8 days of the week

Well maybe not eight days, but it sure feels like it.  Surfing is the "it" pastime right now.  

The girls go at least 4+ times a week.  Mo joined the middle school surf league.  My new car is regularly covered in sand.  We literally watched Endless Summer last night as a family.  

They are ALL. IN.

The Sounds of a Pandemic

Oddly enough the COVID-19 pandemic has not changed my schedule exceedingly.  If anything I have more time as I no longer have to drive people to school and then pick up and drive around to various practices after school.  No joke, this probably gives me anywhere between 2-3 hours more a day.

But, the tradeoff is I am no longer alone in my office (house).  The number of interruptions in my work day is countless.  Questions about their school work, how to email an image to a group when they have email accounts that are limiting, how to crop an image for an assignment, how to change a document into a .pdf, questions about how to get answers from a counselor, etc.  

I guess I should be happy they are cute little faces popping in ...  

But, clearly as the image shows those regular interruptions are also accompanied by quite a bit of noise.  

And, yes that is a saxophone.  Katie convinced her music teacher to loan it to her before school let out.  

The sounds of guitar, ukulele, clarinet and now saxophone fill the air at all hours of the day and night in house of the Little Wickies.

Katie has started composing, which can be frustrating for her as in her words "I can't get what's in my head into this program!"  And, she really has no one to help her as this is way out of my league.  A snippet of the intro she has been working on:

Mo has been teaching her "sisters" Lani and Keera to play uke. They made "The Coronavirus Song."  If you listen, make sure to have the Closed Captions (CC) on so you can see the lyrics.

I am so happy they have music in their lives ... but, man it's loud around here these days!

These American Girls are Heartbroken

RIP Tom Petty.

1977

That's when Tom Petty released the song "American Girl."

KT covered last night in her school talent show, and while it seemed to play a little more to the grown ups in the crowd, I think she did great (but I am her mom).

It was so dark I wasn't able to video it -- we are getting a video later apparently.

In the meantime, here she is at the dress rehearsal.  KT singing Tom Petty's "American Girl" on her uke...


Note:  YouTube has different screen dimensions than what I recorded it in, and I have no idea how to compensate for that, so excuse her head getting cut off from time to time!

mo rides

We've been trying to convince Mo to take off her training wheels for awhile now.  Her balance on the razor scooter has been good for some time, so we thought she could do it.

Last week she did it!

Love the outfit she pulled together for the momentous occasion.

Oh, the days of this.

And, a little video from the second day when she really got the hang of it.

the last 10 days of xmas

So I know December is a busy month for everyone, but this year it has seemed crazier than usual.  

First of all we have a lot of birthdays in December between our family and close friends -- Me, Kaitlyn, my little brother, both his kids, Grandpa John, Papa's best friend Chris, Chris' son Noah, Greg, a slew of Kaitlyn's friends (Hayley, Cody, Lia, Amelia, etc.), my friend Jeni, my cousin Lisa -- you get the idea, right?

The last ten days looked something like this (the photography is haphazard because that's pretty much what our life has been like)

We visited family up in the Bay Area.

Friday, 4:20 p.m. -- Me on the phone with a client sitting in the King City Taco Bell while looking at these two mugs, "No, I'm not going to be able to look at the document today."

While the trip was short (we drove back on Sunday) we did get to see some family and one of our favorite toddlers -- Miss Ariana.

We came back just in time for my birthday which was a nice little day with the family.

Then the next day we headed down to Legoland for Kaitlyn's birthday (she chose this over having a party).

We checked out the surf in Carlsbad.

Then, headed up to the O.C. to see our brand new two-week old niece -- Violet.

And yes, she's as little and perfect as she looks!

During dinner we hear over a police loudspeaker that Santa is coming outside.  And, sure enough there he was on a flatbed truck to visit the neighborhood kids 50 feet from Uncle Scott's door!

My thought:  score!  I don't have to take the kids to see Santa at the mall two days before Christmas.

But, they were so hurried they didn't have a chance to tell him what they wanted.

The next morning Mo had a tap performance, her blue sequined skirt popping quite nicely in a sea of red.

Some video...

And, fate would have it -- Santa was there too!  And, we had enough time for the girls to chat with him about all their lego wishes.  Kaitlyn also told him that she wanted a soccer ball with all the Galaxy player autographs on it (gulp!)

And, lastly tonight the girls sang at church.  Kaitlyn and Mo got up and did a little holiday ditty...

Whew!  Only one more week to go in 2012...

Merry Christmas everyone!

seven

My intense little uke-playing, fast-talking, cold water-braving, sparring partner and mini love of my life will be seven tomorrow.

We may push each other's buttons, but I have to admit, she's pretty awesome (I know, I'm her mom -- but still).

Self-portrait

She impresses me repeatedly and often.  For example, her strumming has been coming along quite nicely.  Here is a little sample...

 

She is a crazy little puzzle of a girl -- scared out of her wits during a Disney movie one day, then charging into 50 degree surf the next.

I love the whole package.

Happy Birthday Babygirl!

a final special monday

Papa has been fortunate enough to work a 9/80 schedule for the last couple of years giving him every other Monday off.

We call them "Special Mondays" in our house.

Unfortunately, Special Mondays are going to be put on hold starting this month.

On our final Special Monday we were treated to spectacular 80 degree weather, so we celebrated it at the beach our favorite family place.

We picked up a pizza and then KT up from school and headed straight there.

KT loves boogie boarding right now.

The water is pretty cold now, so Mo opted to stay mostly dry sans wetsuit.

KT at sunset sporting her new grin minus yet another tooth!

A day after we set the clock back, sunset came early.

Bye for now Special Mondays.  Sniff, sniff.

the band

Katie and her friend Parker have been talking about starting their band for awhile now.

They've discussed playlists, literally drawn out who will be playing what instruments and where they will stand.  A litany of friends will hypothetically be "in" the band in any given discussion.

They've done just about everything except actually play together.

The other night they test-drove some instruments at Parker's house.

"I think I should still play the ukulele and Parker play the piano though," Katie told me later.

Can't wait for the first time they "play out."

In the meantime, here are some "performances" for you fans (a.k.a. uncles, aunts and grandparents) out there.

Father's Day song.



Video from her school's variety show.

performances galore

This year has been filled with a number of stage performances.  (This post will probably be most appreciated by the grandparents).

Most recently Katie played Annie (again) in a talent show.

Unfortunately she didn't wear the wig during the performance (she thought people would laugh at her).



In a milestone performance Katie actually talked her sister into performing with her which was huge as Maddie seems to shy away from the stage.

Here is their rendition of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" from the Lion King.



I also realized I hadn't posted her talent show performance from earlier this year for those of you following Katie's career closely...

uke school

Halmoni was gracious enough to give us some spending money for our vacation last month.

With her permission we decided to buy ukuleles -- one for Katie and one for me and Papa Wickie.

Ironically, we bought our ukes from this guy (below middle) whose picture we saw at the nearby Kaliua music store.

Later we bought his album which is pretty good!

We purchased a soprano uke for Katie and a concert uke for the grown ups.

We have been having a ball with them.  We've been trying to get Katie to strum with her pointer finger, but she's intent on doing it her way for now.

Our friend Will has promised to give us some actual lessons soon which we are looking forward to immensely.  But until then...

a misnomer

We had a very busy weekend which included Katie's talent show performance (video and photos to come later) and my friend's party (perhaps a post later see some video here - yes that's me in the back corner).

Then, at our Monday appointment the doctor discovered Katie's arm had moved out of alignment. We ended up spending the entire day in the hospital. The procedure wasn't so bad, it was the whole process leading into and coming out of anesthesia which proved to be trying.

Let me be clear: The picture above is a COMPLETE MISREPRESENTATION of the entire day which was filled with tears and whining. She smiled because she had been given her some "happy" juice. She still freaked out when they started wheeling her away, and I ended up in scrubs accompanying her in.

Whew what day.

mo the minnow

Mo is starting to swim like a big girl!

I hope your weekend goes swimmingly!

snippets of xmas

Lots going on in the land of the Little Wickies.

Katie taught Mo about her mantra "more is better" when decorating our gingerbread house.

Because even in Candyland, there are hoarders...

Katie sang at the Christmas Eve service.

Mo slept through the Christmas Eve service.

We visited huge Christmas light displays.

In the midst of the melee of the weekend, Katie lost her second tooth.

And, then there was Christmas day itself.

There was the inevitable chaos of kids ripping into presents

And, smiling faces.

And of course, there were the surprise "big hit" gifts like the voice enhancers that no one seemed to be able to put down.

Hope you and your family had a Merry one!

getting patriotic - redux

what big sis learns, mo knows too.

happy fourth!

what? you didn't know annie was part korean and chinese?

So, I've been meaning to post this for the grandparents.

Here is Katie with choir singing songs from Annie. Unfortunately they couldn't get the microphones working for the show.

guess where we were this weekend

biker chicks

Big things happening over here in Little Wickie land.

We took Katie's training wheels off about a month ago and she's zipping around (frighteningly fast).

Mo has her "own big bike," as she sings repeatedly when she rides it.

happy friday

Thanks for the card Grandpa John -- we're still enjoying it regularly...