Gong Hey Fat Choy

Or as Seth will be happy to tell you, "Happy New Year in Chinese!"

We celebrated Chinese New Year tonight and boy was it fun. Actually it was a good excuse to get take-out for dinner, but in a way that never let them suspect that Mom just didn't want to cook tonight.

The local party store had a pretty decent selection of Chinese New Year decorations (considering that the local Chinese population is about 0.0001%), so with a couple of Google searches under my belt, I hung up red lanterns and paper dragons and hid the brooms so our good luck wouldn't get swept away. Hiding the brooms was definitely good luck for Carden and Seth, since sweeping is one of their nightly tasks.

I remembered I had a roll of tablecloth-size clear plastic, so for our table decorations I swiped an idea I read somewhere. I made color copies of pictures and factoids about China from a kids encyclopedia. I cut them out and laid them on the table under the plastic. It does have a bit of a white-trash aesthetic, but considering a full glass of water spilled during dinner, plus the usual assortment of dropped food (especially with four kids handling chopsticks), all my stuff was protected.

While we struggled with our chopsticks, we read the factoids and talked about China and discussed the animal zodiac and which animals we were. Despite all our emphasis on the positive qualities of each animal, Charlotte could not recover from being born in the year of the pig.

After dinner we handed out red envelopes with actual dollar bills inside and watched a great documentary, "Wild China," that was perfect for the kids, with lots of interesting animals and landscapes.

We wish everyone happiness, wealth, and longevity!

Halloween Recital

The annual Halloween recital was a great success. The kids were super excited to wear their costumes for the first time, and it was great fun to welcome their cousin Coby, who just joined the same piano studio as Carden and Seth. The music was spooky, and the kids love dressing up. I was really tickled with Seth, who wanted to be a pharaoh from the beginning. I had to convince him that the eyeliner was really needed to complete the look, but he was pleased with it. Afterwards Granny took us out for ice cream to celebrate their accomplishments. Now on to the Christmas music!

We need more days like this...

Today the girls and I met Granny to feed the ducks. She squirrels away the cafeteria rolls in her little freezer at the retirement center and when she's gotten enough we go search out our feathered friends at the newly relandscaped Botany Pond at BYU. Claire and Charlotte absolutely loved it, and it was a perfect day.

My aunt Karen was passing through on a road trip from Southern California to take her daughter Kristina back up to BYU-Idaho for school, so they joined us for lunch, where I realized that Charlotte's love to be center stage gets really old when you're trying to talk to other adults. They were very patient with her and it made us laugh to hear Charlotte keep saying, "You look like my grandma Halverson!" She was so amused by the idea that her grandma could have a sister.

Tonight I took the boys and a couple of their friends to see Cars 2. They were beside themselves with excitement over going to the movies with friends. I know--we obviously need to get out more! I was equally excited that they got to be with friends without the major effort to get their rooms and the playroom cleaned up! The traffic was awful, though, and for 30 minutes I got to hear every playground joke that 7-year-old and 9-year-old boys think is funny--which of course, aren't really funny at all. This being Utah, the jokes are at least clean, for which I'm thankful. Some academic should do a folkloric study on why playground humor doesn't ever change. How can there be no new material since the1980s!

Back to Sanity!

Back to school is always bittersweet, but this summer we had so much fun it made it a little easier to face the music of another school year. Our last-minute California trip helped us endthe summer on a very high note. It's amazing how much the activities of June are already a distant memory.

Seth starts first grade, and despite a little trepidation about going for the full day and eating lunch in the cafeteria, the prospect of two recesses won him over. He has the same wonderful teacher Carden had in first grade and he knew a handful of kids in his class. He wouldn't go for any of the new clothes I got him, wearing his school t-shirt with his new slip-on shoes that he absolutely loves. For our California trip we bought him a suitcase set that came with the red carry-on bag you see him carrying. He didn't want a backpack this year, and is quite pleased with his "messenger bag." Let's hear it for having your own style--I guess.

Carden has two fabulous teachers splitting the day this year, so he's excited to get a new face halfway through the day. I can't believe he'll be in fourth grade. That seems so big, and I remember him starting kindergarten so clearly. I think I'm starting to sound nostalgic and old! His classroom is in the new school addition, which is full of big windows and lots of space and light. Next year he'll have to go back into the old portion, and I'll be sad.

As for me and the girls, we are getting used to a quieter house during the day. It's really fun to be able to focus on them and a world of dollies and princesses rather than trains and superheroes. I remember all the fun things I did when I just had two little boys at home and I need to get back into that young kid mode and make the same memories with the girls.

What have we been doing?

Visiting the Church Art Museum and their very cool new kids exhibit on the church in Latin America. Fun mission memories for me. Charlotte was in heaven with the Mexican dancing dresses you got to wear, and the boys had a great time with the Zarahemla life-size building blocks.

Having Claire push Charlotte and Seth in the doll stroller. Good practice for those handcart treks. She doesn't like to be the rider, just the pusher. (Probably scarred for life because Seth has dumped her out a few times rocketing around the house at break-neck speed.)

Adjusting to Carden's new glasses. His doctor checkup this year revealed an alarming discrepancy between his right and left eyes. An optometry exam explained that he has amblyopia, sometimes called "lazy eye." Glasses correct the vision deficiency in the bad eye, but he has to wear a pirate patch for 1-2 hours a day and do close-up work to force his brain to accept visual input from the bad eye. The hard part is because his brain ignores his bad eye, he sees no improvement with glasses, so he's taking it on faith that they really do make things better. His outlook has improved since I told him that playing games on the computer and iPhone count as "close-up work."

Seeking comfort wherever we can find it. For Claire that means left thumb in mouth, right hand rubbing her belly button. The thumb-sucking has been her therapy since she first was able to get it into her mouth. The belly-rubbing is new in the last couple of months. She hates when I dress her in onesies. Another drawback: when your two arms are glued to your body, your options for steadying yourself as you walk are limited. Face-plants create need for belly-rubbing, belly-rubbing creates opportunities for face-plants. We're kinda stuck in a vicious circle here.

Looking for the balance between enjoying the kids and still getting the work done. We'll let you know when we figure that one out.

Piano projects

Carden and Seth finished their year of piano lessons in grand style. Carden earned a gold cup for receiving 3 years of Superior ratings in the Music Federation's festival. Both boys performed well at the final, and both won the award for having the most weeks of "perfect practice."Personally, I think that award should go to me.

Their teacher requires a "Creative Musicianship" project every year--they have to do something creative or artistic incorporating music. This year the projects turned into much more than I expected, but we had a great time doing them.

Carden and I had attended a performance of the American Piano Duo, two pianists who play these elaborate duets of famous music that has been arranged for two pianos. He wrote down his impressions of each piece and made a poster showing the flags of all the countries the music originated from or was written for, and his notes from the performance.

I was proud of his work on the poster--cutting out those construction paper flags was much more meticulous work than he usually goes for. But I was most proud of how much he had enjoyed an adult concert experience. He stayed focused on the music, behaved well, and had a great time. It gives me hope that my life is not always destined to be picking up Legos and Barbie doll dresses and changing diapers.

Seth had a harder time deciding on a project, but I remembered how much he liked The Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky. We first discovered it from the Disney "Fantasia 2000" movie and a Little Einsteins DVD. Then we heard a piano version by the Five Browns. So Seth and I learned the history of the piece (a Russian fairytale turned into a ballet) and watched a clip of Stravinsky himself conducting the finale a few years before he died. Seth even watched the entire ballet performed by a Russian ballet company. (YouTube sure makes research easy!) It took 2 days to get through the whole thing, watching in 5-10 minute spurts, but he really got into it. For his project, he wrote about all the different versions he'd seen and listened to. Now he wants a French horn for his birthday.

As usually happens when mom is the official "ghostwriter," I learned as much as they did. Once we got to the recital, I realized that they had put in much more time and effort than other students, but at the same time, I think we had more fun and really thought about the music they chose. Just listening to classical music in the background is great, and we do a fair amount of that at home or in the car, but really delving into the pieces, listening to them over and over or examining the different arrangements made them come alive for us.

Spring Break

One of the reasons I blog is to remind myself that some days I really have it good. Digging through the archive reminded me that last year we spent the entire week of spring break suffering from snowstorms and stomach flu.

Monday:

The forecast warned that this would likely be the only good weather day, so we took advantage. Lunch with Granny at BYU Creamery. Watched college students sweat out their last week of classes with extra large servings of french fries and ice cream (cramming Mormon-style). A trip to the park, the Museum of Peoples and Cultures, and back to BYU for the opening of the South Campus stream. The grounds department has built a half-mile stream along the hillside and marked the opening with a Rubbery Ducky Derby and ice cream.

The rest of the week was not quite as exciting. Lots of playing in the backyard, lots of attempts to dejunk the playroom, centered around my bribe, I mean incentive, that if they got rid of old toys, I'd take them to the store and let them buy a new one. This will leave me at a zero-sum game, which in our world translates into "the playroom will still be a mess, I'll just be stepping on new toys."

All in all, spring break did what it was supposed to do--gave the kids a break from school, and sent me signing them up for any and all summer camps.