A hidey hole

There is a cabinet in our living room that Lea has hidden in since she
was able to walk. We keep toys there, but occasionally the toys are
tossed out and she curls up and closes the door. Seems pretty normal
for a kiddo. There is a familialy famous photo of me hanging out in a
large drawer.
What surprised me about the use of the hidey hole was how it was her
safe haven. Over Thanksgiving we were watching a movie "Secret of the
Kells" (suggested by a magazine, but not recommended by me - NOT FOR
LITTLE KIDS! but some cool animation. The snow flakes were little
celtic crosses... but I digress) ... so here came the scary part.
Large scary red Viking monsters came to over take and burn down the
walled abbey (there was no redeeming happy ending, most the people
burned and died... again NOT for kiddos). Lea leaped off the cozy spot
on the couch next to me and went and started flinging things out of
her hidey hole. She had trouble getting it closed and I felt urgency
as if the big red monsters were coming for us. I helped her close it
and she tucked herself safely inside until we told her the scary part
was over.
It was very cute and sweet and reminded me amidst all the mature
things she does, she is after all just five. I'm glad she has a safe
hidey hole just for her.

Halloween Recap

Well so much for unbogging the blog. Here it is December and I'm finally posting halloween photos.
So here's the quick rundown of how Halloween went for us (I think the photos tell most of the story anyway).

Lea decided to be Rosetta the flower fairy and we got her costume done early in October so that she could wear it to "Lea's night out" at Gymnastics. Unfortunately something she ate or a flu bug caused her to throw up less than an hour into the evening so she came home early. But she recovered quickly and the rest of Halloween went very well.

Mommy and Daddy had fun dressing up for Michael's party. Mommy was Tinkerbell and Daddy was Homer, though since the bald cap wouldn't stick to his sweaty head it was more like the FBI's bad replacement Homer when the Simpsons went into witness protection.

The week before Halloween Lea's school had a Character Parade. They could dress in costume as a character from a book. They were supposed to carry the book around, but Lea lost hers from the van to the locker. She didn't get in trouble. There were some very cute costumes on both the kids and the teachers.

Character Parade at Lea's school.

Lea and her friends the cat and one of many princesses

The kitty reads her book

They paraded through the school and then through the auditorium where parents were gathered, but it was hard to see and photograph so I snuck in the gym where they were lined up to go back to class.

Halloween weekend was also our nine year wedding anniversary. Unfortuantely Lea's tummy bug (nicknamed the Kindergarden Krud) hit Mommy hard and we spent our romantic weekend with me huddled on the couch with a 102 fever. But we watched a lot of movies. 

Grandma took Lea for the weekend and they weekend so at least Lea wasn't bored by sick mommy. Grandma's church had a Trunk or Treat where they decorated their cars and gave out candy in the parking lot. Lea and Grandma decorated Grandma's van. Grandma dressed Lea up like a cat for the evening and they had a wonderful time. Except Lea ate so much candy she actually told Grandma "I don't ever want to eat candy again." Then in the morning as she was grabbing a piece of candy she said "I didn't really mean what I said last night." 

Finally for actual Halloween everyone was feeling well. I dressed as Tinkerbell and Lea Roesetta the flower fairy. Our first Trick or Treat stop was Grandpa Dan's house.

Then off to Richardson with the Brown and Harris families. We've Trick or Treated with them since Lea was born. Its been great to watch the girls grow together. We've gone from strollers going house to house, to coaxing them to the door and finally running off and leaving us in a their wadded wrapper wake. They kept up with the big kids for about a block and then we had to rein them in. Here is the initial rush to the first house.

Lea might actually be about to take off her with her wings.

Then we slowed to a more steady pace.

 
Our two red heads check their buckets.

At the end of about 3 blocks we made our way to their church where we loaded up at their trunk or treat. There were some great car decorations.

Taking a break to have one treat.

Tink & Minnie Mommies

One of the cars decked out in Dalmation fun. Even the car had spots.

The Brownie candyland car.

Then back to the house to feast. We just dumped the candy out and let the girls have their fill. Lea did not learn her lesson from Grandma's. She ate candy until she was sick again. I know, I know, that's what parents are for to save her from her self. We'll do better next year!

Our haul was better than any year past. It was a gigantic pile of candy!

And ooh so yummy!

State Fair 2010

We visited the State Fair twice this year (well I got to go 3 times because I snuck off with co-workers to have fried Frito Pie for lunch one day and ride the wild mouse roller coaster, but I digress). Lea got a day off school and a ticket to the fair as part of the Dallas school system so they had a Big Tex day (we did not go on fair day, nor did we use the ticket). The kindergarteners colored Big Tex and here she wrote her version of "Howdy Folks" There is something about this interpretation (HAOD FAOK) that makes my heart sing. I don't know why I find her writing so cute, but I love this Big Tex drawing.

Our first trip was on a Tuesday for 5 ticket ride night. Everything was about half price to ride. So we got a lot of Lea's rides out of the way. We were lucky enough to be joined by Becky, Gonzo, Hopens and Sherry (mere days before her trip to London!).

In this photo Becky, Sherry, Michael and me

In this photo Lea rides the airplane ride while the Singletons were way up on the Ferris Wheel.

Dan, Lea and I went to the kiddo midway while Becky, Gonzo, Sherry & Hopens took off to ride the Texas Star. It worked out perfect! It horrified me and they didn't need to watch Lea ride 5 rides, so by the time they got done Lea had ridden almost her limit of rides. No one was standing around waiting for anyone for any length. It was so easy and fun.

Lea on the Go Cart Ride. It went up and bounced. She giggled and had a blast.

Lea on the hang-glider ride. It was impossible to get a photo so I just videoed it. She rode this last year too. I asked if she wanted me to come on it with her and she said "No, Mommy I'll do this by myself."


The swing ride. This was too calm for Lea. She was actually bored on it.

By the time they got done Lea had one more ride to ride (Lea picked a Pirate adventure obstacle course that she loved) and we were off across the park.

We were in search of food. Hopens tries the fried Frito Pie. It was very super mega yummy!

Sherry before the Fried Beer (that was at the end of the night and not so yummy). She also tried the fried Frito Pie.

Gonzo taking our picture while Becky worked at the giant turkey let. She is quick to point out that Gonzo helped her eat the giant thing. In fact I think everyone had a small bite.

Dan got Fried Bacon.  I had fried butter - it was like the best fresh hot piece of bread you've ever had with warm garlic butter. It was fantastic! That was one of last year's big treats. We all grabbed something to eat and sat at a picnic table.

Then, we turned around and there was a parade! The starlight parade with light up floats and weird costumes on stilts. It was the most perfect timing. Unfortunately I said as much and as Karma took it out on me. I spilled a whole beer down my pants. But a little wet pants was a small price to pay for such a wonderful evening!

Ahh.. fair beer and good friends. We'll keep our beer cold and not fried.


Then on Sunday, Oct. 10 we went to the Fair for our big family day. Aunt Teresa came with us and we spent the whole day out there from about 11am to 5pm. Silly mommy forgot her camera, but on the upside I was able to just enjoy things without worrying about capturing the special moments.

We went through Lea's favorite Little Hands on the Farm. Lea's got that down pat. She knew all the little activities and waited patiently in line to ride the tractor. This year she could really pedal and did a great job on the tractor.

Lea also did the Pee Wee Rodeo where Lea got to lead the parade of kids with a spangly flag vest and carry the American flag. Lea participated in the barrel races where mostly girls run around barrels on a stick horse. Last year Lea got confused and threw down her horse and raced around the barrels. Her time suffered when she was forced to go back and get the stick horse. So we talked about what she would be doing this year and she really wanted a trophy. Well she was first up and she did great, but her time was second best so she did not get the trophy. She got a ribbon and we told her she was the only one in the whole group who got to wear the spangly vest and carry the flat. So she was ok with that. Its fun just to participate. Maybe next year she'll win first.

Lea and Teresa played two games. Teresa did the burst the ballon with a dart game and won a stuffed sheep. The guy at that game was very sweet to Teresa though she was a bit afraid of him because he was missing some teeth. Then together they played the Pick a Duck game. They each got a panda. We pretended they were brothers and on the way home in the van Lea & Teresa had their pandas pick places on the State Fair map to pretend to go. It was very cute!

 Dan had his sausage plate. I got spiral potatoes after waiting in a VERY long line. We all had ice cream before heading home. Lea got to play in the giant sand box as the very last thing and we all went home exhausted.

We love the fair and it gets more and more fun the older Lea gets. Next year I promise I'll bring my camera every time we go to the fair.

DMA with cousins

Around the end of Sept. we had an awesome outing with our Sorensen cousins
at the DMA family day. They had a free day with a new exhibit for kids
called Spaces. It was about how different perspective produce
different art. We got to build a little cardboard house and Lea put
hers on their display shelfs. Very cool.

They also had this great play house where you could write on walls and play with magnets. One of our cousins wanted to pile all the magnets together, unfortunately it was a horizontal stack.

So we did an experiment to see how many magnets would stick together. 22 magnets before they fell off!

We visited with Arturo (the DMA's puppet mascot) in his nest and heard a story.

The kiddos had a blast in that room.

But my favorite was the cardboard room. It was upstairs and on its last day. Lea liked that there was a play house with little people.

I liked the art. This was my favorite. It inspired me.

So a week or so later Lea and I made pictures using cardboard and string. I remembered the image as a bird cage so we painted, cut, colored and glued to make these pieces.

LEA'S BIRD. The black dot above the bird is the moon. The orange line is him peeing. The orange stick to the right is a broom to clean up the pee. The squares and circles to left are eggs. We talked about if the bird was happy or sad to be in a cage and that some birds need to be free, but Grandma & Grandpa Jones have Bart who lives a very happy life in a cage. But she drew a sad face on her bird. He is unhappy in his cage. But he is singing (see the music notes to the right) about being free to fly. And of course some Tinkerbell stamps to round it all off.

Mine is just a bird in a cage with some circles. Lea signed it for me.
 It was a really fun project to do wtih Lea and I loved that the idea came from something we saw in the museum.

Trip to Baylor

We had a full day Saturday October 2 that culminated in a trip to the ER. Boy do we know how pack excitement into a day!

Lea and I have had a cold and cough for about a week, but we've been powering through and feeling better.

So on Saturday we started the day with Brunch with Becky, Hopens and Sherry at Garden Café where Lea got to play on a playground.

Then Becky and I headed to a clothing exchange where I traded two trash bags full of old clothes for three grocery bags (3 for me, 3 for Becky) full of new to me clothes. There was a definite purple theme... I got a purple skirt, purple dress and purple shorts! Also 2 pairs of jeans for Lea and some shirts. A fun experience. And there Lea got to play on a playground while I shopped.

From there we headed to Cottonwood Art Festival where Lea made a pretty blue hat and a plaster cast with her name, a fish and butterfly and other designs. Her favorite activity though was banging on the plaster block with a chisel and a hammer. We spent a long time in the kids area and then dragged Lea to the grown-up artist's displays. Lea did get to take the treacherous rock path instead of just the bridge across Cottonwood creek. Once we got to the boring grown-up stuff Lea started complaining she was tired and her legs hurt. We walked three rows of artists and saw Niki, my former co-worker at the Advocate. We hadn't eaten since brunch so finally we sat and had some chicken fingers despite her insisting she was not hungry. I got Lea to eat with the promise that she would get to chisel again across the creek. Since Lea just wanted to head back to the kids area I did not take her complaint of being tired and achy too strongly. I just thought it was due to a long day and boring grown up stuff.

However, when we finally went home around 4pm as she lay on the couch sacked out watching cartoons. She still said she was not hungry but I put a bowl of jello in front of her, of which she only ate 3 bites. She sogged on to the couch and complained she was freezing. She started shivering under the blanket and was burning up. When we took her temp it was 102.5. We gave Lea some cough and cold med with acetaminophen. Lea started falling asleep. Dan would wake her and ask her if she was tired and she'd say no and go back to sleep. She could not stay awake. So while we realized she was exhausted it was like she was passing out. We hemmed and hawed briefly and by 8pm we were at the Baylor ER.

At triage her fever was up to 103 and her pulse was over 150. She was given a dose of Tylenol and told to wait. We settled into the chairs and watched the CNN crawler as Lea dozed across our laps for about an hour and a half. We had one more vital sign check with a different nurse and her fever was 100.3 so we asked if it was right to stay or if we were over-reacting and the nurse said that her pulse was still high so she'd check with the doctor. Then about half an hour later we got shown to a room. Lea was more alert and more herself. A very nice young woman doctor took care of us. Lea got a chest X-ray. She had an oxygen/pulse meter taped on her finger that plugged into another cord to the machine that goes beep. When she had to go to the X-ray room I said it looked like she had a little pet (the cord hanging from her finger). So when we went home they were going to throw away the finger part connected to Lea so we took it home to put in her doctor kit.

She had to go potty so I offered to collect a sample if they wanted it. While balancing on the floor collecting urine from a sick 5 year old I may have let the top touch the floor so I don't know how scientific that test was, but it came back with some bacteria. They suspected a urinary tract infection. The good news to me was there was no dehydration which is what I was so worried about after our long day.

Having made the huge leap to a hospital room when so many were still in the waiting room with arm bands and weary faces was huge for us. We got our own TV, but no cartoons. We should have gone to Doctor's Hospital where during Grandma's knee surgery recuperation Lea could always find Sponge Bob. We ended up watching Eddie Murphy in Coming to America on ABC Family. But just as the first kiss happened our credit card was taken, a prescription for penicillin was given and we were allowed to leave. It was about midnight and had been a very long day.

The next day was spent watching movies and resting. Lea and I watched Tinkerbell Fairy Rescue and Shrek 1 & 2. At dinner time Lea still had a fever off and on and had little appetite. We watched Ghostbusters 2 and had a few crackers. Lea did eat up some carrots and Ranch and drank her Grape Pedialite. The nurse said not to worry if she didn't eat as long as she'd take a bite or two and kept drinking.

Monday we kept Lea home from school, though she was much more herself. Ready to play and didn't show signs of a fever all day. We made sure to not give her acetaminophen to make sure she was truly without a fever and not just the medication controlling it. By Monday night she was gobbling up roast. We made sure to keep her well rested with naps and she's doing great.

Of course now Daddy has the creeping crud.

Rained on in Rains county

Around Sept. 18 we headed out to Grandma's place for the weekend. We were surprised as we hit town Friday night by carnival lights. Turns out it was the Rains county fair.

With some coercing Grandma gave us the details of a parade Saturday morning. We headed to picturesque downtown Emory and argued over parking. We ended up in a great spot just before downtown. I saw kids with grocery sacks and said "They must throw candy." Grandma didn't believe the parade would yield much bounty, but each "float" threw handfuls of candy. Besides a marching band the parade mostly consisted of county beauty pagent winners, runners ups and so on. Cutest baby 0-6 mo., cutest 6 mo.-24 mo., cutest 2-4 yr. old, little miss, junior, miss personality, and of course Miss Rains County. Each had their own truck or convertible to ride on and each entry had the winner and at least one runner up. This made for a decent size parade, but I think maybe almost every kid in the county was in the parade instead of catching candy on the side.

Dan and Lea collect Candy at the parade

Lea watches the parade go by.



Lea races toward candy on the street.


Lea and Grandma watching the parade.


Grandma, Lea and Mommy

After the parade we headed to the fairgrounds. We thought it opened at noon and though we had about an hour to walk around I thought we could kill time. Here is a photo of Grandma, Lea and Dan at the fairgrounds.

While you may think this is just the livestock area, this was pretty much the fairgrounds. There was a midway in a field across from where they are standing and two small buildings with crafts and exhibits. Not enough to walk around for an hour. Turns out the only thing that happened at noon was a chili cook-off tasting for $5 a bowl. So we headed back to Grandma's for some family time. Around 2 p.m. we tried again, thinking the fair opened at noon. We were ready to ride the tilt-a-whirl. Turns out the midway and fair did not open until 6pm. Big sigh. So at 6:30 after delicious rib and baked potato dinner at Grandma's me, Dan and Lea headed out one last time. Lea really had her heart set on riding the tilt-a-whirl and I figured it would save us some money at the State Fair if we rode some things at the Rains County Fair. As we drove toward the fairgrounds for the third time that day the rain drops began to hit our windshield. I was convinced that it would pass so we pushed on. As we paid our entry the heavens opened and it poured on us. We saw what there was to see in the craft and exhibit buildings. It was still pouring. Fortunately Dan had grabbed his large golf umbrella and we wandered around relatively dry. Passers-by commented on how smart that feller was brining his umbrella. Yes, we were dry, but we'd paid admission to get rained on. How smart were we really? The rides never opened, not even the fun house. We got Lea a snow cone and I stood in line for fried Oreos to take back to the house. As we cross the road to the muddy parking lot the rain turned to a sprinkle and the rides started back up. The fried Oreos were so so, but much cheaper than at the State Fair (unless you count the price of admission). Lea was freezing by the time we got to the van, due to me letting her play in the rain and eat a snow cone (which they had a stand so Lea could put her own flavor on... she put every single flavor on - I believe that's called a suicide - Dan said it just tasted like Kayro syrup by the end). But we stripped her wet clothes off, wrapped her in a blanket and got safely back to Grandma's. A tip to Rain's county fair officials... maybe opening the fair during the day when the town is gathered for the parade and car show would be wiser than waiting for the rain to come! Just a suggestion for next year.

We did accomplish one thing while at Grandma's. That following Monday the Advocate office was having a bread bake-off so I asked Grandma to make Julekaka. She did and although it tried to burst out of the bread machine it turned out great. The bake-off turned into just a sharing exercise since everyone's stuff was so good there was not point in voting. It was delicious, but hard to stay awake after all those carbs! Here is the recipe for posterity.

Julekaka - Swedish Christmas bread

This recipe is for a bread machine medium to small loaf with a light crust setting.

2 & 3/4 cups bread flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup melted butter

1&1/8 cup scalded milk

1&1/4 tsp yeast

at the beep add dried candied fruit (we soaked them in brandy overnight)

Giraffe and a Half

Did I mention my kid is brilliant? She blew the socks off some people this past week.

Just yesterday Lea went to a tryout Girl Scout meeting. Dan went with her so he told me this story. He said that each girl was supposed to take a turn with the Girl Scout book, but Lea wanted to read out loud. Apparently there had been problems with other girls playing around doing this, but she was shocked when Lea actually started reading from the book!

And last weekend Grandma picked up Lea for a weekend out in Emory (a weekend, which deserves a blog post on its own). Grandma had some library books for Lea. One of which was a Shel Silverstein book we'd never seen before called "Giraffe and a Half." Lea started reading the whole book to Grandma. I caught some on video.


Grandma said Lea still had problems with some words. Lea asked "Grandma, what's a kidney?"

"Well, its an organ inside your body, but what does the sentence say?"

"The Giraffe had a bee on his kidney."

"Hmmm," said Grandma, "Spell it."

"k-n-e-e"

"Ahhh... I can see how sounding it out would sound a bit like "kney"

Grandparents Day

September 12 was Grandparents day, so in recognition Lea's school invited Grandparents to lunch on the Monday after. To hear Dan tell it, it wasn't too thought out, because there were so many grandparents that some kids didn't have a place to sit, but it all worked out for us. Kindergarten gets to go to lunch first so there was no problem finding a place to eat.


Grandpa Dan and Daddy joined Lea for lunch on Monday September 13. Dan said they got there a bit early so they got to take part in math class. The kids were singing a song counting to number 10, but there were only 19 kids so to do it twice Daddy got to be #9 (which is fine) and Grandpa got to be #4 (who stomps the floor). Sounds like they had a good old time! Then off to lunch they went.

Everyone brought their lunch, and of course Grandpa brought enough to share. The guys sat with Lea and her friend Zoe, Ella and Bella.

And on another note Lea bought her lunch for the first time on Sept. 16. Two weeks before that Lea came home disgusted with me as a mother for not knowing they had "CHICKEN ON THE BONE FOR LUNCH TODAY!" This outcry at my failings was met with resolve to pay attention to the menu. The menu is consistent two week rotation of standard kiddo offering like Pizza and burgers (and too much salad and not enough regular veggie sides for an elementary school, in my opinion). So last Thursday we sent Lea off with her $1.50 to buy her lunch. I cannot tell if she got rotisserie chicken or fried chicken. The difference in skin texture and preparation is lost in translation. All I know is Lea was very happy to get "chicken on the bone." And my sources say Zoe and Ella bought their lunch too. I find this an amazing coincidence, but that's Lea's story. Maybe I'll go check out lunch on the next "chicken on the bone" day.