Questions from the Backseat

One thing Jerry and I have learned is that we always need to be on our toes when it comes to questions from the girls as we are driving down the road. For instance, on a recent Sunday, Gracie's voice pipes up from the backseat:

"Momma, what's hail?"

"Well. . ." I start, formulating my best answer on meteorology when she continues,

"You know, where you go if you don't go to heaven."

"Oh! Well, first off, I know we've been in Oklahoma for awhile, but the word is hell, not hail. Rhymes with bell, like a jingle bell. Okay? Well, the Bible says it is a lake of fire. . ." and we are off, briefly discussing all her questions about hell in the two miles we drive to church.

After church we get in the van to go home and Gracie's inquisitive voice comes again from the backseat:

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure." I reply, taking a deep breath and waiting to see what weighty subject we have now.

"What color is a burp?" Gracie asks.

"Ummm. I don't know. I guess I imagine it's a greenish-yellow color." I reply, hesitatingly.

"No," she says gleefully, "It's BURPle!!!"

You just never know what's coming next. . .

A New Year. . .

Well, here it is, 2010. And not even the first month of 2010. Somehow, the first month has already passed me by. Sigh. So much for slogans like "Blogging again in 2010!" or "A Blog Entry A Day Keeps the Boredom Away!" or any other such nonsense.

Usually I love the beginning of a new year. It's such a great time to take stock of the last year, and have a fresh start for whatever you want to accomplish. This year, however, was somewhat different. Normally I start the year out by looking at the results of last year - seeing how I did on the ten resolutions that I made for the previous year, re-reading my journal for the last year, and usually those activities make me feel pretty good. Not this year. This year I did not accomplish even ONE of my resolutions for last year. And lest you think I was too hard on myself, some of my resolutions were: To do something for myself (massage, manicure, etc.) once a quarter. Or how about this toughie: To try a new restaurant once a quarter.

Since I didn't even manage those I certainly don't want to tell you what my ambitions were for my exercise program or scrapbooking or keeping up with my correspondence. Let me assure you though, they were doable, I just didn't do them. Then there was looking back at the past year. I must say, where I am this January looks remarkably like where I was last January. Depressing. So, here it is, February 1, 2010, and I have not made a single resolution for the new year. Zip. Zero. Nada. Zilch. And you know what. . . I think it's going to stay that way. How's this for a slogan: "2010 - The Year I Give Myself a Break!" Hmmmmm.... Catchy!

Now to catch you up - Christmas was good. We were in Texas at my in-laws, where they got several inches of snow on Christmas Eve afternoon/night. The first white Christmas DFW had seen in 80+ years, and we were there to witness it. Even though the snow wreaked havoc with uncle Aaron's travel arrangements, Santa managed to find us in Texas, and brought the girls scooters and other things. Maggie lost no time diving into her "Do It Yourself Diary of a Wimpy Kid":

And Legos hit Gracie's happy button. You could see the joy in her eyes. . . if only you could see her eyes. Oy, it's taking forever for these bangs to grow out!!!

Gracie and Pepaw headed out to play in the snow and managed to scrape up a snowman before the snow melted:

It didn't take long for the roads to clear though, and we headed to Granddad and Nana's house where there were several new kids that needed to be bottle fed three times a day. Maggie and Gracie were only too happy to help Nana out with this chore, even asking to be woken up at six o'clock in the morning so they wouldn't miss an opportunity to feed them. Here's Maggie holding the littlest goat - she has a goat coat because it's pretty cold out there!

And here's a bottle feeding in all its glory:

Pretty soon Jerry and I headed back up to Oklahoma City, where they had gotten twelve inches of snow on Christmas Eve, and there was still plenty of it hanging around. The worst of the driving was getting through our neighborhood. The snow had drifted against our garage door, and we ended up using the van as a snowplow to get in. The next day I shoveled the drive using our box blade garden shovel. I hurt for a week. I thought it was finally time to get a snow shovel - so when they were back in stock, we did. I thought this would be insurance against further snow this year, but - as you will see - no such luck.

When the girls got home on New Year's Eve there was still plenty of snow around. They immediately went into the back yard to play with the snow - the only problem was that the snow was so dry, it wouldn't pack into snowballs. We ended up getting a spray bottle to wet the snow so we could have a snowball fight. Maggie persevered and eventually made a very small snowman of her own:

We went back to school, work, etc. and eventually the weather warmed up a bit. We had a good time celebrating Jerry's birthday, and got into the swing of Girl Scout Cookie Sales. Gracie has been particularly gung-ho about this. The first weekend we sold cookies, she was riding her new scooter from house to house when she hit a bump and went down hard. She scraped up her chin pretty good, and let out enough hollers to get Jerry down the street to help handle the situation. Still, she was back on the scooter that afternoon, selling cookies.

Fast forward to the next weekend, when she rings a doorbell, a man answers the door, and his ferocious mini terrier-type dog comes out snarling and barking and bites her on the ankle. Wow! In all my years of cookies, that was a first. Pandemonium ensued, I took her home, we cleaned the wound and realized that yes, she had in fact been bitten, and it did break the skin. We went back over there, and I rang the doorbell while she stood at a distance and I asked the dog's owner about his shots and so forth. Eventually Gracie did walk up (the dog was not there) and asked the lady, "Can't you teach your dog to be nice?" Still, she wanted to go sell more cookies that afternoon. What a trooper!

Last week we got the news - more snow on the way. It was supposed to start on Thursday, late morning, so they didn't have school that day. It rained all day, and then sleeted about 1/2 inch that evening, making things slick for the next morning. The next morning though, it started snowing - and didn't stop until way into the evening. We went out while it was still snowing and sledded down the hills with some neighborhood friends, but it was really coming down - no challenge at all to catch snowflakes on your tongue - just open up and say "AH!" I couldn't even get a decent picture - too many snowflakes:

Once it stopped though, it was just beautiful:

although I'm not sure the herbs will pull through this winter:

I was glad it was a Saturday though - that meant I had help shoveling the driveway, which was a real challenge considering the 1/2 inch of sleet that fell before the snow. It took Jerry and I about four hours to clear the drive and walkway, even with our new show shovel (and the garden shovel, and a pitchfork to break the ice!)

Even though, the streets were still icy enough that they cancelled school today (Monday) and now they've cancelled it for tomorrow. That makes four snow/ice days and one day they closed just because it was so cold. So I guess that means that we will have to come back to school after Memorial Day. Rats! I was hoping to kick off the summer with a nice long weekend trip, but I guess that's out!

Today the birds, specifically the robins, being ravenous from everything being under the snow, found our bumper crop of holly berries on the bushes next to our front walk. There were so many of them, it looked like a scene from The Birds - except with robins. There must have been at least 25 of them. I took a few pictures of the large flock, but my camera was set wrong and they turned out as big black blobs. By the time I got the camera adjusted, they had flown off to my neighbor's holly. Still, I got this one shot:

The other thing that caught my eye were these icicles hanging outside my guest room window. They are right above the dryer vent, and I've been doing laundry all day. I'm not sure if the heat from the vent is the cause of this, but look how twisted these icicles are - they look like little fingers reaching down:

Very interesting. I love to wander around and look at all the snow and ice sculptures that Mother Nature has made these past few days - if only it wasn't so danged cold! Oh well. I guess it comes with the territory.

Well, I guess that's it for now - I better go get ready for a fun-filled day with the girls again tomorrow - but please, oh please, let the sun shine tomorrow!

Catching Up

'Twas the day before Christmas,

Sitting before my blog,

Months have gone by

And my memory's a fog.

What's happened around here

Since my October update?

A whole lot of stuff,

Too much to relate.

First there was Halloween

With candy galore

Pocohontas and Elizaeth Cole

Graced our door

Next came the leaves

They fell and fell.

I raked them up

And began to yell:

"Someone bring me a bag!"

But there were none to be had,

So the girls had lots

Of leaf fun instead.

Soon Veteran's day

Came to our school

The Girl Scouts thought

A Flag Ceremony would be cool

So we put on our vests

And answered the call

We did our best

I was proud of them all.

Next came Thanksgiving,

Time to hit the road.

We saw GGma with everyone,

Eighteen relatives, all told.

The next day was a test

of patience and grace

To get a Christmas card photo

With no pouty face.

Once the photo was taken

It was time to relax

We headed out to the stock pond

to relax to the max.

The catfish were crafty,

Sneaky and quick,

Gracie caught one,

Maggie just caught a stick.

Once back home

A project had to be made

A red panda habitat -

Maggie got a good grade

We also had fun

building gingerbread houses,

With loads of candy

the girls nibbled like mouses.

We celebrated at Church

Rang bells and sang too,

Happy Birthday Jesus,

We love you!

We know in our hearts

He's the reason for the season

But we saw Santa too -

We don't think that's treason.

Once last stop at the mall

to see cool Legos

the girls could have played for hours

except we said, "Let's go!"

We have to pack

and be on our way

So we drove to DFW

and here we will stay

For the snow's coming down

all over the road

and for right now,

my story is told.

Have a Merry, Merry Christmas!!!

Yes, yes, I KNOW!!!

Okay - I am aware that I skipped an entire month without blogging. I've already been lectured, and I know I need to catch you up - and I will. The next 10 days, however, are solidly booked. I'm sure you know what I mean. Check back after the New Year, and I promise, I'll catch you up!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Why do I ned to lurn tu spel?

Ah spelling. This is becoming quite an issue in our household. It is Maggie's favorite subject, and she delights in her 100's and above that she brings home on a regular basis. For Gracie, however, spelling is not coming easily.

Each week Gracie has twenty spelling words. We started out like we did with Maggie - doing the spelling assignment on Wednesday and writing the words three times apiece on Thursday. She missed over half. The next week I tapped into her love of computer games with Spelling City - an online study aid. We saw very little improvement. The next week I upped the writing of the words to five times each, and the whining began.

"Do I HAVE to? I don't want to! Besides, Mom," she said with eyes rolling, "It's not like you use spelling in the REAL world!!!"

I had to laugh. Where, at her age, did she get this comment? And it's not like it's Trigonometry, it's SPELLING! I hate to tell you babe, but people DO use spelling in the real world.

So, I have contacted her teacher and will be meeting with her soon. In the meantime, we had Family Top Banana day at Gracie's class - like a show and tell of her family. On the form she filled out about what she likes and dislikes she put her favorite subject as PE and least favorite as Spelling. No surprise there.

This week's spelling assignment was to write a story and use ten of the twenty words in the story. It's a bit harder than most spelling assignments so we started early. Tuesday she had gotten a few sentences on the paper when I had them clear the table for dinner. I picked up the paper and read:

She had a hamburger her hamburger had ledes on it. how bid she eat it? She puke it up and dited it. wus it gob? it wus wundrfll

"What?" I thought. I called her into the kitchen and told her we needed to talk about her spelling story.

"We can't tell puking stories for spelling homework." I said.

"I didn't!!!" She protested.

"Yes, it says right here: "How did she eat it? She puked it up. . ."

"No Mom!!! She PICKED it up!!"

Ah. That makes all the difference in the world. I explained that pick is spelled with an I and no E, and that p-u-k-e does in fact, spell puke. Oh, and, yes, this is an example of spelling in the real world.

So we've got our noses to the grindstone, and are trying to find a way for Gracie to learn how to spell without making either of us crazy. If you have any suggestions, let me know!!

Muddy Pumpkins

Each grade level has one field trip per year, and this year Gracie's grade went to the pumpkin patch. As always, these trips are scheduled way in advance, and you go, rain or shine on your scheduled day. Unfortunately for us, it had been raining for at least four days when our scheduled day arrived, so we were in for a mud pit of a pumpkin patch. I was really not looking forward to the trip, because last week the girls had been sick with a "flu-like" illness, which they had given to me, and I had managed to parlay into a sinus infection. Since I was only on dose two of the antibiotics for that, tromping through the mud held about as much appeal as visiting Wal-Mart the day before Thanksgiving. Still, the weather hadn't dampened the kids enthusiasm for the trip, so we packed our lunches and away we went.

I was assigned a group of three girls to usher around the pumpkin patch. First the whole group went into a nice dry nursery and got a class on what we would see at the pumpkin patch. We saw lots of pumpkins - orange, green, yellow, blue, Cinderellas, and Turbins, pumpkins with warts and pumpkins without. We also heard about what animals we could see and pet.

I didn't get any shots of the girls picking their pumpkins - the field was under water in places, and I was busy trying not to fall over instead of taking photos! By the time we wrangled the pumpkins back to the barn Gracie was covered in mud, but was happy as a lark. When we got home she said it was "the greatest field trip ever!" so I guess it was a success!

In the meantime, Maggie's grade was having pumpkin day at school - one of the few times the girls activities overlapped. They made pumpkin pie, pumpkin bars and spiced pumpkin seeds. They decorated their pumpkins and sang pumpkin carols - I got there in time to see the decorated pumpkins and hear the carols. Maggie had a fun time for pumpkin day too, although hers was much drier!

Maggie's friend Bailey and their decorated pumpkins. (Maggie decorated her pumpkin as a bird.)

Our Little Comedienne

Our sweet Maggie is turning into quite the comedienne. Here's the latest examples:

*** *** *** *** ***

We were having a family meeting and Maggie had made an observation about something. Jerry commented that she was "astute."

Maggie asked her daddy, "What does astute mean?"

I answered, "Wise. Observant."

Jerry looked at me and said, "I can answer that! Let me answer my own questions! I bet you were a real know-it-all in school, always answering for everyone. . ." as he put his hand in the air doing his best impersonation of a know-it-all, "ooh, ooh-oh, pick me, pick, me!!!"

Maggie looked at him with a completely serious face and said, "Yes, Catherine?"

Needless to say, she got a laugh out of him!

*** *** *** *** ***

I am a huge fan of the comic strip "Baby Blues" and Maggie and Gracie have taken to reading my collection books of the past strips. Maggie was trying to tell her Daddy about one of the strips during dinner, but she mispronounces the names. She pronounces the father's name (Darrell) Dare-elle. Jerry thought that was pretty funny, so I asked her to tell Jerry what the name of their neighbor was.

She said, "It's Yolanda," but she makes it rhyme with the word gondola, as in Yon-doe-la.

Jerry and I started to giggle, and she looked right a Jerry with a frown on her face and said with a rather superior air, "Well, it's a Spanish name!" Which just made me laugh harder.

*** *** *** *** ***

Let there be Light!

Well, I am proud to report that after over a year of using a TV tray as a bed table, with my lamp up on top of the armoire across the room, I finally got around to getting us some new bedside tables complete with lamps! I can now read a book in bed and then roll over and turn off the light! I'm so excited I could just burst. The accomplishment of this one thing may not seem very significant to most folks, but it seems to have gotten the ball rolling at our house. A lot of our rooms seem to have stuff that is there for no apparent reason. I guess we figured that as long as we were moving in the "settling in" direction, there was no reason to stop. We started going through every closet and drawer, getting rid of anything that we didn't use or love. We got quite a bit done the first weekend, but then lost steam when we got to this:
The guest bedroom closet where I keep all my crafting stuff and anything else that doesn't have a home. This picture really didn't do it justice - I had already removed a whole layer of stuff when we took this shot. I was really down about tackling this closet, because I knew whatever we came up with would be short of my 'ideal' closet. Jerry wasn't ready to give up that easily, and he quizzed me on my 'ideal' and then he really came through. Here's the finished product:

Just look at those shelves! I married the perfect guy for me - Thank You Lord!!! And that's not all. We've ordered me a desk from the Container Store, and will be installing it soon. Woo-Hoo!!! Now all I have to do is get rid of what's in the guest room at the moment. I've taken the pics and will be posting items to Craigslist next week. In the meantime, if anyone needs a dresser, mirror, nightstand or bookshelf in Broyhill Fontanta group, give me a buzz - I might be able to get you a deal!

A Barn Dance

Well, the second grade is always the first to do their program at the girl's school, but it certainly did come up fast this year! The show was called "Barn Dance" and was based on a book of that same name. Gracie was a scarecrow this year, although she declared that she looked like a farmer, not a scarecrow. I told her that was okay, since scarecrows are supposed to look like the farmer to scare the crows away.

Each student has a dance that they do with their class, and either a speaking part of musical instrument part. Gracie got to play a musical instrument again this year - the handchimes. She's getting quite good at it! We recently lost our bass bell player in our handbell choir at church - perhaps I should suggest Gracie as a replacement! Only problem is that those big bells probably outweigh her. Perhaps in a few more years!

Here's our little star:

Playing her bells

The scarecrows are waking up!

The girls were the crows - they didn't trust to boys to have the long poles

Singing the finale

This cutie pie couldn't scare a mouse!

I went to two of the three performances. At the evening performance, Maggie and I went in to get our seats. I had already scoped out the vantage points that I wanted for photos at the first performance, so I went straight to one of those seats. Maggie was not at all happy - she didn't want to sit with her (boring) mother - she was in full social butterfly mode, and was getting ready to have a teen-age-like rebellion if she didn't get to go and sit with her friends. She ended up sitting with a friend and I stayed where I was and got good pictures, so I guess everyone went home happy in the end. My only question is, what will she be like when she's an actual teenager? Scary thought!

As if. . .

Well, it's been awhile since I blogged, but not for lack of blog-able moments. Here's some of the more fun moments from this month:

*** *** *** *** ***

Maggie and Gracie were making perler bead creations before dinner, and wanted to complete them after dinner. Once the table was cleared, it was very close to bedtime, so I told Maggie she needed to go get ready for bed and finish her bead creations the next day. Maggie threw a little temper tantrum, complete with smacking the counter and jumping up and down in frustration.

Jerry asked, "What was that?!"

I replied, "A temper tantrum, just like she was two!"

Jerry asked Maggie, "Do you need a spankin', like you're two?"

Maggie replied, "No."

Jerry: "So why did you do that?"

Maggie: "'Cause I was upset."

Jerry: "And what do you do when you're upset?"

Maggie: "I throw a fit."

Jerry: "No. What do you do when you're upset?"

Maggie: "I throw a fit!"

Jerry, looks at me a bit incredulously, so I ask Maggie, "What else could you do when you're
upset?"

Maggie, not missing a beat says, "Whine and whine and whine and whine and whine."

Jerry and I immediately cracked up, losing all parental authority in the process. Oh well.

*** *** *** *** ***

A couple of weeks ago Maggie asked me if I would please take her to Michael's so she could use some of her recently earned allowance to purchase an item she had seen there. She asked very nicely and politely, so we hopped in the car and headed to the mall and shopped.

Afterwards, as we pulled up in the driveway, I was trying to coach her to remember to say "Thank You" for the trip. I praised her for asking so nicely to go, and asked her if she had anything she wanted to say to me. She said, "Oh yes!" and hopped out of the van and started to come around the van to my door. I opened it up, she gave me a big hug and said, "I love you as if you were the greatest mommy in the world!"

As if. Hum. "As if?" I said, a bit questioningly.

"Well, everyone thinks there own mom is the greatest, but no one's really is." She explained.

Makes sense, I guess. And definitely keeps my ego in check.

*** *** *** *** ***

Our big September event was the State Fair. Granddaddy and Nana came up from DFW and to enjoy the fair and the Disney on Ice show that accompanies it with us. This year the show included Cars, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and Tinkerbell. As always, it was a great show. We got to the fair in the early afternoon, after morning rains. It was a bit steamy at first, but once the sun dipped down in the sky it was quite pleasant. Jerry's company makes discount tickets available for the fair, show and midway rides, so we had fun at a reasonable price - except for food. Wow! That stuff is expensive!

The girls were much more into the midway rides this year, so next year we will have to get a few more ride coupons! They tried the swings, fun house, big slide, aerial tramway, small roller coaster, the scrambler and the Himalayan thingy. Nana was an amazingly willing ride participant on almost all of them. She also loves fair food, so she was in her element!

We got our requisite cotton candy at the ice show, complete with hat. The girls were so cute at the show - they gasped with amazement at the characters, and waved like crazy at Minnie, although we were so far away, I'm sure we were but tiny dots to the person in the costume. The girls waved like it was just her and them though. I don't look forward to the day when they get 'too old' for all of this. I try to enjoy every minute that it lasts.

See y'all in October!