Thanksgiving Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We went to Savannah to spend a couple days with friends. Our friends Chrissy, Gordy and Jackie came from Aiken as well.

We had good food, good friends and a great day. What else could you ask for. We have a great deal to be thankful for every day. Carol returned from Iraq healthy and safe. Everyone is healthy. We all have jobs, a roof over our heads, and food on the table. Compared to more than 95% of the worlds population, we are rich indeed. I try very hard to remember that through the year. I may not be able to afford everything I would like but I can afford everything we need. Thankfully, that is enough.

A letter to Santa from a Mother

Dear Santa,

I've been a good mom all year. I've fed, cleaned and cuddled my children on demand, visited the doctor's office more than my doctor and sold sixty-two cases of candy bars to raise money to plant a shade tree on the school Playground. I was hoping you could spread my list out over several Christmases, since I had to write this letter with my son's red crayon, on the back of a receipt in the laundry room between cycles, and who knows when I'll find anymore free time in the next 18 years.

Here are my Christmas wishes:

I'd like a pair of legs that don't ache (in any color, except purple, which I already have) and arms that don't hurt or flap in the breeze, but are strong enough to pull my screaming child out of the candy aisle in the grocery store.

I'd also like a waist, since I lost mine somewhere in the seventh month of my last pregnancy.

If you're hauling big ticket items this year I'd like fingerprint resistant windows and a radio that only plays adult music, a television that doesn't broadcast any programs containing talking animals, and a refrigerator with a secret compartment behind the crisper where I can hide to talk on the phone.

On the practical side, I could use a talking doll that says, "Yes, Mommy" to boost my parental confidence, along with two kids who don't fight and three pairs of jea ns that will zip all the way up without the use of power tools.

I could also use a recording of Tibetan monks chanting "Don't eat in the living room" and "Take your hands off your brother," because my voice seems to be just out of my children's hearing range and can only be heard by the dog.

If it's too late to find any of these products, I'd settle for enough time to brush my teeth and comb my hair in the same morning, or the luxury of eating food warmer than room temperature without it being served in a Styrofoam container.

If you don't mind, I could also use a few Christmas miracles to brighten the holiday season. Would it be too much trouble to declare ketchup a vegetable?
It will clear my conscience immensely. It would be helpful if you could coerce my children to help around the house without demanding payment as if they were the bosses of an organized crime family.

Well, Santa, the buzzer on the dryer is calling and my son saw my feet under the laundry room door. I think he wants his crayon back. Have a safe trip and remember to leave your wet boots by the door and come in and dry off so you don't catch cold.

Help yourself to cookies on the table but don't eat too many or leave crumbs on the carpet.

Yours Always,

MOM...

PS. One more thing...you can cancel all my requests if you can keep my children young enough to believe in Santa.

Fall is in the air

Mid November the leaves start to fall off the tree in our back yard. For the past couple years I tried to get EmmaLi to help me rack leaves into a big pile and play in them. She would have nothing to do with it.

This year her teacher was discussing fall, the changing colors of the leaves and the leaves falling off the trees until spring and playing in the leaves. So while Mom has no knowledge of how much fun playing in the leaves can be (ahem) her teacher does. This year EmmaLi decided she wanted to rack the leaves and play in them in the back yard. Below are a few pictures of her playing in the leaves.

A very sad day

Yesterday was a bad day all around. It seemed everything that could go wrong did. The last half hour at work was spent trying to get out of there by 6:00pm to go to soccer practice but the calls and "emergencies" kept coming. I did make it out the door at 6:00pm and picked up EmmaLi. I forgot her soccer cleats and she insisted on wearing her cleats and not regular tennis shoes. So we went home before going to McDonald's for diiner on the go. As soon as we walked in I noticed something was not right. Our kitty Mei Mei usuall is at the door to greet us. She was not there. Instead I found her laying on the floor in the living room. She was not moving. As I approached her, she didn't lift her head and I noticed her face was contorted. She had passed away. I do not know what caused this kitty or her sister to pass away. Both seemed healthy and fine the morning each of them passed away. Meimei was eating, drinking, peeing and pooping on schedule. She was running in front of me to leave the bedroom before me in the morning like she always does. It is a mystery. I suspect there was some sort of genetic disorder or siezure disorder these two sister kitties.

We will miss her very much. We buried her in the back yard today and will remember her forever. EmmaLi wants a new kitty but I told her we would take a break from pets for now. We will have to make due with our guppies.

It does seem strange in the morning when a kitty is not chasing me out the bedroom door to get in front of me. It seemed strange to lay in bed last night and look up to the spot Meimei liked to sleep and find it empty. It was also strange to come back from our soccer game this morning and not be met at the door by a kitty.

In honor of both of our kitties Mao-ee and Meimei, I am posting their pictures.

I was menstioned on the news today!

Normally in the morning I get EmmaLi off to school and come home to have a leisurely morning watching the Today show, checking email, and breakfast. Yesterday I decided to tune into a local program on WACH Fox. Basically, I am tired of hearing all of the details and praises of Obama who has yet to DO anything other than speak eloquently and ralley a crowd.

Anyway, the anchors started talking about a Barbie from the 60's or 70's that grew breasts. It was a vague memory and one anchor thought maybe she had imagined it. I jumped on the PC and did a quick search and found that Mattel did in fact make and sold TWO of these Barbie's. They were named Growing Up Skipper and Growing Up Ginger. You crank their air and they grew breasts. It was designed to help girls going through puberty. Apparently the public outrage was rather great and while Mattel thought we were in an age of acceptance, they were sadly mistaken. We were at an open age for grown ups but not for the little girls.

I was never into Barbies as a young girl but I do not remember these Barbies. Maybe one of you remembers this Skipper doll. I emailed the anchor with a link showing the Skipper and Ginger dolls. This morning they were discussing my email and mentioned my name several times like I was an expert. They would say "Kim a first time viewer wrote in...", "Kim says..." and "What else did Kim say?"LOL It was kind of wierd knowing they were talking about me. I've never wanted to be famous so hopefully, that will be 5 minutes of my 15 minutes of fame.

Follow the link below to see Growing Up Skipper.

http://www.dollreference.com/skipper_doll2.html

Soccer Update

This weekend we played a team I remember well from the past two seasons. They caught me off guard this time because the name of the Head Coach changed. We were scheduled to play a team whose coach was named Palmer. To our surprise, we played the assistant coach Shealy instead. He does not follow rules nor does he teach his girls to follow the rules. In the end, my girls (all of them) played great against this team. Kaya scored a couple of goals, EmmaLi scored a goal and our smallest player on the team Ms Terri even scored against them. I was so proud of them. They played awesome and by the rules.

Here are the long awaited photos of EmmaLi and the team. We have one more game to play and then the end of season banquet and the Fall 2008 season will come to an end.

EmmaLi's first report card

Another first for my baby girl. She received her first report card last week. She has a perfect report card with all C's. Kindergarten does not have A's, B's, C's, D's, and F's like the upper grades. Kindergarten has C for Consistantly completes task, S for Sometimes completes task, and R for Rarely completes task. It was a little inaccurate in that it was marked indicating EmmaLi can count to 20 but she has been able to do that since she was two and a half. She can count to 100 but the report card only goes to 99. I am assuming the expectation for the first quarter was only to count to 20 so they mark it to 20. She did have a check mark on all of her letters and the sounds they make when asked "Can identify the following letters" and "Can identify the sound of the following letters". In her Related Arts classes (Computer Lab, Art, Library, Music and PE) she scored all S's. In these classes kindergarteners score S for satisfactory or N for Needs Improvement.

So her first report card is a perfect one. I hope she continues to love to learn and pick up on what is taught. When children love to learn they do better than when they don't. Hopefully, I will continue to enable her to reach her full campacity. I think we are on the right track. She told me earlier this week that for Christmas she only wants DVD's, Wii games, board games, books and puzzles. LOL She has always loved puzzles and enjoys the challenge of them.

She also wants a microscope and telescope. I am not sure that she would play with those right away but it is one of those toys she will grow into and hopefully she'll get a love for science. Kindergarten science is not terribly challenging but she loves the study of and learning about nature which is what kindergarten science concentrates on. Once again I must sing the praises of EmmaLi's teacher. She has hatched caterpillars into butterflies and let them loose with the kids, they conducted "experiments" on pumpkins around Halloween and she has set up an aquarium in the classroom and took some of our baby guppies to class so the kids can learn how they change colors when they grow up.

I am so proud of my girl and her love of learning. She comes home every day and never ceases to amaze me with what she has learned, retained and understands.

A Sad Day

All I can say is that we need to pray. Everyone. Pray for our country, pray for our Senate, Congress and House of Representatives. Most of all pray for our President Elect that he will have a change of heart on the issues.

Barack Obama did not win this election based on ability to run the country or skills as Commander in Chief. He won because the American People are ignorant. They like being ignorant. They voted for Barack Obama for the same reason my 5 year old daughter wanted to vote for him. In the words of my daughter "I like the way he looks better than the other guy." I told her I like the way he looks too. He is a very handsome man but when John McCain was the same age as Barack Obama is now, he was even more handsome. I told her that Barack Obama is also a very eloquent speaker but he doesn't say much. He talks, it sounds nice but it's like pretty music with no words to understand what he says.He hums to the music and disguises his words.

I explained to my five year old how Barack Obama voted when he was a Senator for two years. Then I explained how John McCain voted when he was a Senator for almost 40 years. After hearing the issues regarding basic non graphical abortion, basics on gay marriage, illegal immigrants, and English as the official language of the United States, and attending a church for 20 years where the pastor seeks to oppress anyone who is not black, my brilliant 5 year old made a better choice than grown adults who have the opportunity to vote. I told her that Black people are voting for him just because he is black. They do not know (or the choose to ignore) where he stands on the issues. Issues are important decisions that affect everyone. All they say is they want change. Hispanic people are voting for him because he lets their family and friends who are criminals by being here illegally stay and become US citizens. A large number of the people in prison are illegal immigrants and our tax money is paying for them to be there. We could have more money for your school if we weren't paying so much money for welfare, food stamps and medicaid for people who are here illegally and not paying taxes. She looked at me and said "Oh I didn't know. We need to vote for John McCain. Marack Bobama is not a good guy."

Now I have to explain to her what happens to our country now that our President Elect is "not a good guy".

A night of Halloween fun

Well, we survived another Halloween. EmmaLi had a great time.

Here are some pictures of EmmaLi before we left the house.

We went to church for the Fall Festival for a little over an hour. They had hot dogs and chips and drinks free for all attending. They had big blow up slides, a mini ferris wheel like you see at the drive ins, a blow up obsticle course, and a ride I am not sure how to describe. It had long poles that hung down from a frame at the top. At the bottom of the poles were the "cars" where you sat. Similar to the Mad Hatter tea party at Disney, they had the wheel in the middle so you could spin the car in a circle as the ride spun around. It was sort of like the swing ride but had cars you sat in. They also had a bunch of games to play for candy, a cake walk and a live band playing. Each year they have about 3500 people attending and they were expecting even more in attendance this year. Every year more and more people come. I will say we have gone for the past 4 years before trick or treating.

While we were there, I was able to meet EmmaLi's "special friend" from school. Olivia is in the third grade and is EmmaLi's special friend. EmmaLi and another student have special friends from third grade that come down to her class twice a week to work with them. Both girls are advanced in reading and are not challenged by what the rest of the class is doing so they each get a "special friend" who comes in and they read harder books and play games that help with reading skills. EmmaLi loves having a special friend for this. EmmaLi's special friend was at the Fall Festival and EmmaLi spotted her from across a field. I don't know how she did it as I certainly could not make out anyone from across that field. LOL