Soccer sister

Annie is playing soccer, as noted earlier. She's been dreaming of this experience since she was two and Graham was on the "Green Dragon" team. While Graham was begging to be taken out, she was darting onto the field with a giggle.

So Annie is a Grasshopper now. Graham has been a good cheerleader at the games. Here is the team in its glory!

Lowdown makeover/Book Fair highlights

Becca (Renfroe) told me blogging would be addictive. She is clearly a master of the form.
But I agree - it's fun. I've already given the Lowdown a top to bottom makeover.

Actually, I just tried another template. It's pretty easy to switch-around. I also just realized that there are a couple of font choices. I promptly clicked on "Georgia" because I think it looks nice on a screen.

My goal with all of this is to create some kind of record of our lives right now ... and maybe share some details & photos with the three of you who are interested (just kidding!).
I'm always running so far behind on scrapbooking that I really shouldn't call myself a scrapbooker. My goal for 2008 is to get caught up.

That'll be nice.

But this is good too. For me, things come & go so quickly that I can't always remember what was said and done. I'm not sure that I'll be able to capture everything here, but it's something.

Along those lines:
Last week, the Scholastic book fair came to Sul Ross elementary. Meme (Kathy Littlefield) gave Graham and Annie some money to purchase books at said fair. This provided a great lesson in arithmetic since Annie promptly found 25 book that were "so special" to her. Both kids did a really good job making choices, winnowing down the pile of selections to a manageable 3 each. By "really good job", I mean not screaming inside the elementary library where the sale was being held :) But both showed early promise if they choose to become attorneys.

We actually compromised by taking pictures next to the $4.50 posters instead of buying them. Graham wanted his picture next to Hannah Montana as well & Annie posed with High School Musical too. Disney-fy your life, kids!

Annie chose a Barbie: Island Princess picture book; Barbie: 12 Dancing Princesses chapterbook; and Tinkerbell: The Early Years (I can't actually remember the real title). This was after putting down the Dora Mermaid book.

Dora's a mermaid? What is going on with that girl? She's everything - a princess, a fairy, a real trendsetter (kudos to the marketing dept.).

Graham ended up with Poor Puppy (which we HIGHLY recommend); Is That a Dead Dog in Your Locker?; and Is That a Sick Cat in Your Backpack?

Lovely titles, aren't they?

I chose a couple of books too, including a very cute $2 biography of Henri Matisse (I did not realize his "Jazz" paintings were actually paper cut-outs) and a chapter book called Clementine.
I can relate to the kids too - I also found about 25 books that looked "so special".

And that's why we're off to the library this afternoon! I've had a sore throat so instead of reading stories the past three nights, we've listened to Ramona books on CD. I LOVE Stockard Channing's voices, BTW, but it's time for something new (since we've heard about Beezus' creative writing project 4 times).

Best friends

In August, Graham and Annie's best friends Billy & Katharina Hirschi moved with their mom Jen to the Bronx where Jen is working on a post-doc in Chemistry.

I knew it was going to be a loss to the kids, because all of four of them just loved playing together. Billy & Katharina were church friends and St. Thomas friends, so the four kiddos got to see each other all the time ... and that still wasn't enough on some days.

Since school started, I actually haven't heard too many complaints about missing Billy and Katharina, and I was glad that Graham and Annie were being resilient, but their friends in "Yew Nork" (as Annie says) were not forgotten!

On Oct. 12th, the four children were reunited, since Jen had some business that brought her back to TAMU. Graham woke up the morning of the meeting and told me, "I had a dream last night that I got to see Billy again, and I ran to him and hugged him and said 'I MISSED you!'"
That very afternoon, Billy, Katharina, Annie and I picked up Graham from school, and the two boys did embrace. Graham said, enthusiastically, "Billy is better than gold."

Since Billy turned eight that very week, we did a little celebrating. Even Graham could have some cake (with the frosting scraped off). You may be wondering why both boys have shirts off in October? Well, it was hot and humid until, well, until about six hours ago :)

We had a great week with the Hirschis, including a couple of sleepovers at our house, a trip to Mr. Gatti's, a playdate at Tanglewood Park and a performance of Junie B. Jones, the musical, through TAMU's OPAS jr. (I can't stop humming "Top Secret Personal Beeswax", the signature tune of the show).

Graham says he would like to be a mission companion to Truman Renfroe and Billy Hirschi, his far-flung friends.

For now, he has his dreams and our digital photos. Annie, meanwhile, is busy writing letters to Katharina.

Minnesota memories, part 1

This August we went to a neat park/nature center in Bloomington with Kara and Camryn Johnson. Graham and Annie (who have visited before) just loved the pond, the functioning beehive and the wild turkeys outside the window. Well ... maybe they didn't "love" the turkeys. But it is a great place, no doubt about it, and this photo of the two of them just strolling hand in hand was a keeper. Notice that I didn't post the picture of them both pulling on the turtle puppet.

JDRF pictures

JDRF walk

I've gone a week+ without my home computer. Kyle figured out that the problem was the monitor (not the harddrive, so yea!), but it's been strange to have a silent screen staring back at me for these many days. Yes, I have a laptop, but strangely, my hands get very tired when I use it & I don't like to use it to email. The feng shui is off, I think. I need to get a mouse for my laptop. Also, I'm set in my ways. I can understand why writers (Philip Roth?) continue to use typewriters in the age of computers. I'm not a typewriter user, but I like the machine I know.

Anyhoo, E.J.H.L. is back online.

We participated in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Walk for a Cure event this past weekend in Houston. It was pretty amazing to see SO many folks out and about, all affected by type 1 diabetes. Graham enjoyed reading one team's name on the backs of their t-shirts: The Finger Prickers.
"They do that too?" he said. Yes, there was a great sense of camaraderie!

Kyle, Leighton, Casey & I were the assigned walkers, but lo & behold (thanks to Casey's urging), Graham joined us and completed the 3 mile trek around Reliant Park. There were apples, bananas and glasses of water at several stops, so no one was potassium deprived. We are already making plans to include Annie next year. Kathy, Gammy & Annie had fun at the family tent, however, since Annie had the jumpy castle to herself. That's a treat.

I had envisioned a track with serious walkers making good time. The reality was people of all ages and sizes walking and chatting. Lots of folks were on scooters or skates while others pulled wagons and pushed strollers. It really was a family event.

We were invited to walk with the The Flying Ms team (hence the logo on the t-shirts). Lynn Gibson, the team captain, is a dynamo and the team raised over $5000 for JDRF research, thanks to her efforts. There were hundreds of other people there, and it is awe-inspiring to think of the money raised. I never was one to follow medical breakthroughs too closely, but I have joined the ranks of those who follow findings. Anytime I see a "Diabetes" headline, I'm there.

In fact, this recently NYTimes article [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/health/16diab.html] reports one researcher's findings that the skeleton is part of the endocrine system. Wow.

Lynn's 9-year-old daughter Meredith (they live in Baytown and know the Littlefields) was diagnosed just a few weeks after Graham, and Graham LOVES having a "friend" who understands the annoyance of injections. He's only met her twice, but considers her a great pal.

Um ... correction (already!)

"Now the recoil when I try to run a comb through."
THEY recoil, actually

"and would be really to read up on men's haircutting."
I mean I would be WILLING

"Both Marni & Courtney cut their husbands' heads."
Sorry Jon & Andrew ... I didn't mean to get you injured. Marni & Courtney cut hair, not heads.


Obviously I pushed "post" instead of "preview".

Hair Wars

Just had to post this ... yes, it's two years old, but I think it's adorable.

Annie's hair isn't nearly as curly as it was then, but on the plus side, it's much thicker. She asks me nearly every day when it will be A) as long as Rapunzel's hair B) long enough for a "very long" braid or C) like a teenager.

We are growing it out a little bit, and I use that as leverage whenever it is time to brush hair. Of course she doesn't like that! I have a theory about both Graham and Annie's resistance to brushes: since they were bald until two and a half years old, they did not get used to the feel of a brush or a comb. Now the recoil when I try to run a comb through.

Graham also wants his hair long. There are a couple of boys at Ross Elementary with surfer-style hair - very blond, touseled, long, stylish. Unfortunately, when Graham grows his hair out it seems to concentrate in a giant clump on his forehead. He looks like Attack of the Killer Bangs. I think like looks really cute when it's trimmed a bit but I haven't convinced Graham.

Speaking of convincing ... I tried to talk Kyle into letting me cut his hair yesterday and he looked at me as though I suggested he decamp to Antarctica. (I think he still holds the trim I gave him back in 1995 against me.) I told him I knew what I was doing ... and would be really to read up on men's haircutting. Both Marni & Courtney cut their husbands' heads.
But no! Kyle insists on a "professional" at Pro-cuts. Never mind that I could save him $12. :)

I don't like my hair much right now either. It was cut quite a bit shorter than I like it in the summer. It looked cute for about 5 minutes, then promptly clumped on my forehead. (That's where Graham gets it, I'm sure!) The shorter cut was supposed to make it "easy".

Uh, it hasn't.

Actually, it's more work because I look like an escaped prisoner if I don't gel, spray, curl and style it every day. I'm a wash, scrunch and go, but this cut does not allow for that.
Also, it's growing it very mullet-like in the back, so I have to cut it myself. Yes, I bought a (can't think of the word) hair-cutting device (electric razor?), and have to keep trimming up the back so that I don't like Billy Ray Cyrus' younger sister.

I can't wait until I have my chin-length bob back.

Dream shelves

I pulled this from a New York Times home feature months ago. It's such a great room - very cozy with those beautiful creamy built-in shelves.
In my next life, I'd like to come back as a skilled woodworker.

Sports mania

We're in the thick of October already ... but still waiting for the promised cold front to hit Texas. I was expecting a chill all weekend, and even tried to dress Graham and Annie in long-sleeved shirts for Annie's soccer game. When we actually walked outside, we were hit with a blast of hot, humid aid.
Annie is having fun with soccer, though she's asked a couple of times why she isn't scoring any goals. (Um ... total inexperience, lack of footwork,etc.?) There are a couple of kids on her team, including several from our ward, who really know how to move the ball down the field and kick it in. But she's doing well at running near the action, kicking the ball in when it rolls out of bounds and giving enthusiastic thumbs-ups to us in the stands.

I was going to sign up Graham for soccer too, until he said, rather plaintively, "Mom, I really don't like running on the field with all those people crowding around me, yelling. It gives me a headache."
Instead, he wants to play golf and has already had one session with PawPaw Littlefield, who, conveniently, is a golf coach.