"Does that coke have sugar in it?"

“Does that coke have sugar in it?” Lavinia asks Ophelia’s teacher Mrs. Yarbrough just after she sat down at our dinning room table with her soda from Sonic. “I’m pretty sure it does” is Mrs. Yarbrough’s reply. “You’re going to get diabetes if you eat sugar” says Lavinia, her eyes huge as she looked at Mrs. Yarbrough’s cup as though it was going to attack her and give her diabetes. Jeremy and I hid in the kitchen smothering our laughter ineffectively. What have we done?

Ophelia ran in the Pumpkin Run through School Walk for Diabetes today and did a mile and a quarter. The school sent home information to share with your child about diabetes, which we did. This had a huge impact on Lavinia and she seems to be convinced that all sugar is bad now and going to kill us as soon as we put it in our mouths. It would be ok if she just kept that information to herself and choose to refrain from eating sugar but she believes it’s her personal responsibility to inform everyone that any time they put a piece of candy in their mouth they are, in fact, killing themselves. Of course, this has done little to limit her own usage of sugar, she seems perfectly fine with eating a piece or two every now and then but if any body else uses sugar she raises the diabetes alert right away. She even argued with me about putting sugar in the pumpkin bars we made together but I finally convinced her when I said that if she stopped arguing with me I’d let her lick the beaters. Obviously the double standard doesn’t bother her.

Ophelia raised $150 for research for Diabetes with her run today by personally asking people to sponsor her. For those of you that did, thank you very much, you added a lot to this experience. Ophelia ran for Mr. Scott, her Tae Kwon Do instructor who has type 1 diabetes. We are very proud and impressed by her drive and ability. I spoke with her gym teacher today and learned that Ophelia was the first girl in the primary grades to complete the 5 mile run and has been working on her 10 mile mark next which Mrs. Baker thinks will happen before the end of this grading period. And next week Ophelia tests for her orange belt in Tae Kwon Do and should pass with flying colors- she’s hoping she’ll actually get to her green stripe before Christmas since she’s already started learning that kicking drill, form and new kicks. As I write this I’m watching the clock because I have to pick her up from sparring. Her goal today was to be in 5 fights and remain standing for all of them. With her height Ophelia is often paired with students several belts higher than her so she gets a good work out. She was very excited to have been in 4 fights last week but was frustrated that she got knocked down in two of them (by blue belts). And here I am thinking, wow, you kick your leg above your head! Guess I better get my running shoes on… just as soon as I finish my coffee and cookie…

Did I really post that?

Yes people, I posted pictures of Halloween cookies. Yikes. And I need to clarify, Jeremy and the girls made the cookies, I helped decorate them later. That frosting is pure sugar; sugar and food coloring. Mom would never have let me eat so much sugar at once, Dad and Grandma, heck yeah, but Mom would never have approved. Of course, now she's Grandma and I bet she's already planned the next sugary treat she's going to get for the girls.

What are you Halloween plans? I'll tell you ours if you tell us yours (this is an invitation to actually post comments on the blog.)

Black cats, pumkins, and witches, oh my! 

Halloween cookies 

Cold Weather Food

It's cooled down a bit here, lows have been down in the 30's and 40's, very odd for this time of year in Houston and we're loving. So this week we've been making "cold weather food" to enjoy. Soup, chill, tomorrow I'm making beef stew and Jeremy just got his mom's recipe for pumpkin soup! Yesterday we made sugar cookies and decorated them for Halloween. The black took so much food coloring (and I'm not a fan of artificial coloring) that I'm a little afraid what our mouths will look like after eating a cat or a witch. But it's fun to finally have cold weather food!

DUH!

Oh brother! Thank you Laura for letting me know that my post did actually publish. I expected it to publish above the pictures so I didn't see it under them. For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about... Never mind. Just be sure you scroll down below the strange pictures to get the story of those photographs.

As I type this I'm a bit distracted by the Astros/Sox game. I talked with Rebecca (my sister) and she just couldn't get over the fact that I watch ball games and drink beer when I do but here it is, my confession: I am a baseball fan. I stay up late and watch extra innings, I talk about pitchers and batting averages, I even try to schedule important meetings early on game nights so I can get home to watch the game. Football holds nothing for me, I don't care for it at all, hockey is a bit too violent, basketball I haven't watched since the Chicago Bulls were worth watching, golf is for Sunday naps, soccer is pretty cool but we never watch (and when we do it's usually in Spanish), and tennis is only fun to watch in movies. But I really like baseball. In truth, Jeremy and I are both Cubs fans but as long as the Cubs aren't playing the Astros, we're pretty hard core Astros fans too(besides, the 'Stros did beat St. Louis! Sorry Grandma!). This post-season has been really exciting. Hard to believe we're rooting against a team that has "Chicago" on their jerseys but we are cheering Astros fans these days. And here we are in Houston, game 3 in the world series, Astros are down 2 games but we're tied in the bottom of the 9th, Houston up to bat. Shoot, the Sox just walked Berckman- wise move on their part but it's not very nice. Ugh, now we're going into the 10th inning. Hopefully it won't be another 18 inning game but who cares as long as we win!

Ok, I'm done with the baseball talk... I'll try to be back tomorrow, I do have more to update you all on. Don't forget to let us know how you are doing.

The original after cropping and resizing 

The "Embossed" effect 

The "negative" effect- Ophelia's second favorite 

The "thick line Edge" effect- mommy's favorite 

The "Stamp" effect- Ophelia's favorite 

Reflections

Ophelia decided to participate in the PTA's arts competition called "Reflections" this year. Many art forms are accepted and a student can submit as many pieces as they like in any category just so they go with the theme. The theme for this year is "I wonder why..." and at first Ophelia got a little overwhelmed with the whole project and decided that she didn't want to do anything with it but at the last minute she decided to go with two entries. It started with Lavinia asking one of her millions of questions: "why does a candle melt?" After we discussed wax and water and compared what it takes to make them hard (I'm pretty sure that the temperature to freeze water didn't stick but we got the concept) we started naming other items that melt and ended up with ice cream. We liked the experiment that followed that... Ophelia did a piece in watercolor pencil (we like this medium- the control and detail capabilities of colored pencils with the vibrance and softness of paint) that depicted the progression of melting ice cream cones asking the question: "I wonder why ice cream melts in the sun?"

The medium for the second entry was decided before we had any idea what it would actually be. I started teaching Ophelia how to use the digital camera a little bit ago and we wanted to try photography. It's not the greatest quality and certainly not framed or lighted correctly but we're proud of the level of artistry that this little girl put into this project. Again, the inspiration for this piece came from someone else, this time Helena. Helena has a strange fascination with belly buttons and enjoys finding them on all of us. As we were thinking of "I wonder why..." Ideas for Ophelia's photography project Helena began searching for our belly buttons and Ophelia announced that she knew what to do: "I wonder why we all have belly buttons!" Though she actually already knew the answer we decided this was a great idea. She took tons of pictures from several different angles and view points. Daddy quickly decided that he would be the photographers assistant (no way was he going to let her take a picture of HIS belly button!) and so Lavinia, Helena and I became her models. I ruled out a few photographs that exposed my stretch marks too much and we all worked together to create the final product. The picture she choose to use has Helena and Lavinia sitting on me and all you can see of us are our belly buttons and tummy areas and blue jeans. After taking our pictures (two days of modeling before we got just the right photograph to please the picky photographer) she selected the one she wanted to work with and then I showed her how to use Microsoft Photo Editor to crop, zoom and apply effects. She selected her four favorite (same image, four different effects) and we printed them off in 4x6 format and mounted them to black foam core. This piece got quite the reaction even just taking it into school to turn in. The pictures below are the ones she used and in order of how she displayed them with the exception of the very first one, the original- she didn't use that one. We look forward to trying more projects like this one, Ophelia has such a huge appreciation for art and loves the creative process. Hope you enjoy the photos!

Jessica

"Mommy, I have something important to tell you"

Apparently, I've been bemoaning the growing of my children a little too much. Yesterday, while Lavinia and I were out running errands she softly said to me "mommy, I have something important to tell you: little kids have to grow up. I'm sorry it makes you sad, but we have to." Oh the wisdom of children.

Ophelia and her friend Jennifer on the bus for the first grade field trip to the Children's Museum 

Blankie! 

Helena helps steady Lavinia... something's wrong with this picture... 

Isn't this how you take your dog for a walk? 

Helena takes Satine for a walk in our Radio Flyer wagon 

"I pull it!" 

Silly time! 

Almost Nice

One of the hardest parts of living in Houston is the lack of seasons, real seasons anyway. Houston has a few seasons though: hot/bad allergies/muggy, really hot/terrible allergies/sticky, unbelievably hot/toxic allergies/oppressive humidity, and almost nice- which is from November-January. It's funny, after you've had unbelievably hot/toxic allergies/oppressive humidity for a while really hot/bad allergies/sticky doesn't seem bad and hot/bad allergies/muggy is actually almost pleasant but almost nice, wow, almost nice feels like heaven. A cool front is coming in and we are going to enjoy the nice weather it brings by finally really spending time outside. Fun times!

They just keep growing up!

I can't seem to stop it. No matter what I do or how I beg and plead the girls insist on growing up. Sometimes I think this is a good thing, for example- no more diapers. But other times I think that the madness has to stop, my babies can't be so independent, at least because I still need them.

School is going very well for Ophelia, she loves it and is excelling. Tae Kwon Do is also going well and we have another belt test coming up soon (once her L-stance is a little more consistent with the correct angle in the bend) in a couple of weeks. We're looking for a place to start ballet back up that will work with our already crazy schedule. Ophelia is in an after school program on Mondays and Wednesdays doing dance and art though we are going to request a change from dance to mad science. Piano is also going well with piano practice being one of Ophelia's favorite activities. Her love for art and writing continues to grow with her constant journaling of daily life, her dreams, and just anything that comes to mind. Harry Potter is starting to become a favorite subject with her newest journal being a Hogwarts journal (Dollar store special!) and she recently checked out the second book from the school library and is diligently trying to read it on her own... We're going to be on that book for a while. Her latest growing up adventure is riding her bike without training wheels- took her only two days, less than 30 minutes each to master riding on her own. Visiting the Longs and seeing Deven riding on his own was enough motivation for her to really go for it and she did it! Check below for pix.

Lavinia and I are doing well in school enjoying home schooling for Kindergarten together. She's looking forward to starting dance soon and loves to learn Tae Kwon Do from her sister. We enjoy reading and learning to write our letters- she's really doing great. Lavinia's social skills continue to blossom and her infectious laugh still invites others to join in. Charlotte's Web has been our story of choice lately and she's proving to have an excellent memory and fantastic reading comprehension. Last night she helped daddy cook dinner and while she was stirring the pasta sauce learned about steam. Today we talked about the difference between steam and smoke- she's a very curious little girl!

Helena has an amazing ability to get right back up after she falls- rarely complaining about her bumps and bruises and getting on with what she was doing. Still sweet and cuddly she's a baby in many ways but if you ask her if she's a baby she'll say "no, I'm your little girl!" I can't believe how grown up she is now, she even argues with us about things- my sweet little darling talks back! Her desire to be big like her sisters has her following them all over the place with almost no fear. It's amazing.

The girls are very good friends. Sometimes we have fights and conflicts but most of the time they watch out for each other and play as best friends. We are so grateful for our family, our girls are an amazing blessing. It's hard to believe they are so grown up already!

Day 3- She's got the gear and now she's a pro! 

Getting dark but she's still going! 

Her solo flight! 

Day 2- she doesn't know she's going alone 

Watch out!!!! 

A Family affair 

OK, but once you're going, how do you stop this thing? 

Daddy helps with learning to ride 

Day 1- Finding balance