Mother's Day

I know, UCMama. It's been too long since I've blogged. I think of things to blog about. But then life gets in the way. The only reason I'm blogging right now is because Sweet Pea is sleeping in the room I have scheduled to pack today.

I wanted to recap Mother's Day. Our children have this idea in their minds that Mother's and Father's day=breakfast in bed. The problem being that BA had board review from 8 am until 6:45 pm. So they all woke up at 7:00 and made me breakfast. The rule is that even though I'm awake (before anyone else), I have to pretend to be asleep until breakfast gets brought up to me or the kids are devastated. So I waited. When they came up they had presents for me (from the dollar store- I'm low maintenance:) Here's a picture of all my presents and breakfast:

The flower thing I'm holding up is a fly swatter that K-K says can double as a back scratcher. And, Sweet Pea love my hat so much she played with it through much of the morning.
Doe gave me a craft he had made at school. It has these flowers coming out the top. When you pick a flower, it has a chore on it that he will do. This is what he says to me when I opened it:

That's for when you need any of us to do stuff around the house.

I laughed pretty hardily at that and we cleared it up that it was actually when I wanted him to do stuff around the house.

Later on he says, "You know the best part about what I gave you mom? You can only use each flower once." Apparently he knows I will take him up on the work offers.
Up at the top of my most favorite gifts, was this:

Doe made it at a stake Valiant boys activity a week ago. It's so funny to me that he thought I would enjoy a framed picture of *Pokemon*. Then again, what mother wouldn't.

From 8:00 until 12:00, I cleaned the whole house (amidst cries of "We aren't supposed to clean on Sunday!! To which I replied, "Well, if it would have been cleaned yesterday, we wouldn't have to clean it today!") and got all the kids and myself ready, including my long process of curling my hair.

BA was able to come home from board review for Boo's violin recital. Here is a picture of Boo and her teacher. After I post this, I'm going to go back in and try to upload the video of her performance. She did a wonderful job. This song is called "Witches Dance" and it has quite a few low and high fingers in different spots, making a little more difficult song.
After the recital, we (without BA Baracas- who went back to board review) hurried over to church in time for primary. I love being in the primary and will miss it when it's time for us to go. Third hour all the women got to go to Relief Society. It was great...except that I had a 15 month old walking/stealing terror with me. Kind of makes it hard to relax and enjoy.

After church, I made dinner and we ate. K-K took this picture of Boo and Me.
And, everything was cleaned up when BA got home.

Part of me wanted to be outraged that on Mother's Day I didn't get pampered. But, I try not to get worked up about stuff like that. So, I got to the end of the day and was happy that I was able to serve my children and husband the whole day...and not put my feet up. At all. Except for the 10 minutes of breakfast in bed. Does that count? Ya. Life is good.

Wow, this uploaded much faster than I expected. Here she is:


I do want to mention a couple of things. First of all, how amazing she is at using so much of her bow! Most violin students like to use 1 or 2 inches of their bow. Her teacher has worked a lot with using different parts of the bow for different sounds, etc.

Second, I am puzzled as to why the quality of this video is so poor. I have a wonderful digital camera. And I've never had quality this poor before. Here is my only guess as to why it turned out like this: The battery was low. In fact, at the end, I didn't even push the off button. The camera turned off because it had no more power to stay on.

If I had to choose between getting a second or two of great quality pictures and having a video of the whole thing with poor quality, I choose poor quality. The sound is great and that's really what matters. So enjoy the talents of my amazing, talented daughter:)

From "Uncool" to "Cool"

About a week ago Boo and I were picking up the boys from school. One of Boo's friends walked by. We were listening to our 2009 Primary Music CD. At that instant, Boo realized something. And she asked me if we could listen to Sean Hannity (which I often listen to when picking her up from school).

And so, I read between the lines and have come to realize that I have been told that I am an "uncool" music mom. So now I am changing. I am actually very into music- I think religious music is healthier for the kids to listen to than some of the junk on the radio, but I really do enjoy good, "cool" music.

I just listen to it when the kids aren't in the car with me.

In an attempt to change my "uncool" status, I have been listening to "regular" music sometimes when Boo is in the car with me. On the way to violin lessons a few days ago I pointed out some of the awesome groups/singers that were on (see post below...and, yes, UCMama, I loved Milli Vanilli. I still do.)

So now my daughter has an introduction to U2, perhaps one of the greatest groups of all time, as well as several other artists. It was kind of funny that Boo was surprised at how many songs I actually knew.

So, when you see me driving by, and the tears are in my eyes, look away...sorry, I got carried away.

Solo Festival

Boo has been sick since Monday. She has been practicing her solo festival song for a long time. All day today, she was sleeping and laying around. We said a prayer together and she decided to go to solo festival.

She did make a few mistakes- small ones. But did wonderful. We went into the cafeteria to wait for the results. While we were waiting we asked one of the girls what the rating system was. A "1+" is a "perfect" performance. A "1" is really good. A "2" is the next level and a "3" is average.

I asked Boo what she thought she did. She said "average" because she acknowledged she made mistakes.

After about a half hour, her results came in. She got a 1+!! She was so surprised. I used the opportunity to teach her that she is her own worst critique. Everyone else looks at her and thinks she is an amazing person with so much talent. So she needs to give herself a break.

Personally, I thought she might get a 1 because of her small mistakes but the judge was obviously impressed and asked how long she had been playing and who she took lessons from. It's so good to have a payday like that.

A Nice Surprise

One week ago, Sweet Pea couldn't stand. Two nights ago, she took 15 steps. All in a row. I've never had a child do this. She still can't really stand. She falls over within 5 seconds. How is this possible? All three other children stood for at least a month before walking.

I was also noticing last night when she was playing with Danyo (a neighbor boy), that she really can hold her own. He brought her a toy and she put it in her mouth. He got "giver's remorse" and tried to grab it back. She held on good and put up a fuss when he was trying to wrangle it from her.

Good. I like my kids to fight for what they want. (Don't remind me of this when they are teenagers.)

Last week, Nobody posted about some problems she'd been having with her child. I read the comments and noticed someone had posted something about a book called "Learned Optimism". I checked it out from the library. I took the test (of how optimistic you are) and then gave the test to Doe and then Boo.

I figured that Doe would be very optimistic and that I might have to do some interventions for Boo (you shouldn't give the test to children under 7). So, Doe took the test. He got a score of 12. The average for boys is a 5. The higher the score, the better. No surprise. He is the happiest, easiest going kid I know.

Boo took the test. She got a 10. Average for girls is a 7. So I started thinking. Maybe Boo is normal. Maybe 10 year old girls are sometimes emotional. Maybe they get frustrated with their parents sometimes. Maybe they think their little brothers are annoying. And maybe it's all normal and Boo is within the normal range. As I have mentioned before, my mom says my emotions were much more like a boy. I rarely remember getting emotional growing up. Maybe I was the odd one.

In any case, I am now breathing a little sigh of relief. I always get on Boo for being a "drama queen". Perhaps I am the drama queen- thinking that her behavior was abnormal. Oh well, at least when she's in counseling later in life because her mom always told her she was a drama queen, she'll be optimistic about it.