Happy birthday, Mr. President

The students got a four-day weekend for President's Day, so by Monday my kids were looking to me for entertainment. Unfortunately, I had spent Friday in a training class, Saturday in Oxford with my Knowledge Bowl team, and Sunday in the bed with strep throat, so I was looking for a day to catch up on TiVo'ed TV. But I was outnumbered, so we loaded in the van and went to the gym for a quick workout before swinging by Target to get a craft and RedBox to rent a movie.

The craft the kids chose was a set of foam eggs to decorate with stickers and glitter. Good, clean choice. The kids worked diligently on their eggs, but Benton opted to use his own Star Wars stickers on his egg instead of the ones that came with the pack. Because nothing says Easter like Jabba the Hutt. Jabba is the slovenly creature who has a slimy tail that Benton thinks is stinky (as in poop). I guess he could give the Easter Bunny some fierce competition.

After the craft we were all pooped, so I popped in the Muppet movie we rented (not the newly-released Muppet movie but Muppets in Manhattan circa 1984 thanks to RedBox's tricky marketing ploy). I checked on the kids after a little bit and noticed that there was a large viewing party for the Muppet movie that consisted of more Barbies than I knew we owned and several nicely-dressed dolls.

(Just noticed as I was uploading these pictures two interesting things. One: there is a Barbie flashing the camera towards the middle of the pack. Two: for some reason I find it hilarious that those four dainty dolls are lined up next to the oversized and brightly-dyed Elmo.)

The next morning it was back to school on a rainy Tuesday, and I had to get a picture of Benton in David's old raincoat from 1980. Somehow that slicker has held up these 32 years. I'm so glad Benton has reached an age where he thinks David is cool. In fact, he told me earlier this week that his best friends are daddy, Tripp, and Luke. Daddy and Tripp make perfect sense, but Luke is a boy who was in Lindsey's class last year and goes to our church but probably has no idea who Benton is.

Love is in the air

For Valentine's Day, I thought it would be a fun surprise to have post it notes on the floor outside the kids' rooms and down the hall to the living room. So, I wrote personalized notes on ten sticky notes to each child, and I color coded the writing so they could figure out which note was for which child. Lindsey was thrilled; Benton was confused and just wanted his candy. The notes led to the living room where their Valentine's treats were waiting on them--a Fancy Nancy book and princess chocolates for Lindsey, and a Star Wars coloring book and Star Wars chocolates for Benton. Is it obvious what Benton's new obsession is? He has watched Return of the Jedi countless times lately. He loves C3Po, R2D2, and the Ewoks, but his favorite character is Chewbacca the Wookie, and he likes to "talk" like Chewbacca. Lynn told me the other day he was humming the Star Wars theme song while he ate lunch.

Lindsey's top note says "You are a good big sister." Benton's bottom note says "You are cute as an Ewok."

After a day with way too many sweets for all the kids, we decided to balance out the sugar with Mexican food. Where else would we have a romantic Valentine's dinner? Obviously other people think the bean place is a good choice for celebrating love because the place was packed. The live music kept Kate in her chair after she had devoured her guacamole and beans, so it was a great choice for the Ruff clan.

He's got moves like Jagger

Since we last chatted, we have had two choir productions, two illnesses, and one lost tooth. Such is life in the Ruff house.

Lindsey's choir had their much-anticipated performance of "I'll Fly Away" last Sunday. To go with the song choice, the kids wore green choir robes and had motions and clapping. Lindsey took this gig seriously, and she watched the teacher's every signal from her spot on the front row (the short genes come in handy for things like this). David watched her at the 8:30 service, and I showed up for Sunday school then watched the second performance. All those at the first service said she reminded them so much of me, and I am going to assume they don't mean condescending and bossy but rather focused and obedient. That's my girl.

Benton's choir performed their two songs this Sunday and I honestly don't remember the names of them. This is probably because unlike his sister, he did not practice the songs incessantly at home. Which leads to why during his performance, he stood on the front row (short genes!) and did not sing a word. But that boy can dance. He swayed and grooved for both songs, catching my eye every now and then to make sure I was so proud. To quote Benton, he was "amazing." My pictures are not good because we did not have good seats, but it is obvious he is marching to the beat of his own drum on the bottom right of the picture.

Kate had no choir performance, but she did have hand foot and mouth disease. We were blessed with a very mild case that included no fever or sores in her mouth (because she sure can eat). She spread it through her daycare but not the rest of our house. As soon as she recovered, I came down with strep throat. We can attribute this to the fact that we had snow one week ago and today it is seventy degrees. Mississippi weather keeps us on our toes!

Finally, Lindsey lost her second tooth, so she has caught up to her younger brother in the lost tooth category (let's hope she passes him and he has no more traumatic falls). She has been trying to convince her teacher to pull her not-loose tooth for weeks, but she woke up yesterday and the thing was hanging. So, I did what my mother would have done: told her to wait until David got home from the gym to pull it. He pulled the tooth; she got a tooth sticker and the tooth song at school, and the tooth fairy brought her a dollar during the night. Speaking of teeth, Kate now has four molars. At 13 months she has a full mouth of teeth!

I took the pictures of the girls after bathtime to show Lindsey's lost tooth and Kate's adorableness in her hooded towel. Benton, with his hands on his hips, told me to take a picture of him too. I told him he was wearing nothing but a smile, which wasn't appropriate for a picture. He insisted I take his picture in all his naked glory, so I did, but I deleted it before I uploaded pictures. Because I would hate for that picture to surface when he is running for office one day.

WOW! clowns and old women...

The two older children have been busy, which means Kate has been busy by default. It was one of those weeks we were so busy that Lindsey went to ballet, and when David picked her up he heard the teacher say, "Lindsey, please remember to bring your ballet shoes next week." Whoops.

On the 100th day of school, Lindsey's class had a celebration and dressed like they were 100 years old. Dressing a five-year-old like a 100-year-old was not an easy task, but I think the result was a decently-old looking five-year-old. While the majority of the outfit was not authentic, she did have on glasses that belonged to her great-grandfather and a brooch of her great-grandmother's.

The next dress-up day was Circus Day after a week of studying the circus. As I was creatively trying to turn her dress-up clothes into acrobats or trapeze artists, I had an epiphany: we have a friend whose son was a clown for Halloween last year. So the circus costume turned out to be a breeze, and Lindsey was the cutest clown I have ever seen.

On to Benton. This year both kids are in the choir at church. Lindsey loves the idea of choir; Benton, not so much, but he does love going to "chuch" for any reason. Lindsey's choir has been busy rehearsing for their performance next Sunday in church, and Benton's WOW (wee ones worship) choir will sing in church the following Sunday. They had a warm-up singing in the Wednesday night service this week. We did not have high hopes for Benton and would consider the night a success if he stepped on stage. Because of our low expectations, we were not disappointed. Benton got on that stage, found me on the front row, and just smiled at me. The whole time. As others were singing and dancing. Until he turned around and saw the big screen behind him that showed him "singing," so he spent the last part of the song faced backwards. We couldn't be prouder.

Lindsey later asked him why he didn't sing on stage. "Were you scared because all of those people were watching you?" "No." "Were you sad because mommy was in the audience and you wanted to sit with her?" "No." "Then why didn't you sing?" "I just not want to."

And a Kate update: that girl is into everything. She can walk now, but we often still find her walking on her knees, which is just odd. She eats everything in sight. Lindsey was a picky eater from birth; Benton ate random foods as a baby but now is picky. Kate is the best eater we have had yet, but we literally have to remove her from the kitchen every meal or she would spend her day in there eating. She has six teeth and is currently cutting a molar, which is another odd thing about her. Someone pointed out that they are called "two-year molars." Her two tricks are nodding her head and waving bye-bye, but the fun part about it is she gets the two confused. So if you tell Kate bye-bye, she nods her head at you. Kate also loves to walk around on her knees nodding her head anytime the older kids dance to Wii Just Dance.

That's a little update of what's going on around here....stay tuned for pictures of Lindsey in her choir robe next week.