The American Dream

Yesterday the kids had a Primary activity and after I dropped them off, I saw one of my little piano students doing a lemonade stand with her friends. Of course I stopped and bought a cup, because really, how cute is that?? So after I picked the kids up, I told them I had seen this little girl doing one, and Liah and Emily immediately thought it would be awesome to do it, too. So we went home and made up some raspberry lemonade. Savannah ran home and asked her mom for some cups, and the three of them went to work.

We made a sign, set out a little table under our awesome tree, the girls filled the cups and waited. They were SOOO excited when their first customer arrived. It was so cute. The girls felt like they needed to remind everyone that 25 cents is also one quarter (if you look closely, it even says that on the sign). :)

Here they are with their earnings. They earned $9.25! People were so nice. One lady even stopped, bought one glass and put two handfuls of change into their cup!

Good job, girls!

...and this has nothing to do with this post, but would I be me if I didn't include a cute picture of my little Addy? I love this kid!

New at the Meredith household...

1. Our first bit of news is that last Saturday, Liah lost her first top tooth! She was so excited! She can't handle the anxiety of having someone else pull it out for her, so she does her teeth pulling herself.

The toothfairy has had a little difficulty showing up to our house on time. (ah-hem) So after reading some other toothfairy stories, we decided that from now on, we leave the tooth in a little cup on the table. Liah was super excited that there was a quarter waiting in the cup when she got up. (she had, however, grown accustomed to the toothfairy leaving an extra coin for lateness... so she may or may not have been slightly disappointed in that regard. I'm sure she'll soon discover that it is way more fun for the toothfairy to be on time...)


2. My next big news is my birthday present from my mom! Yes, my birthday isn't until July, but when your mom calls and tells you about a smokin' hot deal in Walla Walla and offers to get you THIS for your birthday, you accept. (and maybe freak out a little!!!)

It's an embroidery machine!!! In the past, I have done any embroidering myself (putting names on little hats for example), but now this awesome machine does it all for me!

I made Addison this cute apron! All of my other kids have one already, but I made them before he was born. He is my little kitchen helper (and he is just cute), so clearly he needed one. Yet again, something else to make out of old jeans.

He picked the picture and the color. He was so excited. And he loved watching the picture appear (and so did I!).

Isn't he handsome?!?

Michael's has T-shirts on sale for 1.99 this week, so I let the kids each pick a color, and today we embroidered them. They each picked the picture and color for their name.

I'm having way too much fun with this. I've also added pictures to dish towels for no reason. I'm itching to put pictures on anything and everything!

Thanks, Mom!!!

Giddy-up yoo-hoo

Okay. So I was all set to do a post on Easter and my fabulous new birthday present, but I learned something last night and had to put the other post on hold. Clearly this is more important.

Let me start by telling a small background story. In Ridgecrest, CA where I grew up, every year on the 4th of July, our stake put on the production "Our Country 'Tis of Thee." Every primary-aged child was allowed to participate. It was a production with songs, dances, costumes, speaking parts, etc. that told the story of the foundation of our country and its history. It was pretty awesome. So these songs we learned, the director taught to us, and we never saw any words, we just learned them by hearing them.

Fast forward a few years. When you are no longer primary-aged, you can play in the 4th of July band. And of course I did. So I was sitting there as a teenager, following along in the music as the primary kids sang, looking at the actual lyrics, not just what I had been singing all my life, and lo and behold the lyrics are not what I thought. I was shocked! Specifically, I am referring to the song "Goin' West," which I danced in as a cute little 5 year old. All my life, I had sung the words like this:

Goin' west in a covered wagon. Giddy-up yoo-hoo! Giddy-up! Giddy-up!
Spied out the rangers. Goin' through Indy and a country.
We're gonna cross the Cumberland Gap.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the actual lyrics do not say "giddy-up yoo-hoo" but in fact read "giddyap MULE." Which clearly makes more sense, but still. And as though that wasn't enough, the next line actually reads "in spite of the danger," not "spied out the rangers" and "Indian country" not "Indy and a country." Needless to say, I felt like a big geek. (but I still laugh about it)

Fast forward to last night. I was sitting at my piano, teaching Liah how to play a song about a certain falling bridge in London. And I was reading the actual lyrics to this song and even as I read them, it made complete sense, yet all my nearly 29 years, I have been singing it a different way.

So here is what I want you to do right now. Think of the first THREE words of that song. Go ahead. Now be honest. Did you say "London bridges falling" or "London bridge is"? Turns out the real lyrics to that song say "London bridge is falling down, falling down..." and yes, that makes complete sense! There is only 1 bridge that was falling! Yet all my life I had sung "London bridges falling down."

So of course I felt the need to share my newly found knowledge with my family. But of course checking first to see if they were already smart enough to know the real lyrics. I called my mom, and she passed, but said my dad said he always thought it was "London bridges." So I called my brother Brandon, and he passed, stating that "it clearly needs a conjugated verb in the sentence for it to make any sense." LOL... while that is true, it's not like that ever entered my mind as a 5 year old. Jeremy and my sister both said "bridges." So far the score is 4 to 2.

So I have to know. And be completely honest! Were you a "London bridges" singer, or were you intellectual enough to have always known it was "London bridge is"???