more cookies

I thought it would be really funny to make gingerbread men with bites taken out of them, and sad faces. They turned out pretty funny! This wasn't my original idea...I saw it on a blog somewhere.

Christmas: The Aftermath

In case you don't read the comments, my mom posted a comment on yesterday's post that said "Do I see MATCHING shoes on Elizabeth???". Yes mother, there are matching shoes with EVERY outfit, including the nightgown. I told you Claudette is part Santa's elf.
Here's another outfit. You can't see the fabrics, the the top and vest are fleecy, and the pants are velvety. And yes, there are matching shoes, hat AND purse.

It's been a looong day. Parker is in rapid detox from the mixture of being pampered while she was sick, unlimited apple juice and chocolate milk, undivided attention from adults and a constant stream of gifts and new toys. We're back to the harsh world of amusing yourself, limits on tv time, errands and solid food.
(I can't remember if I said, but Parker has been a little under the weather since Christmas day with a little cold or virus or something. She's better now.) Here's a picture of her 5 oclock fit.

Don't feel too sorry for me though...every mom of a preschooler had the same fit on their kitchen floor at some point between 4 and 6 most likely. It's the witching hour.

We started disassembling the decorations today. Parker was somewhat helpful this year - I took ornaments off and gave them to her, and she sorted them. It made for quick work. I realized afterward that I didn't take a picture of the tree this year. I changed the colors a bit....silver and green instead of silver and red.

Christmas 2008

At looong last, Christmas came and went. Parker has been counting the days for what seems like MONTHS. She was really into it this year, they did a lot at school regarding the birth of Christ, etc. She 'read' me one of her Christmas books,
"The angel appeared to Mary and said 'you're going to have a baby' .",
"And Mary said 'I can't handle a baby!' "

At least 2 months ago, she picked out what she wanted Santa to bring her - an American Girl doll. She went back and forth about which certain one, but finally decided on Elizabeth after we made a scouting trip to the American Doll store here. It was chock full of little girls with their dolls in tow, waiting to get the doll's hair (!) done in the salon, or to dine in the little cafe...where they have booster chairs for the dolls so they can sit up at the table too.

We were very worried about her changing her mind after the order was placed.....the plan to tell Santa in person fell through. We attended Spaghetti with Santa at her school, and she loved the meal and the live music, but REFUSED to sit in his lap. I offered up every bribe I could think of, but she wasn't interested. On the way home, although I never told her this, that if she didn't tell Santa what she wanted, she wouldn't get her doll. She sobbed "can't we just BUY a doll?" Like, why do we have to go through this middle man, anyway? She was ready to have me turn the car around and go through with it, but I assured her that just writing a letter would be good enough.
We hosted Bob's parents for Christmas. I cooked a fancy dinner Christmas eve and Parker was very amped up, but she went to bed at the appointed time.

Setting out cookies....we left the milk in the fridge until later.

She waited until 7am to come downstairs....and was thrilled to finally get her doll.

Parker and Elizabeth

Gigi (Bob's mom) spent untold hours making doll clothes for Elizabeth. After seeing all she made, I'm convinced that Santa's elves are real, and she's one of them.

Opening the doll clothes

We've been doing photos of the diferent outfits, and we'll post them soon. Here's one:

Matching nightgowns

She's REALLY into the matching clothing thing. It looks like I might have to start sewing soon. We hope everyone had a great holiday. We're going to be busy... Parker only has 6 months to plan her birthday party.

The Strange But True Story of the Amazing Marathon Man

They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step....and the journey of 26.2 miles begins with a single step as well.

Last year around this time, Bob decided to take a step in the right direction. He wanted to get in better shape. To lose some weight so his pants would fit better. To make better choices about what he consumed. He started running his usual 'get in shape' amount of 3 miles. I suggest he should push it to 4, and do a longer run on the weekends of about 6. And he liked the idea of maybe doing the half marathon with me in December.

The more he ran, the easier it got and his distances got longer and longer,and soon it became apparent that running an entire marathon would be an achievable goal. He read a book on marathon training, and set up an 18 week training program. And the training program was not an easy road at all...it included running 5 days a week, with increasing mileage. It involved getting up at 4:30am on Tues, Wed, and Thurs to get his runs done before work. Running either on the treadmill or outside in the dark, wearing a orange construction vest at first to prevent being flattened by the newspaper delivery guy. On weekends he pushed Parker in the stroller on runs under 6 miles.

Also along the training path there were challenges - fitting run schedules around crazy work hours, a very unfortunate bout of delayed heat illness in the middle of a dinner party, and knee trouble in the final weeks of training. The knee pain (IT band to be exact) lead to intensive physical therapy, icing during his daily commute and hours stretching. But even with those obstacles, last Sunday, Bob not only completed his marathon journey, but he had an amazing running debut!

The weather on race day also presented an enormous hurdle. The winds that day were horrible, 20-30mph, with gusts even stronger. The kind of wind that causes you to hang on tight to the steering wheel so you don't fly off the overpass. During the section of the course that circled White Rock Lake, Bob said he felt like he was standing still. At mile 23, he was really really struggling. He decided to walk for a bit for the first time in his race. After a half mile, he decided it was too painful and exhausting to walk, and running was somehow easier than walking. He managed to will himself to finish, and was only 10 minutes slower than his goal time. Many people that day were slower than their goal time, if they finished at all. The paper reported that winner had the slowest finish time since 2001....which was a race with no elite runners.

His finish time was 3:40:23 (3 hours, 40 minutes, 23 seconds), 8:25 pace...that's like setting your speed on your treadmill to 7.1...and running on it for 3 hours. This is an awesome finish time for anyone, much less a new runner and a first time marathoner.

The rest of his stats:
He was 427 out of 3938 total marathoners, 357th Male Overall.
84th in Age Group
Top 10% overall (top 14% of males).
And the links -
From the GPS watch we wear:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/1545677
(if you mouse over the graph, you can see the pace)

Photos (use bib# 5243):
http://www.sportphoto.com/Event.aspx?EventID=61

There are many famous quotes that tell us that what is important is the journey that you take, not the destination. I'm guessing the folks that said that would have called it quits around mile 20. At the end of his brutal 26.2 mile journey and 6 long months of training, Bob found himself 30lbs thinner, no longer needing cholesterol lowering drugs, and in the best shape of his life. Sure it was an amazing trip, but view from the finish line is pretty sweet too.



Bob Post, 03:40:30 (NET) @ Finish Pace 8:24
(that's the actual text that people who signed up for racing tracking received when he crossed the finish line)


(I ran the half marathon in 2:16. More on me in another post)

Million dollar idea....and a picture

Know what i'd pay good money for? Tessellation cookie cutters. Shapes that you can cut out, and when you do, the negative space is a shape too, so there's not much waste. Not just any shapes of course.....seasonal ones. Nothing comes up when I Google it.

And here's a picture so that no one has a fit over the post/picture ratio lately. Here's Parker in her Pilgrim paper hat from school. They also made little vests out of paper bags. And they all assigned themselves "Indian names" (shouldn't that be Native American?), and hers was Hopping Rabbit.

Weather report

Ugh, it is cooooooold and nasty here. Sunday evening it was in the 70's and people were dining on restaurant patios. We woke up Monday morning, expecting maybe 4o's, and it was 24F! Then yesterday evening the freezing rain and sleet started and has continued off and on. The roads are a mess and many schools were canceled today. But not Parker's! Since I had some very pressing errands to run, I took her to school about an hour late. There were some slick spots, but everyone was driving like turtles, so there were no troubles. It's the hares you have to worry about. Or the combo: hare most of the time, and then deciding all of a sudden to be a turtle when they get on an bridge.

Anyway, when it was time to get out of the car, I told her,

"It's so cold outside!! We should have worn hats."
And she said,
"Why? We look just fine."

Christmas cookies

Sometime in September, I signed a volunteer form at Parker's school saying I'd be willing to provide baked good for various school events, and this week they held me to it. Her school has Spaghetti With Santa every Christmas, which is a fundraiser spaghetti dinner (and dessert) and Santa is available to have your picture taken with. Excuse my bad sentence structure.

Since Parker LOVES to cut things out with cookie cutters, I decided to try making decorated sugar cookies. I've assisted with this before, but never done them on my own. I told a mom I know with a 2nd grader what I was doing and she laughed and shook her head and said "newbie!". I guess by the time they get to 2nd grade, everyone just does slice and bake.

Here's Parker, doing one of her favorite parts. It's difficult to slow her down enough to fit all the cuts close together, and to not mangle the cookies after they're cut with her hot little hands. I felt like I spent a lot of time saying "wait! don't touch! Wait! "

I decorated all but a few of them, and let her give it a try. She did pretty well with piping on the icing.

Adding sprinkes, the best part.

I did snowflakes, angels and snowmen, and Parker did some hearts and leaves. I just did crazy designs on top of them since that was the most fun, plus I figured if I made them look sort of strange, no one will ask me to make them for their baby shower. I also added white sanding sugar on top of that for sparkle and crunch. I thought they turned out really well!

Garden update

For the first time ever, I planted a fall garden. The Texas Gardner magazine raved about how it was so easy and the best time for gardening in Texas. I planted some late zucchini and grew several before the frost got it, and I've recently harvested my first broccoli! I am still really shocked that I was able to grow broccoli, but it's been no trouble at all. It looks just like the kind you get from the store:

Dog Can Hop - Parker Reads!

Monday evening, Parker read her first book on her own. Her teacher sends home little 6 page booklets with them, along with a popsicle stick that has plastic eyeballs glued onto it so we can point out the words or just have it follow along while we read. Usually we just read these together and we'll have her sound out a word here or there, or just talk about beginning or ending sounds. During dinner the book was on the table, and she got it and slowly sounded out the title. She was so proud of herself! And we were very proud too. She made it about 4 pages in sounding out the words until she got frustrated, but I'm counting it as reading the whole book on her own.

Christmas is coming

More busy time around here. I just don't know where my time goes these days. Our schedule has changed somehow, and the timeslot I used to use for blogging has been taking up with something else I guess. I'm not sure what. It might be that ever since we 'fell back' from Daylight Savings Time, Parker's sleep schedule has been out of sorts. Some days she sleeps until 7:30, some days it's 6:30. This morning it was 6am.
We are counting the days until Christmas. Literally....Parker has 3 Advent-type calendars that she's using to count down. She goes to see Santa on Friday to officially lock in her gift requests. Last friday was her Christmas program at school. It's impossible to get good pictures or video in the sanctuary, but I do have a picture of her in her outfit.

Her face was clean for the performance, but it has candy cane all over it in the photo. She really enjoyed singing with her classmates up on stage - they did 5 songs and acted out the story of Jesus's birth. Her job was ringing bells at the very end, and she did great.

We have most of our decorations up, and Bob did his usual 'green tree' out front.

Progress Report

We got Parker's first progress report of the year today. She will get 2 more, in February and May.
Here's what it said:
Mastered Skills:
Making Plans/collaborative play
pretending
drawing, painting
music, movement
sorting, matching, identifying patterns.
Emerging Skills:
Reading
Writing
Number recognition
Comments and Suggestions for home:
"Parker loves to participate. She is a pleasure to teach and very popular with her friends. Parker loves to read. Read to her daily focusing on comprehension and sequence. Let her follow your finger for direction. Parker is writing more and more every day. Let her write your family's names and start wriging her last name. Encourage her to write simple notes to her friends. She enjoys this activity.
Parker can count to 30 by rote. Put a calendar at her level on your fridge. She enjoys counting and this will help her with number recognition.

-------------------------------------------------
My comments:
If any of the teacher blog readers out there have a link to a fun calendar I can print to hang on the fridge, send it our way. We accept PDF's too. I assume I'm supposed to count days until this or that with her? She really does love counting. "Mommy, listen to me count to 30!" is a favorite parlor trick. Of hers.

I was a little surprised to learn that Parker couldn't identify all her numbers....although that's not really something we do much. We've been playing Go Fish quite a bit, and she seems to know everything except 12 and 13 and is a little iffy on 6 and 9. My cards only go up to 13 though. She knows nearly all the lower case letters too....we also have Go Fish cards for that. She really enjoys card games...we even have a rummy type game where you do sequence with pictures (she needs some work on sequence and comprehension too). Even when we put together puzzles, she like to make that into a card/domino type game by dividing up the pieces and taking turns trying to 'play' your puzzle piece.
Here she is doing 'homework'. Her teacher frequently sends home little activities like this, where match the uppercase letters on plastic caps to the lower case letters on the pumpkins. We also have little reading phonics books coming home every couple days. Lots of homework for a preschooler! She enjoys all of it though, mainly because it is usually one on one attention from me or Bob.
She really does love writing, although she is very resistant to the idea of writing 'notes' to her friends at school like the teacher suggests. Not sure why. She did write "gum" on my grocery list yesterday, and also another hyphenated bathroom type word that isn't really blog material.
Our home is covered in post-it notes, and the tips of all my markers and smooshed, but she's having fun and learning, and there are lots more office supplies where those came from.

Today's artwork

Last year, to encourage the students to draw and write, Parker's teacher let the kids use Post-it notes to write on, and then post them around the room...'labeling' things. Parker hasn't forgotten about it, and she will occasionally get the Post-it bug again and do a series of labels or drawings.

This morning, she had the idea to trace around a skull eraser she got during trick or treat, and then fill in the details. Pretty clever I thought.

Freehand drawing the features



The entire series. No idea why she chose this place to post them.

Close up detail

Back at it this afternoon, in Sleeping Beauty dress and Hannah Montana wig.

By the way, this is my view on most days.....me looking from the kitchen, and Parker the raccoon climbing up the barstool and poking around in her basket of junk, or my basket of junk (much more fun) or finding pieces of paper or twist ties or junk mail or other treasures. Between her subject matter, her love of found objects and her personal style, if she decides to be an art major, she's going to fit right in.

more complicated cooking

Last week I decided to try making sushi. I read a post on a forum where someone said it wasn't all that hard, so I thought I'd give it a try. I think I still have a long way to go before I can get mine to roll up as nicely as what you get at a restaurant or store, but they were pretty tasty, and a nice treat without paying $6 for a little snack.

Parker loooooves directions. She's looking at the rolling diagram on the back of the nori. (you knew I had 'help' with this, right?)

Pressing out the rice....

There's nothing Parker loves more than sprinkling. She's sprinkling black sesame seeds on the roll. We should have done this when it was flat, really.

The finished product:

They were very tasty. I used avacado, cucumber and (fake) crab sticks. The fist roll (pictured above) turned out HUGE because I used too large of a sheet of nori, but it still tasted pretty good. I did a few more, and added shrimp. It's tough not overstuff them with filling.

Lots of cooking

For some reason, I've been doing a lot of elaborate cooking (elaborate for me) lately. With help of course. Actually, most of what I do is assemble, but still, it's been complicated assembly.
First up was treats for the Pumpkin Carnival. My friend Holly made these and shared the recipe/assembly instructions. They are JUST as delicious as they look. The picture of the finished treats is actually Holly's picture...she did a nicer presentation.

They consist of the following ingredients:
Butter Crisp waffle pretzles, Hershey's Hugs (B&W chocolate), and Reeces Pieces .

You put a Kiss on each pretzel (I cut them in half...it was a better ratio for me), and put them in a 175 degree oven until soft looking, and then schmoosch them down with a piece of Reeces. Then pop them in the fridge for about 10 minutes to set.

The finished product. Holly used plain chocolate for some of them.

Next up....sushi!

Trick or Treating

Halloween has come and gone. Phew, that was tiring. For at least 2 weeks we've been doing pumpkin carnivals and activities at school, etc etc. What will Christmas be like?

Here was her lunch on Friday. I made a special Jack O' Lantern sandwich, and also included some roasted pumpkin seeds from when we carved her pumpkin (are you rolling your eyes yet?). She ate exactly 1 bite of her sandwich.

I was actually a little worried about her, because all she ate for her entire lunch and snack at school was a box of raisins. And she never eats raisins. And for dinner she had only broth with a few noodles.
But when time for costumes and trick or treating came around, she was more than ready. Her costume was Strawberry Shortcake. I was able to talk her out of being Hannah Montanna....this year anyway. If you click on the picture, you can see I've dotted little freckles on her nose and given her rosey cheeks.

Bob and the neighbors all walked the kids around in a group, and we (the moms) were shocked that they were gone for well over an hour! They came home with lots of candy and treats and had a great time running around outdoors in their pj's while the adults visited. Parker was up WAY past her bedtime, but she had a great Halloween.

Quick fall pictures

I haven't posted in a while....so here are some quick pictures I've taken this week. Our maple trees out front have started showing fall color and they look so good! I even saw a neighbor out taking pictures of them. None of the rest of the trees on the street are showing color yet, so ours are a burst of color when you turn the corner.

This afternoon we carved Parker's pumpkin. Like last year, she put together a design on the computer, then transferred it, then we cleaned it out and carved it. She seemed to have a longer attention span last year.

Tonight she was SUPER excited about tomorrow being Halloween. She was giddy and full of energy despite having a very long full day. I do not envy her teacher tomorrow.....it's picture day, AND Halloween. Can you imagine?

It will probably be saturday sometime before I can get pictures posted of her in her costume. Just though I'd mention that so the loyal readers aren't up all night hitting 'refresh'.