Back for Real This Time? Hopefully!

It's been so long I wonder if anybody even bothers looking anymore! We do have a good excuse, however, since we've been living in limbo for the past two months.
We made our plans to move from Ohio at the end of June based on the original closing date for our house. As it happend, the closing got pushed back (and there's a long and frustrating tale. stay tuned) after Curmudgeon had already given notice at work, we'd already told our landlords when we'd vacate our rental house, and we'd already reserved the moving truck. We decided to just go with the original plan, put our belongings in storage in Kansas and spend a month or so with my parents in Utah while we waited to move into our new home.
Apart from a few "adventures" and way too much time in the car, we've had a pretty good summer. We've had lots of fun with Grandma and Grandpa Roar as well as seeing most of the rest of my family. We even got to spend several days with my long-missed Okie family. Here's Happy with one of his sweet Okie cousins. I think he was in love and would have followed her to the ends of the earth!

 And here's Chubbles sharing a story with my brother.

and again with Grandpa Roar.

 The kiddos doing their best impressions of prehistoric beasts facing off at the dinosaur museum near my parent's home. I love that the dinosaur scuptures in the background are basically a mirror image of my children!

 And speaking of dinosaurs, Happy's favorite food has become dinosaur chicken. My parents have a stockpile of grandkid-friendly snacks including some frozen chicken nuggets cut in the shape of dinosaurs. When he wakes up in the morning it's "di-sus CH-KUN!" When we get back to Grandma's house after a trip to see cousins we hear "di-sus CH-KUN!" before we've even parked the car. And at any random time of day when he thinks of it: "di-sus CH-KUN!" (including right this second).

Happy has lots of fun when it's Daddy helping him to play the violin. There's not as much enthusiasm when I try to help. I guess that's ok since I'm not the expert!

But when it comes to music, Chubbles is the real avid fan. She is our little dancer and if there's even a hint of music playing she's rocking, waving her arms, shaking her head and bouncing.

 (Grandpa Roar likes to decorate the babies.)

 Happy won't get near the water, but he likes playing in the sand at the beach. 

We don't have any pictures of it, but Chubbles is a total fish. She has no fear of water whatsoever and loved every swimming pool, lake and bath she's been in.

We're glad to be back and we'll be more glad when we can get settled!!

in an upcoming post: the frustrating and convoluted story of our quest to buy a house, our too-long separation from Daddy, and the continuing saga of our move to Kansas.

.                    

...And we're back

It's always when the most is going on (when you really should be keeping a good record and keeping your family and friends in the loop) that journals, letters and blog posts go by the wayside. I won't attempt to get you up to speed on all our recent happenings in one long post because it would be too long, too boring, and would take me such a long time to write that it just wouldn't get done and you'd never get the update.
So here's the concise list version:

• I went out to KS to scope out a place for us to live. Not a lot of success in the rental department and some really awful foreclosures for sale. Then this gem:

It's also a foreclosure, but it's in great condition, a well-made "Prairie Box" house built in 1930. It was love at first sight. So we're on the road to owning our own home. Exciting!

• Curmudgeon is in his last week of student teaching! YAY! A couple of weeks ago the school had their final orchestra concert. I wasn't able to find a babysitter so I didn't see it firsthand, but C made a recording of it. Sounded good! Here's a clip: this is the high school orchestra playing C's arrangement of "House of the Rising Sun".

• Happy and Punky just keep growing bigger and bigger and bigger! Happy loves tractors, trucks and busses more than ever. He's also a modest boy and won't move unless he's got pants on. Honestly, when we change his diaper, he'll lay on the floor for ten minutes waiting for us to replace his pants! He's talking more and more all the time. Some notable additions to his vocabulary are "ga-goof" (tractor), "gee-kees" (pancakes) and "shirt" (he doesn't say his 'r's yet, so we get a big kick out of that one and as we laugh gleefully he says it over and over with great emphasis. I know, we're terrible).

• Punky is 10 months old now! She doesn't win any awards for sleeping through the night. In fact, her brother was a horrible sleeper but at least he started sleeping through the night around 8 months. Girly, not so much. But in every other way she's a complete peach! She laughs and claps and coos and generally enchants everyone she meets. She seems perfectly content to sit immobile on her bottom and play with anything in reach and ignore anything out of range. No sign that she'll be crawling anytime soon. Maybe she'll walk before she crawls.

Anyway, that's the news from our end of the world. As things slow down we hope to get a little more consistent again. We also look forward to resuming our weekly movies...and boyo have we got some good ones in the dock! Just you wait...

music, music everywhere

Happy will have his first "official" violin lesson tomorrow. The teacher Curmudgeon is student teaching with is a Suzuki guru and has kindly consented to meet boy-o and give us some further tips on how to teach him at this early stage.
So in the spirit of that lesson, here's a cute video I took of him playing the other day:

Also, if you're interested, I promised to post some of the music from our Easter Program a couple of weeks ago. I'll refer you to my other (dedicated music) blog: singlikeanything.blogspot.com. So you'll know what might be most interesting to you, I'll give a list of what we were involved in:

Choir Numbers (I'm the director and C sang in the bass section)

• "In the Upper Room"
• "Mid the Stillness of the Night"
• "Dona Nobis Pacem"
• "Abide With Me" (I arranged and sang on this one. The balance is a bit off because the mic wasn't exactly in the middle so I'm louder than I should be, but you can still get a bit of a feel for it)
• "He is Risen!" (C arranged this one and sang too. Ditto about the balance issues)
• "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" (C on bass)
• "Who is this Jesus?" (C on violin. But I feel I should mention that he didn't feel great about how this one went, so just bear in mind that this may not be a fair representation of his skills)

By the way, on a totally unrelated topic, you may have noticed that we've gone two whole weeks without any movies! Worry not, the weekly tradition will continue...probably next month. Or maybe when we're settled into our new place.

What a crazy week!

It's been a whirlwind around here for the past little while. Easter (more about that in an upcoming post), a fast trip to the prairie, a new job and then back to home and business as usual without a breather. Can you blame us for neglecting you for a little while? I thought not.

Congratulations (and a deep sigh of relief) are in order as Curmudgeon has accepted a position as orchestra director at a middle school (with a couple of elementary classes too) in Overland Park, Kansas. So we're headed west after he finishes student-teaching in June.

whew. For having said we had such a crazy week I feel like I should have more to say right now! Guess I can explain a little of why it was so busy. Last Sunday we had our Easter Program in church (which I planned, directed, and wrote. So yeah, it was a big deal for me) and it went very very well. Immediately after sacrament meeting was over we jumped in the car to drive to Kansas. Happy wasn't with us at this point--he spent the weekend with C's parents (thank you Grammy and Gramps!!), but Punky was a pure trooper through the whole trip. I hope all of our kids will be as good at traveling as these two are. They can't sleep, but they sure are good in the car (usually).

here's our cute girly in the hotel room late at night after riding in her car seat for many hours across many states. So happy!

Once we got into Overland Park C had a great interview with the other music staff members and principle. They seem like a great group to work with and he felt very warmly welcomed. He was offered the position almost immediately and that was that! I am quite relieved that we don't have to fill out any more online applications! Those are a complete mess! To my siblings, remember the "place that sends you mad" in Asterix and the 12 Tasks? I think online job applications are that place.
Anyway, now we have the happy task of finding a place to live, packing up our belongings and readjusting to a new place. Stressful though those things may be, I was serious when I said "happy task". We're blessed to know we've got a job lined up in a great place and we're excited about the possibilities ahead of us. The only downer is leaving our family behind. And I don't even want to think about that yet so I'm going to stop talking about it.
One last parting shot...

it's been rainy-rainy all week, but somebody is so prepared. I know it's blurry and you can't even see his face, but somehow he still manages to be so cute! (yes, it is sunny with no sign of rain and yes, we are indoors. whatever.)

April: Cons & Capers (4 of 4)

The Sting!!

One of the gems of my childhood. I don't know how many times we sat and watched this movie as a family or listened to the record (Joplin piano rags). Robert Redford and Paul Newman are one of the great duos of hollywood history and they don't disappoint one moment in this classic.

Redford is a small-town crook who goes to learn "the big con" under the tutelage of Newman, a drunk has-been who hasn't run a con for years. Together, they set out con one of the most powerful, dangerous and vengeful gangsters in Chicago... and get away with it? You'll have to make it to the end to find out.

Enjoy!

And by the way--no comments this month? What gives? Surely somebody watched something with us! (Especially after the long spiel I gave in favor of Brothers Bloom! Come on, I want to know what you thought of it!)

A Little Update

Well, things have been pretty busy here in the woods. Curmudgeon is in the midst of student teaching but he's still working full-time (nights) as well as trying to apply and interview for prospective jobs this fall. He's incredibly busy but still finds time to play with his babies, write music--including a new arrangement for our upcoming Easter Program at church as well as an orchestral arrangement for the high school he's student-teaching at, teach a few lessons and do the shopping when I just can't face it (the grocery store with two babies is my own little private hell). We are fortunate enough to have some paternity leave time left over so that he can take a couple days of (unpaid) leave each week which gives him a couple of extra nights at home with us.
I've been measuring my life by deadlines lately...tax day, easter, art show submission dates. I am the music chairman and choir director at church so I've been planning for the Easter Program for several months and am now in the last few days of pulling it all together. The choir has been just wonderful and very willing to step out on a limb with the very difficult music I've thrown at them. Now I've just got to finish writing the narration (haven't I ever heard of delegation? sheesh) and we'll be all set. C and I are both premiering new pieces in the program too. I already mentioned his, it's another men's quartet, this time of the hymn "He is Risen". Mine is a ladies trio (hmm, it kind of looks like we're trying to segregate the genders. I'm not sure what that means) of "Abide With Me". We'll record them both--actually, I'm hoping to record the whole program as I'd really like you to hear the choir too.

We mentioned before that Happy has graduated to a big-boy bed. I wish that bedtime really was as idyllic as this photo implies. The reality is more than a little frustrating to this mama. Sometimes I'm ready to pull all my hair out. Today was one of those days. A giant dent in the wall (from a flying dump truck thrown down the stairs), the coat-rack knocked over and a dozen coats all over the floor, an upturned and broken file box with all our personal documents, tax files for the past 3 years, receipts and notes from teaching and gigging, my business documents and receipts scattered all over the floor. And a small happy person who doesn't take naps or eat vegetables or follow directions behind it all. We're lucky babies are so cute...evolutionary protection? I think so.

But it has been a pretty good week for girly. She's been a bit happier, a bit cuter and a bit less fussy than usual. She's learned to clap her hands, she's getting to be an impressively mobile wiggler, and she is already trying to climb out of the crib. Her brother still hadn't gotten to that point by the time we took the crib away! She continues to rake in the compliments about her mohawk and has added to the praise with oohs and ahhs about her big beautiful blue eyes.

all in all, though it's busy and frustrating and stressful and tiring, I think life for us is pretty good and there's not a whole lot we would change. 

April: Cons & Capers (3 of 4)

And this is it...the one I've been waiting for!! I know that many of you will not have seen this movie and I've been so anxious to introduce you to it that I got up early so I could write this post before the kids wake up.

I saw the trailer for this film some time ago and was intrigued by what appeared to be a clever and twisty plotline, snippets of lighthearted and funny dialogue and by the fact that it stars Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo. Are you kidding me? AWESOME!! Love them both to bits.

Then, because we never go to movies anymore, I forgot about it until it showed up on our Netflix recommendation list. Within a few days I was holding in my hand a little red envelope filled with as-yet-untold goodness.

I watched it once. I watched it twice. I watched it three times. Then I decided I had better get up off the couch. Ok, not really. I didn't actually watch it three times in a row, but I wanted to! And I did watch it probably 4 or 5 times before returning it to Netflix. Then we went and bought it and I've watched it several more times since then.

It's charming, hilarious, confusing, convoluted, heartbreaking, and feel-good. The characters are all completely compelling and zip right into your heart within their first few moments. Of course Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody are fantastic, but the two ladies are just as good. I think the real standout of the cast might be Rinko Kikuchi, who, despite a role with almost no lines, just about steals every scene she's in. 

I'm not going to waste time telling you the plot. It's clear enough that you can get it as you watch and confusing enough that I just don't want to go into it here. I'll just outline a few of my favorite things:

1) one of the best movie openings I've ever seen. The introduction is clever and cute and sets up the main characters brilliantly.

2) after having seen it now probably 10 times, I still see new things with each viewing. There are so many layers in the imagery and story that you just never get to the bottom of it. It's not like it makes any claims to be some deep, philosophical treatise and I'm not making that claim either, it's just that the filmmakers and writers were extremely clever and thoughtful about what they put into the details. It's a pleasure to watch each new time.

3) my number one, all-time favorite romantic movie moment. It's not a love scene per se, just a small moment of hand-holding, sunshine and utter happiness. You'll see.

Ok, enough said. I love everything about this movie and wholeheartedly recommend it to you.

things to be aware of: I don't recall any language, there's a bit of mock-violence (they are con-artists, after all) and a somewhat embarrassing moment on a train. If you want to know specifics, you should probably look the movie up on one of those "ratings explained" sites. Again, I'd let my kids watch it, but you know me.

up next week: The Sting