Daddy Daughter Dance 2008

After much anticipation and preparations, tonight is the big dance. Sara picked out her dress last fall, size 14, and it did require quite a bit of alteration to size it down. Ruth picked hers out a few weeks ago and I had to do a few alterations to hers too, such as add blue. We were lucky to find a necklace the matched's Ruth's blue trim and Sara wore my grandmother's diamond choaker and Ruth's fancy tiera. Jeff look great too, buy you know it is all about the girls! Jeff said they danced almost every dance and when Jeff and Ruth rested, Sara kept on dancing and they had a great time. Just in case you are wondering, Sara was covered in body glitter. I had to finally take it away from her...she is all girl. After taking the picuures, Ruth was walking back into the house and I noticed some black under her dress and I thought that she still had on her white soccer socks with the black emblem from this morning....she still had her soccer pants on! What can I say. . . love them both.

Chess tournament

Sara and two boys were invited to a chess tournament. Jeff took Sara while I took Ruth to the first soccer practice with their new team. I kept watching for Jeff and Sara to make it to practice assuming that Sara would play one game and then come home. . . SURPRISE! This girl is really good and took home a huge trophy.

Valentine's Day

Ruth had a fun Valentine Party in 4th grade. She won for best box and I was proud of her. She is very creative. They had an ice cream sundee party. Sara was a little bummed because in 5th grade they are in Intermediate school and have no formal parties. This did not stop her from bringing valentine candies to all of her teachers, card to all the students in her languare arts class-her favorite and most liberal teacher- and small bags of candies to her 15 best friends LOL!

We also made valentine peppermint cookies, which Sara was excited that we made good pepperoni cookies - a little off on the words causing often laughts.

Talented girls! ! ! !

Sara has been invited to a chess tournament at a nearby school. She has been moved to the upper level at her school chess club and is the only girl....and I assured her that someday this will be good, but for now, she wishes there were a few more girls.


Ruth is one of three students in her school invited by Duke University to join their TIP program for the gifted. She got 100 and 99 on her state mandeded tests last year! Not sure yet what this program will involve, but I am very proud of her. Check it out at:



http://www.tip.duke.edu/talent_searches/grades_4-5/

Chinese New Year-later

We opted to celebrate Chinese New Year at our local Chinese market. They had drummers with marshall arts exhibitions, including dancing with knives and sworts. They had the little dragon dance, then the huge dragon dance, followed by the largest strings of fire crackers I have ever seen! It was loud but a lot of fun. The girls were dressed in their outfits and both were beautiful!

"hot" daughter and EMERGENCY

I was outside trimming the bushes waiting for Sara to walk home from the bus stop. She was very excited and yelling....."mommy, a boy on the bus told me he loved me! He said I was hot and pretty.....yuck! ! ! ! " I asked if he said she was hot because she had on her big coat. She said no mommy, I had my coat off...it means I am realllllly pretty....(all smiles)

I was teasing her about it, laughing like you all will do some day, holding the bush branch in my hand so it would not blow as I cut it with my super sharp shears, and I sheared off the end of my finger! By the time I got into the house, Ruth already had Jeff on the phone, not making much sense, I was crying, Sara was asking if I was going to die....just like a circus. Jeff said to go on to the hospital and he was on his way, from an hour away. So into the car to the hospital next to Sara's school only 4 miles away. I can not stand the sight of blood, but I did pretty good. I did make sure the girls grabbed a snack and water and we were off. I was driving like a "safe" maniac speeding too... and of all days not to see a cop to escort me there!

After waiting an hour, the Dr said it had already begun good clotting, so no stitches, but also nothing else...like dishes-yea! Jeff arrived as we were finishing up and home we went.


No posts for a while because I can not type with one finger! More later.

Chinese New Year- 2/7/08

We are preparing for Chinese New Year. Since Sara came to us at the age of 9, she can tell us what was done in her China home for the New Year. First, this is when everyone got a haircut. They also got 120 yuan (@20 dollars) to buy all new clothes, shampoo, other needs. Giving money is very important for this holiday. She said they did a lot of fire crackers, ate well, and stayed up all night. This is the most important holiday for her, so we are trying to celebrate it with much enthuseism too. We have decorated our house with lanterns, banners, and whatever else we can find. We have made gift boxes for her teachers and put chocolate coins in each.

Early birds

This morning Sara and I were up early and the day was beautiful, so we sat outside and watched and listened to the birds. We have a mating pair of Cardinals living in the yard and Sara caught some great photos of them!

LEAVES

We had a beautiful day today and the girls and I were spending time outside playing with the dog and the girls on the trampoline, and Ruth got the idea to make a great leaf pile and jump into like she had hear of. FIRST, she began with one handful of dead leaves, then after studying the probablilty of it, decided that she would probably do better if she had some more.


Then she had made her mighty pile, all 6 inches deep (city girls living where it used to be grazing land for cattle and thus no REAL treel) and went for it. OH....the look in her eyes! Jeff asked if it hurt, and she said only the bottom of it, but it was fun the first 5 inches.


Then Sara thought she needed to do this too, even after having watched her sister's pain....always has to try everything. The last thing I told her was that it was going to hurt, and off she went with a running leap.....and totally missed the leaves! I laughed so hard, couldn't help it.....then she had to sit on my lap, because her butt hurt too bad to sit anywhere else.......then Ruth decided that it was not a true experiment unless she tried it again. . . . same result!





Thanks for all the laughts today my lovely girls!