ATTENTION:

This blog has been discovered by an extremely curious and well-read eight year old girl with curly hair. Any and all postings and comments to this blog, and to all those on my Blog-O-Rama list, will hereafter be perused by the aforementioned child, particularly if she's related to you or knows who you are.

Consider yourself warned. All my secrets have already been unveiled to her, "MOM! You HID the cookies in the freezer at Christmas?!?" And, she also learned that she's not the only one who picks her hangnails. *sigh* To think that I thought I was safe here...

;)

71 words

Science Fair

I always swore I wouldn't be one of those parents who did school projects for my kids, and M's recent science fair put me to the test! She was required to do a project and 3-fold board, along with a journal. Not an ordinary "volcano" project, mind you, but one that answered a question and included only one manipulated variable, some standard variables and one other variable that I can't remember now. Seriously, it took me 3 or 4 times of reading through the packet they sent home (15+ pgs) describing their expectations for this project...and I have a bachelor's degree in elementary education! It was a HUGE undertaking for my little eight year old, but she did it! OK, well, I helped, but she did every step!

Her hypothesis was that heat from the stove would pop popcorn with fewer "klunkers" than popcorn popped in the microwave or by the air popper. Do you think she was right???

Grandpa R's visit

Wow! How time flies! It's been forever since I posted! I always tell myself that things will slow down after Christmas, and it's never true. I'm sure I've been busy doing important stuff, but the most fun important stuff was enjoying our visit with P's dad this past weekend. He lives in Illinois, so we don't see him too often....usually just once a year when he takes 2 weeks off and drives to see all his grandkids in Arizona, Washington, and Utah! The girls had a great time with their willing playmate; many games were played and books read aloud. He even watch Cinderella 2 (or was it 3?) with them, though I'm sure he enjoyed Shrek 3 more (which we also watched). Of course, went on some ferry boat rides, which is always the highlight for Grandpa. Here's some pics we took...note the gorgeous weather! We got so lucky and throughly enjoyed our blue skies!

(I didn't mean to include this fuzzy pic that I took of the girls at A&W while we were waiting for our burgers, but it's still cute, isn't it? No one was there, and they really enjoyed keeping the juke box going and dancing around the restaurant! Never a dull moment, right Gramps?!)

Fabulous!

My girls are fans of the High School Musical movies and own the second one. (Funny how I would have never let M watch them at age 4, but E gets to b/c M watches?!) There is this, admittedly, really fun song called "Fabulous" that the snobby girl, Sharpay sings. Sample: "I want fabulous, that is my simple request, I want fabulous, bigger and better is best..." you get the idea.

OK, so it is a catchy little song and we sing and dance to it and then I ALWAYS say, "I'm sure glad my daughters aren't like her!" to which they always readily agree.

Until yesterday, that is! After my mini-sermon, E said,

"But, Mommy, I AM fabulous!"

And, what could I say to that?!

The 3 Curly Girls Say "Cheese!"

The girls and I had time to kill this morning (with yet another 2-hour school delay) and they were being really mushy, so I decided to have a photo session. They loved taking turns being the photographer. I guess that's what I'll have to do to get them to look at and smile for the camera in the future!

(Now you know what I look like with almost no make up on! Worth it to capture these smiles, I suppose?)

Are You Smarter Than a Third Grader?

M brought home some school work on Friday and I thought I'd share the following bit:

"The three brothers embraced an extreme orthodoxy in their halcyon years. But misfortune and trauma led to disillusionment and apostasy. However, their sister followed a different path. She never gave up what she learned as a child. She held on to her _________. She knew what was right and stuck to it."
a) salary b) home c) suitcase d) beliefs e) pets

Now, of course, these were exercises designed to teach the kids to read for content and this example was from the "difficult words" page (of the 8 questions, M got them all right). There was another page with much simpler questions (with M's doodles all over the page) that the whole class did.

I just thought it was cool that she wasn't intimidated by all those big words. In fact, she said she liked doing it. That's our girl!

(We don't watch Jeff Foxworthy's show too often, but when we do, M is enthralled and really thinks she should be on there. We just want to know, "Would it pay for your college expenses?!")