Teaching, My Round the Clock Job

Madeline was assigned her first book report. She had to read a chapter book and selected Junie B. Jones Has a Monster Under Her Bed. Although I had to help her with many words, she read 90 percent of it herself. Quite an accomplishment! She had to write about the characters, setting, and her favorite part and then create a project. We made a puppet using a paper plate, paint, and twine for hair. It's not due until the end of the month, but this mama likes to get things out of the way early.

Madeline also had to make a poster about herself. She is going to present it the week of February 22, but due to her endless nagging about it, we went ahead and tackled it this weekend, too. She and I had our own ideas about how it should look, and in the end, we were both more than satisfied with the results of our teamwork.

Madeline loves to read to Sophie. It's pretty awesome, especially when she crawls into the bottom bunk to read her stories before bed at night. Definitely one the best sister moments I have witnessed.

Sunny Skies

We spent Saturday afternoon at the park with friends. The kids enjoyed the sunny skies and each other's company.

Life with Leah

We really love having a four legged friend around. Leah is really a perfect dog for our kids. She is so patient with them and even lets them drag her around playing pet shop. The girls can't wait to get home and play with her each day and are excited every morning when they see her.

She is 22 pounds according to her pound records, so a bit bigger than we initially guessed. And after spending 10 days with her, it appears she is "mostly" housebroken and "mostly" crate trained. She is excellent about being in her crate and never whines or barks in it, but she does soil her bedding during the night.

We don't actually allow Leah on the furniture, but Madeline talked us into letting her say good-night.

Meet Leah

So, I've started to warm up to the idea of a dog. I figure the girls are at good ages to take on a pet, and I'm not changing diapers anymore . . . so maybe, I can take on the care of a dog and its responsibilities. Besides, Kent could use some help chasing the kids around the yard!

We started looking into rescue groups, but wow, that is an expensive way to add a pet to your family. The weimaraner rescue group turned us down due to Sophie's age. We responded to a couple of craig's list adds that didn't get back to us. So then, we ended up at the pound. Kent found this sweet dog that we're "trying out." The pound said that she is a terrier/pointer mix of some sort, but after some research, I think she is most like an Ibizan hound with her big ears and amber coloring. Anyway, she is a mutt of some kind or other. She is seven months old, perfectly housebroken and crate-trained, or so it appears thus far. . . She's about 15 pounds with ribs protruding, very sweet, and pretty chill. Madeline loves her, and Sophie is warming up to her slowly. I am hopeful she'll be a "keeper" and a nice addition to our family!

Catchin' Up!

Not much blogging lately as we have been inundated with work and school and homework and so on and so on . . . Here are a few pictures from our last days of winter break. We were lucky enough to spend Uncle Adam's 34th birthday with him, so we made him a cake and watched some football together.

More Stuff!

One downside to spending more time at home is that I start to notice all the things that need cleaning, painting, changing, and updating around the house. With my Christmas money (thank you parents and in-laws!), I have been able to buy a few items. In the bathroom, I got a fresh new shower curtain, bath mats, and towels. It is a nice change.

And although we really have very little extra space in our tiny bedroom with our king size bed, dresser, 2 night stands, and an armoire, we were running out of places to store books and such. With that in mind, Kent had been investigating how to distress wood to match the rest of our furniture so he could build a shelf to house our dvds, books, and general clutter. Then, what luck! The day after our craig's list coffee table find, Kent found the shelf below at a second hand shop near our house. The finish isn't an exact match to the rest of our furniture, but the style works great. It was such a treat to take our photo albums, books, and DVD's out of night stands, dresser drawers, and cabinets, and actually put them where they belong, on a bookshelf! Yeah! After 10 years of marriage and eight years as homeowners, we actually own a bookshelf!

Musical Theater

Madeline has been taking a musical theater class for a couple of months now. She enjoys the singing, dancing, and acting, and has started to come out of her quiet shell, you know how timid and meek my Madeline is. This is one of the songs they use to warm-up with. We hope you enjoy it, Cousin Eddy!

Still on Vacation!

We are still on vacation for one more week! We don't have to go back to school and work until January 11th, so we are still having lots of fun. Saturday we met Carrie, Milo, and Milo's grandparents at Griffith Park for a spin on the merry-go-round, some time at the playground, and batting practive with Milo and his Grandpa Dave.

Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round

New Things!

It's nice to get some new things for the house, especially when you find a good deal! A couple of years ago, I purchased a coffee table on line that neither Kent nor I were ever very happy with. With some of the money I received for Christmas gifts this year, I decided to find a new one. We went to a few stores, looked on line and didn't find anything we could agree on. Then, Kent found this one, used and on craig's list no less, for 125 dollars. It even came with a matching end table! It is really perfect, solid wood, and much better quality than anything we looked at new.

I still had a little money left over, so I went to Cost Plus World Market, maybe my new favorite store, and bought this sconce and some baskets for storage.

Happy New Year, 2010!

We had a quiet New Year's at home this year. We wanted to do something special with the kids and decided to let them make their own pizzas. We also told them they could stay up until midnight (wink,wink-I knew they would never make it!). Now they actually did stay up until midnight for the previous two New Years, but that was because we celebrated on the east coast, and they were still on west coast time. But alas, we were on the west coast this year which never feels quite right since you watch the ball drop at 9 o'clock live in New York. It's somewhat disappointing for us grown-ups, but really an advantage for the little ones. So we made and ate pizzas, watched the ball drop at 9, the kids partied on until 10 when they passed out in the living room, and Kent and I persevered until midnight to make sure we could watch the New York City festivities a second time. Happy Twenty Ten, everyone!

Pressing out dough:

Adding cheese:

Ready for the oven:

Approximately 10:15 pm:

Makin' Pizza

Sweeties

Just a cute picture I wanted to post of my "sweeties."