well done

i am currently the chorister for our children's choir at church. i absolutely adore this job. once a year, the children present a program during the sacrament (main) meeting at church. they share what they have learned as well as sing songs that relate to their topic of study. this is a special day that the children as well as us teachers and leaders look forward to and prepare for all year. sunday was our program, and the children did great. the sang sweetly, spoke clearly and taught the congregation about faith (which was this year's topic).

for the program, gracie prepared and gave a 2 minute talk about her experience memorizing the articles of faith as well as accompanied a song on the piano. she also had her piano recital on friday evening (forgot the camera - sorry) and played the recorder and piano during a festival at school on wednesday (which we missed due to our trip to the school for the blind). it was a big week for her and she did great with all of her responsibilities/performances.

good school and a sweet surprise

ok, i now want to move to massachusettes so i can send jake here.
isn't it beautiful? this is the perkins school for the blind up near boston. the school itself is 178 years old and has been on this particular campus for the past 100 years. the campus is beautiful and has the feel of a college campus with much smaller buildings. we went to perkins last wednesday so that jake could be evaluated. he met with a teacher, speech, occupational and physical therapists and got a complete eye exam/evaluation. he was in good spirits and worked hard. the day was a huge success. the team of therapists will gather next week to begin collaboration on how we can better meet jake's educational needs. i'm anxious to get the report and start to implement some of the things that i saw. this school even has a workshop that we can sign up to use and make equipment/signs for jake to use during school. it was just an amazing day. i wish i could send jake there, but i will have to settle for trying to implement their knowledge here in connecticut (which i also love).

talking about the school for the blind reminded me of the sweet surprise pat and i had while watching this movie. i had put it on our blockbuster que months ago. it is about a man who gets laid off from work and decides to swim the english channel; (i probably put it on our que because i enjoyed the book "swimming to antartica" which i also highly recommend). anyhoo, there is a scene in this movie where the main character receives inspiration from some physically disabled children who swim in the same pool he's working out in. i don't believe they used actors for the scene, but that these children actually had severe physical handicaps. it was neat to see them in the water and easy to be inspired by them. obviously i have a tender spot in my heart for kids with special needs and it was a refreshing surprise to see them in this movie.

p.s. i have tried a few times to turn off the automatic play switch on my playlist, but i haven't figured it out yet (help, natalie or darlaina!!). i'll keep on it.

amazing race

yes, yes, my show has started and life is good. the past two episodes have been good and i'm excited for this season. here are some of the things that i already have enjoyed about this season:

• when kate and pat said: "i know we are religious people, but we are under no delusions that God cares whether we win a million dollars." hallelujah!! considering myself to be religious as well, i'm glad that someone finally said that rather than pray for Jesus to help them win.
• a pointer for all: don't go on the amazing race and say something like: "karma is a b****, but i'm a bigger b****", then steal someone's cab and then end up being the first team kicked off because your donkey won't move and you watch at least four other teams pass you. i will admit that ari and stealla were able to laugh about karma teaching them a lesson at the end of the episode.
• i just love how quickly the blondes gave up on their appearances while the goth couple is keeping up with their make-up. something in that makes me smile for whatever reason.

here's some conversations between pat and i on our recent outing to Boston that explain why we've never applied to be on the show (other than being completely out of shape):

ME (turning a map upside down in my attempt to read it): "man, i would stink at reading maps on the amazing race."

PAT: "yeah, you would."

a few minutes later:

PAT (after i flick my fingers on his head in response to yet another sassy remark): "yeah, we would be very entertaining on the amazing race."

halloween

sorry to leave you hanging on our halloween costumes, this past week has been very busy. my opa comes in from california this coming wednesday and will stay for two weeks. so blogging in november might be sporatic.

now back to halloween: as you can tell from the picture, lily gladly wore her cindy-lou who costume. for once, i played my cards right. i knew that i didn't want to have a showdown over the costume until it was actually time to go trick-or-treating. so while i never fully agreed to gabriella, i never fully disagreed either. on halloween, i went out to buy glitter hairspray in an attempt to beef up gracie's "cheetah girl" costume (fyi - she insisted on the jean shorts and not too poofed up hair because that's how the cheetah girls dress). when i bought the hairspray, i told lily that she could put it in her hair if she was cindy-lou who. that night she came into the bathroom while i was doing gracie's hair. i started to put her hair up in the cindy-lou style and she got mad and left. i didn't say anything. she came back later, let me put her hair up like cindy-lou complete with gold glitter hairspray. there were no tears and she happily put her costume on after her hair was done. she even got double the candy at one house because (and i exaggerate not) the woman thought her cindy-lou who costume was so great and deserved extra candy. am i a great mom or what?! lest you think i'm too perfect, we also traditionally take the screen out of our storm door on halloween so we don't have to open two doors to give candy away. evan fell through the door twice (not once - twice) and landed on his face. and yes, i was nearby both times!

p.s. lily has asked to go trick-or-treating several times since halloween. she has also decided that she wants to be mary poppins for next halloween, which i think is an absolutely wonderful idea! note to self: next september ban any viewing of high school musical and only watch mary poppins up until halloween.

p.p.s. the boys were jack-jack and dash from the incredibles. jake hated to wear his mask and so it's not on in this picture. evan's mask was off by the next shot.