortable bobbing underwater and getting his head and face wet - all on his own. By Saturday afternoon, even Lilly was jumping off the side of a small pool to me (and sometimes getting her face wet, slightly less enthusiastically).

During our first night in the Dells, we got quite a scare. We got a phone call  at 2:30 am from Dadaji's emergency medical alert service saying that he had fallen and requested an ambulance because he was having severe back pain. They reported that he was able to unlock the door to allow the paramedics to come in, which at least meant he was mobile, but we didn't have much more information and he wasn't answering his cell phone. Eventually, we were able to speak to a paramedic and to Dadaji, too. He was trying to get a drink of water, dropped the glass, which shattered, and somehow he fell and jolted his back. They needed to take him to get Xrays to make sure nothing was broken. Using our outdoor security cameras, we were able to see him walk outside to the gurney before being rolled into the ambulance. The paramedic didn't think it was necessary for us to rush home and the hospital would help him get back home afterward, so we kept our phones close and waited anxiously for updates.

Dadaji's still sore, but doing fine. Nothing was broken and there's no visible bruising. His recollection of exactly what happened is pretty sketchy. We don't know why he was up in the first place because his sleeping pill normally knocks him out pretty hard. In one version of his story, he claims he tripped on one of the kids' toys, making him fall down, but there aren't any toys in that area. Raj bought 2 nanny cameras for the basement now. They allow him to talk with Dadaji through the cameras, which is pretty cool. I'm grateful for the medical alert button.

Aside from that scare, things with our boarder are going ok. I'm still having some adjustment pains, which I know may never go away, but I am very happy we have a helper, Ayesha. She encourages him to get out if the house and drives him on little outings to go grocery shopping, Walgreens, etc. She tells us whenever she has a concern (like his dependence on his sleeping meds and his pleas to sneak out to a casino). She also helps keep an eye on things so the kids and I don't have to stay home all the time. She closes the back door, which he leaves open and inadvertently lets Baron out. She helps clean up after him, since his shaking results in crumbs, spills, and splashes all over. She helped when he flooded his bathroom because he kept flushing the toilet and it was clogged. He tried to dislodge the clog with one of our wooden kitchen spoons. (???) She got him to stop and wait for me to come home. (She didn't know where the plunger was.) I plunged it, cleared the clog, and she helped me clean up the mess. (Sigh.) She's even offered to rearrange her schedule so she can be around if we go out of town again. I hate to think of not having her help.

We've been busy with camps and classes. I'll be sad when all of these end for the school year, though a new year has its share of excitement, too.

Circle of Life

Today, we found a beautiful yellow & brown moth taking shelter under our tall grass by the mudroom after a rain. At first, it looked like yellow leaves, but that didn't make any sense for our yard this time of year, so we looked closer. I believe it's a male Imperial Moth. Its wings must've been wet because it stayed close to that spot for quite a while. We left it alone & went into the kitchen. A while later, a chipmunk scurried across our patio steps - with the bright yellow moth in its mouth. We watched it wrestle with it a bit - it was a mouthful! It took the wings off, which made it much easier to carry without being flapped in the face, and carried away the body. Shawn & Lilly were fascinated with the wings that were left behind. Shawn matter-of-factly pointed out, "Well, that's just the food chain and part of the circle of life right there." And then he ran off to play.

Shawn's karate test for 3rd red stripe on double blue belt

It's hard to see Shawn (because of his size, place in line, & all the kids look like bobbleheads with their gear on!), but Shawn is 2nd in line, next to the boy in red gear. It was a really short test (just 1 move), but he earned his 3rd red stripe on his double blue belt. Coming soon is a test is for a red belt!
Click here to see the bobble heads testing.

Lilly's "I Love You" song

A (very short part of a) serenade by Lilly while on vacation. She can say 'you' more clearly than she does in this song, but... words often get mushed in lyrics!

It's official, we have a 1st grader among us!

Happy Birthday Ms. Johnsen!

 There was a fun birthday surprise in kindergarten this morning. Click for the video.

20 chicks

I'm a Dad.

May 26 UPDATE

Lilly 'reading' Sandra Boynton's "Blue Hat, Green Hat"

In case you need a bedtime story tonight, Lilly will share hers.  

3rd place at the spring National Karate tournament and some baseball

Unfortunately, Shawn didn't earn a sticker this morning, but he still had a pretty amazing day.

Warming up

He started the day by earning 3rd place at the spring National Karate tournament! His final score was 9.94/10.00.

See the action here.	Hear the yell!
Third place	The judges present scores.

All the hard work left Shawn with a severe calcium deficiency. We made an emergency stop to Culver's for lunch & frozen custard. Crisis averted. Phew!

Lilly was quickly running out of steam. So, while I took her home for a nap, Raj and Shawn got haircuts together.

Later in the afternoon, Lilly and I found new robin's eggs in a nest by our dining room window. Then, we were invited across the street to see our neighbors' daughter, who has babysat for us a couple of times, get ready to go to her Senior Prom. So many sparkles on her dress and shoes!

Lilly entertaining herself (& me) while the boys went off to play

Then, we were off to a Kane County Cougars baseball game. Though we didn't come prepared, it was "Half Way to Halloween" night and some came in costumes. (We joked about Shawn trying to squeeze into his seat wearing his S'mores costume.) The first few innings were a bit painful to watch, so Shawn and Raj disappeared to the Kid Zone filled with inflatable bounce houses and obstacle courses. Lilly and I entertained ourselves at our seats, when there wasn't some silly event on the field between innings. She tried really hard to get a baseball and/or a T-shirt thrown to her. Luckily,  the game picked up and we ended up winning 9-7. To top it off there were fireworks and we got to run the bases afterwards. Shawn took some batting practice.

View from our seats

Shawn and some Ghost Busters

Spanish Class for Lilly

Raj special ordered Shawn a Star Wars calendar and some stickers. The plan for the month of May is that Shawn will earn stickers for getting ready in the morning and for bed at night with 2 or fewer prompts to stay on task. If he reaches his goal of 40 stickers by the end of May, we'll go to LegoLand. (Shawn got a free year pass from his 5th birthday party that we didn't activate until this winter!) This morning he earned his first sticker and he got another at bed time - a great start.

Lilly, on the other hand, had a rough morning. She had two meltdowns before 9:30 am and I'm not really sure what triggered either of them. I was ready to call it a day and go back to bed! Luckily, dragging her kicking and screaming (literally) to Spanish class was what we both needed. We studied modes of transportation, sang "The Wheels on the Bus," colored a steering wheel that we 'drove' around the room, played with some vehicle puzzles, and bounced plush vehicles on a parachute. Though she didn't care a whole lot about the topic, she does love class!

We were able to leave Tiger Lilly behind and enjoyed the rest of the day. We spent the afternoon in the backyard getting some much needed Vitamin D - from the sun & 'D'irt 😎. (I got a little more color than I had intended, but it's not too bad.)  Lilly practiced swinging (hanging by her tummy and the usual sitting position) and has mastered, "Mommy push more, please!" We laid in the grass and sang songs. We checked on the residents of our bird house. Someone's moving in!
And Lilly helped me repot a few house plants. I'm sure they were happy to be outside, too. We giggled when a big, juicy worm surprised us in one of the pots! We moved him to a box Shawn set up for his 'pet' worms. He was thrilled to see it after school.

Lilly fell asleep in time for a quick nap before I got a call from Ferson explaining that Shawn's bus broke down before getting the kids from school and a new bus was on its way, but kids would be 15-30 minutes late being dropped off. No big deal.

Lilly was excited to show Shawn that the little bubbling water fountain was turned back on in the garden outside of the church where their Spanish classes are. Lilly and I would've loved to spend Shawn's class time back outside, but as the official bathroom chaperone in exchange for a tuition break, we settled into our usual seats in the hallway with a bag of crayons and paper as we listened to beginners' music lessons (piano, guitar, violin, etc.) screeching from one room and Spanish class echoing from another.

Not a bad day to start the month of May.

Stroller Strides

Lilly and I had Stroller Strides this morning. I'm still a bit sore from Monday's lunges & squats (which we do often, but somehow did a number in me last time). It's awesome to be having class outside now! I try to remember to dress us in layers because the first couple of minutes can be a little chilly still, more so if it's windy. By the end of class today, everyone was shedding layers! (I may consider actually having Lilly in a stroller instead of wearing her when it gets hot...)

	Lilly and I just enjoyed the calm of blowing bubbles while the boys were a blur around us. Springtime and bubbles just go together like...

Shawn was beyond excited to have 2 neighbor boys come over after school. He's been asking them to come over since the new play set arrived, but they've been busy, sick, or the weather's been crummy. They tossed their backpacks to their mom and came running over right off the bus when she said it was okay. In the hour they played before the brothers had to leave for lacrosse practice, they played on the play set, climbed a tree, explored nature-made 'forts' under trees and shrubs, played a few rounds of hide & seek.

First stripe on double blue belt

See his test here.

Double blue belt

See his test here.  Unfortunately the video cut off before the end of the test, but you can get te idea.

First tooth fairy visit to Shawn

Shawn lost his first tooth today! I was convinced that it still had a few days (or even weeks!) before it would come out - boy, was I wrong!

We were eating dinner and Shawn started playing with his wiggly tooth. All of a sudden it popped out! I think it scared him a little. He put it on the table and just stared at it for a minute while I was cheering & clapping! When it finally sunk in what had happened, he got excited and yelled for Raj, who had gone to the kitchen for something. He came rushing back to the dining room to find a slightly bloody gap in Shawn's nervous smile. He shoved a bit of paper towel into the hole and told Shawn to bite down on it. He cleaned off the tooth and put it in a ziploc bag so it wouldn't get lost before the transaction with the Tooth Fairy. Shawn carried around the ziplock bag for the rest of the night.

Shawn was very concerned that tonight's tornado watch was going to interfere with Tooth Fairy's arrival or that a tornado might blow away his tooth! (I can't imagine where he gets his worrying from!) In an effort to distract him from the severe weather outside, Raj told him a story of his first lost tooth:

At school recess, Raj wasn't getting along with a girl in his class. In fact, she smacked him across the face with her gloves! His tooth came out and he was so terrified that he ran home! His mom was surprised when he walked in the door and then school called to see if he had shown up there. It turns out that no one had told Raj that permanent teeth would replace the baby teeth and he thought his teeth were all just going to all fall out. Luckily, someone at school found his tooth and saved it for him in a mini-manilla envelope.  

Shawn thought that was pretty funny.

We also thanked him for his timing: yesterday Raj would have missed it, tomorrow I'd miss it. During the school day, we'd both miss it. Tonight at dinner worked out well! (Plus it was a good excuse for mint chocolate chip ice cream.)

Raj helped him set up a trap to try to catch Tooth Fairy in action. (They tied floss all over the foyer.) After that, Shawn and I read a story called, You Think It's Easy Being the Tooth Fairy? by Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt. It's a very cute story from her point of view. (Maybe next time he won't try to make her job more difficult!) He carefully put his tooth in a special tooth container, put it under his pillow, and reluctantly went to sleep.

Raj said the tooth is officially identified as tooth O. (Baby teeth are lettered & adult teeth are numbered.) Tooth Fairy marked it on a certificate and wrote a tiny letter (1/16 of a sheet of paper!). Both were stamped with an official tooth-shaped hole punch, rolled up into a scroll, and tied with floss. She also left money covered in gold glitter glue rolled & tied with floss - and a business card to her favorite dentist. Shawn woke up 30 minutes before his alarm went off to see if she had gotten the message to come!

Hard to believe my baby is growing up, but things like this won't let me deny it

Almost bilingual

Lilly can count in 2 languages. 

Leprechauns abound

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A leprechaun turned our toilet water green. She drew shamrocks and faces all over our windows & mirrors this morning. She switched Lilly & Shawn's toiletries. She turned our coats inside out & hid our shoes. What a prankster!

Then, when Lilly and I were leaving for a make-up Spanish class at our old Language Stars center, my car wouldn't start! The battery was dead. AAA was able to jumpstart the it and ran a test. Turned out that I needed a new battery. Luckily, the guy was able to change it on the spot. Though we missed our morning plans, today was an okay day to have it happen! (How often does that ever happen?!) Yesterday, I presented to Shawn's class for the AVIC art program - missing that would've been a much bigger inconvenience for more people. So, this could have been worse! (Bonus: I got to Skype with Jennifer since I wasn't going anywhere!) Now I just need to schedule a make-up for Lilly's make-up class! Oh, well.

Since our morning plans had changed, I took advantage of our unexpected time at home and practiced a little piano. The books for beginners that I got from Freecycle are great because I can skip over the lessons about reading music and I feel like I'm progressing quickly! Ha! It was fun to play Ode to Joy (an abbreviated version), in which my hands played in unison, Rockets, in which my left hand played harmony, and Sea Divers, in which my right hand played harmony - this was the first for me playing the piano with hands independent from each other!
YouTube (I play the last 2 songs right after each other, so it may seem like there's only 3 songs.)

I wanted to keep going, but Lilly needed a nap. She won.

When Shawn got home, Ms. Johnsen emailed us about their day:

From: "Johnsen, Karen S" <Karen.Johnsen@d303.org>
Date: March 17, 2015 at 4:25:15 PM CDT
To: "Shannon Puri" <shannonpuri@hotmail.com>
Subject: We didn't catch the Leprechaun!
I want to thank you for all the supplies you sent in for our traps!  I will be sending home  pictures of the traps! The kids did an awesome job!  They worked in small groups of 3 to create a trap. Then each group had a chance to present their trap to the class. They had some very interesting ideas of how to trap the Leprechaun.
He was very sneaky and fast. When we got to school the classroom was a mess chairs everywhere, the calendar all messed up and our daily schedule upside down and backwards.
In each marker box was a green bracelet, a piece of gum, some stickers and a gold coin, then in the pencil cups there was a new pencil and a gold coin with a shamrock on it.  The Leprechaun left a note for each student and he talked about playing in their traps and all the fun he had.  He left shamrock and leprechaun glitter on all the traps!
When we returned from art there were chocolate coins, erasers and a smencil at everyone's place!
But we never caught him!
Maybe next year!
We had a busy day! In the morning we wrote about Leprechauns, pots of gold or what we would do if we caught a Leprechaun. Then we had a chance to share the stories. We read all our Leprechaun poems and books. In the afternoon we had an hour of math, Lucky charm sorting , graphing, adding, comparing, most, least and the fun part eating them! It was a good day!
Happy St. Patrick's Day
Enjoy your evening!
Karen 

After karate, we dropped off 2 oversized garbage bags full of donations to Goodwill. Phew! That felt good to get out of our space (and my car)!

Back at home, we listened to Celtic music and ate corned beef brisket with carrots and onions all cooked in Scottish (not Irish - oops!) ale, twice baked potatoes, and bread. Raj was excited to make sandwiches from the leftovers, but also put in a request for Bangers and Mash (sausages and potatoes) next year. I didn't make my traditional Copy-Cat Shamrock Shakes this year, since we still have ice cream cake leftover from Raj's birthday. I'm sure we'll come up with a reason to make them another time.

After dinner, Lilly wanted to play hide-and-seek.

Oma found the perfect poem for her at http://allpoetry.com/poem/8605367-Hiding-by-Dorothy-Keeley-Aldis :

Hiding

by  Dorothy Keeley Aldis

I'm hiding, I'm hiding
And no one knows where;
For all they can see is my
Toes and my hair

And I just heard my father
Say to my mother -
"But, darling, he she must be
Somewhere or other;

Have you looked in the inkwell?"
And Mother said, "Where?"
"In the INKWELL?"said Father. But
I was not there.

Then "Wait!" cried my mother —
"I think that I see
Him Her under the carpet." But
It was not me.

"Inside the mirror's
A pretty good place."
Said Father and looked, but saw
Only his face.

"We've hunted," sighed Mother,
"As hard as we could
And I am so afraid that we've
Lost him her for good."

Then I laughed out aloud
And I wiggled my toes
And Father said —"Look, dear,
I wonder if those

Toes could be Benny Lilly's?
There are ten of them, see?"
And they WERE so surprised to find
Out it was me!

Author Notes

From a book entitled "A Child's Anthology of Poetry"

© by owner. Added by volunteers for educational purposes and provided at no charge.  Dmca

It fits Lilly perfectly. Shawn giggled when I read it to him, though I had to explain what an ink well was.

2nd stripe on single blue belt

See his test here.

Three videos from Lilly

Lilly loves counting (except she thinks you always start with 2). She's also working on jumping. She's such a character.

We have no idea how this started, but Lilly's standard farewell lately is, "Bye-bye! See you soon! No poop!" followed by asilly smile and/or giggle. She cracks me up! 

We're playing in the hallway while Shawn's in Spanish class. One of Lilly's favorite things to do these days is to talk about colors. About a month ago, everything was "blue." She's expanded her palette since then! She now knows red, orange, yellow, green, blue, & purple. (She can say some in Spanish, but needs help remembering them.) Sometimes she'll even get pink, white, and black. When she sees a color that doesn't fit the ones she knows (brown, silver, gray...) she asks and tries to repeat them, but those names haven't stuck yet.

My big girl is growing fast!

1st stripe on single blue belt

See his test here.

3rd Blue on Purple

Participating in the Black Belt exam, Shawn earned an extra credit towards his next stripe, plus today was a test day for his 3rd blue stripe on his double purple belt. However, he managed to stay focused and even helped demonstrate correct moves during class, so he earned his stripe without an actual test! Nicely done!

The rest of the day included making a loaf of bread, doing Spanish homework, working a tiny bit on a 100 Day of School project, and watching me put together a ridiculously hard paper-craft of a Star Wars vehicle we printed from a setting on Raj's printer (that we didn't know it could do)! I had intended for it to be something Shawn could do while I did ??? Something else! But it turned out to require tiny cuts & folds and following a challenging set of directions. So, I ended up doing it on my own while we chatted and had some quiet time together while Lilly napped. (We'll need to do some easier ones for Shawn to get the hang of it before I try to have him do it on his own again. Oops!) We also played some board games, laundry, and read. Overall, it was a pretty calm day.

Shawn's a sportsman

Stephen met us at Pottowatamie to watch Shawn's flag football practice. Coach let us sit in the gym for a better view. They worked on the various player positions and each player's responsibility. They played a fun game of Everyone's IT!' where the point was to hold on to your ball so no one could knock it out of your grip. There were arbitrary points for tagging someone's ball and extra points for making someone fumble. (I just saw a great way to wear out a whole group of kids!) They even got to play a quick game at the end of practice.

After going out for lunch, driving around the countryside looking for ranches (aka possible employment for Stephen), and hanging out at home for a bit, we drove to Schaumburg to watch a National Karate Black Belt exam. Shawn was invited to participate in a 4-7 year old demo, so we got to skip the really long line (though it's free admission) and had special seats in a reserved section.

From an email about the event:
You will see fighting, people flipping each other, board breaks, sword demonstrations and the thrill of watching students earn one of the most prized accomplishments in life - a Black Belt!!!
(The two on the far left, on the West Team, are Shawn's main instructors.)

What an honor it was to be a part of this event! Wow. It was intense just to be in the audience! Here are a couple of snapshots from the program:

Shawn participated in a demonstration with 4-7 year olds. They did a few punches, kicks, and a running side kick.
 Shawn is the 3rd from the right in the video.  He's the only one wearing the foot & hand pads. At the beginning of the video, he's 3rd from the right. Then something happened to the lineup & he ended up being the last of the running sidekicks - the one you can hear yell HA-YA! (I think a couple people got skipped for some reason.)

running side kick

Though I don't fully understand the point system, it was fun to cheer for Shawn's instructors in the East-West Throwdown. It was a 3 on 3 sparring match between instructors from various National Karate's Chicago locations. Our team ended up winning (10-7, I think).

Back to the testing portions, the self defense was incredible to watch. The higher degree testers were disarming 'attackers' who came at them with wooden knives, rubber guns, & sticks, not to mention physical punches, grabs, & kicks sometimes from multiple people! (I think the 'attackers' should get some pretty huge consolation for getting tossed, thrown, flipped, & punched!) They rivaled any stuntman!

Another impressive part of the exam was the Horse Riding Stance Punches: punching while in a semi-squat position. For 3 minutes. Continuously. The expectation was that the last punch was to remain as powerful as the first. The audience support began with a polite clapping and a few shouts of encouragement, but it grew with every passing second. My hands felt raw from clapping after the first minute, but the energy of the room wouldn't let me stop! I can only imagine how it felt to the black belt candidates. Then came thunderous foot stomping, booming cheers, and immense applause. You could see a few candidates start to fade and it was obviously hard to finish, but with the energy in the room, they had no choice but to keep going. It sounded like we could've lifted the roof right off the gymnasium! Again, I can only imagine what it was like to be on that gym floor with aching muscles begging to quit but hearing the invigorating support coming from every direction. My heart was pounding out of my chest from the intensity!

And then, it was over.

The panel of judges (?) left for quite a while, as the candidates sat (mostly) motionless on the floor, supposedly reflecting on their journey to becoming a Black Belt. Eventually, the judges returned and presented each candidate with their new belt. Our South Elgin school's location had an impressive 35+ out of 75 total students promoted. (To my knowledge, no one wasn't promoted who tested today.) What an incredible event to witness and for Shawn to be a part of. Now that we know what it's all about, I hope we can do it again! 

4 day weekend

Today was Teacher's Institute and with Monday being MLK Day, Shawn gets a 4 day weekend! He came along to Lilly's Spanish class in the morning and had his own class in the afternoon. Then, Cousin Stephen came for pizza dinner! Shawn invited him to his 2 events tomorrow & I tried to get him to just spend the night, but we'll meet him at football tomorrow.

Cloverbuds

I had SO much fun tonight! I got to be a guest presenter at Shawn's Cloverbuds (pre-4-H) meeting as they explored the theme of sound. (I had to use my little harp because of the logistics of transporting 2 kids in car seats & the instrument by myself!)
We did some experiments. I played music. I felt like a teacher and had a great time having fun with science. Combining a passion with education - one of the reasons I've loved teaching so much & one of the things I miss the most about it.
This is at the very end of my 'gig' as they kids were feeling the vibrations of the music in the wood of the harp, watching the strings vibrate as I played, and simply got an up close look at something they don't see often.
These kids made my night!

An inside day

Being stuck inside, we got creative when needing to burn some energy.  (Turn your speakers up high for this.)

Elev 830 ft 41.95 °N, 88.39 °W 

High 4 | Low -14 °F 0% Chance of Precip

A snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and Lilly Puri

Lilly and I bundled up to retrieve Shawn from the bus stop this afternoon. I didn't realize it at the time, but there's an uncanny resemblance:
 

	Jackson