Gone Fishin’

Addie got a fishy tank from Nana and Papa for her birthday. She wanted one so she could be “just like Emma,” of course. I found this really cool Ariel one that I thought she would flip over. And she did, but it is about half the size of Emma’s and for some reason requires about four times the amount of cleaning.  Emma has had her tank for 7 or 8 months and I have cleaned it…once. Addie has had hers since September, so what? Three months or so? And it has been cleaned probably four times already.

But she does love having the tank, so that makes it worth it, right?

Anyhow, for the past week every time I walk by her tank I can smell the fishy-ness and tell Addie “we have to clean your tank tomorrow!”

Yesterday was the day. Addie decided she was going to help me and use the net to “caught my fish!”

She did really well getting the fish out of the tank, scooped it up on the first try. (Note: A little foreshadowing here…)

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Here she is safe and sound with not too much trouble, although it looks like Addie may have scared a little something out of her there…

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Clean tank, time to go back home…

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And, she makes a break for it…or she got dumped, I was too busy taking photos to see what happened.

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I did however bare-hand poor little fishy back into nice clean tank…and she seems just fine.

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No fish were harmed in the filming of this blog entry.

Addie however has told Emma several times today, “and then Mama scooped the fishy back into the tank. Next time I think Mama should use the net to caught my fish!”

The fish may not have been harmed, but Ad. may be a tiny bit traumatized by the whole ordeal.

Home ~ Theme Thursday

When J. and I got married we could count on one hand the number of homes we had grown up in…combined.

Since we have been married? We have lived in Ann Arbor, went out to San Francisco, back to Ann Arbor, including a little stint in the lovely Ypsilanti. Then it was back to the Bay area, and off to Miami for a year or so, and back to San Francisco. Then we had a brilliant idea, “hey, let’s try out the midwest again, see if that snow is any more tolerable?” and headed to Chicago, and greater Chicago-land, for a bit. And I think we all know the answer to that question, since we hightailed it back out to the west coast pretty quickly and live, once again, in sunny California.

My point to all of this, besides the fact that we seem to be a bit nomadic (or part gypsy, I’m not sure which?) – we have had many, many, many apartments and houses. But I am a pretty firm believer in “home is where you make it.”

And my home is wherever my little family is.

It is where, if you listen closely, you will hear shrieks and squeals bouncing off of the thick, photo-covered walls. You will see little underwear-clad, tutu-wearing  ballerinas slide across the hardwood floors. You will smell the mingling scents of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and a crackling fire burning in the fireplace. And, if you look hard enough, you can always find some arms that are willing to wrap you up in a big, love-filled hug and whisper “I love you’s” in your ear.

I do love to travel and visit new places, but I also really do love to come home. It is the one place we can all just sit back, relax and watch the world go buzzing by around us.

At home

Find out where everyone else’s home (or heart) is over at Stacy’s.

Am I so Fancy, Mama? ~ Wordless Wednesday

Why use one, when you can use 6?

Mmmm…it might be hard to be wordless for this one. Addie came into the living room a few days ago and said, “Look, Mama! Am I so fancy? Just like Fancy Nancy?”

We checked out a Fancy Nancy book from the library, the first real one she has read. And now she is completely enamored with being fancy, especially since Fancy Nancy has a posh puppy, too! For the record, she would now like to be addressed as Fancy Nancy, not Addie.

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Little did I know, but after I took the photos and started taking the bows and barrettes out, she had managed to get eight of them on her head. That is pretty fancy!

I’ll tumble for ya…

I have found a place to corral a tiny bit of Addie’s energy and give her a safe place to “hang” as she so dearly loves to do. We found a fun little gymnastics class.

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She was a little unsure of Coach Doris at first. She is a little…um, shall we say…brusque? Just put it this way, she doesn’t have a lot of mat-side manner. But now that Addie is over the initial shyness, she is ready to try just about anything with Coach Doris’ help.

What she really loves is the rosin, chalk-like stuff to use on her hands…

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More hangin’….

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A little bit of tumblin’…

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And astoundingly good balance!

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It is fun exploring with the girls and trying to figure out what their “thing” might be. For Addie, gymnastics seems to fit for right now.

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I just realized that I don’t have anything for Crafty Tuesday. I don’t have my work done for Work Project Wednesday next week either, so until after my Girl’s weekend, I may not have much to show. I’m positive Stacy has a thing or two, though…

Weekend Edition

Yes, it is Saturday. I don’t usually post anything on the weekends, but it has been a strange week and I haven’t managed to find two consecutive minutes to post anything since Tuesday night, so you get a Chaos week wrap-up, special weekend edition.

So, yeah…what happened this week? The time change, which all-in-all has been a very good adjustment for our happy home. It is dark while the girls are eating, which sets the stage for an early bath and both of them have been in bed and asleep by 7:30. It isn’t that much earlier than before, since they were usually in bed by 8 or 8:15, but it seems so much earlier. And since it is dark, there is no monkey business. Heads hit the pillows, eyes close, see you in the morning.

They have been getting up a little earlier, like 20-30 minutes earlier, so I guess in the end it is all about equal. But daylight at 6am means that Mommy can get a run in before the day starts without fear of falling down and cracking my head open.  (Do I say, “cracking my/your head open” a lot by the way? The other day Addie said to me, “Oh be careful Mommy you don’t want your head to crack up!”)

But generally, the time change has been good for everyone’s attitude (especially Miss Addie-tude!) and the girls have been really, really good. They even endured a very long wait at the hospital with me this week – it was nothing life-threatening but definitely had to be taken care of, and my doctor couldn’t get me in in a timely fashion. Mommy in her infinite wisdom grabbed the girls from school and headed over there. Didn’t have any diversions, snacks, not even pen and paper in my purse. Nice. But we found some pretzels, crackers, juice and entertained ourselves as best we could. I was so very thankful that they were so awesome.

That was Monday, and our week just kind of got carried away with running around and doing the usual stuff.

We had parent-teacher conferences this week for Em. Of course she got a glowing review, she is doing well and Mrs. S. said “I think Emma is going to have a great year. In fact, I don’t think there will ever be a year in her school career that is not good!” It is always fun to hear good things about your kids. I was a little thrown off when she started  talking about how the report cards look. I don’t know why but just hearing that she was getting an actual report card this year – it kind of hit me. “Wow. I have a school-aged child. A kid in real school!” So we’ll look for that report in December, but I have a feeling it will be on target.

Emma has added yet another social obligation to her busy calendar. She and her friend Avery decided they wanted to become Gospel Cherubs, part of the children’s choir at church. (Don’t worry my dear family, I think she may have Daddy’s musical genes, or at least part of them, she sounds better than I do any day of the week.) So they have practice during the week and before Sunday school and this Sunday they get to sing at church. They have little choir robes, even, so cute! I think the church would frown upon me taking photos during mass, but I’ll have to sneak one or two of them before and after. Eeee!

Speaking of photos, the girls got their school pics back. Emma’s you have to buy before you see them, and since I know we need a few photos to document her first official year in school (Ahhh!!) I just bought the little package (which was still crazy expensive – do you know how many prints of photos I could make for that amount??). But it turned out pretty well, even if she forgot to put her sweater back on.

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(It looks a little washed out here – I fear my scanner has just about had it, but for reals, it looks pretty good.)

And then Addie’s. Yes. Well, they just take a bunch and you come in and view them and see if you would like to purchase them. When she came home after picture day she had a little brush with her name on it. Uh oh. “Um, Addie, did they brush your hair today before your picture?”

“Yes, Mama! Look like, this…”

And then she proceeded to “brush” her curls. Which only makes them frizz and look all…well, like this –

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Gah. Doesn’t even look like her without the curls (not to mention the angelic little hands on the knees!), she just looks so, I don’t know? Old?!

Em also got her soccer photos back, which thankfully were included in her soccer registration fee. Why didn’t somebody warn me that having kids is so expensive?!

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Cute. The team photo is cute, too – if you leave off the Assistant Coach on the left side.

Speaking of which, we need to go get ready for Em’s game. I’ll continue the update later. Well, on J. and my end I guess all you need to know is that we are working. J. is working hard and traveling next week, and I have turned in three projects this week and have a HUGE one due the week after next. So to sum it up…just work!

I plan on taking some time to go out and hang around with the girls tomorrow. I haven’t picked up my camera all week, so we’ll see you hopefully with something good on Monday!

Yes We Can!

How amazing is our country?

I know I am in the minority among my family and a few of my very closest friends with my continued support of Barack Obama, but no matter what your political beliefs, you have to be very proud to be an American tonight.

What an incredible, historic, and memorable moment. I feel so overwhelmed and so full of hope that we are turning a corner and back on track to making this country the very best it can be.

The very coolest part of this entire day, and past few weeks was sharing it and using it as a teaching moment with Emma. We talked about how important it was for everyone to have their own opinion. Just because people think differently or vote differently from us, it isn’t wrong but rather what makes living in America so great.

This morning she helped me vote and proudly wore her “I voted” sticker all day and learned what a privilege it is to be able to vote. And tonight she sat with me and watched the states turn blue or red, learned a little about time zones, geography, and the electoral college. And a few minutes ago I snuck upstairs to tell her that Obama had been elected.

She sat up and said “Obama is our president?”
“Yep, enough people think he is going to be a good president, he got enough votes,” I said.
“Wow! That is pretty cool, huh Mama?”

Yes, it really is “pretty cool.”

The hope is alive. Yes, we can.

Crafty Tuesday ~ Halloween Edition

Here we go…all of the Halloween photos have been downloaded. And I am going to do costumes, pumpkins, and Halloween all-in-one today. Then tomorrow…on to the next season!

We didn’t get a chance to do our pumpkins until Friday afternoon. Nothing like cutting it close. Em was pretty excited about “gutting” them this year. Addie wanted nothing to do with them.

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Em also drew her face on the pumpkin and Daddy cut it out exactly the way she drew it. Hers is the 2nd one from the right. Addie wanted a heart nose (like hers!), so that one is hers. The surprised pumpkin was mine and Daddy got all artsy with the black cat on his!

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Then…FINALLY it was time to don the costumes on and get to trick-o-treatin’! We started pretty early, so we got to be home for the bulk of the kids. We just went around the block which is still more candy than they can (or will!) eat until well after Christmas.

There was one house, I guess the guy works on special-effects in the movies and his house is always terribly scary. When we walk past it to go to Ad’s school, Em always calls it the “haunted house” but it is also the home of one incredibly friendly little kitty who runs up to the girls to get love whenever he is out. It’s a tough dilemma…gory body parts….or cute cat? Most of the time the cute cat wins out. But on Halloween night they had the fog, the scary music, nothing but candlelight – the whole works. Em refused to go up to the door. Even with promises that we would go along.

Addie, on the other hand, had figured out that you had to make it to the door to get the goods! She marched up there (making sure I was at her side, of course) and the guy who lived there kept telling her that she was so brave so she should get extra. I think he put five handfuls of little candy bars in her bag.

Of course, when we were walking home from church on Sunday (and various other times over the past few days) she reminds us all, “I was so very brave at the haunted house, wasn’t I? Emma didn’t want to go up there, but I did and got LOTS of candy!” Stinker.

So, the girls liked getting the candy, but REALLY liked getting to hand it out, as you may have seen in my BSM yesterday. The loved to see the costumes and some of Em’s friends from school came to the door, too. That was really fun.

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And now for the costumes. I loved how Addie’s turned out. It looked really cute on her. She loved the wrist loop that allowed her to hold her tail and walk at the same time. But she ADORES the seashell “puwrse.” She used it as her candy bag. I should have shot better closeup photos so you could see the sequins, or “sparkles” as she calls them, on her top and on the seashell.

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I’m glad we just borrowed the Ariel wig from a friend, she had it on for maybe 10 seconds. Then it was tossed aside and I couldn’t get her to put it on for anything. So Ariel was blonde in our house for Halloween.

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I liked Em’s costume and everybody knew that she was Alice in Wonderland right away, but apparently I think my girl is about 2 sizes larger than she really is. The dress was pretty big, but the apron sort of “held” it on. Addie’s was a little big, too – but I was (in my infinite wisdom) really just making sure they could use them for dress-up for the next year. Yeah, that’s it!

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She had to carry that metal bucket as her candy collector. I think if we had been out for longer than once around the block it would have been too heavy, but she even offered to carry Addie’s bag at one point, so she did alright.

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(See how big the sleeves are on her little weenie arms?)

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Once we got all of the material and supplies, and got it all cut out – the sewing went fairly easy. Although slippery satin is definitely not my first choice for fabric, I might be talked into doing costumes again next year. We’ll see. Although if you ask them, they just want to be Alice and Ariel again next year. So maybe the costumes will still fit??

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The Waiting Game ~ Best Shot Monday

Seems like we are doing a lot of waiting lately.

The girls are always waiting for me to take them to the park – just let me throw in one more load of laundry or start the dishwasher.

I am always waiting for J. to get home and help takeover on “girly duty” – please, just get them through the baths and into bed?

And all of us are always waiting for the weekend – isn’t that when all the fun things happen?

So it is pretty fitting that my Best Shot Monday this week is Ad waiting around to give out a treat. (Or a trick, maybe?)

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I know some of you are waiting for real Halloween photos and the unveiling of the costumes(!), but while I try to get my stuff together over here, why don’t you go visit Tracey.  I’m sure there is a Halloween photo or two over there, and no waiting required.