Sing Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. It may or may not include words. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.


The boys recently just watched Back to the Future. 

Since they watched it Mica built what he calls a Back to the Future Airplane out of Legos. It looks nothing like the DeLorean time machine, but that's ok. 

Guess what he sings when he flies his plane around? Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News.

It still has the Power of Love!

Power of Love

Just for fun, here's the Back to the Future cast when they reunited on the Today Show:

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Surgery

My mom (Grandma Spiehs) has surgery tomorrow. It's outpatient surgery. She had Polio not too long before the vaccine came out. Then it started attacking her body once again after she got married.

Here's her ankle that was fused awhile ago:


She had a hardware person in the room when she had surgery. Crazy!

Now her toes are turning under. They are putting pins in her toes to help them stay straight. Sounds painful to me!

Swimming and Jujutsu

Both boys are in swimming lessons. They've moved up twice. This last time we were told that they should stay where they are at. I agree.

They seem to listen very well during swimming lessons.

Isaak at age 4 is pretty good at swimming. We had a little problem 2 weeks ago. I went to go help Mica with a shower when Isaak was in swimming lessons. I guess Isaak was all concerned about where I was. His coach told me after lessons that Isaak would do better if I was out of sight, out of mind. I disappeared behind the glass window during the next session. I let Isaak know where I was going to be. Tonight I was talking to his coach; she was the lifeguard for the evening. I found out that she thought Isaak was 6 years old! I told her, "Nope he's only 4. His birthday is in May." She was in awww over how he did at 4 years old. The only problem is, is after he passes his next lessons Isaak can't move up to the next until he's 6 years old! I didn't know that! I don't know what I'll do. I want him to excel and be happy with his lessons; not bored!

Little Isaak now knows how to do freestyle swimming. He also likes to swim to the bottom of the pool to touch it. I taught him a stroke that does not exist, "The Tornado Stroke" it's freestyle, backstroke, freestyle, backstroke. He knows how to move his legs like a frog does and how to kick. I can stand a ways back, he jumps in and swims to me. That's 1/2 way across the pool.

He's still working on diving. 

Mica likes both swimming and Jujutsu. He has taken more interest in Jujutsu when he got his uniform last week. I didn't want to jump the gun and buy him one if he wasn't interested. He seems to like it. He's not super good at it. I have to say the uniform made a difference. Before he acted silly; now he's much more serious about it. It's a room full of boys his age kicking, punching and wrestling. I can understand why he's silly sometimes. We're still iffy on Jujutsu. We may in the future decide on Kung Fu. According to Grandpa Spiehs Kung Fu is better for Mica's body build. He's going to be tall. Jujutsu is better for shorter fellas. We'll see. I thought since we belong to the Y, Mica should give it a try to see if it's something he likes.

WW: Mexican Themed Art {Linky}

I started working on these images about 5 or so years ago. I neglected them, worked on other things. Do you ever have projects like that? Then I dug them out and finished them this summer. They are going in my brightly colored kitchen.

The kids were coloring right beside me. That was fun!

The first one is called Octopus's Garden

I kind of got the idea from the Beatles song, but was also into Mexican art and lots of techniques at the time. I suppose the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo influenced me as well.

Details. The beach is pained with clear paint and different types of sand (fine up front and course as it goes back). There are actual seashells on the sand. I used a newish clear medium that has glass beads in it for the water. The spines on the cacti are toothpicks, cut, sanded and painted. The sombrero is toothpicks as well. I mainly dripped paint on the cacti instead of painting them.

The second one is called Terra Cotta Fish Bowl

I just wanted a piece or two to go with the others. This image is much better in life. They both are. They are longest wise half the size as a standard door. It's hard seeing them small. I just wanted to carry the theme of cacti into this image as well.  I just envisioned a fish swimming in a terra cotta pot.

Details: There's sand on the ground of this one as well. I painted the walls and steps with a pain pallet to give them a stucco feel. Then washed over them. The pot I tried something that was difficult to work with. I painted it with paint, mixed with powdered dish soap. An epic fail. It kept drying and crumbling. Once I went over it with washes it was good. The cacti is dripped paint and toothpicks. Then the fish, lizard and tiles are all made out of found paper and a touch of colored pencil.

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Isaak Did the Laundry

The last two weeks I was getting so sick of doing laundry. Mostly it was Isaak's. He kept wetting the bed. He was in a stage of doing that. It's dry for a long stretch, then wet, wet, wet. I know we're not supposed to make a big deal out of it.

To be honest Isaak loves tasks. The next time he wet the bed, Isaak happily did his own laundry.

I have an old school washer and dryer; my laundry room isn't pretty. It does the job; just like Isaak did his job. Oh and Daddy helped Isaak. He didn't carry the basket up and down the steps, nor did he do the settings of everything himself. He did however make his bed. He didn't do too bad of a job. It all came untucked, but it didn't matter; it was the thought that counted right?

Any tips on night training?

Isaak goes potty right before bed. We wake Isaak up at 10:30 or 11 to go right before we go to bed. When he's in the bed wetting stretch even that doesn't matter. We also limit his liquids after dinner. That doesn't seem to matter either. I do see a pattern: When he drinks a lot during the day and eats well, that's when he wets.

Where's Isaak?

I went in to wake Isaak up from a nap and this is what he looked like:

Look at all the puppies he has by him from the bottom of his bed!

Behind him is a lovely tree that was put up that he keeps ripping off his wall. Someday I'll have to A: Re glue it, or B: Rip it down and paint it. Right now I'm not doing anything with it. If he can't respect what I've done with his room, he'll have to live with it for awhile.

*Another note: Isaak's been a manner police lately. Daddy will say something to me. Before I have a chance to answer Isaak's like, "Mom you have to say 'Thank you for talking to me'. I said, "Isaak let me just talk to Daddy." I answer him. Daddy says, "Thank you." I say, "You're welcome." Isaak says, "You have to say 'Thank you for saying thank you.'" I don't even know if I did the punctuation right on that last sentence! Anyhow I said, "Isaak I said, 'You're welcome.' That is all I need to say."