Funny things

I had a wonderful morning with the kids today, which is surprising since I was up all night with a sick, crying Thomas and we were running behind this morning. The kids were cooperative, in good spirits and amusing. Here's a bit of our conversation this morning on the way to school:

Emmy: You know Mom, I'm so sad Caryn and Sunil got married. They are getting big so fast....

Callie: Well they have to grow up, Emmy! They have to have babies!

Emmy: I'm not having babies. I don't want a needle in my arm. I don't.

Callie: Oh, Emmy. Babies are cute! They are so cute!

Emmy: Well I'm adopting one.

Callie: Well EMMMYYYY, you eat eggs, so you're going to have a baby.

Emmy: Callie! Do you think I'm gonna have a chicken in my belly? NO! I don't eat eggs! I eat scrambled eggs! I'm not going to get a baby out of scrambled eggs!


The girls went on and on. It was cute. I tried to remember all I could b/c it's just one of those cute conversations you want to remember.


And another funny one from today , this one came after school:

Emmy: Mom, what's the difference between pea soup and roast beef?
Me: I dunno, what?
Emmy: Say 'why' mom....
Me: Why?
Emmy: Because you can't pea soup but you can roast beef.

Pictures Pictures Pictures

A few weeks ago we went to Legoland. The last time we went, Callie was just a tad bit too short to ride on any of the rides. Since I think the park is best suited for 3-4 yr olds, I figured we'd better hit it soon while it would still be exciting for her. While we are still a Disney family, Legoland was a nice change.

Here's Callie taking her driver's test and earning a license:
Emmy on the big kid track doing the same:

Daddy being goofy:

Like Father like Daughter:

We never do face painting, but the two times we've been to Legoland, we've done it, for whatever reason:

The next week, while the kids were on Spring Break, we went to Tucson. I shot the Arizona State shoot and we took off a few days to hang out. We've gone to Tucson what seems like a bazillion times and all the kids do there is play in the rocks and get dirty. I never knew that there were neat things so close to the gun club. We visited the Desert Museum, which was pretty neat. They had pretty cool loaner strollers, a good collection of desert stuff, some interesting exhibits set up, and loads of scary snakes and the like. Here's the kids posing by the cool loaner stroller:

And the four of us having fun in the desert sun :)

On the way back from the museum, we passed Old Tucson Studios. We couldn't really see what was inside the "park" and I was wary of paying money to go see some "park" in the middle of the desert, especially since we visited the Flinstone Land back in November when we were in northern Az visiting the Polar Express. Flinstone Land was a creepy joke, but Emmy liked it. So I stopped some German tourists leaving Old Tucson Studios and they raved about the place, said they'd been there 3 times in their visit. So we gave it a shot. And... I was pleasantly surprised. It was kind of like a deserted amusement park. A bunch of western movies are filmed there- they call it "Hollywood in the desert"! They had a nice carousel, a little car ride thingy, and a bunch of old buildings and shows going on every half hour. We went to a show and had a good time. The park looked vacant, but there were a good 150 people at the show we went to. No lines, a cool train and the kids were happy. Here's a pic of the kids driving the little car.

TEXAS TRIP

A few weeks later, Shad and I loaded the kids into the motorhome and headed to San Antonio, Texas. The kids and I have been to the shoot a handful of times and have always had a good time, but Shad has never managed to make it. This year we did it! We had a great time. I ended up only shooting one full day, the rest of the trip we spent visiting the local attractions and hanging out together. The first day we went to the San Antonio Zoo, which is one of my favorite places I've ever visited. People are surprised when I rave about this zoo since I live close to the San Diego Zoo. But this zoo has history and it's not some over-commercialized hype that the San Diego Zoo is. The animals are happy, and they seem very up close. And there are no real hills and no doubledecker buses trying to run over the walkers.

Here's us riding the train through the BEAUTIFUL Breckenridge Park:

Callie in the Butterfly exhibit:

Emmy enjoying the butterflies:

Thomas was enthralled with everything there. We visited a petting zoo and for whatever reason (I'm nuts), goats freak me out (as do birds- see below). Thomas begged and begged to go pet the goats so I took him in there with Shad and the girls and I was nervous, but he had fun. Here's Thomas checking out the goats (safely):

Last year only Callie, Thomas and I visited the zoo as Emmy wanted to stay at the trap range and play with one of her friends. I had Thomas in one arm and took her into this big bird thing and some birds landed on me. It freaked me out. So this year I was hoping Shad could go with us to protect me from any attack birds. For whatever reason he wandered off with Thomas and the girls and I went into the bird thing again. This time though there were no attack birds. In fact, the birds weren't too interested in the food. The girls did find a few birds to feed though.
One of the most beautiful sites in San Antonio (or anywhere for that matter) is the Riverwalk. Last year Emmy fell in (to the knee), this year we visited twice and came out unscathed- woo hoo! We took a little boat tour like we do each year, Thomas loved the "agua", but 1/2 way through it he turned to me and said "Up", "All done, all done" and tried to get out of the boat. He's saying more and more each day, putting two words together now with "lets go" "all done" and "i go".

So the tort laws must be different in Texas. At the zoo they have the similar path where there stones broken up and water running between and at the Riverwalk they have the same thing, except it's a bit more involved since there is water on both sides of this path. It was fun to watch Shad get the stroller through this mess!

On another day we visited the Alamo and were there for the start of the Fiesta. Shad says the Fiesta started to honor the fallen heroes of the Alamo. I guess it gets pretty crazy for the Fiesta, though when we were there it was nice. Here's the fam in front of the Alamo:

Emmy standing in front of the monument for the Alamo:

We also visited the Witte Museum, where they have a great kids section. The girls had fun learning about Electricity and playing with the big waterworks section they have. We even saw a real mummy.....

On the way home we stopped at Kartchner Caverns and Tombstone. Kartchner Caverns was a very serious cave. We've only been to the Meramec caverns and Kartchner so I'm not a real cave dweller by any means, and Karchner was pretty and all but it was a HUGE deal. We were misted before we went in to keep the lint we let off to a minimum. Thomas' pacifier had to be connected to his body with some big rope thing... Very odd. But pretty too.

Tombstone was interesting. We went there first and arrived at around 10PM and there were a bunch of drunks wandering through the streets. It was like a college town with no college kids and no college. So we drove through the desert and camped near Kartchner caverns. The drive to the caverns was interesting, the Air Force base was doing some kind of drills and the planes they flew looked like UFOs, they hovered, moved sideways, then flew away quickly. Glad I wasn't one of those drunk cowboys wandering around Tombstone b/c I would swear that it was UFOs after us!

Here's my sad boy at Tombstone being a cowboy, doesn't he make the most pitiful sad face? Reminds me of his 2 month old picture!

Thomas and Emmy posing in the streets of Tombstone. Thomas was in love with all the horses! He says "Horse" sooo perfectly, it's very cute how he says it.
Callie didn't want to pose with Emmy and Thomas and was quite a grump b/c she was worn out. She found this raccoon cap and it made her giggle long enough for me to snap a picture:

The girls got new hats with whistles from the OK Corral (where some gunfight was) and they got nice cap guns w/ cute pink holsters. They had a ball with them. Here's Callie as we were leaving. Our cowgirl had a rough day, first the hot, muggy, serious cave and then the crazy old country town.

So we're home for a while now, thank God. We're getting ready for circus, getting back into the swing of things at home, getting ready for Grandma Bo's 99th birthday, and we might do a few short trips around here to the Observatory and the Wild Animal Park, but other than that, we're here for a while :)

Poetry by Emmy

Emmy has been learning about poetry in school and has memorized several poems and has written some of her own. They're pretty good! Here are two:


Poetry hides in cats & dogs
Poetry hides in the world
Poetry hides in the world of love



Dear friend,
i'm sending some light to you
my own light
my very own to you

Montessori Pictures

I'm lucky that one of Callan's teachers is a very talented photographer. She shared these pics with me of Callan busy at work. My baby...her hands are still so little but they are capable of such big work....

A couple pics :)

Em and Thomas at Caryn's bridal shower :) That's Thomas' "Choo Choo" shirt. Today he had this shirt on and was playing w/ a train and I asked him about the choo choo he was playing with and he looked down at his shirt and pulled it out to show me. He is really starting to like trains and says Choo choo and is happy to have a train on his shirt :) He really likes Elmo too. He says Elmo so clearly. I need to find him a fun Elmo shirt. He'd be stoked.

My Lady. Callie has been having "lets see how funny we can dress days" (though I don't think that's her intention). The other day she came out all in white, aside from the boots. She told Emmy, "I'm a Lady, Emmy, that's why I have all white on." So this pic is from us taking a walk. My Lady struts her stuff like she's sooo tough. She walks like she's such a toughie. She rules the world.

:)

I found a recent conversation with Emmy especially heartwarming (especially in light of all of the new "big kid" things she does and says). She comes to me and says, "Mom, Guess what? Penny doesn't believe in fairies or magic!" I said, "oh really?" She says, "Yeah! Can you believe it? I told her she was crazy. I said, how do you think Tinkerbell flies at Disneyland without magic?" I said, "Yeah, that's true." She says, "I told her how in the heck can you tie a string to the sky? You can't tie a string to the sky, it would go into outer space."

She's told me this twice now. She's just amazed that Penny doesn't believe in Tinkerbell.

This convo makes my heart smile :) I think that my baby is lost and then she says something like this and it makes me so happy and all warm inside :)

Callie, my little friend, made a map of the world at school that's in two circle pieces, right? So I think I have it posted together and she points out North America and then tells me something else is South America. It was really me though....I thought Asia was South America b/c of how I had the thing turned. Geography was never my strong suit. The girls laughed and laughed at me and Shad wanted to know whether they taught Geography in the schools I attended. So anyway, yeah, my 4 1/2 yr old knows her continents better than I do. (In my own defense, before you start wondering how I got through high school let alone law school, had I had the map all situated correctly, I certainly would have known where south america is... swear!)

Silly Stuff

Well things are going on around here. We've been busy with parties for our buddy Caryn and her upcoming wedding and the regular circus and school schedule.

Thomas says SOOO many words now- over 20 and he speaks so clearly. He now says "shoes", and "apple" and "all done"- just as clear as day. He's had a language explosion, I guess. Say the word a few times and he's got it and he remembers it and uses it correctly. He's such a tease and so interactive. When we're at grandma bo's house she has a basket of her knitting stuff and he's not allowed to touch it, but he does. She'll slap at his hands and he'll slap back at hers and smile and laugh all the while she's telling him "No" and laughing too. They are characters together, those two. Thomas is fascinated with brooms and Elmo and still likes to kick balls around the house or hit them around the house. Maybe the next Tiger Woods?

Callie is still having crazy dreams. A while back she'd dream about the star war characters. Her latest dream that bugged her was about a giant lady who was sleeping and Emmy thought it was her mom. Callie loves getting new lessons at school. She's learning to write her cursive letters and working on spelling words and matching written words w/ objects. Callie said to me one night that she wants to be a "deliverer" when she grows up. I asked her what she was talking about and she said, "you know, the guy that drives really slow and leaves something at the door, rings the bell and walks away? You can help me mom!" This is good. We're moving up from wanting to be a trashman (her plan was for us to be trashmen together). She also says she'd like to be a dentist. I think she has enough experience with them that she'd do just fine!

Emmy is over her marriage thing, thank God. For a week and a half or so, she was obsessed w/ what boys she was going to marry. I thought I was in for it. I've always said that I might as well change Emmy's college account into a wedding fund b/c she's always kind of been very enthralled w/ weddings. But she was picking out a husband and packing her bags to go live w/ him and his parents, and all this sort of thing. Just when I thought my baby was gone, she'd burp and say the letter "D" during a burp or do something so sweet and kiddish. She is learning ways to measure, doing reports and presenting them in class, and is oh so very social. She comes home talking like a new friend every day. Aside from talking like her friends, she's got a great hillbilly and British accent she can do. Too bad there wasn't a performing arts charter school around!