Skating thru the holiday weekend...

We started out Thanksgiving Day by heading out to the Dr Pepper Stars Center in McKinney for a little ice skating.  Thought maybe we could work off the calories before we ate them.   We were very excited to have Aunt Rhonda join us! 

Then today Jason was invited to a friend's birthday party at a roller rink, so we all joined him for the fun....

Happy Halloween

Sophie drew this sketch to get in the mood. I can almost taste the candy already.

Happy Halloween!

Rock, paper, scissors

I played a few games of the classic rock, paper, scissors with all three kids today. They were playing at dinner (Lite Wok) so I joined in. I throw rock pretty regularly and let's just say that wouldn't win many games tonight.

Sophie had the widest range throwing down everything from acid to germs to antiseptic to sun.

Jason was true to his character throwing a lot of light sabers along with some lava.

My new favorite is Allison's most often used - ear wax. Rock, paper, ...... ear wax! Now that's hard to beat.

Jason Art

Jason decided to stop playing on the computer this afternoon and began to draw some pictures. First he drew this volcano for us.

Then he drew this sketch showing a mountain as night was falling. I noticed that my boy is very complete in his usage of the paper.


This night sky with stars and the moon made me break into song... "The stars at night, are big and bright. Deep in the heart of Texas"

Allison Art

Allison created this snow flake for me. It is hard to see in a scan, but she cut shapes into the paper - shown here in purple as I put that color behind her snowflake while scanning. Then she decided it looked like my face and she would decorate me. The dots below are my "scruffies". The tulip isn't actually on my face, but my precious daughter knows I like tulips.

Sophie Art

I like Sophie's sketch of her sandal that she made at Art Camp this summer.


Also from Art Camp comes her flower painting.

Here is Sophie's Star Student poster she created this weekend.

I love my artsy star student!

Happy Birthday Heston Wives

Happy Birthday Joanne and Paula!





Had a great time celebrating your birth with much dancing,

and general mirth.

Loves doing dishes

Allison wants to do everything Mommy and Daddy do these days. So we're training her young.



Anyone think she'll still smile 'cause we let her do the dishes 10 years from now?

School homework

Jason had to draw a picture of his bedroom and write a few sentences about it.

School Dos

We've been working through the preschool checklist......

Clean out closets and check for clothes status......done.
Get new backpacks and lunchboxes......................done.
Do some last minute fun stuff:
Hawaiian Falls.......................................done.
Six Flags.................................................done.
Tye Dye Party w/ friends.......................tomorrow.
Fill out school forms online.........................done.
Find out who the new teachers will be........done.
Haircuts........................................................done.

Here's the new hairdos:
Now, we just need to adjust the family schedule back to school time!

Newest Accessory

Well we knew this was coming, but really thought we had a couple more years. Anyway, she was a bit nervous, but is pretty excited about her selections.

Sophie's DramaKids Debut

Sophie was Terrible Tom in the play Pirate Joe: This is the only picture I took during the production. The pirates are hard at work...and shortly Sophie will start a mutiny to get rid of Captain Joe. The pirates then select her to be the new captain.....but that is short lived also!

Here's a pic of Sophie with the rest of the pirates and their teacher, Ms. Flavia:

National Children's Book Week

This week is National Children's Book Week and at Sophie and Jason's school the teachers and students were encouraged to "Show Some Character" today and dress as their favorite storybook character. Here are my "characters" this morning......
Jason, aka Darth Vader, reads almost exclusively superhero, Star Wars, or Transformer books. At least he is reading though?

Sophie, aka Emma the Easter Fairy, had a hard time choosing who to dress up as. She has read a majority of the Fairy books by Daisy Meadows (around 85 of the ~110 that have been release in US) and really liked many of the fairies. Also in contention was Annabelle from The Doll People. This book was one of three books in a series which Aunt Crystal got Sophie for her birthday this year. Mommy sort of vetoed this one when I realized the plan was to spray paint her hair bright green like Annabelle's!!

Girlscout - Dad and Me Dance

Last Friday, I got to take Sophie to a girlscout "Dad and Me" dance with a Mystery theme.

We dressed up in some clothes with black on them figuring that would match the mystery theme.


All the girls got masks of different colors and as it happened, Sophie's matched perfectly. She's a cutie!

The magician was pretty good and quite funny. Typical line, "Hey, I was 8 when I was your age too!" But the best part was dancing with Sophie and watching her dance with Natalie. After seeing them dance the Cha Cha Slide, I can see I need to work on my moves.

Sophie is Square

Sophie had her annual doctor appointment that we schedule just after each birthday. On this, her 8th year appointment, she measured 47 inches and 47 pounds. She's Square!

Our insatiable reader now has 20-25 vision and is likely on her way to glasses, but not yet. Won't she be cute in spectacles!

Thank-you God for a healthy girl.

Jason Sketches

Jason's sketches have recently taken a distinct turn in content and style - LEGO. After playing all spring break with Mason on Xbox Lego Batman and DS Lego Starwars, his sketches have more bad guys (used to be aliens) and more combat. Here is a typical example:

Even his non-lego drawings maintain his new style. Here's one of Mario and Yoshi doing something or another.

Sophie's Hair pre Locks of Love

Here is Sophie's hair shortly before she donated to Locks of Love. This was the first time she slept in curlers.

Final product. She liked it long but was ready to cut it for quite some time. She waited until just after Halloween cause she needed the long hair to be Hannah Montana.