Maddox requested a jam session with Henry. His primary concern was the “signal” for asking someone to take a solo. He at first suggested special hand signals, then H explained three times that this hands would be busy playing. Finally they settled on a nod to indicate a solo. Maddox then added they should use a nod that goes from bottom to top to indicate they were done with the solo. Glad that is settled.

Easter morning

Here's what was happening in our bed Sunday morning, 6:30 am. Two points of interest...

1) Ellis actually woke up at 4:00 to begin seeking out his basket. He'd specified he wanted a tricky hiding place, but we may have overshot when we put it in the dryer under some clothes. At any rate, he demanded a clue sometime around 4:30, at which point I told him clues weren't being distributed until 6 am. This resulted in him returning to his room for a 2 hour "angry nap".

2) Behind the boys, you'll notice Halloween decorations. Maddox hung them up sometime around March 15th in an attempt to "trap" his father. I think he may have meant to use the word "trick", but there's a lot about the plan I still don't understand.

Happy Birthday to Maddox

After the house clean-up and catering challenge of hosting Trey's 40th, it seemed best to outsource Maddox's party. Enter the Smugglers' Notch FunZone. 

Ellis had been invited to a couple parties there, so I was pretty confident in it being a low-effort, fun party. And there's no big "BUT" to end that sentence cause that's basically what happened. There were a few little hiccups with the cupcake making: accidentally multiplying the recipe by 8 instead of 4 - oopsies! - and my traditional dissatisfaction with anything less than perfection on the decorating. I was most annoyed that I finally got the hang of getting the Spidey-eyes to look right after 80% of them were done. Oh well, no complaints from the peanut gallery on that. 

Maddox dressed appropriately and several parents thanked me for giving their kids the chance to get some exercise on a frigid February day. Meaning the only question is whether we will ever host a kids' birthday party at our house again....

 

4+4+4+4

Ellis has been taking piano lessons for 9 months or so now (including the time off in summer). He seems to be enjoying it, despite the fights over practicing. Happily, his teacher doesn't seem to favor having the kids participate in recitals and it also very indulgent of Ellis's many many questions during lessons. Sometimes I really don't understand how he manages not to tell him to be quiet and get back to playing. For instance...

(while discussing ties vs. slurs)
Ellis: So is there a 16 note?
Teacher: You mean a 1/16th note? Yes, it's half an 1/8th note and looks like this.
E: No, no,  a note that is 16 beats long.
T: Mmm. No, not really.
E: Yes, yes, all you need is one whole note tied to another whole note, then you would make another whole note tied to another whole note then you would tie the first two to the second two. Then, the first two would be 8 and then the second two would be 8 and then you would have 16. That would be a good song.
T: I think it would be kind of boring. It would sound like this "EEEEEEEEHHHHHHHH"
E: Bwah ha ha ha.

(upon noticing something weird on one of the keys)
T: Ooops, I have to use some special cleaner on that. These keys are ivory and so they can never be replaced.
E: (shocked) What never?
T: No, it's not legal to sell or buy ivory anymore.
E: Really? Can't they have just one big ivory sale every year?
T: No, because they have to kill elephants to get it and that's not legal anymore.
E: (exasperated) Why don't they just use walruses?

snowmen

The kids have been very sweet this fall and advent season. And I'm failing miserably to document it. And I can't count on my memory, lord knows. The last week was full of Christmas fun, icy weather, family visiting, and a few days where I didn't even a mental to do list. Weird.

Anyway, Ellis went on a pomegranate juice binge sometime around mid-November and I remembered seeing a craft that utilized tissue paper to decorate pomegranate juice bottles as snowmen. Here's Maddox making one and Ellis showing off the finished product.