Is It Friday Yet?

I just got back from watching Brayden do his "Teach Me" speech on wakeboarding. It was supposed to be between 5-7 minutes and I think he clocked in at 5:30. Way to go, dude! In classic Brayden fashion, he went to the front with his notecards out of order, and used them more than he needed (he could have done it without them), but on the other hand, he supplied all the info necessary, and working with the notecards kept him from fidgeting. I'm proud of him, and so thankful that stressor is out of the way.

Yesterday was a jam-packed day. It wasn't supposed to be that way, but both John and I opened our mouths up with invitations when we weren't really thinking, so we ended up going full-speed to accomplish it all. Afterschool, I took Mikayla and Kenady and Brayden and Jack to go see "Bolt". That was supposed to be next week's activity, but like I said, I messed up and invited the other kids without thinking it through. Then, because we missed out on seeing Kara and Aaron when we dropped off their presents, John invited them over for dinner last night. This was actually a great thing, as it prompted me to wake up early and clean house (which is huge for my mental well-being these days), but we were a bit rushed given that we had tickets to see the "Chambers Yuletide Production" at the Hult Center last night at 7:30. It all worked, we were able to slip in to our seats moments before the curtain went up and all was well.

As for reviews:

LOVED BOLT! DEFINITELY go see that before you see MADAGASCAR 2. We didn't spend the extra money to see it 3D which was just fine for me. Sometimes that just gets distracting. I laughed out loud a lot. Very enjoyable.

The Hult Center performance was really, really cool. It would have been even better had we all not been so rushed and sleep deprived. It was only an hour and a half - it involved several different singing and dancing groups, a couple of specialty instrument performances, and quite a bit of fun humor. Next year I definitely want Mom and Dad to go with us as I think they'd like it a lot. It's been something I've thought would be fun for several years, but it's always been at the wrong time when we left for Sunriver prior to Christmas. So, now that Sunriver is after Christmas, we got tickets. I waited until they ran a special, and crazy as it sounds, ending up with the front row, dead center set of 4 seats. It was almost too close, but then again - we didn't have to worry about any heads blocking our view. Pretty cool. As you can tell by the pics, Mikayla didn't make it all the way through. She was a "CRAZY GIRL" for Aaron and Kara - and had completely worn herself out being so hyper. Consequently, she was "out" by about halfway through the performance.



=) Challenge, Day Ten: I got to escort an elderly couple through Walmart as they needed help finding the toy and CD department to buy their grandchildren gifts.

=) Challenge, Day Eleven: I brought cookies into the secretaries at the kids' school. Even more smiles were achieved when I recounted the story of having to use one of the cookies to lure Sydney back in the car - she decided this morning would be a great day to play "Chase" at the school (I stupidly let her out to say "Hi" to an admirer"). We ended up having her follow us into the school and trapping her in the double entrance "pre-lobby".