Awww, NUTS!

Asya and Kiril just finished up their short but highly successful career as amateur balleraunts (I am guessing at the PC non-gender version of ballerina). With a couple months of insanity, practices and lessons 4-5 times a week, and a week of running them to and from the Covey Center, I am glad it's over. I don't remember it being this much of a pain when I was a mouse 20 years ago. And I am sad to report that I don't remember it being so awful. Saturday, we decided to buy tickets and go watch it (support the kids). The theatre was nice enough...it should be, it's new. Just as it started, it began to slide downhill. Right off the bat, they started hitting us up for donations. Just a bit irksome, especially considering that the lessons are outrageously priced, they charged us $40 dollars in participation fees, the cheapest tickets were 16$ a seat, and the makeup for the week cost us around $100. The music was from a CD that had seen better days. It was really annoying to hear it chirping as they will do when dirty or scratched. The performances were lackluster. Some of the kids were better than the "professional" dancers. And poor poor Asya. It is not uncommon for a ballerina to biff it on stage. But if it was going to happen, it was going to happen with Asya...and it did. Fortunately, she popped right back up and continued on with the performance. It was a fun thing for them, and I am glad they had the chance, but next year, I think we will take the kids to Ballet West or go see "A Christmas Carol" at the Hale Theatre.

Today we were snowed in pretty good. The roads were all slush. So much for going to IKEA. I cleaned the walks 3 times. The last time, I got Misha dressed and dragged him out with me. He hates playing in the snow. He is just like "Randy" from A Christmas Story. Once he falls, he can't get back up and starts calling for "Hep! Hep!". After I got the walks cleaned off, I took him for a walk around the block. He seemed to enjoy that much more and was even upset when we finished even when he lost his boot a couple times and was walking in the snow.

Ewwwww!!! And Gonna Have To Watch More Carefully

The other night, we were in the middle of our weekly routine. It was after dinner. I was on the floor holding Nokolai helping Asya with Math while Iggy was drawing. Ira was reading with Dasha. Baba was off at her ESL class. As I glanced around the room, I noticed Misha under the end of the kitchen table on the carpet. Next to him was a 3/4 empty bottle of ranch dressing from Costco (that means big bottle). After dinner, it had been about 1/4 empty. The half he had anointed the floor with was being swirled around and around with his pudgy little hands. As soon as he noticed we were wise to his caper, he started to eat it. Ira grabbed the camera and recorded the moment for posterity. Here it is for your viewing pleasure. Just tilt your head to the left.


Misha is starting to run. He can actually gets some good bursts of speed on those scrawny legs of his. I realized that we need to be more observant with him. We stopped at Target to grab some shoes for Nikolai (lost one of his last weekend). As were were loading everyone in the car, Misha, who was standing next to Ira, turned and bolted. Luckily Ira caught him in time cause he was headed right out in front of a car. We bought him one of those Monkey harnesses. It works well...when we remember to bring it.