Friday Phone Dump

I like to flip through recent cell phone pics and remember what we’ve been doing lately.

L: We were thrilled that D1’s travel schedule meant we got to spend the evening with him! R: Walked into Barnes & Noble and found a children’s concert going on. Bonus! We couldn’t drag Ro away, she watched the whole thing. Her sister flitted back and forth between the Rainbow Magic books and the concert:

L + R: Casually said they could have a "fun bath" if they cleaned up their disaster of a room. Have never seen them move so fast. (Ree left):

L: The girls make themselves instant oatmeal for breakfast Every Single Day. You’d think they’d get tired of it?! Ro prefers Peaches and Cream, and Ree prefers Bananas and Cream. R: Ro can make a dessert last longer than anyone in the world. If there was an Olympic competition for slowest dessert eater she would take the gold. (It drives her sister CRAZY.)

L: Amusing ourselves by taking an unsuccessful family portrait in the mirror. Hm, will have to work on that angle. R: Just went in some new (to us) store called Justice and they screamed and said "Justice we LOVE you!!!" OMG. Why is everything so insanely expensive in here?!

L: Washing machine gave up the ghost and while we were waiting for repair the dirty laundry in the garage reached what TubaDad called "world record amounts." Ugh. Will never catch up... R: Speaking of TubaDad, here’s how he spends a lot of his time:

L + R: Little bro Bobby was in town for one evening and we had a ball with him. The girls taught him how to play Sleeping Queens:

The girls sure do love their electronic Cookie dogs that they got for Christmas (Ro on the right in both pics). They carry them everywhere. L in WelaWear, and R in St. Patrick’s Day garb:

L + R: Some of the colors we’re using in our kitchen reno. Dark wood cabinets, cream and gray subway tile backsplash, cream and brown travertine floor tiles, really veiny grey and gold granite (seen in the R pic), stainless steel appliances. Still not in the demolition stage yet, so everyone’s still smiling. I think things will start being ripped out the first week in April:

R: TubaDad thought it was funny that I was doing a loose-tooth check in the middle of the hardware store (we seem to be at the hardware store a lot lately...). The rest of us thought the race-car shopping cart was angled perfectly. None have fallen out yet, in case anyone’s keeping track:

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Vintage video (their voices just kill me)

Clicked on one of those “you might also like” links at the bottom of my last post and was transported back to May of 2008 when the girls were two and a half years old. I had completely forgotten about this video, and their gravely little voices and the banter back and forth are HILARIOUS. I also lovelovelove it when Ree asks Ro if she wants it (around 45 seconds) and Ro looks right at me and very honestly says “No, I already have one.” Classic!!

Man, I need to get out that video camera more often!

Pint-sized scientist is “half wrong”

Ree turned in her school science fair project today and I’m crossing my fingers that she has an easy time talking about it in front of the class. The girl does not like public speaking one little bit (well who does?).

The science fair is optional for first graders, so there’s really no pressure at all. In fact I was surprised Ree wanted to do it. But she was determined to try to grow crystals from the very beginning. So I figured this was right up the grandparents’ alley and got them involved. Whew. Best decision I’ve made this month.

They came up with their recipes (from the good ole internet, of course) and the three of them spent one morning playing mad scientists in the kitchen.

They ended up making two sets of the salt, sugar, and borax mixtures then stored one set in the fridge and one set in the office to see which one grew the biggest crystals.

Ree checked her baby crystals every few days and diligently recorded her findings in her journal. It was fun to see what she wrote and how she explained things.

She originally guessed that the hot borax would make the biggest crystal, and later said she was “half wrong” since the cold borax actually made the biggest one. It was a close race though, and I think she did a bang-up job.

The one big surprise was that the hot salt mixture (in Ree’s words) “went crazy all over the paper towel” while we were in Hawaii. We came back home to find this creeping salty monster trying to escape:

She’s only six, so obviously Ree needed help with this project. But we tried to limit our help to guidance and let her drive everything. Ree decided on her own that she wanted to try to grow big crystals for the project, my folks got the recipes and ingredients and helped her assemble all of the mixtures, then she wrote what she saw in her journal and told me what to take pictures of. For the poster, we relied on a sample layout the school gave us (thank goodness) and Ree picked her font and colors (rainbow of course!), then wrote out the index cards. I printed the headers and pictures (the girl’s been a master of YouTube for a long time now, but she can’t use Lightroom or MS Word yet – give it a year). She was getting awfully fidgety by the time the poster had to be assembled, so we helped lay it out but she did the actual taping (hence the crookedness, which I actually like). Next time I’ll suggest that we spread the poster construction over a few days so it can be broken into more-easily-digestible jobs (pick pictures, write captions, glue pictures, etc.).

Go little Ree. We’re all proud of you.

PS: Not that Ree looks radically different from any other day, but it’s mismatched-clothes day for spirit week.

They don’t come any prettier than this

Couldn’t have asked for a prettier summer, oops make that spring, wait make that winter day. Wow. The girls got off school and we lazed around in the backyard soaking up the blue sky and all that sunshine. It had been such a crazy-busy week that I think we were all just happy to make it to Friday and finally sit around not doing much of anything.

Ro painted, I lay on my towel (yes quite taxing) and played around with my fun fisheye lens, Ree watered the flowers (well it was more her feet, but the flowers were the intended targets), then we all ate gingersnaps and the girls played Connect Four.

Now we’re just waiting for TubaDad to come home and take us out for our Fun Friday dinner, the cherry on top of this perfect day.

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