Jenna's concert

Jenna's church choir concert was Sunday evening. It was a musical. Jenna was part of the chorus. She is really looking forward to being a 3rd grader, at which point she will be eligible for a speaking part or solo. She really liked her dress and spent quite a bit of the play touching the fuzzy parts and showing her friend Ruthie the sparkly skirt. After the concert, she and Will had cookies in the lobby. Jenna really likes choir and Will really liked the cookies.

Will's concert

Will had his Christmas concert at school on Wednesday afternoon. He did great!! He sang all of the songs and did the hand motions he felt like doing. Sometimes the hand motions he did weren't the same as the other kids but nobody ever said he was a conformist. His favorite song was "Away in a Manger". He also liked "The Angel Band", even though he thought it was hard because they had to hold up the correct number of fingers as they counted the angels.

Choir

Jenna sang with the children's choir at church on Sunday. She noticed the camera man doing closeups that were on the big video screens up front, so she spent a good part of the performance looking at the screens. She said "I tried not to look but I just couldn't help it. It was too fun to see me and my friends on the screen to not look."

I took a picture of the screen so she could remember what it was like to see herself up there. Their big Christmas musical is on Sunday night. She is very excited and hopes to get another close up.

Jenna lost her top tooth

Jenna's tooth finally came out. It happened at school during P.E. She got to make her first trip to the nurse's office (a big thrill for her) and the nurse gave her a pink treasure chest to bring the tooth home in.

Santa visit

Santa stopped in for a visit over the weekend. Santa even brought presents -- Will got a gun and Jenna got some Littlest Pet Shop figures. He reminded Will to be a good boy and to remember that Santa is watching. Jenna sang Santa a song and she saw Rudolph's red nose as Santa was flying away.

Soccer

Soccer season has ended. Jenna was ready for it to be over. She does like her trophy and we'll see how she feels about soccer in the spring. Will also received a trophy. Hopefully it will survive long enough for me to get a picture of it.

Next week we start basketball.

She's here...

Will got pretty stressed out on Monday. During lunch, he heard on the news that Hillary Clinton was in our town campaigning for Barack Obama.

For those of you who don't know, Will is afraid of Hillary. I'm not sure why (but some of the unflattering things I've said about her and her husband in the past probably haven't helped). Will is very sensitive to loud, shrill noises and, well, Hillary does talk in a loud, shrill voice. Plus she doesn't smile much and when she does.... Well, you've seen it. I don't need to elaborate. Whatever his reasons, he voiced his dislike for her during the primaries and asked me not to vote for her because he was afraid she would steal his blankie.

I told him back then, "You don't need to worry. Hillary won't come to our town." Well that turned out to be a lie. There she was, getting ready to speak not 5 miles from our house. Will was NOT going to trust me that Hillary wasn't going to show up on our doorstep. I was wrong about the coming to town thing, obviously I don't know anything, and he must make preparations himself.

He searched his room for a good hiding spot for the blankie and finally settled on a spot under his bed. He also checked to make sure the front door was locked (both dead bolt and knob) and quizzed me about all the "what if's" -- what if Hillary found a key to house, what if she figured out the code for our garage door opener, etc.

He went to preschool that afternoon and was relieved to find his blankie still under the bed when he returned. He asked "Is she gone? Did she get in her car and drive away? Did she fly to another city on an airplane?" I suppressed the urge to say "Broom, not airplane" and just said "Yes". He relaxed and laid on his bed with the blankie for a while.

Other kids are scared of the Boogie Man, mine has HillaryClintonaphobia. Hopefully he gets over it soon. I hate to think of him suffering through Hillary media appearances into his adulthood, clutching his blankie to his side.

If they were President.....

If they were President, here's what they'd do:

Will: Keep storms from coming, make the smoke alarm not beep so loud, candy

Jenna: More time for recess and running at school, lots of healthy food to eat so kids won't get sick, more hippos at the zoo

Halloween

Halloween was lots of fun this year! We went
trick or treating with Megan. Twice. We did
Trunk or Treat at church and then we went to her neighborhood on Halloween night. Jenna was in love with her Cleopatra costume and Will was a construction worker (again). Megan was an angel. Fitting. Grace was a fish but she would not pose for a picture with the other kids.

Will's Family Tree

Swimming

Jenna has gotten pretty awesome at the backstroke. She even uses the correct hand position, which a lot of adults can't do. Just a little finesse work on her freestyle rotary breathing and she'll be able to move up to the Minnow class.

Will's special day

On the day Will was the special helper in his preschool class, the fire fighters came and brought the fire truck for the kids to see. They turned on the fire hose and let the kids take turns holding it.

Pumpkin patch

We tried a new pumpkin patch this year. Thies Farm's Pumpkinland out by Creve Coeur Park. Jenna and Will had a great time. The highlight was the zip line swings. Both kids rode them over and over. There was also a hayride, mazes, animals, a pirate ship and a huge slide. I won't get into the part about the lady who yelled at Jenna and made her cry because it puts a damper on the story of the rest of the day, but she's lucky I didn't find her.

Pinewood Derby

Jenna finished 5th out of 30 in this weekend's Girl Scout Pinewood Derby. She was also chosen to carry in the American flag during the opening ceremony. She was very proud of her car. She chose a pickup truck design, which she decorated in a Zoo motif. She and Gene built the car together. Gene did all of the sawing and she helped with the sanding and other tool work. She painted it all by herself, including painting her Green Hippo driving the truck. I'm very proud of her that she didn't just sit back and let her dad do all the work. She may not have won first place, but it was obvious her car was one of the only ones where the kid did some of the work herself.

Fearless

Will was the only kid in his swimming class willing to jump in the deep end. He didn't even wait for the teacher to count to 3. Not bad for a kid who was terrified of the water last year.

Meet Jenna's new friend

This is Jenna's new friend, Gordon. Get it? He's a gourd! She picked out the name herself. I am not in the habit of naming gourds myself, but she felt a special connection with this one and decided to name him. As you can see, he is very happy to be part of the family.

Her other new friends this fall include her new soccer socks, which she has named Mr. Sock and Jonathan.

No, I'm not making this up. It's all true.

Questions

The Magic House has a sign that reads "The average 4 year old asks 437 questions a day."

My first thoughts were:
1. That's a lie
2. Will is well above average
3. Will must be at least 3 standard deviations above the mean
4. Will is actually skewing the results and whoever published the study ought to be brought up for a review of their statistical methods

But after thinking about it, I've realized he probably only does ask 437 questions a day. 437 separate and distinct questions. He just asks them over and over and over and over and over. The actual total number of questions per day approaches infinity.

If you try the "If I ignore him he'll stop theory", he assumes you didn't hear it and each subsequent repetition becomes exponenially louder. He will not be ignored.

His persistence is going to make him an incredible adult. Hopefully I will have enough sanity left that I will be to enjoy it.

Actual conversation of this morning

Will: Mommy, will you please punch me in the face?

Mommy: No, I am not going to punch you in the face!

Will: (shrieking) WHY???


He actually demanded to know why I wasn't going to punch him in the face. And that, America, is why I'm the way I am today.

Back to School

Jenna is going back to school today. I love having her home. We had some great Mommy-Daughter time.

The problem is when they are both home. They fight. They bicker. They touch each other. They drive me nuts.

So while it was great having her home, I'm glad we're starting back into our regular routine. I'm looking forward to having some Mommy-Alone time.

Proud of Will

Will has started being good at school!!!

An example -- Will told me that while he was washing his hands at the classroom sink last week, Boy A called him "Mr Butt" and Will DIDN'T HIT HIM!!! Last year, there were several pummeling incidents in which Will displayed his displeasure with Boy A's choices.

I'm so proud of him.

How many seeds?

Will's class had to predict how many seeds were in the apple. The guesses were varied. Will guessed 1 seed. Melissa was the winner at 10 seeds.

Octoberfest

We went to the St Charles Octoberfest on Sunday. I know, Octoberfest in September doesn't make any sense to me either. There was an antique car show on Main St. and Gene's friend Harrell came and looked at cars with us.

Jenna's favorite part of the day was a performance artist who painted with spray paint. She watched him for a long time.

Will's favorite part was the funnel cake that Gene bought him.

Construction

An unexpected surprise. Some road
construction equipment on our street. First a "crusher", then a backhoe and dump truck, with a skid steer and mixer for the finale. We sat in the neighbor's yard to watch. I don't need to tell you how happy Will was. The skid steer and mixer will be back tomorrow to finish.

Zoo

We went to the zoo. Highlights included:

Hippos (of course). One swam around in circles for a long time and then the hippos talked to each other. This was the first time Jenna had heard hippos talking first hand.

Will got to be the Junior Conductor on the train, which means he got to say "All Aboard" on the speaker. He's been wanting to do that for years. He was so happy.

We also saw the baby giraffe (Will's favorite animal), the 5 baby tigers, a baby snow leopard, and 3 baby donkeys. Actually the name of the donkeys was Somali Wild Ass, which Jenna corrected for me and told me it was ok to say Ass when you're talking about a donkey.

And the winner is......

Hippo !!

Jenna's awesome report card

I'm so proud of her. Esp. her grades for the Listening, Work & Study Habits, and Citizenship.

Air Show

We went to the Scott Air Base air show today. It rained at first but then cleared off resulting in a really nice day. The kids' favorite parts were eating lunch next to the hot dog stand (Jenna) and everything (Will).

Soccer started Saturday

God Made Will Special

Jenna uses resources creatively

Jenna didn't have any paper left after I cleaned her desk off. She got desperate and drew a picture on a square of toilet paper.

Campfire

Jenna had a Girl Scout campfire last night. We got most of it in before it started raining. The girls in her troop all wore little pink hats to put their Swaps on. Swaps are little craft pins that the kids make and trade with other troops.

Will enjoyed Grace's birthday party

Untitled poem

Jenna wrote this poem (or as she says -- "pole-em"). It is about a chicken being barbecued on the grill.

"The cikn wus vare wiguly on the gril it wus swrmy and jiguly like jely on bred."

Translation: "The chicken was very wiggly on the grill. It was squirmy and jiggly like jelly on bread."

She says she might write some more poems and make them into a book, but did not specify as to whether all of the poems would be about grilled chickens or whether she might expand into some other themes.

Choir

Jenna sang with the Sunshine Choir on Sunday morning.

Goalposts

We went to Home Depot for the craft day and the kids made football goal posts. Jenna did hers almost entirely by herself. Will was interested in hammering but not in gluing or using the screwdriver. Now they are going to make paper footballs with Daddy.

This is what Will did today

Ways to show Jesus's love

Will's ideas for showing Jesus's love to others. Another idea he had was that you shouldn't pee in your pants because it makes your mom mad, but Mrs. Robbins wouldn't write that one on the page.

Mask

This is what Will made at his first day of school. It's a mask of himself. If you look carefully, you can see two button eyes under the hair. The two green lines are his lips. I asked him where his nose was but he was tired of talking about it.

Jenna was sorry

Jenna didn't clean up her desk when asked, so I cleaned it for her. And you know what that means -- the desk is a lot emptier and the trash can is a lot fuller! She went to her room to cry while I started dinner. While I was in the kitchen, she came out and wrote me a note on her easel. She told me, "I had to write it on the chalk board because I didn't have any paper left."