Indian summer

This post is a little random, so brace yourself. We were watching a football game on TV this weekend, and I was surprised (but not jealous) that people looked cold at the game! :) Unlike this time last year, I am basking in the high-desert heat and loving every minute of it. Has my body adjusted to Ridgecrest weather? Yes, yes it has! We've got another month or so to enjoy this ridiculous heat/warmth, even though the pool will be shut down Columbus weekend.

We had the de-feet party, and it turned out great. R invited 3 girls, and 2 couldn't make it, so we were glad to get Bailey over. Bailey was so sweet--about every other sentence was "This is SO awesome!" The girls soaked their feet in the pool, got foot massages, played Twister, guessed some famous "successful failures," had fun painting and adding stickers to their nails (er, I mean nail art), and ate cupcakes. They really liked the goody bags stuffed with microwave popcorn, granola bars, crazy socks, and a $1 manicure kit from WalMart. :) Wade had a friend over, too, and they played Wii most of the time. :)

Cupcakes make life sweeter!

Bailey brought a TON of cute nail polish! She was a lot of fun to be with.

More randomness--this is our Sunbeam class from church, all 11 of them. Right now they are taught by one teacher, who is so extraordinarily awesome with these kids that she's been given the nickname "The Sunbeam Whisperer." Thank goodness for wonderful people in our ward who help bring out the goodness in these kids!

"What do YOU want to do?"

Last night was a Girls Night/Boys Night.

Jason took Wade to the high school football game. Wade loved riding in "the fast car," watching the band play Disney's Incredibles theme song during half-time, seeing a player jump over a tackle, and getting ice cream afterwards. He thought it was funny that Dad chose the flavor of the month, called Quarterback Crunch. (Wade chose bubble gum.) They were gone all night and didn't get home til 10! Wade is going to try out a flag football NERF league starting in November--I think he will love it!

Rhiannon was so excited to hang out! :) We watched a little TV and then played for most of the night--Twister, Pictureka, and Cadoo! All night long I just kept asking her, "What do YOU want to do?" It was great to talk, relax, and laugh, laugh, laugh. I've got to admit, though, I felt 90 years old playing Twister. I didn't last long each round!

We got some good after-the-election news for Rhiannon. There were other jobs that needed filled at assemblies for the year, and some of the kids who didn't win a council spot were chosen. Rhiannon gets to be one of the Attendance helpers. She was thrilled! This means she collects perfect attendance slips from kids as they come into the monthly assemblies, and then she gets to read out the winner of the $20 WalMart gift card that month. She did a cute job yesterday--in her best Bob Barker voice, she said, "And the winner is...!" I think she likes getting to sit up near the front with the official council members, too. :) Ryan, Rhiannon's friend who won Historian/Photographer, did a marvelous job. He was ALL OVER that cafeteria, crouching down, standing up, taking pictures of EVERYTHING. I've got to hand it to him--he was taking his job seriously! :)

Impressive...and a little scary!

This morning we were a little goofy. We were talking about how much we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Unnatural History show on Cartoon Network. I don't know if the season's last episode can be topped--it was so mind-blowing cool! As much as I hate most of the other trash on Cartoon Network, I'm tempted to send in a letter singing the praises of Henry, Jasper, and Maggie (the main characters) and their adventures and pleading for more!!! Hopefully Season 1 will come out on DVD SOON!

Here's the link for more on the show: Unnatural History

So, here we are getting ready for the morning and talking about TV, when all of a sudden Wade starts acting out the newest Anthony Sullivan Oxi Clean commercial...from start to finish! We laughed and laughed and laughed...and then I got a little scared. Maybe, just maybe we watched too much TV this summer! :)

Victory in de-feet

As you can imagine, Tuesday's election result was a tough pill to swallow. It was an out-of-body experience for me to watch Rhiannon exit the school grounds that afternoon and walk toward me, first with a goofy look on her face, which then slowly turned to a frown, and then tears. My heart ached for her and all the other kids who lost. Everyone had put so much work into it, from the terrifying speech assembly to posters to massive amounts of homemade stickers and trinkets to give to "voters." Rhiannon had a really good shot at winning the photographer position, but she was up against 5 or more kids for that slot. She was happy that her friend Ryan won, but she had wanted the job so badly.

So we talked a lot about what she was feeling, and talked some more. We talked about how others were feeling the same way. We talked about being a good winner and a good loser. We talked about supporting those who had won and being good sports. We talked about how life isn't fair, and how you can't win at everything all the time. And on and on and on.

THEN we talked about throwing a de-feet party, something that Grandpa Rich and Grandma Donna did for me back in middle school. I don't remember the election loss so much as I remember feeling loved and having fun doing something goofy to "celebrate" my failure. So we're throwing a De-Feet party on Monday for Rhiannon and 2 or 3 other friends who lost. I'm looking forward to it very much! Bring on a game of Twister, some foot massages, and pedicures! :) Hopefully Rhiannon will also feel our love and not be afraid to continue to try new things. I've been digging up some "successful failures" for a game and came across this absolutely splendid, wonderful quote by Winston Churchill:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

So encouraging! Life will go on!

Bummed and sad.

Hi, this is RC. I'm really sad right now. Thanks for the support, everybody, but I lost. The End.

(Mom took us to the library this afternoon and I get to have Spaghettios for dinner, so life is okay. My friend Sophia didn't win for president, and I could hear her sobbing in class. I just looked straight ahead and made a funny face when Mom saw me so that I wouldn't start crying right then and there, but I did have a few tears.

On the plus side, I saved myself a lot of work. Mom says I won't need to worry about breaking the school's expensive camera or tripping or making a fool of myself in front of the whole school. And I know I'm not the only one sad. There were a lot of kids who didn't win. But I still wish I could have won. Bye for now.

--RC :(

Off to a good start

Weekend report:

*Jason survived (and enjoyed) the final session of BOLT/OWL Scout training Friday night and all day Saturday. This was a blessing since both of us have had some mixed/bad feelings about it. The training turned out to be fun and was very well-attended by LDS members, too.

*Wade had a stomach bug all day Saturday and is thankfully starting to feel better from it. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the rest of us won't get it!

I'm off to a good start today. Before 9am I went for a walk, listened to a General Conference talk, vacuumed, sorted laundry and folded 2 loads of it, started up the dishwasher, skimmed leaves from the pool, got the kids out the door for school, and checked email/blogs. I hope to crank out the Primary program, do some clean-up in the front yard, cash some checks, go to Wal-Mart, and get a TB test done for substitute teaching, too.

To reward myself, I will be watching more of the 2005 BBC production of Charles Dickens' book Bleak House. Man, it's good stuff. I started watching a bit of it because it came up on a Netflix instant-streaming search. I'd never heard of this book and was on cloud 9 to find that our small local library had a COPY of it, a beautiful, ancient-looking copy! So I am in heaven, reading the some-700+ pages that Dickens wrote at night, and watching a TV version of it during the day! Sometimes I wonder if I was born in the right century, but then I remember how much I appreciate modern-day conveniences! :)



Tomorrow is a big day for Rhiannon--we'll find out if she won the election for Historian/Photographer! We'll keep you posted!

Speeches and tuna casserole

Rhiannon gave her candidate speech on Wednesday morning. The cafeteria was packed with all the 3rd thru 5th grades, teachers, and a few parents. I was sitting in the very back but had a good view. Mrs. Knehans did a fabulous job keeping it serious and well-paced, saying stuff to the candidates like, "Okay, just relax--all those constituents out there are your friends" and reminding the audience to sit up straight and be respectful. I'd say I heard about 25% of the speeches--the rest were either too mumbled or too quiet or too far away from the microphone. When Rhiannon got up, I tried to make a motion with my hands behind my ears so she'd know to speak UP. Mrs. Keehan, her teacher from last year, walked over to me quickly as Rhiannon got up--I think she was worried, too, that we wouldn't be able to hear R's speech, but Rhiannon started talking, and SHE DID GREAT! Mrs. Keehan said, "Oh, wow! She's doing just fine!" My favorite part of her speech was the little poem at the end:

"All of you ROCK! (pointing to crowd)
I do, too! (pointing to herself)
Vote for RC (some kind of cute twirling motion with her fingers)
I'll work for YOU! (pointing to the crowd again)

So remember, vote for Rhiannon Cushing for Historian/Photographer!"

Whatever comes on Election Day next Tuesday, Rhiannon will know that she's done her very best! :)



Speaking of speeches, here was a little "speech" that Wade gave me last night:

Wade: (a little teary-eyed) Mom, you know how you didn't like that one food Grandma Donna cooked when you were little?

Me: You mean tuna casserole?

Wade: Yes. Well, that's how I feel about eating scallopped potatoes for dinner tonight. Could you and Dad eat that and me and Rhiannon can have hot dogs???

I comforted him by reminding him that he only needed to eat a little bit of it, not a whole plate. Hot dogs would have to wait for another night. And then I gave him a little speech of my own about why trying different foods, even ones we don't like, is good training for being a missionary some day! :)

59

That's how many inches tall Rhiannon was a couple of weeks ago. That means I've got 1 inch on her, tops--she's in the 90th percentile for both height and weight.

Yesterday she and Wade were out in the front yard playing some Indian survival game. They'd sectioned the yard into different tribal areas and were having a total blast. Rhiannon stood on top of one of the rocks near the front door and said, "Wow, the view is really cool from here. Is this what Dad sees? I want to be tall like him!"

Wade likes to check his height against me, too. It doesn't look like he's grown much until I compare him to the average height of the new kindergarteners at school--then there is a BIG difference! :)

Other newsy stuff--Rhiannon is running for a popular position on Student Council (Historian/Photographer). She is really excited about making posters and giving a speech, but she also realizes she's up against many of her friends. We ran into her teacher at WalMart yesterday who noticed the poster board in our cart. :) She said she was amazed and impressed by how many kids were running--in her class alone, there are 20 kids trying out. I hope Rhiannon makes it, and if she doesn't, we'll do something fun to celebrate her hard work and willingness to try something new!

Remember THIS post? (click here) Earlier in the week I asked Wade if everything was going okay in school. He opened up about a bigger 3rd grader at recess times who was being mean to him and his friends when they tried to play basketball, calling them little kids and pushing them around. He hadn't told teachers because he didn't want to bother them. I'm so glad I asked him how he was doing, and I AM SO GLAD THAT WADE SAID SOMETHING! We had a good family discussion about what to do, how the most important action was to tell a teacher or lunch duty adult right away!!! That night I emailed his teacher to tell her what was going on. She responded to my email IMMEDIATELY, told Wade the same things we did, and also let the principal and the 3rd grader's teacher know what was going on. Wade says that he didn't even see the kid the rest of the week. Most important, Wade knows now that there are people who care about him at school, too!

State Report

Rhiannon gets to do a "State Report" this year. It's a HUGE part of her Social Studies grade. She submitted three top choices--Virginia, Texas, and Utah--and was assigned Utah! What fun! Besides learning more about the state where more than half of her relatives live, it'll be fun to share some Church history, too. I've gotta say, state reports have come a long way from when I did mine! Here's a breakdown of all the parts she needs to cover:

--Monument project (can be poster, model/diorama, or power point)
--create a tri-fold travel brochure
--draw a license plate
--draw state map and map of US
--draw state flag
--report on state facts
--report on state history
--report on state geography
--report on famous people from the state
--create a Power Point presentation (!?!?)
--extra credit (food item, souvenir, t-shirt, poster, etc!)

For our Utah relatives, be prepared for Rhiannon's future emails!

That's gonna leave a mark

The one tough thing about family visits is dealing with the big, giant hole we feel when they have to leave. We sure felt that this morning after my mom and dad left early to drive back to Texas. After such a wonderful, long weekend with them, it was tough to wake up to a quiet, emptier house, especially for Wade. We talked about all the fun we had, and then Wade said, "Mom, you need to make a SmileBox!"

So here it is!

Create your own digital slideshow

Here's a list of things we enjoyed, in no particular order:

1. Kids going to McDonald's with just Grandpa and Grandma.
2. Swimming in the pool and lounging in the hot tub--the kids LOVED swapping stories with their grandparents!
3. BBQ on Labor Day--more swimming, more visiting, and lots of good eating!
4. Jason and Dad Sheen going golfing.
5. Catching up with my mom; lots of visiting and running errands!
6. Golden Dragon lunch date with Jason and my parents while the kids were in school
7. Pancake breakfast and playing some baseball and football
8. Games--Apples to Apples, Superman Uno, Yahtzee
9. Playing with the remote control car--fun!!!
10. Introducing Dad and Mom to Facebook (No, they're not going to sign up, yet....)
11. Shooting guns--yes, real ones. Howard, Jason, GPa Rich, Rhiannon, and Wade took off for a couple of hours to do this. The kids liked using ear plugs, and Wade thought it was neat to see his dad shoot guns "for the first time." Safety was a must!
12. Going to church together
13. Watching Grandma's careful attention to Toby the Tortoise!
14. Going outside in the evening and locating the North Star together
15. Wade joining Grandpa and Grandma on one of their morning walks, and coming home with donuts!
16. Rhiannon and Grandma exchanging foot rubs!
17. Movies--Transformers, Robin Hood series on Netflix
18. Enjoying picture-perfect weather all weekend long

LOVE YOU, Grandpa Rich and Grandma Donna! Come again soon!