Bowling for dollars!

Well, maybe not dollars, and a good thing, too! She would have left with maybe a nickel with her score! Luci's class took a field trip today to our local bowling alley. But it wasn't just Luci's class, it was six classroom's worth of 4 and 5 year old children all at the same place bowling! It was complete and utter chaos, but the kids had a blast. And in the end, that's what counts! Luci shows us how yummy the pizza was. Sorry about the food-in-mouth shot!



Although she rarely got the ball to the end of the lane without getting gutter balls, she was always happy and excited when the ball managed to find its way there(sometimes excruciatingly slowly!) She shows us her happy dance!

This picture is short about 15 or so kids. All in all there were approximately 90 kids there! I've marked Luci (mugging with a big grin, of course!) with a speech bubble! Click on the picture to get a more close-up view! If you look closely, you'll see Luci's cousin, Sonja, to her left. (Sonja would be the only other Chinese kid in the picture!)

Happy Chinese New Year!!

Today is the day! Gung Hay Fat Choy! Today marks the start of the Year of the Ox! May anyone who reads this (and everyone who doesn't) have a prosperous and healthy new year!

Sunday musings...

Just a post...nothing exciting to say... Below is Drew's very first diorama for school. Yes, I helped, but she did almost all of it. I handled the glue gun...just ask Julie about glue guns!



She was just being cute, so I snapped a couple of her.

The old girl. Janie will be 12 in April.

The other three...Baby, Willy and our "special" boy, Monty.

I think she must have been a hypnotist in a former life!

Inspirational!

I just finished watching the Presidential inaugural speech and I must say...I am truly proud to be an American today!! There is hope for America yet!

Update...

Wow, have I been lax about posting! So, even though I have no pics for you, I thought I'd give you a little update on the goings on around here.

Let's see, I have been casually looking for a piano that someone might have wanted to give away. At long last we have found one! It was slated to be sent to the dump and I rescued it! This once belonged to the mom of our contractor, Kenny and she just wanted it out of her house. The landlord promised to take it to the dump for her, but hadn't yet. I asked Kenny more as a passing mention if he knew of anyone. About 2 hours later it was sitting in my livingroom! It is a Kimball Artist Console. I took it apart later that evening and discovered an outbreak of green mold on the internal part of the keys. I proceeded to remove each key and wipe it down with some Clorox wipes. (Yes, I know there is no bleach in the wipes, but it was the best I could do at the time.) The cabinet(inside), soundboard and action (hammers and such) were all in near mint condition but for some dust. The outside could really use some refinishing, but is in relatively good shape. It's not bad enough where it truly needs it, but possibly a light sanding and some tung oil might just be sufficient. Anyway, I plan on calling a tuner to come and inspect it and tell me whether or not it is salvagable. Even after cleaning all the keys individually, there are still about a half dozen keys that stick. So we shall see. There are pianos all over the place and if this one wasn't meant to be ours, it'll promptly go and I'll search for another. If we can fix it, I'll be contacting Drew's piano teacher to start lessons for me! Whether or not I can actually make both hands play (at the same time!!!!) remains to be seen!

In other news, we have started working on the upstairs part of the addition! Yay! We pulled up the carpet in the spare bedroom and put up a stud wall dividing what will be the new laundry room (yes, upstairs!!!) and the hall leading to the new part of the upstairs. We also finished up the plumbing for our whirlpool tub and water tested it. Good to go on both counts! I promised the girls an actual tub bath tonight! They're excited! (It's the little things, you know?) Kenny was also here today putting on another coat of sheetrock mud in our new bedroom! Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later before we can actually move in! I also got the go ahead from Dean to pick out some tile for our bathroom. We used tile that was given to us by Dean's dad in my dad's bathroom and it looks pretty good! But we're planning on tiling the surround around the tub and we just couldn't find some complementing tile to go with the tile from Dean's dad. So I get to choose whatever I want! Yay! (It's the little things, you know?) I'll decide tonight when I go to Lowe's, but I think I'm going to go a little darker in the bathroom that we had planned. Maybe something in browns and sage or olive-y green? We'll see. I'll be sure to post pics during the process. Guess that's it for now!

Happy New Year, 2009!!

Finally...a chance to sit and breathe long enough to post something! Let's see, firstly, Sara came up the day after Christmas and stayed the entire week with us like she did last year. I also found out on Christmas that my cousin Heather and her family had a house fire on Christmas Eve and had to move their belongings out of their damaged home. Since we have just built a large addition, I thought I'd offer some temporary lodging until they found a new place. They were staying with her dad, but he has a very small place and doesn't cope too well with change, so it was stressful for everyone involved. So they stayed a few days with us afterall! It was actually rather fun having all those people in the house! (She has a husband, Chris, and four kids) While Chris, Heather and their two teenagers were working on getting their belongings out, they left their two youngest at my house to play. My dad decided since we had 5 girls who were all 6 and under, he would do something to keep them busy...he's a glutton for punishment! Anyway, he made some dough, got out some jelly, chocolate sauce and caramel sauce and some wonton wrappers. First he had the girls roll out the dough into balls and sticks.

There was lots of flour on the table which inevitably made its way onto clothes and faces, in this case onto Grace's nose!

After they finished their shapes, my dad deep fried it. While he was doing that, I helped the girls put fillings into wonton wrappers. When these were done, he fried these as well. Here they enjoy the spoils of their work!

Here are the results of their fun project! The bread dough was dipped into things like sugar, honey, syrup, chocolate, caramel, jelly and peanut butter! The wonton wrappers were awesome! My favorites were the caramels!

Here are all five of the cuties at dinner later that night. The new kitchen island certainly comes in handy for kids at dinnertime! Left to right we have Hannah, Grace, Luci, Drew and Sara.

On New Year's Eve, I got some hats, horns and leis for the kids. Here is everyone getting prepared for the big event! (For those who don't know him, that's Chris standing at the island.)

To my credit, he KNEW I was taking this picture, and he still made that face!

And what does every couple do at midnight....a New Year Kiss! Heather and Chris appreciate that even though they had a fire and lost their home, they didn't lose too many of their belongings and they along with their children walked away with their lives! We are all grateful for THAT!

Nick wasn't having any of this picture nonsense! (He's 16!)

Happy New Year!!!!!! 2009!!!

It wasn't but 10 minutes or so after midnight when they started dropping like flies! Sara crashes next to the dog.

Drew was next...

Even Heather didn't last too long!

But heaven forbid Luci actually fall asleep! She was raring to go!

Lizzie managed to stay awake, but wasn't nearly as chipper as Luci!

They stayed a few days and managed to find another place to rent just a few miles outside of town. Art came back to retrieve Sara and they left on Sunday. The place has quieted back down and now that the girls are back at school, the routine is finding its way back home. I sure miss waking up without an alarm clock every morning! Oh well! Lizzie managed to tape her mother driving around the island on one of the Plasma cars, doing a great Queen's wave and saying in her best English accent, "Helloooo good people of Tableland!", but the entire clip was too long and too big to post. It was pretty funny, tho! And now for my community service announcement... Yesterday, I received in the mail my donor card for DKMS. Last year, I signed up to be listed on the Bone Marrow Donor Registry and though it took quite a while to receive the card, at length it finally arrived! I'd like to ask anyone who hasn't considered the idea of becoming a donor to please do so! You could save a life! There are families right now looking for a match for a loved one and you could be that person! The registry is sadly lacking in minority donors especially! I know that if one of my children fell ill with luekemia and needed a bone marrow transplant, that their chances of finding one is almost impossible! Another adoptive family launched a huge campaign in China to find a donor for their daughter as a match just couldn't be found on the registry! Thankfully 10 year old Kailee Wells found a generous donor in China and is doing well! All it takes to register is a painless q-tip swabbed on the inside of your cheek! Contact your local blood donation center, http://www.marrow.org/, http://www.asianmarrow.org/, http://www.dkmsamericas.org/, or simply do a web search for bone marrow donation! It really is simple and is truly a matter of life or death for someone unfortunate enough to be diagnosed with any of the diseases which are treatable by bone marrow transfusion!