Snow Chicken

Dear Laney,

Last Monday, the plan was for you to stay after school to audition for the school play. The Missoula Children's Theatre would be coming to your school to put on a production of The Snow Queen. That's pretty much all we knew. 

You came out of school at the bell and told me that you had thought about it, and you did NOT want to audition. "I'm too shy," you said. "OK. We have half an hour 'til the auditions start," I said. "Why don't we sit here and talk about it for a minute?" I told you that I thought if you didn't audition, you would end up going to see the play and looking at all the kids up there on stage having fun, and you'd regret that you hadn't done it. "I won't sugar-coat it," I said, "The role of the Snow Queen will probably go to a big fourth grader, but even if you end up playing a snowflake or a tree, it'll be fun to do it with your friends. If you don't want to do it because you don't think it will be fun, or you're just not interested, that's cool. We'll go home. But don't ever sit something out just because you're nervous. The way I see it, this is a no-lose situation for you. If you get a big, fun role: great! If you get a tiny role: your whole family is still going to come see the play and cheer like crazy. If you don't get cast in the play: I will take you out for chicken tacos."

I am the Vince Lombardi of elementary school theatre pep talks. 

It was probably the promise of chicken tacos that sealed the deal, and you decided to audition. Like every other first grader who tried out, you were cast as a Snow Chicken, which means you were in a little blue feathered group with the rest of your friends. 

Auditions were Monday, rehearsals were Tuesday through Thursday, and the play was Friday. On the evening of the show, I walked you and your good friend Laila to the school to report for chicken duty. You told me not to take your picture, but I snuck this one over my shoulder.

I wish I could tell you what the plot of the show was, but there were no microphones and everyone was a little nervous and elementary schoolers only project when they really want something in the grocery store and their mamas are trying to ignore them. You had a great time up there, though:

Your brother went and paid attention, and Grandma Sue tried to explain what was going on to him, though none of us were really sure. Took me half the show to figure out the Snow Queen was a bad guy.

You celebrated opening night with a Spongebob popsicle, and you asked me "WHEN IS THE NEXT ONE!?!" leading us to believe there will be more plays in our future.

I looked at your dad and shrugged, "Well, it's probably better than soccer."

Congratulations on being brave and conquering your fear and being the cutest little Snow Chicken I've ever seen.

Love,

Mom

Weekend in Wallace

Hey y'all - 

Your schools were both closed yesterday for a teacher workday, so we had a three-day weekend to spend together. We decided, on a whim, to go spend a few days in nearby Wallace, Idaho. I feel like I've written about Wallace here before, but just in case: 

Wallace is a tiny mountain town with a population of 700-something. It's nestled between two ski areas and is surrounded by great hiking (which we did lots of) and biking (which I am philosophically opposed to, because it hurts my hiney).  It's also economically depressed and has a "Twin Peaks" vibe to it, now that most of the mining operations that made it famous are closed down. Its climate is rainy Pacific Northwest, and everything has moss growing on it. All of the shops are closed on Sundays, but the 5 bars are still open. Every single building downtown is on the National Register of Historic Places, so the federal government was forced to elevate the interstate; I-90 goes above/around  the town instead of through it. You can see the on ramp at the end of the street here:

Because Wallace seems to have halted all progress in the mid-1950s, it's also the kind of place where you can still enjoy "dangerous" playground equipment like the metal merry-go-round, and a four year-old can walk down the middle of the street, eating his strawberry ice cream without a care in the world. 

Here's a glimpse at our weekend:

Now everybody back to school!

Love,

Mom

Bobcat Bucks

Dear Laney,

Your school's mascot is the Bobcat, and your school has a fun program called Bobcat Bucks. Every teacher and staff member at your school is armed with a stack of fake currency, and if a student is caught being safe, respectful, responsible or kind, they earn a Bobcat Buck. Your first week of kindergarten, you earned one for using the railing and being careful going down the stairs; from that point on, you were hooked. 

At our very first school orientation before you entered kindergarten, your school's new principal told us that he had seen much better results from kids if the adults in their lives were always on the lookout for the things they were doing right, and rewarding those behaviors in a tangible way, vs. just criticizing the kids mistakes and looking out for the problems. 

Each teacher has a list of items that can be bought with Bobcat Bucks, from pencils to candy to a popcorn party for the whole class. Your (extra cool) 1st grade teacher has some unique options on her list, including, "Read to Mrs. Hosman's Kindergarten Class - 15 Bobcat Bucks." This is your favorite thing to spend your bucks on. 

Mrs. Hosman sent me this picture last week of you reading to her class. Hard to believe you were in that same class just a year ago. 

Love,

Mom

Easter Party, Burbach Style

(An excerpt from the online invitation) -

Hoppy Easter, Everybunny! We're resurrecting that party idea where we hide eggs and drink a bunch of mimosas and eat some ham and the next thing you know it's 8:00pm and I'm wondering why the hell you people are still in my yard. All are welcome: kids, grown-ups, semi-devout Methodists, non-denominational tree-huggers, Baptists who allow dancing, concerned Catholics who want to keep an eye on things, FLDS polygamous families (2-wife-maximum), Hindus with a thing for Bloody Marys, loosey-goosey Jews, recovering Pentecostals, escaped Scientologists, and committed Agnostics. Atheists can come, but they get no dessert.

Hey, y'all - 

We hosted our annual Easter party and brunch this year for 12 kids and 17 grown-ups. That comes out to about one person per square foot in our tiny house. 

We hid 150 eggs in our yard (filled with leftover spider rings from Halloween, shamrock tattoos from St Patrick's Day and candy from Christmas stockings).

To make it a little more sporting, we decided to give the littlest guys a 30-second head start:

...so the bigger kids had to wait on the deck and count to 30. The little guys were better egg finders than we thought they'd be, so the big kids' counting at the end became suspiciously FAST. twentysixtwentyseventwentyeighttwentyninethirty... 

Every year, my mama asks me why I don't take a beautiful Easter portrait of my children. See, in the south, Easter is a very dressy occasion. It's smocked dresses and monogrammed hair bows the size of a regulation football. It's sleeping in pink sponge rollers to get your curls just right. Here in Missoula, our style is a little more nouveau hillbilly. Hipster survivalist. Warm jackets and comfy shoes in case you get chased by a bear. 

But true to MY roots, I did fancy hair for Easter, because you can take the girl out of the Bible Belt, but you can't take the Bible Belt out of the girl. (My friends: "Are you going to Prom later?")

We had a smoked turkey, and I made hashbrown casserole and collard greens and deviled eggs and biscuits and cinnamon rolls and champagne punch. 

We set up tables in the yard and let the kids dye four dozen eggs. Hagen did ten himself, but did them in uniform solid colors only, because he is his father's child.

Because we have friends with older children, every year I come up with an alternate egg hunt for the big kids. This has honestly become my favorite part of planning the Easter party. Last year, I did a typical scavenger hunt with rhyming clues and the clue in one egg led to the clue in the next egg. I had eggs tied up in the tree, hidden at the bottom of the ice in the cooler and floating in the hot tub (at the last minute, your dad reminded me I should take the chocolate out of that one).

This year, I needed to go even bigger, so I devised a high-tech egg hunt. Each of the girls was instructed to bring her mom's smartphone:

Starting with that first letter, each clue had a QR code that they could scan with their phone. Each led to the next egg, which had another code hidden inside and so on...

Sometimes, the code linked to a video that they had to watch (Example: a YouTube link to the song "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time" led them to find the egg in my refrigerator behind the peanut butter and jelly.) Or sometimes, they would scan the code and see a really close-up picture of something in the house. They'd have to figure out what was in the picture and find it - clue eggs were hidden in my mailbox, the pocket of Laney's winter coat and the hot tub filter. 

At my most fiendish, I hid one code in the middle of our huge wall of family photos:

The girls LOVED it. It took them about half an hour to complete all the clues. Their prize at the final stop was a little bag of lip gloss and nail polish and candy.

True to tradition, guests were at our house 'til dinnertime, dancing on the deck, playing games in the yard, wearing Halloween jewelry and eating 6-month-old candy.

I can't tell you how much I love Easter with our friends.

Love,
Mom

WildWalk

Hey y'all - 

The Wildlife Film Festival is in town this week, and like always, they kicked things off with a WildWalk parade through downtown Missoula. Kids dress as their favorite animals and march all the way down the main drag until they arrive at the park and dance to a band and eat ice cream. 

Hagen went as a dragon. He's REALLY into dragons these days, especially "dragon puppies," which is not really a thing, no matter how much he wants to combine two of his favorite animals into one creature. 

Hagen: Do you know what I eat?

Innocent Bystander Mom: I see! You're a dragon!

Hagen: NO! I said, "Do you know what I eat?" It's BUGS! I EAT BUGS!!

Innocent Bystander Mom: Oh, OK, then.

We marched with the kids from Hagen's school. For girls in this age group, everything is an excuse to wear a tutu. Laney's a cat! (in a tutu). Abby and Calia are butterflies! (in tutus). Addy is a ladybug! (in a tutu).

One of Hagen's favorite teachers went as an angler fish. His friend Bea was a cheetah. 

Hagen busted out some serious moves on the dance floor. 

Go dragon puppy, go dragon puppy, GO!

Love,

Mom