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!

Science Fair

We have finally completed the 4th grade science fair with Ruth. Since she is in the gifted program, she could not choose a topic from the list given to the other 4th graders...she had to be original. She chose to explore weather ice melts at different rates in different fluids. She chose 6 fluids and...the ice melted much faster in the tequilla ( with adult supervision) and in Coke the slowest. She did not win an award, but she did a fantastic job and we are VERY proud of Ruth.

New Photo

Yesterday we received a photo of Sara from when she was about 6 yrs old. One of her friends, who came "home" a year ago had put it into a photo album and then shown her mom, who promptly emailed it to us. This is the YOUNGEST photo we have of Sara and we are ever so grateful! Sara thinks she was about 6 years.

We have all been down with terrible colds....and gone through 4 boxes of tissues and are using 3 humidifiers....slowly on the recovery.

Update

Well, Sara's wing has healed and the girls have a 4 day break from school. They have transformed themselves into princesses, as I have always suspected was there under the monster costumes....aren't they adorable.

Humpty Dumpty

Once upon a time there was a beautiful drama queen. She went to a really big school, though she was really small. She was full of energy and always found a way to be in the front of the line for everything. One day, after a long break from school, the children returned to the routine of school and had not quite settled back into their best behavior. The head king of this school asked all the subjects to line up on the procession grounds and prepare for a royal feast in the royal lunch room. Of course the drama queen was one of the first in line as they waited impatiently for the head king to say GO. Once he pronounced the advancement for the then starving 5th graders, I mean the royal subjects, they moved ahead as if in battle for the food.....and drama queen was left in the dust.

The good news is that the drama queen did not get any bones broken, but is on the side line for a while so her magic wand waving arm can heal.

SARA-11 YRS

ALL EXCITED!!!We celebrated Sara's birthday on the 27th. She is now 11 years old...not sure how that happens so fast. She chose an ice cream cake and it was really good, but very hard to cut! Ruth got her a Hannah Montana card that plays one of her songs, and she got a Hannah Montana shirt, along with other things.

A Florida Christmas

We arrived at the Judd's the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring because the kids scared them so much! The stocking were hung by the pool with such care, in hopes that St. Nicholas would take the swimming dare. When what to our wondering eye should appear, but a tooth from our dear Ruth, it popped out without fear. Now off to bed they all scamper with a whine, wondering if Santa and the tooth fairy would share a ride.



Christmas in Florida is hot! We had a great time and loved all the sharing time, and gifts too. Santa and the tooth fairy did their thing.



MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL


We also made it to the beach and collected our share of shells.

A very Disney Christmas

We have returned form the land of make believe. Mickey sends his regards to all. Jeff and I are still recovering from 5 days, with a few days off in between, of sun rise to sun set Disney. The girls and I rode splash mountain a number of times and were totally soaked....a great thing when it is warm, but not so great in the winter. We loved thunder mountain next door too and by the 5th time, Sara rode with her arms in the air, and Ruth was finally opening her eyes. Both girls got to dance in the Lion King presentation. To the kid's thrill, High School Musical was doing a show at MGM and we watched it 3X! The girls got out and danced with the final number. One day we saw the opening time wrong, so we were there really early....first family there! Funny the second and third families also had very young girls from china...one home a year, and one home 2 months! Since we were the first family, we were escorted through the park before they opened and chose the safari ride and got a private safari trip with our own guide, and a fast pass for all day to that ride! The girls got to ride in the front of the monorail 5 times! The Polynesian Resort where we stayed was beautiful and had a heated pool with a huge water slide through a volcano! We all loved the animated talking turtle Crush at Epcot. We watched it twice. Sara loved the China section in Epcot and took photos of EVERYTHING there!

One day our friend Shirley and her daughter Fu, Mailia came for the day. Mailia came home the same day as Sara and lived in the same SWI and now lives near Orlando. Mailia is now 7. It was like they were never apart, except that there was no Chinese spoken, only English. Ruth enjoys Mailia too. They swam in the pool, played at the beach, played game cube, rode the monorail a few times. We left the 24th for Jeff''s parents house to be there for Christmas morning.

Christmas-early

We had our Christmas celebration last night, and this morning for the gifts I forgot where I had put!!! The girls were please and I managed to make sure that there was the same number of gifts for each. I think the biggest hit was a digital camera. Don't go crazy on me, they were not expensive, but can do a lot....technology is getting cheaper. These will come in handy at Disney World and they have been strictly advised that if lost, they are without until they get a job and earn the money to replace them....let's hope this threat works.

Happy birthday to me.

Today is my birthday....again. Jeff and I had a wonderful "date" night last Saturday--without kids--yea!!!! This was dinner and a movie. I highly recommend date night to all couples....it really helps with the sanity issue, and don't even pretend you do not know what I am talking about.

Florida Christmas

We will be heading to Disney World and Nana and Papa Judd's house for the holidays. We are so excited. The girls are mixed about being pulled out of school early. Ruth does not want to miss the parties, and Sara is sad anyday that is not a school day. We will be busy doing make up homework. Got the car ready for the trip today...ouch!

We are having really freaky weather. We go from 80-30-70-40....all in a 48 hour period. I have the windows open now to warm the house up, will need to close them and run the heater tonight, and the A/C in another day! This does explain the saying if you don't like the weather, wait a minute, it will change!

The leaves are rapidly changing and beautiful. These trees are at our church.

Sara's birthday party

Last night we had Sara's birthday party/sleep over. We had two girls come, and one spent the night. It worked out great. The girls played on the trampoline, ate pizza, did crafts, watched a movie, did cake and ice cream, played games, played math flash cards (only my kids), and were in bed and asleep by midnight. This morning I got up and we all went for doughnuts and then to church together.







My little sister Lisa came for a short visit with her daughter Angie, then another of my sisters Chris called for a visit....I guess I will call my other sister today so I can give my love to all of them.

Jeff's birthday

My dear husband had a birthday today. The girls made cute cards and we took him out to our favorite restaurant...Chinese of course. We had a good day together.

Brainiacks

BRAGGING TIME! My dear loving (most of the time) girls both came home with A honor roll report cards. I was worried about Ruth, but after another conference with her teachers, she saw that I was serious about her grades and cracked down and got all A's We are so proud of our girls!

Thanksgiving

We (including Cooper the dog of course) traveled to my parent's house for Thanksgiving and had the usual wonderful food prepared by my mom, assisted by my sisters, nieces, and the professional turkey slicing by my father, who was caught a number of times "dropping" scraps to the dogs. . . we know!

We did our usual all night card games, did a little shopping, visited my long time friends Ruth and Richard, who are remodeling their entire new house by them selves....they are very handy.

Indoor soccer now

Ruth and Sara are on the same indoor soccer team. We got Sara's goggels the day of the game so she can play, and good thing we did because she took one to the face....ouch....but then she was back in. They lost to a team that are VERY good and have been playing select (the cream of the crop) soccer for 3 years together. All in all, our team heald their own and lost, but played a good game.

Wildlife refuge

Jeff took the girls to a local wildlife refuge. They had a great time, and I got some quiet time. They saw many animals and enjoyed themselves. Notice the shirts the girls have on...the ones they wore the first time they saw each other. They say "blame my sister" and how true is this? It was a beautiful cool day.

Camp Carter

Sara is in 5th grade this year, and they are divided into 3 groups. Sara is 5C. On Tuesday Sara left for Camp Carter, a YMCA camp. They will be gone for 4 days and nights....a little quiet in the house LOL!!! Tonight we are driving to the camp to see the skits they will present, and they will be home tomorrow. This is the first time Sara has been away and she was getting extra hugs and kisses for a week to store up for when she was away....remember these times beause. . . . there will be a time when she will be too busy to get even a single hug and kiss, but I hope it is not for a very long time!


Sara is home and had a blast and would have stayed another week or two if she could have! Ruth can not wait to go next year. We are considering sending them for a week in the summer.

Recyclenators

THIS IS GREEN WEEK across the US! Last year Ruth was on the GREEN TEAM at school, the kids has to apply for the position. They were in charge of the paper recycling in each classroom. On Thursdays, they would collect all the papers from each class' recycle box and take them to the back of the school to the two large recycle bins. We continued it big time this summer, and still continue it this year, though they are no longer officially on the GREEN TEAM. On Thursdays is our recycle days in our town. Everyone has a recycle bin for their glass, aluminum and paper goods. We leave a little early for school and hit as many of these bins until the back of my van is full. Paper for the school and cans for Sara and Ruth. Sara's teacher is collecting the pop tops for the Ronald McDonald homes, and the girls recycle the cans for their allowance. This week we are having a phone book drive and dear Jeff brought a bunch home from work from his coworkers.