Jumping Miriam

Most of our Sunday afternoons are spent attempting to stay in pajamas, lay around, and just be with each other! Miriam though, requires a bit more action...

Hands down, the best Christmas gift Miriam has ever received was a small, indoor trampoline (aka. jumpoline). She will jump and jump and jump! She jumps while watching tv, while playing her favorite game of UNO, while playing on the computer, while playing baby dolls!

Her latest love is turning into a Sunday afternoon must... she pulls her mattress of her bed, gets it partially down the hall before needing assistance, has it placed in the middle of the family room floor next to her "jumpoline", then she JUMPS!

AMERICAN GIRLS IN NEW YORK CITY!

In January of 07, Deidrah was playing on the American Girl website. She somehow found that there were actual American Girl stores and that one was in New York. She then found that there were "packages" you could purchase for spending an entire day at the American Girl Place. Immediately she asked if I'd take her... my response, "If you save enough money for the package, I'll taking you." I thought that would end it right there on the spot, being that the package was $280.

Well, she hustled for a year, charting every $10 she earned up to the $280. May I add here, that this girl kicks butt cleaning bathrooms, doing laundry, loading and unloading the dishwasher, vacuuming and is learning the art of babysitting!

My girlfriend, Tracy, asked Deidrah if she could come along with us. Deidrah's response, "Yeah! But you have to save your own money, I can't pay for you too."

So, in February, we loaded up and made the 6 hour drive to NYC! We stayed with my friend Dina Farmer... who is studying at the Manhattan School of Music (MSofM); is an unbelievably amazing Soprano (I guess it's not to unbelievable, she is at the MSofM); and was one of the children I nannied when I lived in Orlando!

It was such a fun trip... Valentine's dinner in Brooklyn with my friends, Dana and Lexie... a whole day at American Girl Place (we got kicked out at closing)... trips to FAO Schartz, Toys-R-Us, M&M Store and lots of clothes shopping (though I honestly was so stinking tired, that I didn't buy a thing!)... a morning on Canal Street in China Town (Deidrah still doesn't believe me, when I tell her that you're supposed to bargain with them; she refers to that as, "The morning Mom was really mean to people, wouldn't pay them what they asked, and almost made a lady cry because she wouldn't pay full price for a handbag!"... Tons of fun with Dina and Drew... Then we ended the trip with a quick visit with our friends, Richard and Kathy Farmer!

Whew!

Deidrah's 3rd Grade Class Musical/Play

The Song Deidrah's Class Sang After Their Play

Wine and Hot Air Balloon Festival

Upper 70s and sunny, it sounded like the perfect day for a wine festival featuring the lift off of hot air balloons at it's conclusion. We got there mid-afternoon, after church and it was, well, WINDY! Beautiful and WINDY! Not just a little windy, but why would I even waste my time trying to put my hair even in a pony tail, windy. Much to windy for the lift off of hot air balloons. So, we had to adjust our expectations for the day and make the best of the 1.5 hour drive to get there.

After our picnic, Miriam led the way to the merry-go-round which she'd spotted on our way in (the excitement from which kept her from eating her lunch, if you know my kids very well, that doesn't happen very often). Wow, the merry-go-round was, hmm, breathtaking? The clown's light bulb noses and eyes were busted, gone completely, or my favorites, halfway hanging out. I'm sure there was enough chipped off lead paint to poison all the kids there. The wooden "beams" holding the structure together were all but ducked taped together (there might have actually been some duck tape in the region... I just chose to ignore it). The 150 yr old Carnie that was in charge of the ride was lighting up his cigarettes in his chair which sat next to all the electrical equipment. This of course was after he would start the ride before making sure all the kids were seated (kids these days, just need to speed up). All that said, the kids LOVED it, and so did we.

We walked around and looked at all the junk for sale... you can carve anything out of anything and people will buy it... if it's little, then you put it on a piece of jewelry... if it's edible, you put it in jam... where these fail, a t-shirt works best. Deidrah honed in on the Appalachian Trail booth and spoke with them for quit awhile about a school project... she's so shy... Since it wasn't looking like we were going to see any balloons launch (wind speed had to be below 10mph) we walked around looking at some of the baskets used for the balloons. Big surprise, Deidrah talked her way into one with Miriam and a few others. She got a nice little lesson on hot air balloons.

Ben wanted to go tour the home on the estate we were at, Historic Long Branch. The kids weren't so into it, so I took them for yes, another ride on the merry-go-round and to do some arts and crafts. During this (now an hour past when the balloons were supposed to take off) we looked over to one side and saw what appeared to be a giant soccer ball. We all took off running to see this hot air balloon filling up, then up, up and way!! It was so cool! As soon as this balloon made it safely up, the trucks started coming in with other balloons and one by one they'd fill up and lift off. They did it from different locations, so as soon as the girls finished waving good bye to one balloon, we'd run to where the next one was and see it fill up, then lift off too. We stopped counting at 10 balloons and focused on getting as close as we could to the next.

A great end to a great day!

I think this link will take you to the rest of our photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/stevievelker/WineAndHotAirBalloonFestivalOct07

fire safety...

A friend of ours, who is a firefighter, was asking Deidrah after church one day where our meeting spot was in case of a fire in our home. She didn't have an answer and was rather displeased with my not having taught her such a thing. He also was displeased and instructed Deidrah to instruct me to bring her and Miriam by his fire station for a tour and fire safety lesson one day. All dressed in pink leotards, coming from dance lessons, we decided to go have a course in EDITH (exit drills in the home... see, I learned something too). The girls had a blast climbing around on three different trucks while learning what the job(s) of each truck was. Miriam was pretty timid of "Fireman David" (as the girls call him) as he started putting on all of his uniform (it all weighs over 100 pounds!). I must say it did look and sound intimidating. He got on the floor with her and Deidrah and had them practice crawling to him and just not being afraid of him, which ended in the girls hitting him to see if they could hurt him. I was instructed in "change your clocks, change your batteries" meaning, when the time changes, change the batteries in all your smoke alarms. We were all instructed on what we needed to do in case of a fire in our home. The drive home consisted of the girls discussing which tree in our front yard should be our "meeting tree" in case of an emergency and my being put through a check list of "home fire hazards" (I passed). All in all, I think we are ready; our tree has been picked out, we know what a firefighter looks and sounds like, and both girls picked out a new color for their new rooms once our home is rebuilt after being burned down (never hurts to be prepared).

Deidrah's keeping us on our toes this Fall...

Labor Day greeted Deidrah with a nasty case of poison ivy... I don't know if nasty even remotely gets the picture across... poison ivy from head to toe (literally) would be more accurate. It's the end of September now and she still has remnants of it. As the poison ivy was clearing up, we had a family dip in the hot tub. We didn't realize just how sensitive her skin was until she broke out in hives! We are still dealing a bit with that also. Two days into the hives, we get a call from the school nurse who is informing us that she has failed the vision test at school and needs glasses. Thinking she might be excited about it(her favorite American Girl, Molly, has glasses and one of her best friends), I excitedly told her. FOOLED ME! Evidently she was made fun of during her vision test (the one she failed), things like, "Deidrah, you can't miss that many! If you miss that many, you'll have to get glasses! If you have to get glasses, you won't have as many friends!" After the tears had been shed, prayers had been prayed, and she went to school and told all her friends about it, she excitedly went and picked out her first pair of eyeglasses. We took two friends from school with us, so they could help her get a good pair (their words). Left to right: Lindsey, Veronica and Deidrah posing in matching glasses, just for fun. Up top, Deidrah is wearing the glasses she picked out... Hannah Montana frames, of course!