Author: eaumaison (Page 32 of 207)

I realized that my snapshots summary didn’t capture a major part of January and February: musical rehearsals! With Amanda working in the metro area, and rehearsals scheduled during the school day, I’ve been able to come a couple times a week most weeks.

Obviously I don’t take photos during rehearsals, I never have. But this week I had some footage amanda took for the kids to review, and I realized I could screenshot it and remove the kids faces. So here you go, a glimpse into one of my part time jobs. This is our tenth consecutive year working together on a musical!

Jack had an exciting scout meeting tonight’s. After the Blue and Gold Banquet ceremonies ended they had a visit from Canyon Critters. He was really great with the kids, full of educational information about animal care, responsibilities, nature stewardship, and boogers and poop.

Yesterday I had a wonderful, low-key, happy birthday. Ben took the day off of work to take over my “mom” duties. We watched one of my favorite movies (Thor Ragnorok) and went out to lunch at Yak and Yeti Indian buffet. I got a massage while he picked up the kids and had a parent-teacher conference. We had burgers for dinner and then some friends came over for cake and ice cream. I got many wonderful and thoughtful presents and many well wishes from friends and family. It was pretty much perfect 🙂

This was an essay assignment in class. I think Jack has a knack for persuasive arguments.

Though his spelling and punctuation need work 🙂

“I think kids should get more recess because sometimes our brains get fried. It makes it hard to think but recess lets us calm down. Another reason is vitamin D. Vitamin D comes from sunlight which we need to survive. My final reason is that we need to be active, according to our gym teacher, Mr. Buelter. We need to be active 1 hour per day. Our recess barely meets that! As you can see we need more recess.”

After six months of reading aloud, Jack and I finished the fourth Harry Potter book, the Goblet of Fire. We celebrated by watching the movie in our home theater last night.

Jack was so excited. We had popcorn, of course, but also lemon sherberts for Dumbledore, and jack brought down Harry and Snape minifigs and his Hedwig puppet.

Condensing the enormous book into a single movie was quite a feat. Jack enumerated the many elements that they left out. He was most disappointed that we didn’t get to meet Pigwidgeon, the tiny owl given to Ron. But overall he really liked the movie and handled the darker parts of the story without trouble.

They also gave themselves code names and had us guess them. It only took a couple hints for me to uncover “Green Thunder” and “Blue Panther.”

I got a really bad cold last week and have been limping through life, trying to shake it off. Lots of rehearsals and meetings and class party preparation to get through, but somehow I made it. The kids had a blast at their valentines parties today. Ben got me flowers and chocolates and beautiful earrings. I got him beef jerky 🙂 (He said he didn’t want anything!) Now he’s taking the kids to the gym to exercise and play, while I relax under a fuzzy blanket, looking forward to sleeping now that my nose is a little less congested.

It will come as no surprise that the Mason family thoroughly enjoyed the latest Lego movie release. One boy dressed as Emmet and the other one brought Emmet (on half a double-decker couch with Plantie).

It was not nearly as good as the first. Which we rewatched last night in preparation. The first Lego Movie was a masterpiece. (We are totally raising movie nerds. Jack and Sam sit through credits in theaters and marathon forerunners to sequels before seeing the latest. They BOTH use terms like parody and storyline and take note of actors from other movies.)

This evening we completed the circle of commercialism. Toys-movie-toys-movie-toys…

At least I made them use their own allowance to purchase the sets. Sigh. We have so many many Lego sets. And yet…I find myself perusing the Florida Legoland Resort website later that day. We are all fanatics.

We had another winter storm in Arvada.  By the time school ended we had enough snow to go sledding, something we don’t do often enough!  In fact, the kids were mostly clueless.  I had to teach them how to load onto the sled and keep the weight in the back, and use your legs to brake.

They did a couple runs together, then Sam accidentally took off without Jack.  He went down all by himself without realizing it!  Then Jack did a fast run by himself – so fast that he blasted onto the parking lot and knocked Sam clean off his feet.  Sam laughed it off, but after the next run he was out of energy and warmth (he wasn’t alone, my hands were freezing and the heater in my gloves ran out of battery!).