Thalia on a roll

So Thalia is on a roll today. When I came home from work at noon, I found her in the process of putting the Cleveland Cavaliers' starting lineup onto the fridge. She had put up, on her own: LeBron James, Mo Williams, and Floppy (our name for Anderson Varejao). I suggested she add Shaq and Z. And then she put "Dad" up for good measure:


I gotta get this kid a Cavs shirt, like her sister has.

And then, a few minutes ago, she walked in carrying this:

While it will be many years before she is allowed to watch Army of Darkness, it's nice to see she has a headstart on the memorable lines...

She's off at work on another art project. It will be interesting to see what she comes up with next.

Merry Christmas 2009

Last night the girls began tracking Santa on the computer using the NORAD/GoogleEarth site. We got the globe out as well, and they tracked him across Europe and into North Africa. It turns out this is a good way to learn some geography!


After dinner, the girls hung up their stockings:


and a very excited Thalia did a little Christmas dance:


Then the girls set things out for Santa and the reindeer. Santa got cookies (koulourakia, in fact!) and milk, and all the reindeer got carrots. All but Blitzen, of course, who (as Santa explained to the girls in his annual letter a few years ago) prefers broccoli to carrots. So the girls set out a piece of broccoli along with the carrots. Healy, of course, tried to muscle in on the action before Santa came:


Later in the night, Santa stopped by, and left the stockings full and presents under the tree, including Thalia's American Girl doll!


Early this morning (at about 6:20) we heard the girls sneak downstairs, and about 10 minutes later we followed them down to find this sight:


And Thalia was just about jumping out of her skin she was so excited about her doll:


And it turns out Santa left a note:



The girls gave us our presents first. Thalia had made a calendar for us in school, which she wrapped beautifully:


and the girls collaborated on our other gifts: a dollar bill for each of us -- woot!

Lots of other presents were then opened, here's just a small sampling. Abra got the Harry Potter set from Gramma, which will definitely keep her busy:


Thalia got Lemony Snicket from Papou and Yiayia:


And "Ant Cat" got the girls an Easy Bake cupcake kit:


And there were lots more presents; thanks to all our family and friends for taking such good care of the girls and us. After it was all over, and wrapping paper, boxes, and bows all littered the floor, I sprinkled catnip (from the cats' stocking) into a few cardboard boxes and hijinks ensued:

So now I need to get busy working on the turkey for Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas, all!

Yet Another Picture Dump

OK, many pictures long delayed. In quasi-chronological order:

Abra gets her first library card:



Remember the wall-painting fiasco from a few months ago? Where I painted and then repainted? Here's why. Here's a shot of the corner of the dining room. On the right is the original color that I painted. It looked good on the card, but turned out a bit too electric on the wall. On the left is the second attempt. Much less electric, much more sage. It looks better. And at the bottom, you can see the red. We're reasonably happy with this combo:



And then here's the time I saw the cats fighting over a box, and upped the ante by sprinkling catnip inside. That provided significant comic relief. First Healy took control:


But Pearl took offense, and a catfight ensued:



Now while Nelson looks to be a disinterested watcher in that last picture, he took advantage of the melee to take control of the box:



But Pearl took offense, and a catfight ensued:



And so in the end, She-elzebub herself took control and the boys ran away:



In other news, the other day I went upstairs and noticed this array set up in the playroom. Who can tell what it is?:



Yes, it's a stage. Risers in the back, microphone and drums set up on stage, and the stuffed animals in front, about to rush the stage. It's like a Nickelodeon version of "Gimme Shelter"...

More cat shenanigans. Tango enjoys boxes, which led to this lolcat moment. GET OUTTA MY BEER, CAT!



Abra had a formal party tonight, and so she got a new dress and one to match her American Girl doll. But who can figure out my absolute favorite part of this picture?



And finally, this is what I made for dinner tonight. It tasted as good as it looked:



That's all for now!

Likes and Dislikes

Thalia brought this home from kindergarten yesterday.



ps: oh, and guess who makes split pea soup, eats "olevs", likes chili peppers, eats hummus, chows down on sushi, etc? yes, that's right, it's dear old dad.....

The girls visit Washington DC

Over Thanksgiving, we went to visit my parents and see family, and on Friday we went into Washington to show the girls some of the monuments and sights. Dad drove us down to the Metro station, and we caught the train into the city.

As we walked down to the monuments, we ran across this sign, which the girls of course refused to heed:


I tried to convince them that the Quiet Zone applied to all of Washington DC, but they were having none of that.

Now Abra has always been a big fan of Abraham Lincoln, since they share a name (more or less). She always likes Abraham Lincoln's birthday, and she did a book report last month about a biography of Lincoln. So of course the Lincoln Memorial was our first stop:


Thalia, being a tenacious reader, would not budge from the wall-sized inscriptions of the Gettysburgh and inaugural addresses until she had read them. After which she turned to us and said "Why are they only talking about men?"


And then here they are on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:


After that, we walked down the mall, passing through the Vietnam War Memorial (which chokes me up every time -- an extremely powerful memorial) and World War II memorial (which I had never seen before -- it's enormous!), before arriving at the Washington Monument. Of course I made the girls go up right up to the Washington Monument and then look up, and which point they started howling in dizziness, heh...


(it was cold and windy, and we had forgotten their heavy coats, so by this point we had wrapped them in some of Brenna's sweatshirts...)

After that, we walked up to the White House. As we looked through the fence from Pennsylvania Avenue, I told them I thought I could see Barack Obama waving at us, and Thalia put her hand up and gave a little, tentative wave back. Extremely cute...

And that was enough walking for the day -- we caught the Metro and came back home...

School Pictures 2009-style...

Abra 2nd grade:


And Thalia Kindergarten:

Kind Things to Say to People...

So Thalia brought home a book she made at school today. It's short -- 4 pages -- so I scanned it:





That last one is supposed to be "Genius!", by the way.

As a bonus, she also drew a picture of the solar system in her journal, so I scanned that too. She is very meticulous with her drawings and her lettering, almost uncannily so.

I wish...

Ten things I wish for on a Sunday November morning.

1. I wish the dog would stop pooping in leaf piles.
2. I wish Michigan losses didn't make me so damned depressed.
3. I wish I had more patience with the girls.
4. I wish the dog wasn't getting so old.
5. I wish I didn't wake up at 4am so much.
6. I wish the cats would clean their own litterboxes.
   
7. I wish my eyesight would stop getting worse.
8. I wish Stevie Ray Vaughan had not died.
9. I wish Tango would get along with the other cats.
10. I wish Dan Snyder would sell the Redskins to someone else.
    

My daughter compares me to a cat's butt...

...and I lose:

I guess this what I get when I lobby Abra with suggestions of wonderful things to write about me in her journal.

I'm not sure which is more worrisome: that I lost a popularity contest to a cat butt, or that Abra considers a cat's butt to be "98% good."

(although I must say that's a pretty good sketch of the south end of a cat....)

Sigh

(thanks to DHamm for passing this along...)

Picture Dump #34512

So postings have been slow lately, due to a variety of factors including a house undergoing rehab, the learning of a new operating system, and work in general. While I don't have anything exciting to say, I'll at least update folks with some pictures.

Several weeks back, we went to the Case-Oberlin football game (I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that it was the first time I've been to a Case home football game). The girls made signs:

and off we went to the game.


Thalia certainly enjoyed vamping for the crowd along the front


Case won 41-6, although we left after the halftime show. My favorite part of the game was Case's 42 yard bomb for a touchdown with 10 seconds left in the half, which was called back for a false start. What do you call after that? You guessed it: "OK, guys, same play." Which resulted in a 47 yard bomb for a touchdown.

I should say at this point that Case is playing a lot better than any of my other teams. Right now, they are riding a 26 game regular season winning streak, and ranked 10th in Division III football. Nice job, "Good Spartans" (as Thalia calls them, so as not to confuse them with the "Bad Spartans" of Michigan State).

Other things going on? Well, Thalia has started soccer, which she seems to enjoy. And is pretty good at, I think. I love this shot of her with a friend waiting to go into the game:


We also picked apples at Patterson's Fruit Farm last weekend. The girls enjoyed being able to reach the apples high in the trees, with a little help:


And here is Thalia doing her best audition for a commercial for the Apple Growers of America:


Mmmm, apples:


And finally, the living and dining rooms remain torn up while we rehab and paint. This has resulted in ample messes for the cats to get into. Nelson seems to enjoy burying himself in the plastic drop cloths:


Money back guarantee, indeed.