Garden Party

This past weekend we had a "garden party", which was really "garden box building party"...but Garden party sounded more fun and spring-like. Holly and Allie, and their husbands and their kids all came over on saturday, and then men built planters to be used for raised bed gardens and the woman and children sat outside and visited and played and enjoyed the perfect weather.

Building in progress

After the building was complete, we had a potluck dinner, with grilled chicken sausage (grilled by Allie), mango salsa (Holly), beans, coucous salad and deviled eggs. Holly takes deviled eggs everywhere she goes. I guess that's why she's invited to a lot of stuff.
The kids had their own table set up (a cardboard box w/ a table cloth), but they had already run off to play more when I did this picture.

The completed boxes. (They won't always live in the driveway, we're moving them this weekend.)

I didn't get many good pictures of the kids playing together (maybe someone will forward some to me), but they all had a great time and were worn out by evening. Isn't that the best part of a Garden Party?

Get Well Soon Norma!

Parker's "aunt Norma" is under the weather, so we're sending her a get well wish via the blog and the scanner. Parker made this drawing and I scanned it. Parker bestowed her highest honor...hearts drawn around the name.

We hope you are on the road to recovery soon, Norma!!

Oh, snap! She can whistle!

After many months of practice and frustration, Parker can whistle! And when she's really showing off, she snaps and whistles at the same time.


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Next milestone will be either skating, doing a cartwheel, tying her shoes, or losing a tooth. Stay tuned.

Note to CDC:

Perhaps going outside when it's cold and wet DOES make you sick after all. I always thought it was a virus. This is the first time since Christmas that she's had fever.

Today when Parker woke up, she refused breakfast and none of her toys would play right. Sure enough, she had a little fever. She's had an easy day of lounging and watching tv and seems to have recovered and is full of energy again....just in time for bedtime.

More rain pics

This picture was just too cute not to post. This another one i took on Friday when she was playing in the puddles and enjoying her umbrella.

You know it's wet when ducks start to visit. A duck couple strolled through the yard today during lunch. I think they mistook our neighbor's backyard for the lake.

Rainy Day

We've been getting some much needed rain the past few days. I think we're up to 4 inches. And it's cold too, I don't think it's been over 40 since Wednesday. Nasty weather, but it's worth it for free water.
Parker has been a total grump this week, I have no idea why. Maybe the time change has thrown her off....there has been lots of fits and sassiness and attitude and tantrums and crying and attempts to overthrow the ruling party. Not the kind of behavior I was hoping for with spring break coming up. It might be a LONG week next week.
I was done battling over little things, so today she played in the puddles with her umbrella (in 40 degree weather) and then came in and had a nice hot swim in the big bathtub, and then wore her pajamas over to her friends house to play. And we all had a lovely afternoon that hopefully won't result in pneumonia.

Elizabeth Fairy Princess Outfit

I think this might be all the Elizabeth outfits. I'll have to count them up....I still might be missing the Longhorn cheerleader one. This isn't a great picture....next time she wears this I'll try to update. It's an organza-like material over satin, with matching shoes, and a fur accented crown and magic wand.

Jeans and a haircut...2 bits!

Who knew wearing jeans would be photo/blog worthy? It is when it's the FIRST TIME in years. Parker is a liiiitle sensitive about her clothes..how they fit and feel. At the beginning of fall I bought her a pair of jeans, even though I doubted she would wear them. Everybody needs at least one pair of jeans, right? Well finally she gave them a try, and the likes them! She can get past how they feel since she likes how she looks in them, I guess.

She also got a haircut. Just a trim, really, but I had the hair lady blow it out straight, and she was thrilled with her straight hair. She was not a big fan of the "kid cut" salon I took her to though. She cried all the way there and let me know next time she'd prefer to go back to the place in the mall. (across town, of course).

Happy Goforth Day!

I nearly forgot! Hope everyone had a great Goforth Day!

Homeschool Yoga

Last week Parker went off on a yoga tangent. She started doing stretches that she sees bob and I doing, some which resemble yoga poses, and I told her the names of some of them. She really like the idea that they have names.....cat, cow, mountain, etc. She can remember most of them too. I got her a kid's yoga book from the library and she used that to fill in her knowledge gaps.
Since I had not yet acquired the yoga outfit she requested (strappy tank top, fitted shorts), she improvised with her ballet clothes ...and tap shoes.


The next day I dug out her summer clothes and she was thrilled to have a proper outfit. Several outfits actually, which is a big part of the fun....changing clothes.

Notice that all these pics are in the kitchen....since they were taking while I'm prepping and cooking dinner.

Here is the commentary that goes along with the pictures and poses:
"Mom! Look at me! Look! Look at this one! Look! Take a picture! Watch! Watch me! Are you ready for this one! Take a picture! Look! Mom! Mommy! Look"

I have the outtakes uploaded here (click the picture):

Yoga

washing dishes

This would be cute....washing dishes in her ballet outfit, except that she was supposed to be sitting at the dinner table eating.

Here's another one:


It's gotten to the point where I have to wash dishes when she's occupied, or else I have "help".

More Elizabeth outfits

While we were skiing, Bob's parents (Parker's Gigi and Papa) came to stay with her. Gigi brought a tote back stuffed with material and patterns to make Elizabeth more outfits. Parker took a break from ballet-ing to check it out.

The results:
A Party Dress in plaid taffeta with matching headband, and matching shoes. I had to crop this photo because Parker is wearing red glittery high heels along with her nightgown.

A Cow Girl Outfit - With a denim printed top and denim skirt w/ leather (suede?) fringe and glittery red rickrack and matching boots and hat. The hat was 'store bought'...Gigi is such a slacker.

And yes, for those of you scoring at home, I still owe you a couple pictures of outfits from Christmas. I'm hoping these will hold you for a while.

More reading - still photo

Here's another reading picture, her reading to Car Baby, who is clearly a captive audience. She's really loving reading and being read to....we're doing "chapter books" now at bedtime. The Magic Treehouse series is a family favorite. The ironic part is that she HATES going to the library. She prefers that I be her personal shopper for books.

Parker reads Bob to Bob

Here's a little video of Parker reading. These are little books called Bob Books, and they have short sentences with mostly 3-letter words. She's really super proud of herself that she's able to 'read a whole book'. The teacher also sends home little "take home readers" from school and she's doing great with those too.


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EDIT: sorry the first video didn't work, I can't seem to make the Blogger video upload. Hopefully this one works using Dropshots.

Ski Trip

We've just returned from our annual ski trip. This year we went to Steamboat Springs with a group from Bob's work. It was a great trip - Bob and I could really tell that we have improved our fitness levels. I even skied down a Black slope (the hardest) with out getting stuck.
We had Texas-like weather...in that it changed frequently. The first day of skiing it was sunny and relativly warm, but with high winds. The next day there was about 6" of new powder (see trees in background) and it snowed most of the day, with VERY poor visibility and much colder. The third day started out like the day before, but ended up sunny. On the day we left, the temperature at the base was 10F....I'm glad we missed that.

I still haven't mastered smiling with ski goggles on. They smush your cheeks down.

Happy Valentines Day!

Couch Cushion Fort

It really doesn't matter how many toys you have, or how elaborate your play room is, the funnest thing to do always seems to involve building with couch cushions. This was one of those times where it's quiet for an extended period of time, so you go see what's up, and find a new couch cushion construction project in progress. She's made a fort using the end table as framing. By the end of the afternoon this game had morphed into "Inn Keeper Dog" where she was (in her mind) a dog that was the keeper of the Cushion Inn....dressed in her strawberry shortcake costumes...and a tail. Makes perfect sense to me.

Elizabeth's School Outfit

Here's another one of Elizabeth's handmade outfits. This is her school outfit. It was hard to get a good picture..the models weren't very cooperative. Typical.
She has a little plaid pleated skirt, a yellow top with crayola buttons, a hat and red sparkly shoes. The pants go to a different outfit, but she's wearing them because she was cold I guess. There is also a purse that matches the shoes and holds a little tiny chalkboard, but it didn't make the photoshoot. On her back you can see her little red vinyl backpack.

Iced in...somewhat

The rain and sleet left enough ice on the roadways to cancel all the schools around here, so we're stuck at home today. The sun is out, but it's still 23F outside. Bob made it into work and said it wasn't really a big deal, but I guess we're going to stay in as long as we can stand it. I bet the library closed anyway. I wonder if we could make it to Sonic.....

Since we have a LOT of time on our hands today, we took the opportunity to do complicated hair. She must have been SUPER motivated for this hairstyle to stand still long enough for me to fix it. Introducing, for the first time ever, braided pigtails. I did a side view so you couldn't see how crooked her part is. The rest of the art direction is by Parker ("take a picture of me looking at Elizabeth!").

Weather update

9pm. After an ENTIRE day of forecasting freezing rain, it is FINALLY sleeting. They even closed the schools early today in anticipation of ice on the roads, but there was nothing. They even pre-empted Oprah to have an hour of coverage of the (only) wet (not icy) overpasses! I'm torn between wanting all the weather drama buildup to pay off, and wanting them to be wrong so there will still be school. Continue to stay tuned.