Photo Friday, April 24

Four, two-four, two-four . . . that's today's date, well if it were 92 years ago, the day my grandmother was born.  She always liked saying her birthday like that, like a pattern.  Truett would have loved it, he likes patterns!

It turns out that neither Michael nor I took any pictures this week.  Oops!  Sorry!  I do have this one family picture that my friend Sandra took at the talent show last week.  

So, since I don't really have any pictures to show you, I'll give you a State of the Quinlans address.

Starting with Paisley . . . she learned to ride a bike yesterday!  She always wants to go outside to ride, but that usually means that I have walk bent over behind her to push her.  Not my favorite way to spend the afternoon.  But, yesterday, she just took off.  Woo Hoo!!!  She was sick last week.  Just a fever for a day, but her voice still sounds all crackly.  She is talking all the time, but can't say "S," so sometimes it's hard to understand her (sometimes I have to get Truett to help interpret).  At church here, people always greet with, "Happy Sunday!"  But, Paisley's comes out as "Happy Unday!"  People get a kick out of it.  We think she may be trying to compensate it in some ways, like saying, "yep!" instead of, "yes." She still loves going to school and loves doing anything and everything her big brother is doing.  She's also learning to test her boundaries, oh a two year old!!!

Truett . . . He decided he wants to ride his bicycle without training wheels.  Michael has done some research and found that the best way to teach a kid to ride a bike after the training wheels are off is to first take the pedals off, too.  This helps teach balance without having to worry about pedaling.  So, we took 'em off.  It's taking some getting used to.  Unfortunately for me, although I'm no longer having to bend over to help Paisley ride, I'm now having to bend over to help Truett balance.  One day it will all be over!!  Truett was sick about a week and a half ago.  Maybe Paisley caught it from him.  When he's sick, we usually let him just sit and watch a movie (or 2).  He had been watching for quite a while, so I told him it was time to turn it off.  There was no protest (miracle!), but then he didn't get up to go play.  He said he was just going to stay there on the couch.  Poor kid!  Needless to say, I turned a movie back on for him!  Tru is still having trouble at school, not wanting to go in.  It breaks my heart every time.  He cries like I'm abandoning him.  He's good on most days, we have a little routine down.  But, if anything is a little different (like one specific teacher isn't there to greet us), it sends him into a tailspin.  It's going to be rough when he moves to a new class in a couple of months.

Michael . . . He was pretty sick a few weeks ago (are you noticing a theme???).  He was in bed for about 4 days.  He's all better, but now he has some yucky rash on his back.  He's headed to a nearby town tomorrow to talk to some college students.  It'll be good.  He's still busy with schoolwork.  He's got another month or so of that before he heads back to the States for a few weeks.  I know he's looking forward to seeing his family and friends, but I think there's a possibility he might be looking forward to Dr Pepper and Chick Fil A more.  He told me he wouldn't bring a chicken sandwich back for me on the plane, something about food safety???

Me . . . I have  NOT been sick.  Hooray!  I've been busy teaching school and keeping up with the kids.  Teaching is going well, but I don't like being an English teacher.  I only have about 5 more weeks of it.  That is SO good!  I told the school this past week that I would teach math for 1 grade next school year.  That's 2 classes and they only meet once a week.  That will be so much better than what I'm doing now!  Other than that, I'm keeping busy with learning the language (as is Michael).  We have classes once a week while the kids are in school.   We're also trying to speak to our neighbors more in Indonesian.  Our next door neighbor is great about helping us out with that.

So, that's our life!  Leave me a comment and let me know what's going on in YOUR life!

We've Got Talent!

The kids won 3rd place in their school-wide talent show!*  

I'm not sure we were supposed to be in the talent show.  In the letter to the students, it said that the preschool classes were doing a costume contest.  I asked if our kids could still do a talent, and they let us.  I guess none of the other preschool students' parents asked.  So, one of our family's favorite songs to jam out to in the car is "I've Been Working on the Railroad."  Well, let's be honest, the kids and I love to shout it out, Michael just endures us =)  So, I decided that would be a great song to sing for Olifant's Got Talent.  We sang it over and over, Michael found us a karaoke version, they practiced some little dance moves, I remembered the kids had some semi-matching blue and white railroad engineer-looking shorts, and we bought some red material that would do as bandanas.  I was worried about how the kids would do.  There was a possibility that they would get scared and refuse to go on stage.  There was a possibility that they would get on stage and just yell or act silly.  There was a possibility they would actually get up on stage and sing.  Lucky for us, they did possibility #3.  Truett was not feeling so well, so they didn't do their little motions.  He didn't hold the mic up close to his mouth, so you can't hear him so well.  But they were still cute.  Here are some pictures:

 Here they are getting their awards.  They each got one for participating and they got one together for 3rd place.

Remember I told you that Paisley likes posing for the camera?  Get ready for a good laugh.

 Should we vote?  Which one is your favorite Paisley Pose?

I think there is a good chance they just won because they are foreigners, young, and cute.  But, hey, we'll take it!

Enjoy the video! (the beginning is loud, you may want to turn down your speakers)

*Simple Disclaimer:  There were 5 different categories.  Our kids won 3rd place in their category, but there were only 8 acts in their category.  However, they were the youngest there, and the oldest were in 5th grade.

Photo Friday April 17

I think the title of this post should be "The Many Faces of Paisley."  It seems that she decided, just this week, that she should start making funny faces for the camera.  

Cute, but I would like a nice picture of her every now and then!

These first pictures are from a friend's birthday party.  Two pinatas in one week.  We have WAY too much candy in this house these days!

 Easter Pictures

Easter Egg hunt at Sunday school.   Michael got mostly pictures of Mitchell because our kids were in other rooms hunting eggs.  So, on top of the 2 pinatas with candy this past week, they also got eggs filled with candy!

This is Paisely's new dress for school pictures.  The fabric had to be batik.  Pretty cute, huh??

The kids are going to be in a talent show tomorrow and we had to go to a technical meeting for it this week.  The room was incredibly hot and crowded, and  the leader was speaking in Indonesian.  

So, what do we do?  We take pictures!!

 What a cute new dress!  Don't mind the faces this silly girl is making.

 The kids love to stand on these weight loss machines at the mall.  It's really fun to watch them!  I put the first picture on here because I thought Truett had a funny look on his face.