Little Beethoven

Emma had her first recital yesterday for piano. She started as a brand new pianist this year and has loved every lesson. I haven't pressured her to practice and she just sits at the bench and starts finding the melodies to songs by trial and error. She has self taught the Star Wars theme, take me out to the ballgame and a few church songs that she sings along to. Here she is playing a song she wanted to learn, called "Make a joyful noise." She loved hearing it in church and asked her teacher if she could learn it. The teacher is amazing and handwrote the notes to simple form so Emma could learn it. Here she is.........

Beerclub, I mean bookclub

This is what remains of the Milton bookclub, three women who persevere through making meals, cleaning houses and shuttling kids to and fro, but still we are determined to read the monthly selections. No matter how smut filled, we will read the smut, no matter how much sushi we might need to eat at our meeting or how much alcohol we need to consume to get the right drink, we girls never say never. We just discussed the selection by Eileen, Snowflower and the secret Fan at the new Pensacola Alehouse. After trying out the margaritas and then settling on Blue Moon beer and Amaretto Sours, not to mention Eileen's new favorite drink, a pineapple mojito, we discussed Chinese footbinding and Nu Shu the secret writing of Chinese women who spend the majority of their lives in an upstairs room, embroidering tiny shoes to put on their nasty golden lily feet, that have been broken beyond repair to fit those itty bitty shoes. But sad to say, this may be our last meeting, as the military has need for Paul in Norfolk and of Matt in Quantico.

FINALLY a weekend home with Daddy

Since starting Southwest Rick has only been home MAYBE one day a weekend, IF we are lucky. Usually his trips start on a Thursday and end Monday or Tuesday. So, since he was here, we decided to do something totally fun. We rented a pontoon boat from the MWR facility over at mainside Pensacola. It was one of their brand new ones, lucky duckies. We just took it out to the sugar bowl which overlooks the Pensacola base and where the Blue Angels take off. The jellies were out in full force and prevented us from swimming. I'll use that as the excuse as to why I didn't get in the water. Really it's b/c mommy, can't swim until the water is warm enough to spawn hurricanes. Emma found her bodyweight in hermit crabs, Reece almost finished off a footlong chicken sub and Adeline commandeered the boat the first chance she got. I was the idiot that didn't put on sunscreen, and now my nose is paying the price. Overall a fantastic day and we ended it by having the Harris family and Baldwin's over for grilled chicken shrimp. YUM

Girl Scouts give back

Just like American Idol gives back, so does brownie troop 540. We went as a troop to the local Humane Society and donated some items that we had collected. While there it was hard NOT to try and take a kitten home with us. Reece was partial to the little orange manx cat and Emma wanted to take home the little black one. Adeline was wearing a little dress and the kittens kept running through her legs tickling her. Emma's last day of school is next week Friday, so we are getting ready for summer. Probably taking a trip up to D.C. to visit grandparents in early July and after that, just lots of swimming and library trips.

Groovy Girl Scouts

Our last meeting was Thursday and we were to dress up wearing an outfit from any time period that girl scouts was around. From 1920- to the present. Emma was multi decade girl. She wore her 60's outfit for the first part and then changed into an adorable poodle skirt from handy mandy Becky Baldwin. It was pink and poodly. We then watched some episodes of the Little Rascals which the girls found hilarious. Who knew that potty humor and people in their underpants was acceptable during the time of the little rascals. I can't tell you how many adults ended up losing their clothes from running thru bushes, having a corkscrewer rip their pants off, or have a sandbag on stage snag their dress and leave them in their unders. Whatever, it worked for us, the girls loved it. I'll be the leader again next year when she starts 2nd grade and then we will try camping outside, overnight, in the woods. oooooh.

Never Listen to Inmate 11380932

Damn you Martha Stewart!! Yesterday was Emma's day to take cupcakes in to school and pretend it was her birthday since she is a summer birthday child. So, being an obsessive, generation X Mommy, I spent hours on the internet researching super cute cupcake ideas and driving to Barnes and Nobles to pour over cupcake book ideas. Finally settling on Martha Stewart's beach themed cupcakes. Perfect for a Florida June Birthday. I woke up at 5am to mix the frosting colors, open up tons of little drink umbrellas and decorate gummi sharks, gummi fish and beachside cupcakes. Both Emma and I were excited walking through her school doors yesterday morning, with our master piece.

Two hours after school this e-mail arrived in my inbox that went out to every parent of a child at St. Paul's!

---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Julie Butler <butlerj@stpaulcatholic.net>Date: May 7, 2008 3:13 PMSubject: CUPCAKESTo: Kim Jones <jonesk@stpaulcatholic.net>
Dear Parents of K through 2nd,

We would like to request that if you send a snack to the school to celebrate your child's birthday that the snack be the same for every child. If you are sending cupcakes, do not send them decorated differently for this creates friction between children. Also, do not send them with sharp objects either on or in the cupcakes (toothpicks). If icing is being used, please think of the mess they can potentially make and use colors that are white or light-colored.

Thank you for your cooperation.-- Julie Giovanini ButlerSt. Paul Catholic SchoolAdministrative Assistant

Well all I can say is I set the standard from now on, and I love breakin the law breakin the law!

Bye Bye Baby Tooth, Helloooo Tooth Fairy

Emma has had two wiggly bottom front teeth for about 3 months now. They have gone from being just a hint of a wiggle, to almost dangling out of her mouth. The one problem with these teeth taking soooo long to fall out, is that the new permenant teeth had already poked their little tops up. I figured I better check with the dentist and he said, " bring her in those little teeth have to come out." I didn't warn her ahead of time and just picked her up early from school yesterday. But, she was a trooper and after the dentist put some sleepy potion on her teeth, he actually had her pull the teeth out herself. Yuck ( mom is very squeamish with anything to do with teeth). So, we now have a little girl with a window in her mouth. And the tooth fairy named Flicker arrived late last night with some money under the pillow. Emma wasn't impressed that it was " Only 2 dollars!" I guess the tooth fairy is a cheapskate.

Mission Impossible

Adeline your mission If you choose to accept it, will be to get your brother in trouble so that mommy is distracted. Next, climb onto the kitchen table to evade the dinner being prepared, scale the master bed and disarm the evil black cat about to blow, and finally low crawl to the train bed toy box and climb inside to take the secret elevator to your reward. Be careful Adeline only a one year old could accomplish this. This message will self destruct in 30 seconds.