We participated in a postcard swap. It was actually pretty cool. We got postcards from all over the world. On these postcards we were supposed to put some interesting facts about where we live. I realized yesterday as I was reading about the American Revolution, that I put some idiotic information on the cards we sent out. See, 2 weeks ago, when I was writing the cards, I was also reading about Daniel Boone and his role in both the Revolution and settling Kentucky.
In the postcards, I wrote, “Pioneers such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett traveled through our Piney Woods on their way to defend the Alamo”. Daniel Boone has nothing to do with our little neck of the woods. I don’t know that he ever set foot in Texas. I do know that I meant to put Jim Bowie’s name instead.
Well, now you’ve had a bit of a history lesson. Don’t you feel smarter already?
Occasionally, when I drop Nathan off at school, I will call out, “Bye, Nathan! I LOVE YOU!”. Yelling out the last part before he has a chance to shut the door all of the way. It’s pretty fun. Is it cruel that I get a kick out of slightly embarrassing him?
I guess it’s not just me. Yesterday, I found out that when Greg picks Nathan up from school sometimes he has Allison yell out the open window that, “Nathan has a girlfriend!”. I can only imagine that for an almost 10 year old boy this must be horrifying. When combined with his mother professing her love in the mornings, therapy will no doubt be in his future.
When the family was replaying the story for me, Greg told me how Allison decided to change it up a bit and yelled out, “Allie has a boyfriend and his name is SPIDERMAN!”
She decided that she absolutely needed a belt with this outfit. When Greg went to take the picture she insisted that he wait for her to get her ring. A girl’s got to have the right accessories.
These two are about 3 years old. In 16 years (from these pictures) they will meet and start dating in college. Give them about three more years and they will decide to visit a judge. Ten years later they will have three beautiful children. How can they not with those adorable faces? They will laugh with (sometimes at) each other every day. And the little girl will love the little boy more and more.
I am making a quilt for each of the girls. I made Nathan one last year and have been asked by Zoey regularly since then, “Mom, when are you going to make one for me?”
I’m going to do a full size quilt for each in a basic 9 patch pattern. The girls each got to pick out what material they wanted in the quilt and I picked out a few more pieces. I’m going to use some fabric I already have and some that I picked up to make them coordinate.
Making a 9 piece patch for two full size quilts means I will need squares. Lots and lots of squares. The best way to get some fast is using my handy dandy rotary cutter.
When you use extra pressure and hold the two sides with your left hand to cut a straight line, they also equal 2 stitches in your index finger. If you want to see it, let me know and I’ll take a picture.
My conversation with Nathan about how great his day was at school yesterday.
“The teachers had so much stuff, it’s a good thing they shared with us. Eating all of that candy and cake and other things could have made them gain about 20 pounds each.”
Chuckling, I asked, “Oh really? The teachers told you that?”
“No, Mom. It’s reality.”
For the past week we have been doing various Valentine related things, picking out and signing cards for school, getting treats, decorating card boxes. Allison thought it was all pretty cool. She even got to pick out cards to fill out and give to her friends at the library. There was a slight misunderstanding when we told her we were getting ready for Nathan and Zoey’s school Valentine’s parties.
For almost 2 weeks she has been asking for a specific toy.
For the past week she thought we were getting ready for her “Silly Vacuum Party”
Allison: So, it’s my silly vacuum party day?
Greg: No. It’s Valentine’s day though.
Allison: So, I’m bigger today?
Greg: No. It’s not a birthday. It’s just a day to tell people that you love them.
Allison: oh.
She was slightly disappointed, but is still happy it’s a holiday.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Reading this Rude Cactus post brought memories around that reminded me why Allison is only allowed to color when closely supervised. It’s nothing she’s done, but entirely the fault of her sister.
Zoey loved to color anytime she could. Supervised or not. The apartment we lived in had scribbles on every single wall, right at the eye level of a two year old girl. It didn’t matter that we only stopped watching her for 2 seconds, as soon as we turned our backs, there she would be, drawing on the walls. So far, Allison has only drawn on one wall, and between the washable crayons and the Mr. Clean Magic eraser, you can hardly tell where the artist did her work.
It also made me realize how fortunate it was that we (pseudo-slobs) lived in an apartment during the messy stage of childhood development when Nathan and Zoey were younger. From carpet stains to wall art, we probably got the better end of the deal than the apartment complex managers. I’m surprised that we got any of our deposit back.
A week or two ago, I added my blog to a pretty cool project called 2000 faces*. It’s very interesting to see the photos people use for their faces and what makes some stand out more than others. There are some pretty popular blogs listed on there (some were removed because I don’t think they were added with the knowledge of the writer). Go check it out, you might not be able to find my face in there (even I had a hard time) but I’m sure you’ll find some new blogs worth reading.
Edited to add: Apparently it’s causing a big brouhaha. Technorati is pulling rank and won’t index the sites with it’s code. The original creator has decided it’s too much hassle, so someone else has taken over the administration.
Overheard while Allison was on the phone with my brother and his wife. They were talking about Allison’s all-time favorite superhero Spiderman and the movies she has.
“I have the Green Goblin one, and I have the Doc Oc one. Those are my favorites. I have lots and lots of cool movies. But not Nanny Mcphee.”
We do have Nanny Mcphee, I guess she just doesn’t think it’s very cool.
While we are talking about my brother, I thought I would share a funny story. His permanent residence was in Kansas, but he was stationed in Oklahoma with the Air Force. A couple of years ago he bought a pretty fancy RV* to live in while he worked on base. Occasionally we gave him a hard time because, you know, he’s not 60 or retired. He’s just a year younger than me (making him 31).
Last month he and his lovely bride were assigned to an Air Force base in the Vegas area. They got their house in Kansas ready to sell, then decided to live in the RV while they found some land to build on in Nevada. My brother said that because of their age, they get some pretty odd looks when they leave the RV. The thing that topped the cake though, was when someone knocked on their door last week and asked if his parents were in.
* I don’t know his exact type, but it looks an awful lot like the one linked.
We’ve been working on numbers and age with Allison. Whenever people ask her how old she is (which is becoming more and more common because she likes to tell anyone she sees random things) she looks at us and shrugs then whispers, “How old am I?”.
I’m pretty sure she knows how to count (she always skips 7) but she just won’t. Instead, when we ask her how many there are of something and there are more than 2, she says, “lots of” or “some”. She just doesn’t want to use the energy to actually count out all of those numbers. Makes it a little hard to know what we should work on with her.
At lunch, Greg told her that if she could tell him how old she was, she could have some marshmallows. They had been working on the answer off and on all morning. She looked over at me and said, “Hey Mom, you tell me how old I am, and then I”ll tell Dad so that I can have those marshmallows”. She’s all about the teamwork. I held up three fingers and asked her how many there were. “Some.”
