Luke Climbs Harps to Get to Ice Cream

Luke and Marinda had a blast this week at playgroup!  Someone came up with the brilliant idea of walking over to the frozen yogurt place in the mall next door and then playing on the playground.  Luke was a little tired, but as soon as Marinda said they were going to get ice cream he some how found energy and chanted "ice cream!  ice cream!" all the way to the frozen yogurt shop.  Don't worry, Marinda isn't completely a sugar fiend (she may have taken Luke to the same frozen yogurt place earlier that week with friends as well... maybe...) - she made sure half of his ice cream was fresh strawberries.  :)

Waz Up

Got my hat, shades and ice cream, life is going my way!

Luke holding hands with his two best friends!
(p.s. - this is great for keeping toddlers from running off,
if they try and let go their friends won't let them!)

Marinda lost sight of him for a few seconds when he ran around
to the other side of the playground.
When she turned the corner she found him like this...
HOW DID HE GET UP THERE?!?!?

And just in case Marinda's heart WAS still beating,
he decided to show off with no hands!

For cute little Luke stories, now that Luke is talking more we can actually start posting funny quotes from him:
Amit: What's on your face? (it was a combination of snot and a hair)
Luke: Cheek (points to cheek with a smile)

On Thursday night Marinda played background music on her harp for a Mommy church dinner.  She was really nervous, but it was just going to be the same song she was going to play on Saturday for her harp concert, so she tried to see it as more time to practice.  It was actually really nice to play background music (she had never done it before) because if she made a mistake no one was really listening that closely so it was ok.  She wouldn't mind doing it again in the future - but she will say that getting her harp to the church was a stressful pain, even with awesome friends and their SUVs.  Maybe we'll wait to perform again until they can get a new car.

Yesterday was Marinda's annual harp recital! Marinda and four of her students performed. By her request, Marinda wasn't recorded, so we don't have a video to post. But needless to say, she played magically, as did her students. One fun part of the concert is that Marinda's students are getting so good they can start playing some really cool stuff. One of her students played "Let It Go" from Frozen, another played "Si Bhea, Si Mhor," a classic Irish song. Marinda played a version of  "Nearer, My God to Thee," one of the hymns from the hymnbook. Meanwhile, Luke was crazy and didn't want to sit still (toddlers have a tendency to do that) so Amit was walking the halls with him. Luke managed to learn the concept of clapping when the song is "all done," which was good. Only now whenever he's all done with anything (like eating breakfast) he starts clapping and says "clapping all done!"

The most touching part of the concert was at the end, when one of her students came up and presented flowers and read a heartwarming card talking about how wonderful of a teacher Marinda is. The timing was perfect because a few of our friends had just shown up at the end (long story, don't ask unless you want to embarrass Marinda) and they got to see the adoration from her students.

Wait!  We've talked a lot about Marinda and Luke this week, but what about Amit!?  Well, he was working... and perfecting his mad board game skills!  On Monday we had FHE with some other couples and played a rather epic game of Ticket to Ride (which the Misra's dominated!) and since then Amit has been pulling out board games every night for the two of them to play.  It has actually been really fun and even though we're tired a round of Rummy Cube doesn't take that much time and energy.

Behold our creation!
This is a game called Konexi
which is kind of like Scrabble meets Janga.

Have a good week!