Jimjams

Jimjams, according to the dictionary, means jitters.  Which is appropriate, I guess, considering it is the word that William missed in the Summit Elementary spelling bee this past week.

Being the experienced mom that I am, I tried to prepare him.  It is much harder to spell out loud than it is to spell on paper.  It is harder to spell words you aren't familiar with, even if you have studied and spelled them successfully before.   It can even be hard to spell words that you know, because you have a tendency to rush through them and make silly mistakes.  Which is exactly what William did.

He wasn't upset, though.  He took it surprisingly well.  I had warned him that it would be hard for him to win the spelling bee because he had never been in one before and he didn't have the experience that the older kids had.  And he learned.  He learned that you really need to study hard to do well in the spelling bee and that it's the luck of the draw as to what word you have to spell.  So now he has a goal to do better next year, assuming he gets in the spelling bee from his class.

As long as he doesn't get the jimjams too badly, that is.  Then all bets are off.

Sleep Smooching

Today after church, Tessa played school.  She set herself up as the teacher - Mrs. Wright - and taped pieces of paper all over the window in our front room as the whiteboard.  Her students were Star and Lizzy.  They even had their own lunch cards.

Here is the spelling list.:

 Here is Lizzy's math assignment:

 This is the WAIT sign.  Apparently in Tessa's classroom at Summit, if you have to stand by the WAIT sign you are essentially in a Time Out and have to stay in that spot until the teacher talks to you.  She has adopted this discipline strategy for her own classroom at home.

She was busy being Mrs. Wright all afternoon.

After dinner we watched an episode of House Hunters International.  It featured a woman relocating to Australia.  She was trying to find a house with a roommate and they were discussing who would get the larger bedroom.  William noticed that one of the women moved two twin beds together to make a larger bed to sleep in and this prompted of discussion of why she would do that.  Henry said she must just want a bigger bed to sleep in.  William then said that he thought she wouldn't sleep with anyone else until she got married because then you liked sleeping with someone.  Tessa wanted to know why and Jay and I held our breath waiting for his answer.

William's reply - "when you are married, you like to sleep together so you can sleep-smooch."  He then made kissing noises and Henry and Tessa started laughing.

Sunday afternoons are fun in our house.

Family Fun Night (?)

Hmph.  It's cold and snowy and if spring doesn't come soon, I may implode from the dreariness.  You know it's bad when I rejoice in an inversion that allows the day to be classified as partly sunny, just because there is a shadow on the ground.  I don't think I could live any further north than we do - winter seems so long.

Today was cold and snowy - imagine that - and we hunkered down at home.  Henry had a basketball game but was done at noon.  We decided to take advantage of the downtime and get some scouting and homework stuff done.  William has been very negligent about working on his Bear badge so we knocked out a bunch of stuff that could be done with the family.  Add to that Henry's FACS (Family and Consumer Sciences) project that requires him to do some light cooking, laundry and child care (snort) around the home and we had ourselves a productive day. 

Both boys needed to make cookies, so they made cookies together.  They actually turned out better than most of my efforts so maybe I should have them become the family bakers.  They both also needed to play a game with the family, so after dinner they played Monopoly. 

We actually play Monopoly alot in our house.  We aren't that big on board games - we prefer card games like Uno, Skip-Bo, and Phase 10 - but the one board game we play regularly is Monopoly.  I guess I should clarify that Jay plays with the kids alot more than I do.  Oh, I've played my fair share.  William went through a phase a few years ago where he wanted to play Monopoly literally every day.  I had to limit him to two afternoons a week after school and Jay would usually play with him at least once on the weekend.  We played all the time.  We don't play as much anymore, but tonight even Tessa joined in the fun:

They played and ate cookies and it was nice until it started to drag on and the kids started arguing about trades and properties.  Tessa started acting silly.  William adopted a covert personality and added extra syllables to all of his words.  Henry kept sneaking out his iPod to check the score of the Ute game.  We ended up calling the game.  Everyone seemed a little relieved. 

Is it spring yet?

Say What?

Jay took the boys down to Salt Lake City tonight to a Jazz game.  Santa brought tickets and they were happy to have a fun night of basketball.  Jay texted me a picture of William with two of the announcers so I'll have to post it when I get a chance.  Hopefully the Jazz will win and the boys will have fun.

Since it was another sports event for the boys, Tessa and I went out to dinner again.  Again, she chose Apple Spice Bakery.  We shared a salad and she ate a grilled cheese sandwich and two cookies.  I don't know how she stays so skinny - she eats more than her brothers at times. 

On the way home, she was chattering on about wanting to live until the year 9000 so she could set the world record for the oldest person ever.  We laughed about that and then she said that she thought she'd probably die when she was 89.  I told her that everyone dies at some point but most people don't die until they are pretty old so 89 was a fair guess and a nice, long time away. 

Her response?  "Well, I think I won't die until I'm 89.  Unless I'm murdered." 

And I almost drove off the side of the road.

The Blahs

I've got The Blahs.  I often get The Blahs in January.  January is boring and cold and not fun at all.  This year, January is particularly cold.  I think we've had one day above freezing since Christmas and most days top out around 12 degrees.  I always feel like I have a chill.  I want to eat soup all the time. 

The kids are doing well, though.  They play too many video games and watch too much TV but I console myself with the thought that the weather will turn eventually and they will once again be outside.

I have no pictures of the kids because The Blahs prohibit me from doing anything like picking up my camera and attempting to document something like Henry yelling at the Wii because he missed a field goal on Madden 13.

Mexico is looking pretty good right now.

Later, Alligator

Another Pinewood Derby has come and gone. Henry aged out of Cub Scouts and so we just had William at this year. This year's theme was Animals. His offering - an alligator head shaped car that he dubbed Later, Alligator.

 

 

It certainly wasn't the prettiest car around - Jay mentioned that he thought we'd reached a new aesthetic low with our offerings - but it was pretty fast.  He came in third overall and had the single fastest time in a race.  You can see him pointing to the time - 2.9622 seconds.   Jay was pretty excited since our boys cars generally aren't that fast.  Jay credits it to the axle that he bought from the Scout Store on Monday.  I think it's just luck.  I mean, come on - those cars are all within tenths of a second of each other.  The difference between first and last is pretty minimal. 

Still, William was happy.  All the boys seemed to have fun.  They did a good job of cheering for each other.  It was a good night.

Brrrrrr

It has been incredibly cold here.  Like, highs in the single digits (and not 8 or 9 degrees, 4 or 5 degrees) and lows well below zero.  As I type this, at 8:08 pm, it is currently -2 degrees with a projected low of -12.  Say what?

It's also foggy.  And icy.  And I don't ever even want to leave the house.  But school started back last week and as nice as it is to stay home all the time when the weather is not fit for humans, things must be done. 

Tomorrow we start church back at 9 am.  Part of me is happy to have Sunday afternoons free and to be able to set up the Primary room before church starts.  Part of me is dreading having to crack my whip on Sundays to get everyone ready and out the door at a good time.

Especially when it's So. Stinking. Cold.