Fall baking

 

I hosted book club recently and made some fall treats.  I think the pumpkins are the cutest...but I got more compliments on the peach tarts. 

Reading log request

Attn: teacher types

I'm in need of a printable reading log for Parker to chart how much she reads per week. I think we are going to do it by minutes per day....and have a goal of x minutes per week. Her teacher says she should be doing 15-20 minutes/day of reading. I can whip something up on Excel easy enough, but if anyone has a handy link to one, send it on. My plan B will be to just have her write her minutes down on a sticker and put it on the calendar, then add up the minutes each week, but that's sort of boring.

Thanks in advance. Here's a quick picture to enjoy. Bob and Parker both playing their favorite game, Angry Birds.

Fall Foliage

 

Aren't the trees pretty this year?  Ours are some of the first to begin to turn.  I think the stress of the dry summer helps their color. 

No interesting news around here.  We made it through the busy Halloween weekend and now we're gearing up for the rest of the holidays.

Parker funny:  she was at a friends house yesterday and when she came home, she mentioned that the neighbor had given them some M&M's.  I know the neighbor, so it's no big deal, but I took the opportunity for a 'teachable moment' and told Parker if we're not with her, she should not take candy from anyone, even neighbors, blah blah blah.

Without missing a beat Parker said "ok.  I need to go write myself a note that says "no trick or treating next year."  When Bob and I closed our jaws, we reminded her that technically, we go with her to trick or treat, so that doesn't count.  Little smarty pants.

More pics

(written last night)

I'm going to try to get some pictures posted ...in between trips up the stairs for "my tummy hurts".  Halloween is a rough time for those with reflux.

  Parker, Sarah and "Cujo", smeared with fake blood.  Parker would like you to notice her new Roxy hightops

The 'little girls' of the group.  Sarah had already ditched her shoes. 

Big girls and little girls

  Are you wondering "what about bob?".... he had an opportunity to go to the World Series tonight, so that's why he's conspicuously absent.  He's had the decency not to send me any pictures of himself cheering Rangers, holding up #1, yelling woohoo, so I have none to post.  I don't begrudge him one bit for going, I enthusiastically encouraged it....too bad he wasn't more of a good luck charm though. 

Halloween pic

Here's a quick pic taken earlier. We've just returned from Trick or Treating and I'm about to try the impossible task of getting Parker bathed and into bed. She has school tomorrow morning, which will be very pretty I'm sure.

Kitchen drapery, Parker knits

The drapery install guy came just now and put up the drapes in the kitchen dining nook.  They look really nice and really help bring some warmth to that back corner.  The fabric is a print, you can't really tell until you are close up.  Here's a scan of it.

...it reminds me of a dress I used to have when I was little  that my mom or sister made  (although the dress was purple).  Looks a little busy close up like that, but from a distance, it 'reads' as a solid.

And here's a quick Parker pic, working on her latest craft project.  I got her a long loom and she's 'knitting' a scarf for her stuffed animal.  You have to wrap the yarn around the loom just so, and then use the little hook to slip one loop over the other.  We watched some Youtube videos for instruction and she can nearly do all the wrapping part by herself, but she needs someone to check her work just be sure it's wrapped right.  The slipping of the loops with the tool she can do totally on her own.  Her legs look so long in the picture!

Answer for Emily

 

On the previous post/picture, Emily asked,  "Oh! So beautiful! Did you straighten her hair or has it just gotten that straight since it has been growing? " 

Yes, I straightened it for the school picture, by her special request.  It looked way better when she left the house.  The picture above is her normal hair in its natural state. 

 

Seeing Red

These are Parker's school pictures. Is it just me, or do they have their color correction slider a bit too far towards the red head side?

I've had some uploading troubles lately...hopefully if this makes it to the internet, I'm back in blog business.

Library tip

Parker:  "I'd like to get a book about dogs from the school library."

Me:  "Really?!  I was there today for volunteer orientation!  Did you know that to find a book about dogs, you look for the shelf that has a stuffed dog above it?"

Parker:  "oh.  I usually just look in Non-Fiction."

Choosing Battles

A long time ago Parker's grandmother brought her this big stuffed chicken, with the explanation of "every little girl needs a big stuffed chicken", or something like that. He is really cute, I can see how it was a difficult purchase to resist. He made his way to the bottom of the toy basket, but has recently bubbled to the surface and become the favored animal that Parker drags around the house with her. And he's even big enough to have his own pillow to rest his head at night in her bed.
On friday she came home with a note that said since she had gotten x number of reward 'bucks' at school, she gets to choose a reward....one of which is bringing a stuffed animal from home to sit on her desk all day (*cough* cheapskate teacher) .
One guess which one she wants to bring.

I'm all for letting her express herself, but I'm drawing the line at Big Chicken going to school.

Kitchen Pictures

We are FINALLY nearly complete. There are still some decorative things I need to get done and the kitchen table needs to be moved back in.
More comentary coming soon.

Wiggly tooth

Not the cutest picture, but I was anxious to post it.  Parker has her first loose tooth.  It's not totally loose on it's own accord...she somehow bit her finger and that loosened it, but I'm assuming it will eventually come out.  She's a little freaked out about it, and so am I.

Hurricane, hurricane go away.

We've had a super rainy day today, I think they said 6 inches fell in a 24 hour period at the airport, but I bet we got more than that out here.  During dinner time, it get very tornado-y around the Dallas area, but it all fell apart before it got to us, thankfully.

Doing homework

Carla
- via mobile phone

Progress

The kitchen is still sloooowly creeping along.  Today someone was here for several hours just filling in nail holes with wood putty. I think he has turtle DNA.

We finally have a couple areas that we can 'move in' to this weekend if we want. The bar and the laundry room are pretty much complete.  There are a million areas over the entire kitchen that need little bits of trim or little paint or caulk touch ups...and that's before Bob make HIS punch list. 

Parker is a first grader!

I'm a little sore from doing handsprings and clicking my heels in the air, but I'll try to write a little something.  

Drop off went well....when we got there, most of the class were there already (translation:  we were running a little late), so Parker seemed a little shell shocked, but she found her seat and the place to put her backpack, and that was it. 

Here are the traditional pictures.  I think next year I'm going to change the tradition and post the pictures on the SECOND day of school.  Usually on the first day, by the time I get everything edited and put together just so, half my day is gone, and I'm way behind on all the things I had planned for the day:  hearing myself think, completing a task without interruption, and a lot of other NOTHING. 

I did my best to line things up and scale them the same, but it's still not quite a 1:1 comparison because she doesn't always stand the same distance away from the door.  Also this year, we've added the hip out/slouch pose. Remember, you can click on the pictures to see them larger in their own window.

I feel like I should have made her dress up more, but this is her uniform right now:  denim shorts and tshirt with a cat or dog on the front.  As soon as I let her, we'll change that to tshirts and jeans.  I sort of wish she'd want to get more dressed up, but it's hard to complain about only buying $5 tshirts.  You can also see how much my standards have dropped when you look at her footwear.  It doesn't show, but I did at least give her a fresh coat of polish on her toenails.

Stick a fork in summer....

....cause it's DONE. This has been a long hot one, and I'm glad to see it over with. They should change the school year in the hot states so that you get out early may when it's nice outside and go back early august when it's miserable outdoors. If you're going to be indoors at school, you might as well do it when outdoors is inhospitable (which is an understatement....it's not even really SAFE to be outdoors much right now). Parker was very sad to learn that I won't allow her to wear jeans and suede boots to school until the highs are out of the triple digits.

I hope all my teaching peeps have a good first day tomorrow too!

Check back for first day pictures tomorrow afternoon. I'm excited to see the comparison pictures and how (if?) Parker has grown over the past year.

She braids, she braids

Milestone alert: parker can braid hair now!

Fishing

Tile

Here's the tile floor. Bob designed the pattern (not a lot of patterns for rectangular tile) and the holes you see will be filled in. It's a slight upgrade from the sheet vinyl that was there before. Tile Guy left his levels there so we could see that everything was even.