http://www.blogger.com/html?blogID=1755139666841541603 about a dream: April 2014

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Easter Girls

Finally found the camera, so here's a photo of the girls in their Easter dresses:


It's too washed out to see the detail, but Nina's has beautiful beading and flowers on the skirt, and Maggie has a lace ruffle at the neckline. They looked absolutely adorable!

Friday, April 25, 2014

April Vacation!

It's finally here and it is just flying by! Here's a quick week in review:

Friday was our last day of school. Maggie performed Peter Rabbit with her class, but I couldn't see it because I was at the animal shelter with my homeroom kids for Community Service day. That's ok, I saw the dress rehearsal, and the community service was really fun. We played with cats and walked dogs.

On Friday night we packed for New York and on Saturday morning we hit the road bright and early. We were at Erik's by 11 and back on the road again at 1 or so. The trip was a breeze! Barely any traffic, the girls were incredible, and we were at Peter's place just after 6 pm.

Sunday we drove over to Howard Beach for Easter Sunday with Grandma and Grandpa bright and early. We had lunch and dinner with them and just a wonderful visit.

Monday we met up with my old boss Tom from Kaplan and his daughter Ivy, and took a walk through Prospect Park. Fortunately, he took some pictures, and these are practically the only ones we have from the whole trip!

On not just any log, but THE log...

Nina in her muddin' boots. Turns out it's not mud season in NY though!

Maggie, also unnecessarily in mudders... how soon I forget.

That LOG again!
The first and last photos were taken at this pseudo-natural playground in Prospect Park. It was there that I got the fateful thing in my eye and scratched my cornea in 2 places. Ouch. Seriously, the most painful thing that's happened to me in I don't know how long.

The rest of Monday was shot with a trip to urgent care. I pretty much couldn't see until Tuesday afternoon, it was just ridiculous. Fortunately Peter was still in NYC and came home early on Monday because I couldn't cook or even order takeout for the girls.

Tuesday I had to see an ophthalmologist. The doctors at the urgent care clinic made me promise I'd go within 24 hours because one of the cuts was so deep and close to my pupil, and apparently weird looking, so they weren't 100% sure nothing was still in there. It was fine though, and we used the rest of the day to check out the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

The girls LOVED it. The Japanese ornamental cherries were in bloom and we spent a lot of time in the Japanese garden looking at those and the koi in the pond. The magnolia trees were also in full bloom, as was a field of daffodils. Just lovely.

On Wednesday we trekked into Manhattan for a day at the Museum of Natural History. Highlight of the trip! The girls absolutely loved the ocean room with the blue whale suspended from the ceiling, the human evolution room, the gems (and especially seeing their birthstones and the giant meteorite), and of course, the dinosaur bones.

THEN we packed up, had dinner back in Howard Beach with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Henry, Aunt Marilyn, Yvonne and Renee, then hit the road and made it as far as Vernon Connecticut before getting a hotel room and crashing for the night.

Thursday morning we hit the road bright and early again, got to hang out with Erik and Isabelle for a while, and were home by 3:15.

WHEW! What a whirlwind!!

Friday, April 18, 2014

Maggie Mouse in Peter Rabbit!!

Adorableness. Maggie's class put on a performance of Peter Rabbit today. I couldn't go, because I had my kids at the animal shelter for dog walking and cat cuddling during community service day. But I got to go yesterday with two of my students for the dress rehearsal.

SO CUTE!!

Here's a pic one of my students took:

She's the one on the left with the bean in her mouth!
Maggie still doesn't speak at school, but she got the perfect role: a mouse who can't answer Peter Rabbit's question because she's either "too shy or too polite to talk with a bean in her mouth." Ha!

The four little guys next to her are birds.

You may recall that Nina once acted in the same play. Ahh, how time flies... take a trip down memory lane here.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

I love you!

The girls and I love to tell each other how much we love each other. It goes like this:

Nina or Maggie: I love you!
Me: I love you more!
Nina or Maggie: Who is this Youmore?!!

Ha! They crack me up!

In another funny, I was looking at one of those Facebook "You might be a child of the 80s if you played with these toys" type listicles  (list + article = listicle), and Nina came, peered over my shoulder, and said

"What are you looking at? Olden days toys?"

Ouch!

Thursday, April 10, 2014

An art post

Frozen-themed, of course!

The girls drew these yesterday and today, and they're so good I have to share. First, Nina's:


 We've got Anna and Elsa, Olaf (the snowman) and Sven (the reindeer. Nina thinks it's spelled and pronounced "Schvenn," which is adorable), and Christophe and Hans (Who is this Hans? Lol! Inside Frozen joke!!)


And next, Maggie's:

It says "No Olaf" at the top, in reference to the fact that he's not allowed to swim, as pictured in the top left drawing (because he's a snowman of course!). The top right reads "Olaf lix worm hu9s," which she spelled ALL BY HERSELF and says "Olaf likes warm hugs." Below that is him melting in the sun, him melting in some water, him being impaled, him "with a drink in his hand, his snow up against the burning sand (probably getting gorgeously tanned!) in summer," and finally, Olaf exclaiming "60!" and running off to find Anna after she told him to wait for a minute.

These actually aren't examples of Maggie being morbid, these are just scenes from the movie. I guess you have to see it to understand.... here, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvIZgkVsnuk

Ha ha!


And for good measure, one photo of me with the boys. They just miss me so much when I'm gone all day!


90-lb lap dogs, that's our boys...

Sunday, April 6, 2014

A tea party!

They had the cutest tea party at the Opera House today. Look!

Me and the girls. Aww!

Mmmm, cupcakes!

Nina with her doll Marisol.

The whole group. Isn't that a lovely table? Decorated with an Easter theme!

A Marisol close-up.
 See that dress Marisol is wearing? Nina designed it and I made it. Yesterday! Because no matter how much I have to do, none of it is as fun as making doll dresses with the girls!

So grown up!

Kit got a new dress too, of course!

Maggie designed that dress all by herself. We had so much fun!!

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Spring has sprung!!

Finally! It was 50 degrees today, ahhh.... sunny too. We went to the playground after school and the wind was awful, but I'm still not complaining. There was such a bright sun, and it felt sooooo good!!

Yesterday I had to go all the way to South Portland and take my Praxis. What a pain! There's a reading section, a math section, a grammar section, and an essay. You're allotted 4.5 hours to take it, but I managed to scoot through it in about 2. Perfect score in the math section (it was maybe as challenging as a PSAT) but I think I missed one or two in the verbal! Infuriating. There were 2 questions I thought could go one of two ways, but what are you gonna do... Not questions I would have approved for publication, but I guess the good folks at ETS thought they were fitting. Ah well. I was complaining to Maggie about my imperfect score and she said to me, "Is there a prize for getting a perfect score?" And I said, "No." And she said, "Well then who cares?"

Wisdom!

After the test I did a quick Trader Joe's run, home to drop off the groceries, over to school to pick up the girls, dropped them off at the Ebb Tide, back to school for a meeting, girls again, then home to make dinner, clean up, and get everyone to bed. Whew, it's no wonder I'm totally exhausted today! Exhausted, and still a bit peeved about that verbal score. Oh well. No prizes, no prizes...

I sure can't wait for Friday!!