Update 1 April 2012

Happy Palm Sunday!

Arianna kicked off the week with the extractions of four pre-molar permanent teeth. She was really brave during the procedure but later became worried when her mouth was too numb to drink or speak properly. The gauze and I kept her company and we all made some good progress in the fifth Harry Potter book. By dinnertime, the bleeding and numbness stopped and she was able to eat some soup. Her mouth has been pretty sensitive all week, so we’ve made good progress at whittling away at the many Campbell’s products in our pantry. Carlos, who does not consider soup to be man food, has suffered bravely through our menu modifications.

On Thursday, Green Dot Charter Schools moved me into the final round of interviews. They are trying me out for an English Language Arts position at Animo Leadership, one of their most successful turnaround schools. I am excited about the school and the interview but feel even more nervous than in previous rounds. Luckily, my interview isn’t until the 19th, so I have time to prepare an awesome lesson plan. You can learn more about Animo through the following links:

http://schools.greendot.org/leadership/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animo_Leadership_Charter_High_School.

Walmart finally got in a new shipment of “Carlos pants.” I have been looking for these since December and even had to contact the corporate offices with a plea to bring them back. Walmart sells these great Faded Glory cargo pants that look nice but feature an elastic waistband (hence, why I buy them for my expandable son). Carlos, who has come into his full boyhood, put holes in the knees of the pants that I bought at the beginning of the school year; then, his repeated efforts to perfect the victory soccer slide tore out the knee patches that I had added to said pants. So, despite my loathing for all things *sewing,* I was actually happy to spend a significant amount of time this week in front of the sewing machine. His old, holey pants are now shorts, and he finally has new pants that say, “My parents are not white trash.” It was a small but well-deserved victory for Mommy (who will abstain from sliding in celebration).

This weekend was springtime General Conference. Ideally, this means that our perfect little family sits in front of the TV, watches the Church’s global broadcast, and learns how to become even better people. In practice, however, my kids wrecked their rooms whenever I was watching conference, and I spent the rest of each day cleaning (and issuing time outs). Something about being trapped in my house for two days with my kids put me over the edge, and we ended up not only cleaning the house, but making every surface shine ostentatiously. As a result, the house was very un-Lauren in its museum-ness when church friends arrived for dinner tonight. We ate enchiladas with all the right yummy sides and enjoyed a good visit. I still feel like a newbie in “The Valley,” so I’ve been working hard to match names with faces; it’s become an increasingly urgent goal now that I teach adult Sunday School! Hopefully dinners like tonight’s will make the process quicker and more meaningful. (In this picture, guest Jared Banks is shamelessly wasting my kids at Mario Kart.) 

Amid all of this insanity, the sun peeked through the clouds today. I gussied up the kids in their new Easter clothes and snapped some cute photos. I would like to say that all of the pictures looked like this,

but most of them were more along these lines (windy).

Still, we got some great shots of the kids that they will be able to enjoy in years to come.

Well, our excitement for this coming week will be Kirk’s eventual return from his business trip craziness. He’s been in Kazakhstan, Russia, Finland, and Switzerland in the past 1 ½ weeks, and I am beginning to give up on figuring out when it’s OK to call him (4 time zones multiplied by Europe’s daylight savings change over in some but not all of those countries!). This was Kirk’s first visit to Finland, so it will be fun to hear his impressions and see his pictures.

Have a blessed and meaningful Easter week! 

P.S. No April Fool's pranks for today, but I did scare the %@#*&!? out of Kirk earlier this week when I used the "Find My iPhone" app to set off alarms on his phone and iPad just as a meeting was starting in Russia. Ah, I love cyber stalking from afar!