Girly Girls

Yesterday, it was sunny and in the 60's. Dean pulled the camper into the driveway and put out the slides so I could get in there and start cleaning. I spent several hours just listening to music, washing drawers, the fridge, microwave, etc. I was in a great mood just thinking about how soon we'd be getting the camper dirty again! TODAY, on the other hand, it is snowing. Yes, SNOWING on April 27th! It's a real bummer, but the weatherman assures us that this coming weekend will be lovely...so I guess it's tolerable for a few days. Since the weather is so miserable out, I decided to be productive inside. Last week, I cut out some fabric to make some cute canopies over the girls' beds and today I finished them. In the pictures, it is very hard to see, but the lighter underside of the canopies is actually striped with hot pink and lime green, which explains the lime green blankets folded on their beds!


Here's Drew's bed.

And here's Luci's bed.

I sure wish they'd keep their room this clean everyday...but it is just a dream! Ah, the joys of parenting two girls ages nearly 8 and 5!

Today's quote:

Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?”~Cicero

Fishin', Singin', Dancin'

School is back in session after a long and uneventful spring break. We didn't go anywhere, but the weather was pleasant enough to go fishing several times! The pictures below show our adventures on one particular outing in the boat. The weather was beautiful, though it doesn't show too well in the pictures. And the fish were biting! On this day we had the best of luck catching what some people call "Jumbo perch" or "Jack perch". We caught a whole bucketful of large 12-14 inch fish. But nothing could compare to this 15 incher landed by my dad! I'm sure they must come bigger, but this one is the largest I have ever seen! I just had to take a picture!


They weren't ALL big ones, as you can see below! Ha ha! This shot was too good to miss!

Here's the 15 inch monster again. That is a full sized 10 inch plate it's on!!!

This weekend, my mom was a cast member of a local community show put on by our Knight's of Columbus. Today I took the girls to see Meema perform! Here she is in the chorus. (She's on the right with the long necklace.)

She much prefers to make people laugh and never fails to come up with some great ideas. This year's show's theme was about tv shows. The cast members could come up with anything from any tv show. Mom chose to combine a skit by Carol Burnett parodying Scarlet O'Hara and she changed the words to "Oh Lord, It's Hard to be Humble". It was a hit!

Here's a shot of the girls while we waited between acts.

Me and my little monkey!

Mom was also in another skit, another Carol Burnett number. This time she was Eunice from Mama's Family. She's on the left.

Now this is just a community show and not everyone sings as well some. Here, Luci covers her ears during an especially loud solo. Get that mic away from your face!!!

Also this weekend, was our local high school's prom. My good friend Julie's stepson, Ben went with a really cute date! Check out the tophat and cane! Handsome devil!

Jim and Julie are really proud of Ben! He's such a good kid!

Today's quotes:

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. ~Benjamin Franklin

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. ~Cynthia Nelms

The happy man is not he who seems thus to others, but who seems thus to himself. ~Publilius Syrus

Beauty is painful...sometimes!

This week has involved a little pain for both the girls. Last week, Luci decided she wanted her ears pierced (again). Her first holes closed up after they became infected years ago. So, I took her to a local beauty salon where they do both ears at once...definitely a plus! Luci was very excited! After picking out the earrings she wanted, she hopped up in the seat with a big grin! She was aware that this would hurt a bit...



After placing a mark where the holes would be, two ladies got ready to pull their triggers... Note: She's still smiling!

This is immediately afterwards. The smile is GONE and I thought for sure the tears would follow, but she was very brave and didn't shed a single tear! That's my brave girl!

Feeling a little better, she shows off her new jewelry!

Drew's pain involved her teeth...or rather , one tooth. In my last post, I informed you that Drew had an adult tooth that erupted behind her still firm baby tooth. A few days ago, Drew bravely let me tie a string around the baby tooth and attach the other end to a door knob. SLAM went the door and POP went the.....string. Unfortunately, the tooth remained where it was! Even though we didn't get the tooth out, we did manage to get it really loose! So after lots of tears and a little blood, she felt better. I told her to wiggle it like crazy to see if we could get it even more loose!

This morning, Drew let me tie a string around it and try yanking a little. After a good yank, I felt something break, so I knew it wouldn't be long. I gave her a break and told her to tug at the string herself, which I left tied to her tooth.

Drew was being very wishy washy about tugging at the tooth, so I convinced her to let me try one more time. I was very determined that this thing was coming OUT on the first try! I wrapped the string around my finger, told her it was going to hurt, but I promised to get it out and gave a big yank! Out it came!! The root was still attached! Needless to say, there was lots of blood. After five minutes of pressure, it stopped bleeding and she was left with a rather gnarly looking hole where a baby tooth once resided!

There were lots of tears...as I would expect after a tooth, root and all popped out of her gums, but she quickly calmed down and posed for a few grin shots. In the end, even though it hurt, I'm glad the root came out with the tooth. If it hadn't, I'm not sure her adult tooth would be able to move forward into the spot. Of course, eventually the root would have been absorbed, but how long would it have taken and would the adult tooth eventually have moved forward without the need for braces?? Crisis averted...for now. We'll see what happens with the other bottom tooth. I'm pretty sure she won't let me do that again, though. It may have to be a trip to the dentist the next time! Here she is writing a note to the Tooth Fairy. Tomorrow, when she wakes up to a $5 bill, she'll soon forget all the trauma she went through to earn it.

As promised, here are 2 pictures, taken by one of our chorus directors who happens also to be a photographer. This is our chorus in our costumes for the first half of our annual concert. Obviously we had a 50's theme and sang songs from that era. To find me, find the girl in the front row, standing nearly all the way to your right who is wearing a poodle skirt. She has shoulder-length curly hair. If you look immediately to her right (your left), that is me. I'm standing in the second row. If you REALLY have a hard time finding me, just click on the photo to make it bigger, then scan all the feet on the second riser. It's not too hard finding the big tattoo on the top of my left foot!

Here is our chorus in our competition costumes. This time I am in the front row, third from your right. Our regional competition is coming up next weekend in Syracuse and I'm super excited for it! Many in our chorus love the show, but my highlight is the competition. Our small chorus usually does very well, sometimes winning in our size category, sometimes not. But we almost always raise our score from the previous year! And since I joined in 1999, we have always placed in the top 6...that's not too shabby considering there are at least 20 or so choruses in our size category! I'll keep you posted on our results this year after I return.

Today's quote:

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. ~Sam Keen

To laugh often and much; to win respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of false critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

...and the truth shall set you free. ~John 8:32 (I'm not a religious person, but even authors of fiction can come up with a good quote now and again!)

Easter

Ahhh, Spring! I LOVE this time of year! Despite all of Spring's little pitfalls, like rain and MUD, the feeling of winter's release is the best! Our area has seen some record-breaking temps for the last few days...into the 80's!! That's incredible considering we usually have snow and cold well into April and sometimes even May! But not this year! My father has been a fisherman most of his life and has passed that love onto me! I love to fish, but since the girls have come home from China, I haven't been able to do it as much as I'd like. However, with the unusually lovely weather we've been having, my dad and I have taken a few trips out to see what we can catch for dinner! So far, we've had one REALLY successful day, one moderately successful day and two rather dismal days (as far as catching fish goes!) Of course, a bad day of fishing beats a good day at work ANYDAY...even MY job! On one of these outings, we took the boat out on the St. Lawrence River. This was one of our poor fish-catching days, but the sun was hot and we were able to relax and enjoy the scenery. In one little bay, I saw this interesting rock that looked like a giant fish at the edge of the water. It was probably 5-6 feet long. It was also on this trip that I pulled a bone-headed move and dropped my phone in the drink! (So, if you've been trying to call and I haven't returned it...now you know why!) Today, I'm on the search for a new one.



Also this time of year, is one of the girls' favorite holidays...Easter! And why is this a favorite, you might ask? Well, because of the candy, of course! Here they are on Easter Eve painting some eggs.

The Easter bunny was pretty good to them this year. On top of a relatively small dose of candy, they got goodies such as drawing paper, stuffed animals, cool pens, stickers, egg-shaped sidewalk chalk and the new Chipmunks movie, The Squeakquel. They have been overdosing on the first Chipmunk movie, so I knew they'd love this one, too!

This is the first time in the girls' lives that Easter morning has been warm enough to have their Easter egg hunt outdoors! Dean...err, I mean the Easter bunny, is an early-riser, so he hopped outside before the girls were up and planted 20 or so candy-filled plastic eggs all over the yard! The girls LOVED it! This is way cooler than an indoor egg hunt!

Both girls see an egg at the same time and make a mad dash for it!

Meema also got in the spirit and gave the girls some candy along with a cool art project kit. They made these foam ball creatures which they insisted on sleeping with!

Today's quote:

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Tooth

Well, here it is...THE TOOTH! I know, big deal, right? It is to Drew! And honestly to us, too! As I mentioned before, Drew was an ancient 16 months old before her first tooth came in! We were beginning to wonder whether she had any teeth at all hiding in those adorable pink gums! Because her teeth arrived late, her dentist informed us that she would most likely get her adult teeth late as well. So here she is, nearly 8, and she is FINALLY getting her adult teeth in! Yay!! So it really is quite a big deal in this house! (Come to think of it, she does have her 6 year molars in, but because you don't see them much, they just don't hold a candle to the front ones! THOSE are special!) So, as you can see, her baby tooth is still firmly planted in place regardless of the eruption of the big gun behind it! At first I was concerned that her adult tooth would be misaligned because of it, but a little research assured me that this wouldn't be the case as long as the baby tooth came out within a reasonable time...say from a few weeks to even a few months. So we've been reminding Drew to wiggle it whenever she thinks of it. The baby tooth is somewhat wiggly, but not much. She'll really have to put some effort into her wiggling to make any progress! As excited as we are about such a monumental event, I'm a little sad, too. I was really hoping to see a gappy smile for a while! Maybe her top teeth will behave like they're supposed to...then we'll have some cool pictures!

Today's quote:

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles. - Charlie Chaplin, 1889-1977