2nd grade and American Gothic

Our elementary school has a PTA art appreciation program.  In every classroom, a parent comes in once a month and presents a picture to the class and teaches a little art lesson.  As there are no art supplies available for this, it's more art appreciation that art method.

This past week, I was the Picture Presenter for Paige's 2nd grade class.  I taught them about Grant Wood's "American Gothic."

Sometimes it can be a real challenge to come up with lesson activities to go with the artwork especiallly when you have no supplies to work with.  This one however, was pretty fun and more exciting for the kids because the original painting resides in Chicago---so if they wanted they could actually go see it.  I had the kids draw their own version of American Gothic by doing a parody.  They basically replaced the main characters with something else.  We had Darth Vader and Yoda holding a light sabre, Disney Princesses, and Spongebob and Patrick, etc.

I share this story because 2nd graders are just so cute and say the best things.  Here are two of my favorites:

1-As we were describing the people and the details in the original painting, I asked the kids to describe the clothing.  Someone raised their hand and said, "they are wearing old-fashioned clothes, like what people wore in the '80s."

2-When I asked the kids if they had heard of the word "Gothic" and knew what it meant.  One savvy little 2nd grader said, "it's when you wear all black clothes and lots of dark make-up."

Of course, the best part of 2nd grade is seeing Paige.  She is so excited when I come, she immediately jumps out of her seat to come give me a big hug.  In fact she hugs me a lot, sometimes I have to tell her to go back to her seat, but that's okay her teacher doesn't mind and neither do I.

Valentine's Day

What a lovely V Day we had this year. Because I was under the weather, we knew it was going to be low-key.  No expectations, no big plans.

In fact, the night before Valentine's Day Paige got her class cards ready all by herself.  Usually I somehow am able to turn it into some kind of project for myself, but because I was sick I just told Paige to get her box of cards and candy out, sit down at the table and fill them out.  She did it all by herself, loved it and I learned a lesson --- don't make things harder than they need to be.

In the morning I sent the girls off to school with a little See's Candy. Dave stayed home from work that day and he and I went a on a short excursion to the outlet mall to buy me some new athletic shoes. Ironically, he bought me shoes last year for Valentine's Day, but those had completely worn out so I needed some new ones. Last time I got Nikes, but they weren't as durable as I would have liked so this time I went with Adidas and got two pair!  Here are my Adizero running shoes, they are light as air.  Nice.

Later that evening we ordered takeout from Outback. It was tasty. Then after dinner we read our family "love notes.". We did this last year and it was such a hit we did it again. Paige even made a darling Love Note Mailbox at Activity Days for us to use. It is so great to hear and know how much you are loved and appreciated. It's also just as important to to take the time to stop and think about why you love your family and share that with them.

Paige all dressed up for dinner!

Double Duty

Last week our calendar was bursting with activities, events, meetings, etc.  I don't think we had Paige in bed before 9:30 one night last week!  YIKES!  

Dave and I started the week out at two consecutive school board meetings.  Both evenings we didn't get home until well-after nine pm.  (Little did I know that we wouldn't leave a meeting the following week until after midnight!  More on that in an upcoming post.)  As the week wore on, we were juggling dinner, piano, youth night, and Dave's work.  It was around this time that I was starting to feel a little cold coming on, put with no time to be sick, I just kept going.  By Thursday, as the girls and I sat at a high school Orchesis dance concert, I knew I was sick.  Fortunately, the concert was awesome and the music loud so even though my ears were plugged I could still enjoy it!

However, by the next day I was toast, but the calendar was still loaded.  So I cancelled what I could and then had Dave cover for me on everything else.  This guy had a long weekend of double duty and was so kind and patient about it all.  On Friday, he got up early to get the kids off to school, later he had to pick up the both the girls from after-school activities, handle dinner, and then go work at the elementary school sock hop.  He had to help Paige with her Hawaiian costume for the sock hop, pick up supplies, go over to the school to help set-up and then work the photo booth for over two hours.  It was a long night but he was a good sport.

The next day, I was still pretty sick so he did the grocery shopping, bought birthday presents, took the kids to an ice skating birthday party and then got home just in time for Ashley's friends to come over for a game night.   

This was Ashley's first boy/girl hangout, so I was just able to sneak this one picture with my iPhone.  Can't have your mom coming around snapping a bunch of pictures.  These kids are all just friends from church, they had fun time playing a bunch of games like Clue, Spot It, RLC and Apples to Apples, as well as eating tons of candy.  So easy to please!

I'm still feeling pretty crappy, but have tried to resume most of my normal activities and with the help of a nap everyday it's working out.  Dave and the girls have been so great.  What a blessing to have a family that can work together and help one another!

Super Bowl Sunday

We are such sports fans in our family, that even if we don't have a team to root for in the Super Bowl we are still going to celebrate. 

This year we went to an awesome Super Bowl party, some people just know how to throw a good party.  It was lots of fun.  The food spread was AMAZING.  In fact, I spent so much time talking with friends and eating good food that I didn't watch much of the game.  Now how is this for being a sports fan?--I actually watched the game on DVR the next day, because I had missed so much of it on Sunday.  The girls even came home and watched the half-time show with me again.  I don't care what people say, I love the Material Girl and as for her being "old", I'd like to see how many 50 year olds can bring it like Madonna.


There was pretty much food on every surface, yum!



Ashley, her handsome boyfriend Braxton, and cute friend Allie. 

Just kidding about the boyfriend, he's just a friend in the ward.

I teased them when I took the picture, saying that I wanted a picture so,

 "Ashley's grandparents could see her handsome boyfriend!" 

They were definitely embarrassed.

Paige and her "handsome boyfriend"



Dave and his "handsome boyfriend"
(Okay, I'm getting ridiculous, this post is going to get me in trouble,
but I do have to say that since I'm not in any pictures,
I guess my handsome boyfriend is the food table!)

tough night for our Patriots fans

Winter Choral Concert

We all went to see Ashley sing in her Winter Choral Concert.  She sang a mini-solo in the song Adenkum which is a Ghana folk song.  The performance included the use of some kind of African gourd drum that basically involved repeating rhythms.  It was very interesting and pretty.  Sorry that I'm not enough of a music scholar to describe it in proper terms!

Another interesting number by the 7th grade choir was called Inscription of Hope which was written based on an inscription found on a wall, believed to be written by a young Jewish girl who was hiding from the Nazis during WWII.

I love the variety of musical pieces selected by the director.  I think there is so much more to learn from music than just musicality.  Each piece has it's own story, history and culture.  Just another reason why music education is so important.

Mild, mild, mild

Here we are into February and the traditional "Chicago Winter" has been nowhere in site.  I'm still not convinced we aren't going to get it, but as each day passes you have to wonder.  This time last year we were digging out of a blizzard, 4 feet of snow or something like that.  This year we have:


The total amount of snow in our yard. 



Yep, those are bulb plants coming up.

Paige was so excited at Thanksgiving to buy a snowman kit.  Unfortunately for Paige, we haven't had the chance to use it.  It's just been sitting in the box.  In fact, Dave and I were admiring how green and full our grass looks for February!

Young Women Pep Rally

Was very busy last week getting ready for a Personal Progress Pep Rally we had for the Young Women.  It was lots of fun.  We did a cheer, had some pep talks, gave out "playbooks", played games, and ate some yummy loaded nachos.  Ashley gave it good ratings.



Cheer by the YW Presidency



One of my responsibilities was for the Personal Progress Bingo game, called PINGO.  Who knew the girls would like playing it so much?  I guess everyone loves Bingo, especially when there are prizes! 

As a part of the prize baskets I made these cutes fabric covers that hold PP books, journals, and FTSOY booklets. That's right, it involved sewing! This isn't actually one of the three I made, but I used this tutorial to do it. I just didn't have time to take pictures of my finished product.