I'm pretty sure that I have just about the best kids in the world! Josiah wore his new ScrapRoom T-shirt to school! He was way-braver than his brothers, who told me they wouldn't wear a T-shirt that said ScrapRoom in purple to school (even though the shirt itself is a very masculine brown). But, Josiah proudly wore his shirt to school, so I took his picture!
Okay, more reasons why I have the best kids in the world... if any of you know my 5th-grader, Jesse, you know that he is just about the calmest, most easy-going, go-with-the-flow 5th grader that you could know. He's cut from the same mold as his dad, which makes him pretty even keel. Anyway, last Monday night was Jesse's 5th-Grade Christmas music program at his school. Jesse isn't a big fan of music class at school, so it was no surprise that he didn't want to go. However, we didn't have a good excuse to not go, and Jesse hasn't scored a lot of "participation points" with his music teacher this year, so we thought it best to go. The music teacher is a big fan of hand motions and lots of movement during every part of the songs. Dramatic presentation is not exactly up Jesse's alley. So, I told Jesse on Monday morning that I would give him $5.00 if he was "over-the-top-animated" during every song of his musical. I told him he had to do all of his movements really big and dramatic and to act like he was really "into it" during the whole program to get the cash. And, I couldn't believe it - but that is exactly what he did! All of his hand motions were big and his arm movements were big and his gestures and swaying - all big! We were sitting in the back row of this huge performance hall, and we could see him "getting into it" clear from the back row. Oh my gosh... we were all cracking up at him down there "acting" like he was Mr. Musical on stage. And he did it throughout the whole program - every song - Jesse was in the second row (center) of the choir risers and he was just down there going to town like this was the performance that he was living for! We just hope his teacher caught a glimpse of Jesse participating with enthusiasm! Now, for most of the audience looking on, Jesse wouldn't have looked out of place - just enthusiastic - but if you know Jesse, even a little bit - it was a riot! I've never enjoyed a program performance more! Fortunately, Jeremiah taped the whole thing with our video camera, and as soon as we can find the cords to watch it on the TV, we'll enjoy it again! (Maybe I'll even learn to upload it to the blog someday!)
And another reason why I have the best kids in the world... I'm sitting at the table playing another defeating game of Spider Solitaire yesterday afternoon, and I complain out loud that I can never beat that game. My oldest, Jacob, pipes up with, "Oh that game is easy. I could beat that game every time." I look at him and say, "This is Spider Solitaire, not regular Solitaire. It's harder." His reply, "Yeah, that's easy. I can beat that." I tell him that he must be a genius if he knows he can beat it easy when he's never played it - and then I challenge him. (I'm thinking to teach him a lesson here since he piped up with how easy something is that he hasn't even tried yet. I'm hoping to teach him a little humility here - when it comes to shooting off the mouth... yeah... you can probably see where this is going, can't you? :)) So anyway, I say, "Alright Genius, I'll bet you $1.00 that you can't beat Spider Solitaire (at medium difficulty) the first time you sit down to play it." He agrees to give it a go - and I was prepared to collect on that bet. So he sits down at the computer and I give him a quick crash course on how to play and he starts. He sat there for about an hour and it took him over 350 moves (he used the Undo button a lot), but he beat that game! With me smirking at him from the side and $1.00 and his respect on the line, he was pretty determined. So, everytime he got stuck, he would undo until he could find an alternate way to play - and he actually won. Maybe he is a Genius! :) I paid up, and I'm not sure who learned a lesson in humility yesterday... (I'm thinking maybe it was me.)
Tomorrow is Popcorn Day at our house. The boys and I are going to make a ton of kettle corn to bag up and give to the neighbors. We'll get some sort of assembly line going and Jacob has volunteered to do the cranking on the Whirly-pop. I'm thinking we'll put on some Christmas tunes and pop popcorn for a few hours before we're through. I'll try to remember to take some photos so that I can post them to the blog!
