The Aunt Dance

We went to see Aunt Michelle dance in Madison, WI. I always enjoy seeing Michelle dance, but was wondering if we could pull off the two hour car ride there and back and a hour plus performance of modern dance with Sofi and Isaac.

Turns out we did pretty well. When the kids weren't interested in the performance Mary quietly guided them out of the theater and into the practice studio across the hall, which was full of mirrors and in turn lots of smiles. But Sofi actually watched most of the performances with me, though she didn't understand much of it. Many times she leaned over and whispered in my ear: "What are they doing?"... "Why are they doing that?". And both Isaac and Sofi were there when Michelle performed on stage. Seeing here out there kept their attention (though the questions still continued, even for Michelle's performance).

After Michelle was done we all snuck out early and met her for an ice cream cone on the terrace of Madison campus.

A Most Unusual Day

Right now things in this household are not as they usually are.

It started out normally enough. Mary biked to work this morning to teach voice lessons. I took Sofia to vacation bible school at Betsy and Doug's church. We had to pull Sofia out early though, because she had a dentist appointment. So while Sofi was at VBS for an hour or so, Isaac and I ran some errands: I purchased dates for next year (season tickets to the local university's theatrical productions), tried to get my wedding ring polished (the jeweler who made it is no longer there... I think the shop is a restaurant now), and cashed some checks at the bank. It was during this last errand that Isaac fell asleep in the car (thank God for drive thrus!).

We then picked up Sofi from VBS and headed to the dentist for her appointment. It's this dentist appointment that has made things unusual I think. Part of it is because this isn't a cleaning; it's to fix a cavity. Sofi had a cleaning a couple of weeks ago, and the dentist discovered two cavities. So she had one of them drilled and filled today. The other is scheduled for next week.

I was extremely nervous. Behaving for a cleaning is one thing. For a drilling it's another. I was thinking that perhaps they'd want me in the back with her, to keep her comforted, and I was worrying about Isaac and what he'd think of the dentist if he saw Sofi screaming and crying. I was debating a quick call to Ardelle to see if she'd watch him, so that Isaac wouldn't have to see his sister go through all this. But the receptionist at the front desk said things usually go better if the parent(s) don't come back with the child. So Isaac just waited with me out front, wandering in and out of the front door to occasionally look at the mopeds parked out there (he was very interested in them).

And in the end the receptionist was right. Sofi came out of the dentist office looking just fine, perhaps a bit swollen in her right cheek. She had no complaints, no tears.

And now we are home, and Sofi went straight to her room, put on her pajamas, asked me to read her a book, and eventually fell asleep.

And even Isaac is napping now too, again, which is unusal, because he doesn't usually take another nap once he's napped already. But he was screaming while Sofi was napping (a bad habit he has started to do more and more, and which I'm afraid he passed on to Russell's 8-month son while we were in the Black Hills visiting), so I told him to take the outdoor voice outside, and he screamed at me in response, so I took him outside on the porch and shut the door... his time out for screaming. Well he didn't like that at all, and when his minute time out was done he was very sorry, very sniffly, and once comforted he walked over to the spot on the floor where he left his bear blanket, picked it up, walked to his room, motioned to his crib, and proceeded to fall asleep.

So here I am, with two children amazingly napping at the same time, and it isn't even lunch time yet. A very unusual day, to be sure.

PS: Sofi started karate class at the YMCA last night. I work at the Coop on Tuesday evenings, so I couldn't be there. But Mary took her, and I'll try to get her to blog about it. Why karate you ask? Basically because of the wonder of books, really. Sofi checked out a book from the library in which a girl learns karate. And this sparked her interest. So we thought we'd let her try it. As Mary would tell it, based on the militaristic manner the first class was run, this isn't something that would appeal to neither her nor I. But Sofi really liked it, so for now we are trying to stay open to it.

Russell's Photos

This post is more for the grandparents, but for the rest of you who follow this blog, you are more than welcome to check out these photos too.

While visiting Russell and his family in the Black Hills, Russell was more than generous and shot an awesome session of family photos in Custer State Park. (If the site asks for a password, it's "smilestutesman").

The photos will only be online through the end of the month, so check them out as soon as you can.

For the grandparents, we have decided to give you the gift of a "brag book", a book that you can keep in a large purse (or wherever) to show friends and family. It will include most all of the photos you see at the link above.

You can purchase prints, to keep in your albums or to put into your frames. Russell's site is actually set up to take orders, all you simply need to do is create a new account with his site, which is easy to do right there as you check out during your purchase. His site is quite cool... like any photo site that allows you to purchase prints, you can change the photo to sepia or black and white, and even have them printed on special kinds of paper. If you want Russell to zoom in on the kids, or if you would like the image cropped so that it fits a vertical frame, just make a note of that in the "comments" field when placing your order. The order goes directly to Russel, and he will make sure to fulfill any request and he'll also make sure the prints are of high quality.

Keep in mind that the photos will only be available online until the end of the month, so order them as soon as you can.

You may experience some sticker shock from the prices, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind:

1. Russell is giving 30% off the price of everything.
2. Russell is making no money. All of time shooting and touching up the photos he is generously donating.
3. The expense of the prints covers the cost of having them professionally printed by a high quality imaging service, and then shipped.

Here are a couple of our favorites of the kids, just a sample of what is at Russell's site:

Old McDonald

So the plan today was to get the kids out to Old McDonald's Farm (a petting zoo of farm animals), and we did actually manage to finally succeed in our plan. But this was in doubt for a while this morning. It took so long to pack lunches, move all the gear into one minivan, arrange and rearrange car seats, and then finally get the kids in that by the time we finally succeeded in all of this we drained the battery in the car because the doors had been left open too long. Seriously. And neither I nor Russell had jumper cables, so he had to start calling neighbors and relatives asking to borrow one. Thankfully this worked out, and we were able to be on our way, finally. Here our some photos of everyone packed into the minivan (Russell and I sat in front).



The kids LOVED the farm. Sofi said as much, and Isaac was beaming most of the time.









After some naps in the car (on my part as well) and some hiking, we arrived home at which point the girls got back to the business of playing princess. Originally Elyse told Isaac that he was to be the dragon, and that he wasn't allowed in the tent with the princesses, but Sofi chimed in stating that Isaac was her prince, and that they would fight an "air dragon" instead. Below is a photo of Prince Isaac as he ended up being dressed by his princesses for his role...

Where In the World is Wall Drug?

We've made it to the Black Hills! The drive was tolerable, without any major melt downs, and all the kids are now happily playing with each other.

Here are a couple of photos from our stop at Wall Drug: