L and me

Here's a photo a fellow mom friend snapped at the Federal Reserve Bank field trip on Wednesday.

Field trip

I went with L's class to a field trip today to the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank. L got her picture taken with $1 million and watched a film about money. The museum was a bit over the third-graders' heads, but they had a good time being outside the classroom. Each kid got a bag of shredded money to take home with them. I took two extras for E and B. B said he didn't want his and E opened hers up and tried to figure out how to glue the bills back togehter.

Finishing touches

After the paint in L's room dried, she put up some wall decals over her bed. I added the ones above the door that leads into E's room.

And the blue

This morning, A took the kids to church while I stayed home and started painting the two blue walls of L's room. This afternoon, A and the girls put together their new dressers from Ikea. We were lucky to get rid of the old ones by setting them out at a block sale with "free - you haul away" signs on them.

That's pink!

We took L to Home Depot today to pick out the paint color for her room. E's room is Behr's Chinese Lavender so I searched the Behr web site to find colors that would coordinate with it. I was armed with a list of a few purple choices, a green, a tan. L, though, went straight for Behr's Disney colors - choosing Perfect as a Princess Pink and bright blue. We decided two walls can be pink, two can be blue. Today we painted the two pink walls - and are they ever bright! L loves it.

Cool night

Temperatures dipped into the low 60s this evening so we decided to have a fire. B had his friend, L, here for the evening and they were ready to roast some marshmallows. B must have a bit of pyromaniac in him, trying to set a branch of leaves on fire and walking around the house holding a stick with a flaming marshmallow on it like a torch.


Today in school, L won her class raffle. Students get tickets for turning in their homework, behaving in class, etc. She brought home a Farkle game (not sure how to play that) and Silly String. The Silly String came in handy when she was playing with the boys. Not sure how many times we had to tell her to keep the Silly String away from the fire.

E had her own fun. She as at the high school playing at the football game with the high school marching band. She walked to the high school with other middle school band members after school, ate pizza with the high schoolers, and played with them in the stands. Kind of a preview/recruiting session for the marching band. After that, she went to her friend, K's, house for a sleepover birthday party.

A gift?

L came home today with a thank you card from her teacher - a very nice thank you, I might add - for a gift we apparently sent with her to school today. L fessed up that she created the gift herself, packing a gift bag with a card, some Altoids, TicTacs and a few other things she found in a drawer on the back porch. Not sure if I should tell the teacher it was an L gift. From what he wrote in the card, he seemed please it. Again, she got the speech about how she isn't supposed to take anything from this house and give it as a gift to someone else.

Back in first grade, she gave one of her favorite after-school care providers one of a my rings she had taken from my jewelry box. It was a birthstone ruby ring Andy gave me when we were dating. Fortunately, the woman gave it back to me, praising L for her generosity but laughing, apparently knowing what lies ahead for me.

E makes dinner

Tonight was E's turn to make dinner. She used a new recipe - flipped through a cooking magazine and found a recipe for a chicken spaghetti casserole. It tasted OK, but we all decided we like her Chicken Rice-a-Roni Casserole a lot better.

L brought home her friend, C, with her after school for a playdate today. C was celebrating her 9th b-day! We made brownies and Kool-Aid.

Special occasion?

Not sure why, but L pulled out a fancy dress and black tights to wear to school today.

Progress

After two weekends of removing wallpaper and glue from L's room, this is where we're at. We bought two new dressers for the girls to go in their room when it's done. Hopefully soon we'll be able to start painting. For now, L and I have decided it will be a shade of purple.

The last room

Today Andy and I started tearing off the wallpaper in L's room. When we bought the house every room except the back porch and living room was covered in wallpaper. Through the years we've torn off wallpaper all over the house and painted. Now, it's finally time to start on L's room. Once we can decide on a color - I'm all for a light purple or a green, but L wants some shade of pink (the hotter, the better) - we'll start painting. Hopefully this week I'll be able to start taking off some of the wallpaper glue so Andy can patch the walls next weekend.

Family day

Andy and I took all three kids to the Museum of Science & Industry today. We saw a cool IMAX show about Boeing and the creation of its latest jet. Afterward, we went downtown Chicago for deep-dish pizza. The weather was perfect to be walking around downtown - 70s and sunny - even felt a bit chilly in the shade.

Music to my ears

E was practicing her clarinet this evening. She's volunteering to play after school tomorrow when the feeder schools' fourth-graders come through to check out what instruments they want to play. She also has her audition for what band seat she gets on Friday.