PUZZLE!!

This one's for Noelle, who got the kids this 3000 (!!) piece puzzle for Christmas.  It took us about 12 days, fully admitting that Mark and I did spend some late nights unable to stop obsessively searching and sorting the pieces.  Have you ever dreamed in puzzle pieces?  Next up: 1000 piece Sunday in the Park.  No big whup.

Some December doings...

So it's been a month since I posted.  Sorry!  It was the holidays, ya'll, plus I was working on a new venture: becoming a partner/co-owner with my pal/colleague Jenny at Studio Z!  So I am now a small business co-owner!  So I'll be making even less money!!  Ha!  But I am thrilled to join Jenny and so glad she agreed to have me join her.  We've kinda been partners anyway, so now it's official.  I think we are a good pair...she is the creative ideas woman, and I take care of details.  Whee!!

I already posted about M4's bday, but we also had M3's choir and band concert in December.  None of my photos turned out, so here is one a friend took with M3 in full voice:

I also took terrible pictures at Christmas, and I succeeded in taking none of Nana and Boppa who made the trek here to spend the holidays with us.  What is up with me and photography?  Ugh!  It was a muted Christmas, because M4 developed an extremely high fever and was fighting it for days.  Not much fun.  But he recovered in time to back to school, poor kid.  We did manage an afternoon of ice skating in Iowa City, but that was about it for the fun stuffs.  Here is a bad Christmas photo:

 And here is a cute photo of M3 in her gift from cousin V.  Stylin'!!

Now he's 9...

It's hard to believe, but M4 has turned nine.  His last year of single digits.  He was very keen on indoor-glow-in-the-dark-mini-golf.  Fortunately, Des Moines has such a place.  It also has a variety of lame arcade games and some appropriately greasy pizza.  (Just an aside, but what happened to cool video games?  Are they all on Xbox and Wii, etc.?  B/c there were pretty much only driving games and shooting games at this place.  Where was Galaga for crying out loud??  What's that you say?  Galaga is not a cool video game?  Oh....OK.)  But the glow-in-the-dark mini-golf was really cool, and we had a great time! 

 

 The cake maker worked his magic again...you'll note that the dinosaurs are playing golf.  As he himself suggested, we really need an album of Mark's cakes.  He has made so many amazing cakes!

 Tyrannosaurus attacks!

 But also is shown some love.

The gorilla was cool, too!

The crew...M4's best buds.

More music

M3's 6th grade choir had a concert with the high school choirs.  Here is their rendition of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." See how tiny they look in comparison!!

Violin recital!

Yesterday, Nov. 5.

Haircut!

Well, M4 had a bit of a conundrum: he wanted to grow his hair long to wear in a ponytail braid like his best bud (whose hair has never been cut since he was born).  But once M4's hair got long enough to at least put back in the ponytail, he didn't want to do it because he was afraid people would make fun of him.  :-(  We talked about it a bit, and eventually I told him he needed to make a decision: would he go ahead with the ponytail or would he get his hair cut?  Because it was constantly in his eyes (he had to get reading glasses recently...I don't know if the hair had anything to do with it?).  So we looked at some surfer dude pictures on the Google, and he agreed (and even seemed excited) to get his hair cut in a long shorter cut.

Unfortunately the barber, god bless him, did not copy the picture we brought too well, and he cut it too short.  M4 was pretty upset all afternoon.  But after several conversations about how his hair grows quickly, and after a large dinner, he seemed to perk up quite a bit.  Phew!  It is at least nice for me to be able to see his sweet face better.

Weekend in Madison

 

Last weekend we went to one of my favorite towns on the planet.  At the urging of Mark's friend, Mike, we met up with his family in Madtown to join an Occupy Wall Street protest, but it turns out the March to the End the Wars was at a better time for us.  (When there are small children involved, one has to choose a protest that works with the feeding and the sleeping.  Fortunately, in Madison one can usually find a protest time that works with your schedule.)  Of course, first we visited the Farmer's Market...it really has no equal that I've visited.

We gathered at Library Mall for speeches and a Solidarity Sing-Along.

My favorite group participating was the Raging Grannies, who led us in some rousing songs.

Then we marched to the Capitol.  The kids really got into it, and I was glad for them to have this experience of people marching together for an important cause they believe in.  In Grinnell, sometimes it's a little hard to see past the tiny sphere of your own existence...something for which I am grateful at times but irritated and impatient with at other times.

Naturally, we spent time on the Terrace, had some Babcock ice cream (the must-have flavor that I can't find anywhere else?  Orange Custard Chocolate Chip!!), drove past a few of our old apartments (but between the two of us we lived in quite a few, so we didn't see them all!), ate at Himal Chuli, and had brunch with the lovely and awesome Lisa Pizza (my old Wild Iris comrade) at the delicious and miraculously easy-to-get-into Crema Cafe.  I highly recommend it if you're ever in Madison on Homecoming weekend, and you know you'll never get into Monty's or Mickey's.  It was just a beautiful fall weekend, and we couldn't have ended it more perfectly than with a walk out to the end of Picnic Point. U! Rah! Rah!