Paiger-Rager

Gotta share a quick little story about Paiger-Rager (I've never written this nick-name....I guess that's how you'd spell it!)....

Yesterday, she was having a typical fit over "whatever". Then, she acted like she was about to throw a book.

Mommy - "Don't throw the book. Do you want to go to time out?"

She threw the book.

.....then walked into the living room & sat in the time out chair. (I was already about to crack up laughing!)

Mommy - "Do you know why you're in time out? Don't throw....."

Paige - "....books!"

Paige adds - "That's dangerous!"

Then, she looks at me and says, "I'm sorry Mommy!"

......and waits for me to say she can get out of time-out.

Hmmmm.....you think she's getting the hang of this 'time-out' stuff? I think Super Nanny would be proud!

Too funny!!

SNOW!!

Only in Houston, TX do the kids stop what they're doing to jump for joy over falling snow! Yesterday, it was 78 degrees. I almost turned the air conditioning on. Tonight....it's snowing! Crazy Texas weather!

It has been nasty all day - windy and rainy all day. The temperature hasn't gone above 35. Tonight, we pulled into the gymnastics parking lot and the snow had just started to fall. All of the kids had come out of the gym & they were all running around cheering in the parking lot! It was pretty neat - big flakes of snow coming down. I let the girls 'take it all in' for a little bit before we went into the building. It was still coming down when we left an hour later.

When we got home, the girls wanted to 'play' in the snow. Luckily, there was a little bit of accumulation in the back yard. Taite was able to make a snowball to throw at her dad. Then, she made a SNOWMAN! Yeah, it was only 4" tall, but it is indeed a snowman & she was very proud of it.

IT STUCK! I really can't believe that the snow continued into the night. Lewis ended up waking Taite back up to see the snow falling and on the ground in our yard. Pretty cool!

What a cool little treat tonight. Something that is a nuisance or no big deal to many people in other places is going to be a great memory for lots of kids, and adults around here!

By the way - the forecast is in the upper 70's again next week! Crazy!

Thanksgiving

Taite was off the whole week of Thanksgiving. It was a nice break for all of us. She had a few friends over at the beginning of the week. She hasn't gotten to see several of her friends since school has started, so that was fun.

This was our year to be with the Magsigs for Thanksgiving. That means we go to our friends, The Trykoski's for Thanksgiving. 25+ years ago, when we first moved to Houston, Mom & Dad became friends with the Trykoskis & Fiores, two families who were also from out-of-state. None of us had family around, so Mrs. T invited all of us over for Thanksgiving. We've now been celebrating Thanksgiving with them for 25+ years! How cool.

So, we went out to the Trykoski's ranch in Huntsville. It was a really fun day. The girls got to fish & run around and ride on a tractor thing (I forgot the name of it) to see the cows. ALSO, they had a SNOW machine out there! The girls had a BLAST in the 'snow'!

The girls enjoyed fishing. Paige caught her very first fish! She thought that was pretty cool!

And, the guys enjoys a time-honored tradition of playing a few games of bocce. Our dads used to play this when we were kids. Now, I think all of us 'kids' have a set of our own. It's just a fun game - especially out on a lot of land!

I wanted to include a video clip of the girls playing in the snow:

New Look

Today, I'm just messing around with a new background for my blog. I found this cute Thanksgiving background at thecutestblogontheblock.com. Now, I just wish I could make a cuter header. I will keep playing around & maybe I'll figure it out. Even if I could choose a cuter font, that would be a start. I have about a million fonts installed on my computer. I can't believe I only have about 5 choices for fonts to use in this blog! Hmmmm.....

Halloween!

We carved our pumpkin on Thurs. The girls didn't help much. Neither of them want to get their hands dirty. Taite helped a little bit....using a spoon, mostly!

I am one of the room moms for Taite's class, so I got to help plan the Halloween party. The kids are actually allowed to wear their costumes to school in FISD. Interesting to me! Anyway - the party was a big hit. It reminded me of my teaching days when we did our fall stations. This was just on a smaller scale. It was lots of fun. I am glad I got to be up at school for something fun like this!

Taite looked & looked on internet costume sites for a Halloween costume. She kept eyeballing the fairiy costumes. We found this Disney Fairy costume at Target. She just liked it because it was pink, (not because of the movie character).

I wanted Paige to wear Taite's Elmo costume. It is absolutely one of my most favorite costumes she's worn in her short 5 years. Paige was just as cute as Taite was when she was two. The week before Halloween, Paige was telling everyone, "I be Elmo" (for Halloween). She was really excited & had worn the costume around the house a bit. Although, she was NOT happy when it was time to put the costume on Friday night.

We went ahead & left to go trick-or-treating. Paige cried at the first 10 houses, I bet. It was pretty funny. She was fine until the people said, "bye" and closed their door. She just lost it every time. I think she thought she was going to go in and play!

After a while, Paige started getting the hang of the trick-or-treating. She said, "trick-or-treat, thank you & happy Halloween!" She wanted to walk, not ride in the wagon & carried her basket with her.

We only went around the block, but the girls' baskets were completely full of candy. We did stop at this house, at the front of our neighborhood. They always decorate BIG TIME every year. Very fun!

When we got home, Taite wanted to 'organize' her candy. She was sorting & counting to see which candy she had the most of. Quite the little kindergartner!

I didn't mention that Mom & Dad and Uncle Steven came down to join in our 'festivities'. Steven walked with us as we trick-or-treated and Mom & Dad stayed at our house to hand out candy. It was a fun night! Now, how long will this sugar high.....or low.....last????

Taite Votes!

Taite got to vote at school. She said that the guy she voted for won! I asked her how she decided who to vote for. She said, his name was on the top. She couldn't remember who she voted for so I asked her if it was McCain or Obama. She said, "Oh, yeah, I voted for John McCain. Rock Obama only got, like 6 votes!" Too funny! Just had to share!

Taite's Journal Writing

Yesterday, Taite brought home her 1st 9 weeks journal from school. When I was teaching, journals were one of my favorite teaching tools. They allow kids to use creative thinking and they allow kids to practice writing skills they have learned.

She had a handful of entries in the journal, but Lewis & I really liked two of them in particular that I wanted to share:

The first was an entry that the kids did when they returned to school after Ike. They were supposed to draw/write something about the hurricane.


Here is Taite's interpretation:

"The hurricane"

She said the "clouds" above show fallen trees, broken traffic lights and lost dogs.

The 2nd entry I wanted to share is one she did recently about her Halloween costume. (See if you can read what she wrote!):

"Taite's costume is a fairy"

Luke & Mindy Visit

Mindy & Luke were in town for the weekend....on their way to Dallas to meet Mindy's new nephew in Dallas! We spent Saturday at Mom & Dad's visiting with them.

Taite LOVED playing with Luke. Luke loved playing with the pumpkin on Taite's shirt!

We all went to the pumpkin patch.

Then, back to Grandma & Grandpa's to play some more....

My Uncle Ronnie (Dad's brother) & Aunt Ronna were also in town visiting. When Paige saw Uncle Ronnie, she said, "hi Grandpa!" Grandpa told her, "that's my brother!" She kept eyeballing both of them - in her world, they looked the same. The rest of the night, she was calling Uncle Ronnie "brother". When we left, she said, "bye Brother!" So cute!

Aunt Marilyn, Uncle Bill, and my cousin Dana and her fiance Bryan also came over for dinner that night. Exciting news - Dana & Bryan asked Taite to be the flower girl in their wedding! She is SOOOO excited! They're getting married next October. We are really excited for them. Bryan will be a great addition to our family!

Humpty Dumpty

One more....Paige reciting "Humpty Dumpty". By the way - the shirt she's wearing in these videos is her "painting shirt", which she also wears at dinner on spaghetti night! Didn't want anyone to think we dress our kids in rags! ;)

Paige Singing

Here is Paige singing one of her favorites, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star":

A Trip to the E.R.

We have been waiting for the day that we'd need to take Paige to the e.r. and today was the day. It wasn't that bad, though. The girls & I were eating dinner early to get ready for gymnastics tonight. Taite & I were still eating while Paige was running laps through the kitchen, dragging a sheet with her. She tripped on the sheet, fell down & bit her lip. She has had plenty of busted lips in her 2 yrs., but this one seemed worse - I got a quick look right after it happened & the inside looked pretty "opened". There was, of course, a lot of blood, but she was good about letting me keep ice on it.

Anyway, I called Lewis & we decided to take her somewhere to have it looked at. We decided to go to a new stand-alone emergency room in Pearland. It was great. We walked in & we were the only ones there. By now, by the way, Paige was bouncing off the wall (like normal). You wouldn't have thought anything was wrong with her. We literally walked in & went back to see the doctor within about 5 minutes.

The long story, short is that her lip is fine. She didn't need any stitches. He said the bottom lip heals well. She will live. Like Lewis said, now she's in the "system" there WHEN we need to take her back! ;)

The funniest thing about the whole ordeal was seeing her lying on the hospital bed! I wish we could've gotten a picture. Here's our little 2 year old, lying there (happy & actually STILL, by the way), with a miniture blood pressure cuff on her arm, a thermometer under her arm & that pulse thing on her finger. It was too funny. She was a little miniature e.r. patient.

While I'm talking about Paige, I have to include a video. I have more that I'd like to add later. Last night, she was singing songs to her Mema on the phone. She won't usually 'perform' for the camera, so this was a great opportunity to tape her (while she was focused on singing to Mema). Take a look....

Even Crazier Fish News!

Today is Saturday - a week since we took the dead fish back to Petsmart. Today, Taite was looking at the empty fish tank & she called me, "Mom! There is a baby fish in here!" I told her it was probably junk floating around in there. Just to prove my point, I turned the light on....only to discover FOUR baby fish swimming around! SO FUNNY! I don't really know what to do with 4 microscopic fish. We put a little bit of ground up fish food in the tank. They may not last through the day. But, it would be cool if they did make it! Maybe this is why their parent(s) died...do they lay their eggs & die??? Who knows. The picture above is the best shot I could get of one of the rapidly swimming microscopic fish we have inherited! :)

UPDATE: The fish didn't last through the day. I'm sure we caused that, somehow. I read up on this type of fish - they are acutally "livebearers", so they did not come from eggs. I guess those little buggers have been hangin' out in there for a week. Little did we know. I'm sure when we started messing with the tank we killed 'em. So sad. That was pretty cool!!!

Fish News

Just a quick entry here. NOTE: Fish #2 (Mickey) only made it until last Friday. I am not one to return stuff (I hate making the trip). BUT, we took the fish back to Petsmart because of their 14 day guarantee. It wasn't for the $$, just the principle of the matter. We got our money back, no problem, however, they said we need to have our water tested. This is a little "high maintenance" for $2 fish!! Needless to say, we have not replaced the fish yet. We'll try again. Maybe this weekend....

Big News!

No, no, it's not news about US!

Quick little story.....

Last Friday, we had a flower delivery with the balloon above & a boquet of pink flowers. My initial thought was that it was for our neighbors. But, I noticed that the card on the flowers was addressed to Taite. The balloons were from Aunt Gyn & Uncle Chad, Lewis' sister & our brother-in-law. They're having a girl!!

So, in Febrary we will have a niece. Taite is exited. I am ready to pawn off our tubs & tubs of pink clothes to them! :)

Congrats, Gyn & Chad!

A Beautiful Sight....

Yay! The "claw truck" came & it finally picked up OUR debris!! Yesterday, it was across the street picking up limbs, and the truck was full and they were done for the night. But, today, they picked up where they left off & they have now gotten our limbs & bags.

We still have some "heavy trash" that needs to be picked up. Our pool, which seemed to make it through the storm ended up having some pinhole leaks. So, it is trash. You can kind of see the ladder to the pool sitting in the right-hand corner of the picture above.

With BOTH girls back to school this week, things are starting to feel like they're getting back to "normal".

New Pets

At the beginning of Sept., Aunt Gyn brought Taite a pet hermit crab that she got for her at the beach this summer. Taite named it Mr. Krabs the Hermit Crab. Mr. Krabs, miraculously lasted about 3 weeks. Long story short, I was not sad to see him go. I will never even be able to look at hermit crabs ever again. Ick.

Upon Mr. Krab's departure, we told Taite she could get some fish. So, we picked out a little tank & went to Petsmart & bought two little guppy-like fish (I forgot the name of them). Taite named one Daisy & the other Mickey (because its tail has a mark that looks like Mickey Mouse). The store has a 14 day guarantee on the fish. Daisy lasted 3 days. I'm having flashbacks from the 'carnival' goldfish that we won in elementary school. So, Daisy is now double-bagged in a ziplock bag in our freezer, waiting to go back to Petsmart to get a new fish.

All I can say is....the things we go through for our kids! Too funny! Both of the girls enjoy the fish, so, if they'll live, this is a pretty easy new "pet"!

New Vocabulary

During the storm, we were kind of laughing about some of the media's favorite storm "terms" that they totally overused. Two of our favorites are:

• inundate
• sustained

We were lucky that our house was not inundated with water, however, our roof sustained damage when sustained winds inundated the Houston area on Sept. 13.

Taite & Paige have also learned new words that were not part of their vocabulary before this storm.

• Taite's most used word: generator :), also "debris" and "chainsaw"
• Paige's word: hurr-game

Taite also loves this phrase: "Hurricane Ike, take a hike."

Then, Paige runs around saying, "Ike, Ike, Ike"

Oh, the things that keep us amused these days. One day soon, things will be back to "normal" and we'll say we're 'bored' with the same ol', same ol'.

Just had to share....

It's a Girl!

We have anxiously been awaiting the arrival of our next-door-neighbor's new baby. Mark & Mitzi moved to Friendswood last spring from New Jersey. Little did they know, a few months later, they'd be evacuating and living through their first big hurricane...only a week before Mitzi's scheduled c-section! Their baby will hear LOTS of stories!!

They did not know the sex of the baby before she was born. I got a call from Mark about 8:30 Friday morning announcing the birth of their healthy baby girl. Everything went just as it was scheduled and Mitzi and baby are doing great.

Grace Mae

7 lbs. 0 oz.

18"

We were able to go over to the hospital to meet Grace yesterday. She's a quiet, content baby. Very cute! Taite was SO excited that there's another girl on the street!

Congrats to Mark & Mitzi!

After Ike

I've sent plenty of emails about us 'evacuating', cleaning up, etc. So, I won't re-write all of that here (what, Jen not repeating herself a millionth time? - amazing!)

I just wanted to share one thing about my personal experience with the storm and my blog seemed to be an appropriate place:

I have always been a big believer of "things happening for a reason" and good things happen during bad situations. We are living this perfect example. I have already told many of you, but I have to say it again, the way our neighbors have come together during all of this has been awesome. During clean-up, everyone walked from house to house helping drag limbs, raking, helping with chainsaw "safety", etc. No one had to ask for help, we all just did it for each other. Lewis went out of town and my neighbor from across the street called to make sure we were okay & let me know that he was keeping an eye on the house for us while Lewis was gone. Lots of little things. It's just been awesome. It has also been a great lesson for our kids about community and "citizenship" and literally "loving your neighbor". Really cool.

Things are still 'weird' around here, for a lack of a better word. I will not feel back to 'normal' until we're back into our regular routine of school, work, etc. Of course, I like routine, & this is very OFF routine. At the same time, it's been okay. We're all doing fine. We're happy & healthy and that's the most important thing.