Navy came running to the car today with the hugest smile on her face. She was so excited to show me that she had gotten the highest grade in her class on her math test. She got 31 out of 32, and got a 97%. She was absolutely elated, because the teacher made a big deal of it in front of everyone! Scout, on the other hand, wasn’t too impressed. He announced in the car, “I got a 98% on the same test in third grade”.
Dash’s nickname “Master of Disaster” has many meanings.
But quite often…it has plenty to do with his messy eating style.
You know how you know your kids are best buddies?
When an older one copies the younger one, and talks about how cool the idea was!
Recently, Dash was assigned his official Chinese name.
The teacher sends the class list to us, with the English translations of each kid’s name.
I started going down the list to see that these kids were named the Chinese equivalent of
Hard Working
Valiant
Strong
Delicate
Kind
Warrior
etc…
Every kid had a name to be proud of.
UNTIL…
Dash Denison was assigned Dan Shi Wren.
Translation:
Water Source!
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What???
I actually emailed the teacher for a different name to match Dan Shi How (Scout) meaning Handsome and Heroic, and Dan Shi Feng meaning Beautiful and Young (Navy).
Mrs. Fong tried to convince me that Water Source is a very regal name in Chinese.
When I told the other kids, they laughed so hard!
But then they started to talk all about Dash being just like the “Peeing Boy” from Belgium, and then we all knew that Mrs. Fong was guided to Dash’s name!
So “Water Source” will be his name.
And urinating all over the city will be his game.
About every two weeks, I go through a stack of Navy’s homework.
The stack is almost always riddled with great grades, perfect penmanship, creativity and strong effort.
If only I could compare what this is, to what Scout’s same assignment was. The difference is that Navy uses color, she write with pressure to the paper, she draws pictures that relate…shall I go on?
But in this stack of homework, I came across the funniest thing!
Navy’s frustration on “showing her work”!
“I don’t know Argg!”
When it comes to word problems Navy, those are my sentiments exactly!
For President’s Day, we headed to Utah.
I’d say it was a great trip — but then I’d be lying!
We almost didn’t go after we realized that when I had made the tickets, I totally screwed everything up.
I never got tickets for two of our kids, I forgot to get a rental car, and after everything got worked out, Micah and Pippi had to come home a day early.
Then when we decided to go, it took us over 14 hours to get to Utah! We were too late for our rental car, and we were all wiped out beyond belief from the never-ending day of delays and “mechanical difficulties”.
One saving grace, was that Pippi found a friend during our 4 hour delay, and Pippi took over all of her toys and electronics!
Good thing that when the kids woke up — they were so happy to be at Bella’s house…the traveling from you-know-where was a distant memory.
The other bust of the trip, was that there was literally no snow. Utah has had a really dry winter, and it was almost spring-like conditions. That wasn’t such a huge deal — except that my kids were dying to ski. And we ultimately made the decision to not go skiing with such crappy conditions.
Good thing we knew that Deer Valley had some fresh snow.
We ended up driving up to the top of Deer Valley, and got some awesome, virgin snow.
It was actually really fun.
Between snow angels, sledding, snow surfing, jumps, and snowball fights, we were well entertained for a few hours.
Did I mention frozen Snickers?
Our nights were fun at Tristen’s house.
We also spent time at Seth’s house that was really fun too with their new sport’s court.
Minus the one on one basketball game where Micah challenged Christian (where Micah almost keeled over dead), the sport’s court was amazing. It was literally so fun to just hang out while the kids played. And they played for hours upon hours.
Then…miraculously, we got snow! And a lot of snow on our last night!
So instead of driving to the snow, the kids just went outside to make snowmen.
This is Rose and Navy’s snowman “Raspberry”.
Then Rose, Navy and Christian made a bunch of awesome mini snowmen!
Meanwhile, Scout braved the new feet of snow in his pants, a borrowed jacket and beanie for hours!
He was frozen solid after three hours of sledding, but he didn’t complain once.
He is the ultimate cold weather trooper.
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In the end, our trip turned out amazing. But it was off to a very SLOW start!
Good thing that Micah and I always say — our family can have fun doing anything together.
But unfortunately, we realized that doing 14 hours of unnecessary travel might have done us in!
How classic is Pippi…who thinks she is 10 years old — or at least older than all of the other girls!
The first thing the kids did, was pick converstion hearts to answer questions. Pippi went first, and was asked, “What color are your eyes?” She didn’t hesitate for a moment, when she said, “they are Cinnamon Brown of course”! Everyone was cracking up at how…shall we say confident…she is!
Valentine’s Day has one of my favorite programs. They sing “If you don’t walk as most people do….Some people walk away from you…but I won’t, I won’t.” I love that song!!!
And I really LOVE “skid-a-ma-rink-a-dink-y-dink”. Pippi pretty much stunk at the first few songs, but when it mattered on my two favorite songs, she gave it the old college try.
And then it was off to stuff herself with sugar this Valentine’s Day!
After VAlentine’s Day, there comes Valentine Day trading. One coveted item, was a little tube of bubbles that Dash had gotten. Instead of fighting over them, they agreed to go outside and do them together. They asked permission, and headed out. A few minutes, while putting some things away in Scout’s room, I looked out to a FedEx man driving up. When I saw him look over at something about three times after he got out of his truck, I went closer to the window.
Apparently, bubbles last longer when you are higher up.
Good thing the FedEx man had the sense to tell them, that skulls don’t last longer when you are higher up.
Dash came home and told us that he needed to make a Valentine’s box to collect his Valentines in. It was due tomorrow, and he could do anything. (But it needed to be about the size of a shoe box.) Scout immediately started telling Dash his vision…it involved taking apart his El Torro Loco remote control car, nails, track, sawing and gluing. Two hours after it started, I went out to see the scene:
The truck had been dismantled…and there was no box in sight. Partly because their ideas were grand. Partly because I kept stifling them by repeating the teacher’s rules, and they were getting annoyed. When Scout was so bugged about the box having to be smaller than he wanted, he threw his arms up in the air. Dash saw this, and was in tears. This was all a bit of a disaster!
Meanwhile….
Navy had been in the kitchen cutting, painting, taping and creating. She created the cutest Valentine box. I didn’t remember her needing one, but when we all saw it, we were so impressed with it (especially the jagged teeth when you opened it to deliver your valentine).
As Dash and I walked in…we were trying to figure out what to do, when we looked over to see Navy’s finishing touch — a sign that said, “Me Want Candie”. I told her that everyone was going to love her box, when she said, “Oh, I don’t get to bring a box. I made this for Dash.”
Problem solved!
Not only did Dash have a darling box…but I just saw one of my favorite Hero Stories unfold before my eyes!
Navy….you are just a dream!
Every single day I pick up Navy, she is either under the tree at school doing her homework, or she hops right in the car, and finishes it there. It is rare that she comes home with much more than a few minutes of work. She makes my life so easy! She is literally the perfect child!
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