Overlooked

Since my memory stinks, I try to be pretty thorough with this blog. I’ve had a bad case of the winter blahs the last couple of months, so there are few things that I would have normally blogged about that went under the radar. I thought I would do a quick post to catch all of the stragglers.

Piano Recital

Ben and Emily had their winter piano recital last month. Emily played “The Mermaid” and “Andante”. Ben played “Beach Party” and “Rip Roarin’ Rag” (kind of a funny choice since he is still working on mastering those dang Rs). They both played flawlessly and didn’t seem the least bit nervous to get up in front of everyone. Last year they both had serious stage fright, so I was happy to see them acting more calm and confident this time around.

The only catastrophe of the day was Ben’s outfit. I’ve always made him wear a suit and tie to his recitals and he has always complained about it. I decided that it was time to pick my battles. We compromised and I let him wear khaki pants and a polo shirt. It bugged me that he didn’t look dressed up enough, but I was almost over it. Then he got up to introduce his songs. He hiked up his pants right as he stood up so it looked like they were quality four inch floods. I’m pretty sure next time he will be wearing his suit. :)


Nate Had a Birthday Shout Hooray!

Nate turned 38 on the 1st of February. He got lots cooler presents than most years . . . a scroll saw, a set of router bits, and the 1910 expansion for our Ticket to Ride game. He knew about all of them ahead of time, but he was good at pretending to be surprised for the kids. We did all of our normal Tuesday night stuff and threw in some chocolate cream pie and a round of Ticket to Ride to make it special.


Beer Belly Eyes

We’ve been building up a Health Savings Account for the last few years. We figured once we had a good buffer in there that would cover any unexpected medical expenses we would both get Lasik. This was going to be our Lasik year. It turns out that neither of us will be getting it done. My corneas are perfectly healthy, but my vision isn’t bad enough to make me a good candidate. Nate’s vision is LOUSY, but we found out that he has a rare (1 in 1000) condition called keratoconus (aka beer belly eye). Basically his corneas kind of bulge at the bottom and if they did Lasik now there is a good chance he would go blind later. So, another 50 years of squinting for me and another 50 years of contacts and glasses for Nate. The good news is that we’ll have plenty of funds in our HSA to pay for all of our kids’ braces.

Speaking of Braces

Emily has started on her orthodontic journey. She has a bit of an overbite (which may or may not be due to the fact that her mom let her have a bottle until she was two). In January, she got a cool blue bite trainer. She has been amazing about remembering to put it in every night. She had a checkup yesterday and the orthodontist was very impressed with how much her teeth have moved. Hopefully she’ll keep being so diligent and save herself the fun of wearing headgear in junior high.


Penmanship 101

Abby has started writing her name. She was reluctant to try for a long time, but she finally gave in when it was time to write her name on some Valentines. She’s pretty self-critical of her penmanship (i.e. “I made that one too long”), but she loves having this new skill. Her latest thing is to add some decoration to her letters (like the suns on the end of the Ys in the picture).