The Cutest Mouse Ever!

This past weekend Rachel was radiant as a Princess Mouse in her ballet school's production of The Princess and the Pea! She had three performances in two days, and did just beautifully - never tiring or complaining, even though there was a lot of waiting around and it went late into the evening. We got tickets for the Saturday afternoon show, and I was struck by how much fun she seemed to be having on stage! She never told me she was nervous (and I don't think she actually was), she was just very prepared and grinning through their entire scene, which she told me later went by way too quickly. 

 

We weren't allowed to take any pictures during the performances, but I helped backstage and got a few snaps while they got ready.

You're a star, my sweet!

Love and Bowling

Andy and I decided to spend Valentine's Day 2011 with the kids. (Don't worry, we had our own date night on Sunday - out by ourselves to see True Grit (4 stars!) Romance galore!). We figured that it's not so easy to get a babysitter on the actual Day of Love, and our kids are our real valentines anyway, so it made perfect sense. What better way to express our love for each other than to go bowling?! Naturally, we had a blast!

No, she isn't growing dreadlocks -
we came straight from swimming lessons. 

Daddy giving Ollie a little tutorial,
but he'd better just get out of the way!

Ack! It is not supposed to bounce!

Wait for it... 

This place was a feast for the eyes. Color everywhere! Of course they have Cosmic Bowling (you know, bowling in the dark with black lights to make everything glow). Of course they have disco balls - like, four of them! And of course everyone that works there is super nice in a slightly weird way. It's a bowling alley! What more could you ask for? (Ahem...I'm thinking 80's music....just a suggestion.)

Hope your Valentine's Day was just as great as mine!

What a Hoot!

The kids and I had such a crazy adventure on Saturday night! I heard about this night-time Family Hike that was happening at Tryon Creek, and on a whim decided to sign us up. It was absolutely amazing! That Great Horned Owl up there has been taxidermied, otherwise he would have been thinking about ripping my face off - they're so serious!

Hi, I'm a barred owl, and I'd like to eat your cat!

We started off this informational session in just the right way - dissecting owl pellets! (Hopefully, you're not eating right now...I'm just saying.) Here are some fun owl facts that we learned: owl pellets are NOT poop! They're not really even throw up! An owl is not able to chew its food, but it can somehow separate the fur, feathers and bones from the good stuff, then sort of spits all that back out onto the ground. Classy! Oh my gosh, this was seriously so much fun...

We sat down at our stations to unroll a little tin foil object about the size of a prune. You have to start by prying away at the tightly rolled up fur, then voila! Here come the goodies! Bones! You can't believe how funny it is to hear kids and adults alike getting so excited about this process, saying out loud, "Oh, I found teeth!" "WOW! You've got a skull!"

Ollie didn't care so much about touching the icky -
especially when he figured out those were - gulp - rodent teeth!

R.I.P. little mouse.

After a while, we had to clean up and move on to the next classroom to learn more owl facts, but the kids could have done this all night. In fact, Oliver almost stole one of the pellets for later, but I made him put it back. I wonder if you can buy those things on Amazon...

Did you know that owls can't smell? And that they have double the number of vertebrae in their necks compared to what humans have, and that's what allows them to turn their heads in that crazy way. I didn't know that their ears are at slightly different levels on their head - it's true! Owls are awesome.

The final part of this night, as I mentioned, was a hike into the dark woods to see if we could hear the nesting pair of Great Horned owls that have been making a ruckus in the park lately. Have you ever done a night hike? And I don't mean having to pee in the middle of the night while camping - I mean going on a walk in the freaky forest at night??? What the heck was I thinking?! It gave me a whole new respect for Snow White, getting grabbed at by those spooky trees! Yikes!

As we started out in our small group with two other kids and their parents, plus our guide (who asked us not to use our flashlights, haha!), these thoughts started to race through my head..."This isn't so bad. Are there bears out here? So glad it's not that cold. Must breathe. What was that? Glad it's not raining too hard.  How can they walk so fast? Breathe. I feel like I'm being watched. Am I scarring the kids for life? What was that???"

Luckily, the guide stopped us a couple times to talk about more owl facts and to show us their nests. We never did hear them, but they were obviously out there, laughing at us, probably.

On our first stop, she asked the kids what owls eat, and then proceeded to pull a rabbit out of her bag! Dead, of course. The next two pictures are probably the worst two pics you'll ever see on a blog, but I was proud of my new lens for getting them in the absolute darkness, with only a flashlight for help.

So that's what a mole looks like!

She also had a squirrel skin and a skunk too, which I couldn't pass up touching. She said an owl would eat a skunk because as you learned earlier, they can't smell! See, owls are awesome! 

It's About Time!

Does that look like $100 in school supplies to you? Me neither, but it is!

Well, we finally started school yesterday! Yippee! The rest of Portland started about two weeks ago, but our school has been having a lot of facility issues and had to keep postponing the opening day. My kids go to a charter school that has only been open for a couple of years - it's a great, fantastic school and we've been really happy since our daughter started Kindergarten there. It's in its growing phase though and, as such, has needed a bigger building to house all of these wonderful, amazing children. The problem is that finding a building suitable for a school on the West Coast is troubled by the seismic requirements of living in a shaky state. We occasionally have earthquakes (every state has its issues with nature, I know), and the City would rather not see the school come crumbling down. We agree with this, however with a teeny budget and no real expert guidance, we've been the winners of the short end of the stick for quite a while.

However, we were saved last week (seriously, they signed the lease last Friday) when a local synagogue with beautiful, newish classrooms opened their doors to us! We are so thankful!! The whole school is together in one location (K-8), surrounded by trees and trails! This is only temporary while the building we'll be in permanently waits for the green light from the City, but we're so happy with it. Just look at my babies!

Oliver - Kindergartner & Rachel - 2nd Grader!!

Ollie got right to work!

Rachel showing her bestie that she lost her tooth the night before!

After a great first day we celebrated at our favorite ice cream shop!

This is one of those places where you make your own creation - they have everything from the usuals to cereal (I love the cocoa pebbles), and a new one I tried yesterday - cheesecake crumbles! Oh this place is dangerous! We're off to a great start - finally!

A Little Art & Then I Lose It

Last month I signed up for the Wish Play Create online art playgroup, which means that every Monday I get a new art project idea emailed to me with detailed instructions that my kids and I get to try out, take pictures of, and then post on flickr. So far, I love this. I'm not naturally gifted with artistic abilities, and really if my daughter and I had a doodling contest, she would win the trophy fair-and-square. I did, however, love shopping for the art supplies, imagining what the bits of ribbon, sparkly paint, and Plaster of Paris might become! We started out Week One with a chance to paint and create mixed media collages. We're actually still working on them, and we had a breakthrough idea just yesterday, but today we got sidetracked with Ollie's idea to "make dough." Oh, have I mentioned that they aren't in school yet? That's a horrifying story I'll add next week - by that time they should be starting school and I'll have a lot more time to myself to clean up after these art projects...where were we?

Week 2 was led by my photography hero, Tracey Clark! The final project will be a banner (well, OK two banners - one by Rachel, one by me) displaying pictures we've taken to illustrate our personalities. To get us thinking about what our pictures might be about, she sent along a simple questionnaire for us each to fill out. We took our papers, pens, and drinks outside to enjoy the incredibly beautiful early fall morning on Sunday. Things were going well for me until I had to fill out "I'm really good at..." I know now that I'm really good at telling myself what I'm not really good at! Cooking, not really. Riding my bike, well who's not? Taking pictures, don't kid yourself. Ack! I had this terrible moment in which I couldn't come up with anything, even great, simple stuff like Rachel's thoughts of "roller skating, climbing, jumping rope." I suddenly came up with (gulp)...driving...and...vacuuming. I had to laugh at myself! I had all these Mondo Beyondo helpers in my head telling me, "You're great, Jenny! We know it! Don't put yourself down like that!" I was also thinking, "This is not the reaction that Tracey Clark would want you to have!" I gingerly asked Rachel, "What do you think I'm really good at?" She said, "I have to go potty. I'll think of something and then yell it out the window." Ohhhhhh, great. Now the neighbors will know what I'm so great at! I hope it's something better than, "You always dress yourself everyday!"

So, when she yelled, "Mommy, you're really good at being nice!" I was uplifted. You can see in my photo that there is all that space around the question and that I thought about it for a while, wrote that I'm organized (ha! sort of) then skipped ahead. When it came to the action of the assignment though,  my freak-out seemed irrelevant. I got to use pictures of my beautiful (and nice!) daughter, the flowers in our garden, sunsets we've seen together, and lovely things I've seen on my recent trips. Her banner will be filled with great pictures she's taken lately of flowers, animals at the zoo, ballerinas, and her beloved kitty. What matters most is that we did this together, we had fun, and that we helped each other! Love you, kid!

P.S. Rachel helped me pick out a beautiful new hula hoop later that day, and I'm happy to say that I'm really good at hula hooping! : )

Green & Some Kid Stuff

In a town so green, I thought I would end up with a picture of a plant, a tree, or something growing. However, we spent our day downtown at the fountain and I just loved this. I love all things Frenchy!

I also have this from the Rose Festival, held here in Portland a few weeks ago. My son won it in one of those fishing games. You know - the kind where each kid actually wins something. He was thrilled, gave it a squeeze, then asked me to carry it around for him.

In news not related to the color challenge: my daughter just doesn't like it when her teeth fall out. She wants them to stay in as long as possible, so long in fact, that she may be adding glue to her toothpaste. 

See what I mean? The first front tooth fell out a few months ago - in her sleep! So yesterday I kept asking her to just get it over with and pull it. Nope. Not her. It did finally come out later, after dinner, with a magic lemonade popsicle! 

It was hard to get a good picture late at night, but I thought she might like a reminder of what that tooth looked like before her tooth fairy friend - Tilly - came for it.