Performances and Shiny New Things

I have my Beginner Barre Workshop today. I'm quite excited- I have my talking points, workout plan, outfit, and chocolate cake all ready to go! I'm also teaching my regular 11:45-1 class, in addition to the 2:30-4:30 workshop (and I taught yesterday morning, and Tuesday night), so I am also quite excited about the margaritas and queso I'll be inhaling after the Day O' Barre is over.

Leggings and cake; what else does a workshop need?

After years of baking, I finally used the workshop and its totally unnecessary post-workout treats to justify the purchase of my first cake stand. I just love it and now feel inspired to bake and display all the cakes on the internet. Valentine's is going to be FULL of dark chocolate and champagne this year!

Earlier this week Claire had her first elementary school performance- a Kindergarten class show to open the February PTA Meeting.

Obviously, she was super excited about this. She is our musical child. She hears a song once on the radio and somehow knows every word. She is always singing and it wasn't until she went through Kindergarten, with the same teacher as Landon, that we learned they sing every day in class. Landon never once mentioned this and seemed surprised by all the songs Claire sang for us. For him all songs, including Justin Bieber's "Sorry" that comes on the radio three times in our five minutes of driving, are brand new, but he can recite facts about animals for hours. Whereas last week Claire and I were talking about some concept she was learning in school, and she said, "Mom, it really helps if you could just sing it to me. Then I can remember everything."

Claire's teacher told us that Claire knew all 7 of their performance songs almost immediately and that everyone in the class would turn to look at her if they forgot a line; we could see that throughout the performance and it was adorable. Cora was also super excited about the performance. She insisted on jumping in one of the pictures with her big sister beforehand, and in the middle of song #3 she finally realized her beloved "Yaya" was on the stage and she jumped up and exclaimed, "Yaya! YA! YA!!". Up until that point, she had just been enjoying the music sung by this collection of anonymous small children.

Landon, who rarely jumps in my pictures anymore, requested one in front of his class's reader leader board. They're in first place for number of books read and he's a big part of it. He loves school so much, and is so low key about it. We have still never practiced his spelling words or done anything with his homework, but whenever I feel guilty about our total uninvolvement with his academics, I remind myself that he has super high grades and we have plenty of years ahead of us to argue about getting homework done. We'll be there when he needs it and in the meantime we discuss wildlife facts and fight over our rule that one in five books he reads be fiction.

All the kids had their Valentine's parties yesterday which was super exciting for all (and L&C's Friday night gymnastics class was particularly well timed). Cora wore Claire's old Valentine's outfit and it was adorable. I took her outside to get a picture and she immediately jumped in front of the school sign where I take all the big kids pictures. We got one there as she waved goodbye to L&C on their way to school and then headed over to the bushes.

When I picked her up she was covered in mac and cheese, had eaten her first cupcake, and had scraped both of her knees falling down while running, so basically it was a perfect toddler kind of a day.

As I type this a crew is on my back patio power washing and sanding it before re-staining the wood and doing a bunch of other projects like replacing the rotting step to the pool both and reframing our door where part of the wood has rotted. After checking off renos of the bathrooms and the kitchen, we're now turning to the exterior for a few projects (including, eventually, the roof, but I'm delaying that until water starts pouring into my house when it rains). Luckily this project is minimally invasive (the crew arrived at 6 a.m. and I didn't even get up until 7:30) and not subject to things like "did the old owners re-wire something wrong?" or "is this wall load bearing?". As part of the renovation, we're FINALLY getting outdoor lighting installed. In our nearly 4 years in this house we have never been able to turn on an outside light. When the sun goes down, the backyard is pitch black until morning, so this is going to be very exciting. We're also borrowing the electrician to install a gorgeous new dining room light I bought on Joss & Main and install recessed lights in our closet because those giant track lights are ugly and terrible and James hits his head on them when he walks through.

new dining table lights!

Relatedly, I bought this GORGEOUS sideboard as a birthday present over a month ago and it finally arrived yesterday. I absolutely adore it.

We had one from my parents that was lovely and great in Austin, but too small for the space and too "country" in style for our mid-century modern bungalow/Fort Worth house. So after waiting several years, stalking all furniture sites on the internet, blowing out our and redoing our kitchen, I finally settled on the perfect thing. It's huge - 72" long and 24" deep and weighing 300 lbs. and it's a statement piece to define the whole dividing wall between the living room and sun room and perfectly "glams" up the space between the dining and living room. Plus, it stores ALL our china, crystal, serving pieces, vases, and more. And I think it's the perfect thing to look at from across our (now open!!) kitchen. And since it was Wayfair, it was tax-free, had free shipping, and I spent $5 on ebay to get a 10% off coupon code to save even more money.

(Can you tell I obsessed and agonized over the purchase for months?)

pretty silvery finish

But I do love it. And with the new light fixture over the dining room table, I think the space is really going to look finished. I can't wait to show it to you!