A glimpse of our life

Elyse saw a Princess cellphone at Walmart that she decided she had to have so I told her she would have to do some jobs around the house to earn the money for it.  She was super motivated and did whatever I asked her to - here she's wiping the kitchen cabinet doors.  She finally gets enough money to go get the princess phone so she proceeds to ask me everyday if we could go get it.  I was ready to go on Saturday night, but then Mara got sick and so we couldn't go.  The next day was Sunday...we couldn't go.  Elyse was so patient in waiting.  Finally we go on Monday, Elyse gets the phone in the cart and we proceed through the store to get a few other things.  Well, then she just happened to see a Princess umbrella that she wanted and we had to talk about how she only had enough money for one thing.  So the umbrella won out, and we went to put the phone away.  As we were waiting to checkout, she sees these little Princess dolls and decides she wants one of them.  Again, she had to make the choice, and the doll won out.  I think it was funny how I heard only about this Princess cellphone and how she just "had to have it," then once we get to the store, the cellphone was quickly forgotten as other things caught her eye!

This look on Ben's face tells it all...he thoroughly enjoys practicing the piano!  O.k. so really, I'm about ready to find another teacher for him.  The mother/son combination is not as effective as a teacher/son combination would be.  But Ben is funny, he picked up the hymnbook and was trying to play "Come Follow Me," so I found the simplified hymnbook for him and he practiced that hymn all the time (at the expense of his other assigned pieces!).  He did the same thing with the "Chariots of Fire" song.  I only had the original song, and so we looked for a simplified version.  He didn't want the easy one, though, because it didn't sound just like it did on Wii music (yes, that's where my kids are getting their music exposure from!).  So, he sat down with the original music and figured it out.  Sure, the fingering was all crazy, but he did it!  He does great with piano when the song is "his idea."  I need to figure out how to make him think all the songs are "his idea!"

And last of all, here I am after slaving away making dinner, getting it all on the plates and the table,calling everyone to come to dinner, and no one comes.  It's just me sitting there alone, watcing the food getting  cold.  Oh, what sadness.....