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"???

Go vote for Heather!

My friend Chelsea is giving away a makeover to a lucky winner (I didn't know about it soon enough to enter... blast), but my friend Heather made it to the top 5! Go to makeyouover.blogspot.com and vote for Heather! Go to this link to see what she will win!!!

Good luck, Heather! I hope you win!!!


p.s. SPREAD THE WORD!!!

Sight or Sanity? It's a toss up.

It has been a little over 3 months since my eye surgery. It is by far the best money I have ever spent. I still can't believe I went through with it, and that I can see now! Every night I still feel like I need to take my contacts out. Only I don't. :)

A close second to title of the best money I have ever spent is our new play structure! My kids live outside now! It is basically awesome. Jeremy just got a bonus from work, and I saw this one in the ToysRus ad and jumped on it. My kids flipped.

Jeremy and I worked on it for 3 days (before and after work). It was a serious project, but well worth the time! We had fun building it together.

Liah flipped when she found out it had swings. Jeremy has been against swing sets since the beginning of time because he got hurt on one as a kid. "They're dangerous!" This coming from the man who thinks planes and motorcycles are perfectly acceptable, but still holds that swings are dangerous. LOL. He agreed I had a point. And I won. Kids are going to get hurt no matter what. Sorry.

It also has monkey bars...

...and a rock wall...

...and a slide...

...and a restaurant...

...and a "school."

Typical afternoon: Liah swinging to her heart's delight and Emily reading Sean a story in their "school."

The glider also doubles as a surfboard.

The playset also was supposed to come with stools for the café, but when we got to that step in the setup process, alas there were no stools. So we had to wait for them to be shipped. They just arrived and I installed them yesterday. The kids were so excited. Liah and Emily both had lunch at their café yesterday, and snack out there today.

My kids are in heaven, and I'm not going to lie, so am I!

Emily wrote uncle Justin an email (he is in Haiti right now):

"Hi Uncle Justin,

I hope you're safe in Haiti. I got a playhouse from Toy's R Us. My dad & mom are building the playhouse. It has a school. It even has a slide. It is going to have swings. And it even has a restaurant. It's going to have lots of playthings on it. That's the end.

Bye bye. I love you.

Love,
Emily"

He wrote back and said:

"Oh Emily. That's not a playhouse, silly! Your mom and dad are building you a hotel. You really pulled one over on them. Way to go Emily. I'm being safe. I'm eating right. I hope I get to come home in just a few more weeks.

I love you,

Uncle Justin"

I thought it was cute.

Emily has declared that we no longer need to go to the park because "we have one in our backyard!!!"

Playdate, anyone??

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We also recently had a ward talent show. Liah and Emily both played a song on the piano. I was very proud of them. I taught them how to play, so that counts as my talent, right??

Here is Liah playing "Bluebird, Bluebird." She did great. She did mess up right at the end and scowled in her chair for the next 15 minutes. Other than that, a success.

Emily played "When the Saints Come Marching In." She had just learned this song 4 days before. It was so cute to watch her. During the week she was getting a little carried away with her chords, and I kept having to remind her to only play the chord 4 times. In the video, you can see her counting to 4 each time. It cracked me up.

Good job girls!

Seany

My little Sean is 4 today! Four?!? Really?!? Where has the time gone??

The weather has been so beautiful the last few weeks. So I had a brilliant idea. Have a party at the park, and there is no clean-up at home! Brilliant, right? Until the weather decided to turn nasty... today. It still hadn't actually started raining, so I decided to follow through with the plan. As we started driving over there, it started sprinkling a little bit. NO!!! We got to the park, said a quick prayer that the rain would hold off, and set up our little party. In my defense, it was still 60º outside.

Here are Emily, Sean and Addison waiting (and hoping) for Sean's friends to arrive.



Easiest party ever. I made homemade bread sticks, brought applesauce and Capri-suns... (notice the nasty clouds)

...the kids played on the play structure until Sean decided it was time to open presents...

Grandma MacGregor sent this present a couple weeks ago, and it has been sitting on my piano since it arrived. When I would ask Sean what he wanted to do for his birthday, all he would say is "open my animal present from Gramma!!!" (I didn't even realize it was animal print on there until he said that...)

He got UNO moo! Cutest game ever. We have had tons of fun playing it.

...and from aunt Lorie... Wall-E! As you can see, he was so excited.

Here he is hugging it. LOL.

He had the time of his life opening his presents and loved every single one.

...then we had cupcakes. Because of the wind, I could barely get one candle to stay lit. But he didn't care.

Playing with a new toy. It's a plane that shoots in the air. To quote Sean "Cool!" "Awesome!!!"

Addy was enjoying his cupcake too...

After we got home, Sean couldn't wait to take everything out of its packaging.

Daddy had to work today, so I made half of the cake mix into cupcakes for Sean's party, and half into a 6 inch round for when Daddy got home.

Candles stay lit much better indoors.

We asked Sean last night what he wants to be when he grows up. He said "a fire guy!" I thought it was so cute, but then the girls laughed at him and told him it is actually "fireman." I liked "fire guy."

The girls gave Sean a sword. He was sooo excited. He hasn't really put it down since.

Addy gave Sean a car case.

Sean got a car from Daddy that you have to build. It even comes with a kid friendly power tool. Addison decided it was a hard hat situation.

How cool is that??

Happy Birthday, Sean!!!

6:57 PM

• Just finished a nice homemade Sunday dinner
• Seany snuggling with mom on the couch and reading "Where's Waldo", showing her the "funny parts" (as mom nearly falls asleep)
• Dad talking Scout stuff on the phone
• Liah and Emily sitting at the kitchen table reading "Barbie and the 3 Musketeers", Liah teaching Emily how to read the same way Mom taught Liah
• Sounds coming from Addy's room, sounds of Addison playing with his toys.

Could life get any better?