The Barb Petersen Fund for Children's Literacy

Yesterday evening was a very special night for us.

C&E had their music program at school - a fun-filled program full of lullabies and rowdy night-time songs.  They got to wear their jammies as costumes and bring a favorite stuffed toy from home as a prop.  They were darling on stage and because they get their height-genes from me, they were a front-row sensation.  The teachers were nice enough to coordinate them standing together so that I didn't even have to move my camera to get shots of both of them.

Willa is never one to be left out of anything. Ever. So she was her own sort of sensation with her bouncy (albeit short) red curls, up on the mats in the very back - jamming and singing along with the big kids.

Afterwards we went out for a treat at Orange Leaf with Gramma Lynn, Papa Bill, Papa Pete, the Morrises (is that right? What is the plural of "Morris"?), and the Kathmanns.

(Notice here that Willa didn't think there was enough room on the orange couch, so went to sit by herself on the white one)

But, as lovely as all of that was, the real reason that last evening was special happened just before the official program began.

The girls attend a wonderful school (Van Buren) and I cannot say enough about the kindness, generosity, and thoughtfulness of their principal, Mr. Ryan, and the rest of the teachers and staff.

You see, when Barb started her teaching career she started at Van Buren.  And then when she went back to work after staying home with Ian and Jennifer when they were young - she went back to Van Buren.  She eventually went on to work for many years at Hoover, but she started her career - twice - at VB.

A good portion of her memorial fund has gone to creating the Barb Petersen Fund for Children's Literacy.  Barb cared so much for teaching children to read - and for teaching children the joy of reading - that this memorial seemed more than fitting.  This Fund is providing copies of the first and second place Caldecott winning books every year to both Van Buren and Hoover Elementaries.

Last night before the program, Mr. Ryan arranged for Cora and Evaline to present the books to the school.  And, since the books will be added to the regular library circulation, he made a plaque to hang in the library as a lasting tribute to Barb.

It was so touching to have a chance to present this in such a way, and wonderful to have the girls involved in the presentation.  It was a truly special evening for all of us.

My favorite ballerinas

Cora and Evaline had their dance photos taken last night, so we had to get them in full-gear: mascara and all.

March Madness

I'm not talking about college basketball.  I'm talking about life.  Whew, March was one crazy month - and it's extended its madness into April, too.

At the end of February, Ian and I started talking.  You see, back in 2011 when we put our cute, old, too-tiny house on D Ave up for sale, we sold it...and then had a very difficult time finding what we really wanted in our price range.  We must have looked at 15 houses, and we were in a short turn-around time-frame (three weeks I think), so had to move and move fast.  We got our current home with fingers crossed that it would work and....then, after about a year we knew that this would not be the house that we grew old in.  We didn't know the time frame, but we were pretty sure that we'd be moving sooner or later.

We'd been talking about it hypothetically for awhile, and this spring decided to start thinking more seriously about moving.  We had some decisions to make: did we want to build?  Or find something already existing? Our final thought was to start looking around, if we found something we loved, great, and if we didn't, then we'd build next year.

About a week later, we found something we loved.  Our house wasn't on the market yet, but we gave it shot anyway.  We put an offer in on the house, it was accepted; we spent the weekend cleaning up around the house, taking a few things over to my parent's basement, and then put our house on the market.  The house went up on a Wednesday, and by Saturday we had accepted an offer.  A week later the buyer's financing fell through and we were back at square one.  The house went on the market again on Monday and we accepted another offer on Friday.  Whew!  What a whirlwind of a few weeks!  We've passed the inspection stage, and everything looks like it is good to go on this sale.

We don't move until June 5th - so now we have some time to leisurely pack and get ourselves ready.  Or...we have some time to sit around and procrastinate, and then rush around packing at the last minute.  I'm not sure what will be our reality.  But when we do move, this will be the new place:

More pics to come in early-to-mid June when its our own stuff that will be in the pictures :-)

Other March and April news (in backwards order because that's how I clicked the photos imported from my phone):

Easter Sunday was fun - we had a busy day: brunch out with the Petersen-Kozliks, then an early afternoon at Grandma Helen's farm, dinner with the Coopers.  The following photos are the best we got :-)

Our week off is March for spring break went WAY too fast! (Luckily it was the week that we had thought we'd sold the house, so we weren't worried about showings, etc, and could just...live.)  The Children's Museum in Iowa City is always a blast:

And both girls lost their first teeth!!  Evaline had the first wiggly tooth...then Cora lost not one, but TWO teeth before Evaline lost her first one.  But (as I kept telling her) when it was ready, it would come out.  All three teeth were lost at school (always so exciting!).

Dress up

Super Pirates  (in lace and high heels!)

A great evening

Our poor girls are cursed with having a hermit as a mom.  Now, when I'm actually doing things I'm usually enjoying it - whatever it is is...but it so hard to get myself to actually go and do something.  After a long week at work, surrounded by people, and hubbub, and busy-ness, and stress, it's so much easier to just camp out at home for the weekend (and every weeknight) than to do...anything else.

But...I'm starting to regroup and make myself do more.  For instance: on Tuesday nights the girls have dance class..,.and I even take them once in a while (although, I will admit that since the school year started I'm probably averaging less than once a month).  And on Thursday nights I started going to yoga again  - I went over the summer, and then started up again after the New Year.  (And I've got to say that I LOVE it.  I'd always wanted to give it a try, and am so very glad that I did.  I love all of it - the exercise, the meditation, everything.  For about an hour and a half a week I totally become a Buddhist.)

Well, I'll finally get to the point. Last week a friend asked if we wanted some tickets to the Iowa Women's Basketball game last Sunday night.  Sunday.  Night.  The game didn't start until 5 - and we're usually shutting things down for the weekend around 5 (simple supper, bath, bed...then some Downton Abbey for me).  This wasn't part of the normal routine.  I wasn't sure that I could handle it.  But, I thought about those poor girls. For them, a trip to Target is an event worthy of celebration (but then, it is  Target, right?). I thought we'd better go, I was sure it would be great fun once we were there.

And it was.  We had such a great time.  The first half we were about 19 rows up, and then for the second half we actually got floor seats right across from the players.  The girls were just tickled to be there, despite having to walk about 6 blocks in the cold to get to the stadium.

I need to remember this the next time my hermit-tendencies start kicking in and begin dragging me (and my girls) down.

Cahoots

We’ve known from the very beginning that Cora and Evaline were a team. 

We knew this when they were one and half and we had one girl playing in the kitchen, one in the living room; a gibberish yell from the kitchen was followed by a gibberish reply from the living room followed by grabbing a particular toy and running into the kitchen to join the other.

We knew this the week before their second birthday when we moved them out of their cribs (Evaline was a bit of a climber) and they got into a dirty diaper and smeared poo all over each other – then horrified at the nastiness (they knew what they’d done) they tried to wipe it off…on the bed…and the carpet….and the wall…and the door.

We knew this when they were three and every night was a slumber party and we had to institute the “sleep rules” (no singing, no dancing, no playing), and subsequent reward (four skittles – or “Daddy Treats” as we call them in our house) as a reward in the morning for a job well done.

And...we knew this when they got themselves into the Glitter-Putty Incident.  Apparently I need to provide them with more lectures in presidential history: what really gets you into trouble isn’t the crime…it’s the cover-up.

Here’s the story:

Back in, like, October they received some slightly sticky, slightly gloopy, glitter-putty stuff as a party-favor at a friend’s birthday.  It promptly, like most small items in my house, disappeared - only to resurface several months later. In the course of play (which happened in the basement where the girls were and Ian and I were not and the details of which are still a bit hazy), the putty ended up all over Cora’s shirt and Evaline’s hair. 

I’m not sure how much deliberation went on, and how this particular disaster-recovery plan was decided on (I would have loved to have been a fly on that wall), they had Cora sneak upstairs and change her shirt (and throw the other one away in the bathroom trash).  Evaline later told Ian that the shirt had a hole in it so they had to throw it away.  I hadn’t heard this story, so when I found it in the trash later I pulled it out and the story came out.  I was able to salvage most of the shirt after a good 15 minutes of scraping and washing.

The hair wasn’t so easy, they couldn’t figure out how to get it out without cutting it.  So they did they only thing they could think of…and now Evaline has a chunk of hair – about a half-inch square – in the middle of her forehead that is about an inch long.  I found this when I was drying her hair after the shower.  Fortunately (in this, and only this, circumstance) Evaline has a horrendous cowlick that is right where this lock of hair is, so it doesn’t show much…for now anyway.  Give it a few weeks and the cowlick will make it stand straight up, I’m sure.

What were they thinking? 

On the bright side, they get along well?

Oh girls.

 I’m assuming that by getting all of these shenanigans out of their system now they will then be perfect angels in high school, right?  RIGHT?

My little dancin' queens

I'm slow to post, but better late than never...

Last weekend the girls had "Progression Night" for their dance class.  They are in the intro-level ballet class at a studio nearby, and the full-blown recital is in June (as it happens, the same day that I already bought the girls and I tickets for the Color-Run 5k...so it will be a whirl-wind day, I'm guessing...but I digress).   But they donned their leotards and a snazzy headband and performed in the Auditorium at the new Downtown library.  

Each student was allotted three tickets...which ends up being a perk of having twins, since we were therefore able to take all the grandparents with us.

I think all three girls had a fabulous time - Willa included.  She loved calling out to her sisters (whether or not they were actually the ones on the stage) and was completely captivated by the little-girl-dancers on stage.  

Without further ado...for your viewing pleasure:

(ok, a little further ado...Evaline almost never takes her eyes off her feet, Ian asked her about it later and she said that she has to watch her feet the whole time because that's the only way she can be sure they are doing the right thing)