School Pictures

Now that I finally have a scanner that works, I can post the girls' school pictures! Here's Drew's first grade picture!

And here's Luci's UPK picture! Yes, I'm biased, I know, but these really are the most beautiful girls I've ever laid eyes on!

Guests, Bedrooms and Brownies

Here's a shot of my two cuties being...well...cute!



Luci, surrounded by all her Webkinz!

As I said, I was busy! First, I moved all of our bedroom furniture into our new bedroom at the back of the house. Then I went to Lowe's and bought ClosetMaid-type wire shelving for our new closet. I didn't realize just how expensive it is to put shelves in a closet!! Ouch! But it is pretty spiffy...unfortunately I neglected to snap a picture of it before filling it with clothing! Oh well, who wants to see the inside of a closet, anyway? After filling the closet, I proceeded to empty all of my sewing room stuff (crammed into our bedroom during construction) into one of the new back bedrooms. When the room was finally empty, I set to work removing a wallpaper border and then painting the room for the girls! Of course, I couldn't do this job without SOME help!

They were great little workers, but I had to shoo them out because we were running out of paint! First, they were gobbing on the paint without spreading it around and then Luci had this little "uh-oh"! Thankfully, the floor is only a sub-floor, it looked horrible to begin with so it really was no big deal!

Here are some shots of the girls' new room! Ahhhh! Can you say, "BREATHING ROOM?" Their previous room was so tiny and it only got worse with the addition of their humongous bunk/playhouse bed! That thing is mammoth and there was barely enough room to walk from the door to their bed! Their new room is at least twice the size of their previous room and there's a big walk-in closet, too!

Hannah checks it out with Drew! They both approve!

Luci's paint boo-boo became a huge flower! Someday, we'll put some hardwood flooring in here, but that's the last thing on the list. We've still got to finish the upstairs laundry room, mud and paint the two remaining new bedrooms, install hardwood flooring in the two remaining bedrooms plus the hallway, and tile and paint our master bathroom. There are lots of other little things like baseboard molding, window trim, etc to do as well. So the girls will just have to make do with this floor for now!

On Friday evening, Drew's girl scout Neighborhood held a gathering with a Mardi Gras theme. Since Sara is also a brownie, she was allowed to go, too. Here they make their Mardi Gras masks.

Hannah's mask is colorful!

Drew opts for minimalism!

Sara's mask is girly!

From L to R, Drew, Sara, Hannah S., and Hannah R.

And here are all the girls who showed up from our Neighborhood!

After making masks, the girls were treated to pizza. Then they got to decorate cupcakes, but they weren't allowed to eat them until everyone was done decorating their own. When they were finally allowed to dig in, they were informed that some of the cupcakes had coing baked into them, and that whomever found one would be "Parade Queen". Everyone chowed, but no one found any coins. So they gave me another one and said, "This one feels kind of heavy!" So I broke it open and sure enough I had 2 coins in my cupcake! Now, even though I am a registered Girl Scout, I thought it would be better to let the kids have their chance, so they all stood in a circle and I closed my eyes and spun around with my finger pointed. I was to pick four queens in all. My first spin chose Sara. I don't know the other three girls' names. Anyway, the queens got to lead the parade around the inside of the building blowing their horns and having a good old time!

Sara left this afternoon and I finished moving all of the girls' bedroom stuff into their new room. Tomorrow I get to sift through the huge mountain of toys that are currently in the "playroom" aka one of the back bedrooms and get rid of half of it so the rest can fit in their new room! They have so much stuff that they have a hard time keeping it organized so it ends up in a big disasterous pile which I refuse to keep picking up...so out it goes! Anyway, with less stuff, they'll actually PLAY with some of it! Once their room is done, the next project on my list is my sewing room which was the girls' old bedroom. The first line of business is pulling up the very last carpeting in the house and saying, "Buh-bye!!" I have come to despise carpeting and will never have it again! The entire house will have hardwood...it's so much easier to keep clean and is so much more allergenic. Not that anyone in this house is allergic to much, but it's still nice to have wood floors instead! Ok, well, guess that's it for now. When I get the girls' room finished, I'll post some new pics. Until then!

Awards and parties!

Every once in a while, the girls' school holds an assembly where they hand out awards to select students for excellence in a number of different categories. UPK is not included in the assembly, so Luci has to wait a year before she can even be in the running! Drew was awarded twice in kindergarten, once for music and another for something that I can't recall at the moment. Look back in the archives if you're really interested, they're both there. Anyway, her school had another of these assemblies on Friday and Drew received an award for Excellent Work. Yeah, I asked, too. Apparently, it is for a group of things, like neat handwriting, tidiness, finishing assignments, and other work-related habits. She really does have some nice penmanship and she strives to make her letters neat and small. Way to go, Drew! Keep up the good work! Below she walks up to receive her award.




After school on Friday, we packed up the girls and left for Syracuse for the weekend for our adoption agency's annual Chinese New Year party. Here are the three Musketeers before lunch.

Normally, this event is held the last weekend of January, but they found their attendance dwindling as the local FCC (Families with Children from China) held their party the same weekend, and most people would rather attend that event as the entertainment is far more interesting than the agency's. So they changed it this year hoping to prevent that. By changing it (at the last minute) they had to change the venue as well. So they held the party in the middle of a car dealership/mall. Sounds strange, but it actually turned out very well. They served Chinese food which was also a change this year. The food was great! As usual, they had a DJ and the kids all went nuts dancing to the music and trying to win dance contests. The kids had a lot of fun, even if the adults were rather bored. A bonus to changing the venue was that there were video games available which the kids loved!

There were just a very few kids dancing, so my girls and Sara decided to get the party started!

And start it they did!

No, it's not from hallucinogenic drugs...they were dancing the Hokey-Pokey and this happened to be the "Put your head in and shake it all about" part!

Sara and Drew win a dance contest and walk away with these super stylish felt hats!

Daddy slow dances with his best girls!

I took the escalator upstairs to get a better shot.

One of Luci's favorite movies, The Polar Express, gave her the idea to pull on Daddy's beard to make him howl like a caribou!

Drew doing the limbo! Wish I had this kind of dexterity!

Luci's turn!

Here are the six out of 18 girls from Luci's travel group. L to R we have Meilin, Claire, Karis, Olivia, Luci and Natalie.

Here are the four out of 14 girls from Drew's travel group. L to R we have Nicole, May, Sara and Drew.

All in all, though a bit "same old, same old", the girls had a blast as usual, so it was worth the trip. The best part of the day was seeing all the girls we haven't seen in a while! We look forward to seeing more of Drew's group this summer at our annual picnic! This year we'll have tons of stuff to discuss, especially our upcoming trip to DisneyWorld next year with as many of the families as we can convince to come along! THAT is going to be SO much fun!!!

Lil Helpers and squirrel watching!

Ok, let's clear up one little thing right off the bat. When we're not going to be leaving the house for any reason, I tend to let the girls dress themselves. They can choose what they want regardless of how I feel about it. This happened to be one of those days. Of course, when we do go somewhere, the wardrobe choices are made by me! On with the show...

This past weekend, Dean spent much of his time upstairs working on getting our new bedroom done. The girls, having gotten "Lil Helper" sets for Christmas, decided they wanted in on the action. Here's Drew in her get-up, rainbow suspenders and all!

Miss Luci has entered some phase where she can't just smile for the camera anymore, she has to POSE for the picture! Now, we certainly don't watch Project Runway or any other model/fashionshow type programs, so I'm not sure where she's coming up with these poses!

This one slays me!

Here they demonstrate the proper use of the Phillip's screwdriver.

And the hammer as well!

Other forms of entertainment include watching the dogs watch the squirrels! It almost looks like they're watching a game of tennis! To the left...

To the right...

And here are the two little guys they were watching! As you can see, they are certainly NOT going hungry this winter!