Boo winter!

Many who know me know that I HATE snow so I was very sad to see such blinding whiteness one morning. Danica however (thankfully) does not share most of my likes/dislikes though so we ventured out. And by "we" I mean I sat bundled up sitting on the only surface not covered with snow(a manhole cover) and asked Danica if she was done yet about every 3 minutes. Sure wish I had a backyard =(
BRRR!

She was heartbroken when I said we weren't going to make gingerbread men because she had so much fun making them last year. I vetoed the gingerbread because I simply didn't like it-and making yucky cookies is just so sad- so we made sugar cookies instead. ...and yes, some in gingerbread man shapes. While many people's holiday plans were messed up due to the poor weather conditions concerning flights and such, I was ecstatic. We got to have Danica for Christmas this year! We had an early Christmas with Nana Mykie and then spent Christmas day at both the Dewsnup's and Vance's.

Danica is lucky to have such great uncles. Uncle John played several games of memory with Danica using her new cards...she cared naught that they were for old maid, go fish and crazy 8's...

Cute new pj's.

Our Christmas tree and short-stuff. I took down all the rest of the decorations right after Christmas but couldn't bear to take the tree down yet. It just seems so sad to think it lived it's "purpose." I shall mourn it's passage. Perhaps I should look into getting a fake tree? ;)

If you can't tell my hubby doesn't like getting pics taken so he halfheartedly humors me.

Grandpa Dan reading Danica a new book she got for Christmas. She LOVES being read to.

Ah, two of Danica's loves. Wilbur and Penne. (she doesn't get that from me)

So now that we've passed all the exciting parts of winter...

I'm done! Can summer come now???

oh, and if you're wondering why there aren't any pics from my folks house it's because I had a dead camera battery by then but I'm sure they'll post about Christmas...

Pilates!

No, I haven't been up to much exercise but Danica has. She absolutely loves pilates-tis the only workout dvd's we own. I had rented her a kid yoga dvd from the library and she got a big kick out of it too. The only reason I have any desire to get on-demand?, I don't know what the tv-cable thingy is called, is that they have a bunch of fun workouts on there at your fingertips. We were doing some of the yoga workouts a few weeks ago and I remembered how much I like it. I must admit I cannot do down-dog properly at all anymore.

Anyhow, purpose of this post is simply for these pics taken the other day:

...I'd like to note that it is clean laundry stacked in the background...it's actually still there. But it's clean!

Selective hearing?

Nope...she simply is hard of hearing. Poor child. I took her to the doctor today. She was to raise her hand when she heard a beep from the device stuck in her ear. Out of three beeps she heard one in one ear and two in the other. We'll recheck next week and if it's the same she'll go to a specialist. She has been sick and they could tell there was fluid on one side, though it was the side on which she did better on the hearing test.
Obviously she can hear =) just not as well as she should be able to.

Little Bunny Foo Foo

So Danica has a Dora book that has a magna-doodle type top, as pictured, that she practices writing on. (Thanks Mandi! It's perfect!) Lately her fave words to write are cat, dog, hat, sat, bat and mom. (Probably because she can spell them herself) Well last night we're all sitting in the living room and Danica says "Look, a bunny!" and we look over and behold--a bunny. She says it's sitting down. This is my favorite of the pics she's drawn...usually it's a guessing game trying to figure out what it is and at the same time trying not to hurt her feelings when it's not immediately obvious. Her last of my faves is still on the fridge. It's a ghost wearing a tutu. haha.

We haven't been up to much recently. I'm still not feeling well. I finally scheduled a doctor's appointment for Friday. And today I found out that Danica and I were both approved for insurance. Do you know how exciting that is?! Way! It took forever to find out but it is in effect as of Oct. 6th so I guess I should have just gone to the doctor already. Oh well.

We're down to one car since Rob's car decided it had had enough. Wait let me shed some tears over it... ... ... no, not gonna happen. ;) While it is unfortunate that we only have one, I felt like his was a dangerous ticking timebomb. This however would have been more of an 'inconvenience' had my car not been recovered. I'm sure we'll have to find him one sometime(I get to pick it out.) But in the meantime I don't mind just having one. I'm cheap. I think if we can survive with one we should. =)

For some reason these last couple weeks at work have been way easier than usual. I've had mostly recall patients which does NOT happen! I've gone days without a single one before. It is so SO nice, just what I needed.

Danica will be out of town starting today through the day after Thanksgiving. That, I can easily shed tears over... :(

Green Oregon

Danica *likes* recycling. Isn't that funny? She is better at it than some people in our house (cough)Rob(cough). Yesterday I saw her picking up little pieces of cardboard to recycle that even I would have just swept up and tossed.
She was just singing a song about how "recycling is fun"...hence why I thought of it. anyhow. I think it's cute.

Halloween

Though Rob and I had different plans prior to Halloween, a tough week made us just want to be bums so Danica was the only one to dress up this year. When I asked her a monthish ago what she wanted to be she informed me she already had a costume at Grandma's house. She was perfectly content being the same thing as last year, Little Red riding hood, but what's the fun in that?! Anyhow. When I showed her this costume at Value Village($5) she got all excited. As I've said before the child is NOT difficult to please. So Belle it was. I think she's my favorite of the Disney Princesses though I didn't like Beauty and the Beast growing up. I'm not sure why. We spent Halloween at my parents' church party. It was a lot of fun. Good food(chili cook-off), trick-or-treating and Danica even won a cakewalk. She said she declined the cupcake and informed me that too much cake sometimes makes her tummy hurt. When we got home from the party I thought we were too late to go trick or treating because our part of town was dead. We headed over to Grandma Julie's and learned we simply don't live in the right part of town because theirs was swarming with kids. So Danica went trick or treating with her dad, grandpa and Penny(her Grandparents' golden retriever whom she loves to pieces.)

WOOHOO!!!!

They found my car!!!! Do you know how excited I am?!?! I couldn't believe it! Someone called it in. It was stolen for the stereo(which is super old so I hope it was worth their time) haha! They took the floormats-which were wonderful and they don't have at our Costco anymore =( some cd's -I hope they enjoy Jeff Goodrich...and they took the birthday present that was intended for Danica's friend's birthday party yesterday. I hope they enjoy their new playdoh set and learn-to-read Dora book. =) =) =) !!!!!! SO EXCITED! oh, and the Springfield Police Dept will give me a free "the club" =)

Halloween Decor

I've been feeling like kind of a bum mom lately(because i am) so I decided to make halloween decorations with Danica. She thought it was great fun(she's not hard to please). We made a few pumpkins and some ghosts. I was going to hang the ghosts at varying lengths in the window but alas I am far too lazy and they are simply sitting on the window sill. Danica really, really wanted to make square pumpkins but i won the battle. wahaha!

There is no love!

Okay, this has NOT been my week... MY CAR GOT STOLEN!!! who does that??? Anyhow. If anyone is in the area, could you keep an eye out for it and have people do likewise? It's a tan '94 Accord. It has crater lake plates on it CK 25926. -just call the police if you see it. Thanks for any help!

Dinner Conversation

Today Danica and I were sitting at the table eating lunch when we had a conversation about a plate. She was using a plate she made at a primary activity a little while back that has CTR painted in the middle and then the outside she painted orange and red. She's always pretending to read things and she starts to say "I am a child of..." and I cut in and say "it says CTR. It stands for 'Choose the right.'" Her response,"Oh, because Heavenly Father doesn't want us choosing left?" "Exactly."

Filler

So I noticed that I haven't blogged anything in 3 weeks and felt guilty. I also haven't really done anything in 3 weeks either. I'll try and make the little things I did sound like I have a super exciting life. Hmm... drawing a blank. School started. This means my hubby eats, sleeps and breathes calculus. Well he could be doing other homework but it all looks the same to me. I'm very thankful he likes school. If it were me having to do that he would be hearing me whine about having to do it day and night. =) It also means I have a consistent work schedule again. (no comment)

I've been on a hunt for some new furniture(random things) for ages now and have been checking craigslist daily hoping to catch just the right thing. This past week I found a bed for Danica that I(and she) love. It has an area for a fort underneath it and a slide so of course the 4 yr old is excited. I also found a book shelf for my room because regardless of us having three bookshelves already we have too many books! I love books. Children's books are my favorite. It is very obvious which books are Rob's verses mine...though maybe not so obvious which books are Danica's vs. mine. haha.

Danica has one more day of soccer so we have that to look forward to but I've got to find something else to put her in afterwards. She loves soccer; I wish the season were longer. Rob seems to frown on a dance class so we might have to wait til basketball starts.

I'm addicted to fanfiction...does anyone else read it? I've only read some on the Tamora Pierce and Sherwood Smith sites. Yep, definitely a bookworm.

So I've learned that telling a secret to a 4 yr old pretty much guarantees that the world will know. Everywhere we go she asks if she can tell so and so "the secret." So I'm sorry to those of you who are finding out after the lady behind me in line at Value Village, that we are expecting. Does anyone else think pregnancy should be 3ish months long. It's taken a lot of effort to convince Danica that no, she can't be pregnant too. She's decided I'm having a boy AND a girl but if I force her to choose she seems to want a little brother. I can't remember ever wanting a little brother; though I sure wanted a little sister. Anyhow. It's far too early for us to be telling people safely so I'll just post if something goes amiss. And I would like to note that the previously mentioned ginger snaps were in no way related.

Is anyone else loving that it's been SO sunny!!!

I simply don't think there is anything else I can come up with to talk about. Except that we're being serenaded by our neighbor on the guitar. He plays well. But Rob still wants to move. We got our shower fixed!!! That could be a whole post right there but can I say that it's wonderful!

Danica asked me if she could take pictures the other day of her dad and I find a handful of pictures equally impressive as this one. (I wasn't present for the pictures) Rob says he prefers this picture to how he looks in the family pic we took on Sunday. haha.

One of the aforementioned photos.

Soccer!!

Tonight Danica had her first Tot Soccer practice. She LOVED it. It was dreary and rainy-so perfect soccer weather. There was about a bazillion kids so at times it was chaotic but I thought the "coaches"(a girl's soccer team) did a real good job managing the group. At first Danica was kinda whiney and didn't want to go out but it only took a moment before she was literally jumping up and down, shrieking, because she was so excited. They played simon says for a little bit. After messing up a few times Danica would look around at the group before doing whatever Simon said.

The kids also practiced dribbling around cones, shooting between flags and throwing the ball over their heads.

I apologize for the fuzzy pictures. I don't know how to work a camera.

Near the end a bunch of the kids were just rolling around in the ground or running free around the field so Danica worked with her coach one-on-one practicing headers(which I saw her succeed once and she was excited about later) and the girl had her try and steal the ball.

It was all fun to watch. Rob made fun of me because I was the only one taking pictures. What is with these other parents?! Sheesh...

Rob's first post

Yes, this will be my first post of really anything on this Internet doo-hickamuhbob. I managed to hold the line against temptation from the usual gossip breeding grounds such as myspace and facebook, but only to succumb to the yuppiest most self promoting machination of them all... a blog. My fingers quiver while contemplating what political lancet or haughty wisdom scraps I deign to chuck to my starved reading base... huh... oh no, yah I am... love you too... So umm yah melissa "isn't sure she trusts [me] to blog," -why? my guess is as good as yours. I guess this is a "family" blog, i.e. what I will call the flog.

Well, every flogging should begin with someone stealing something. In this case the culprit was Danica. She is the first to rise in our home and usually in the middle of some fantastic adventure or serious undertaking by the time her parents get up. Lately she has been getting up with a stuffed panda down her pants. My query: "Hey kiddo, why is there a panda in your PJs?" Response: "Because it's my baby, do want to hold him daddy?" I did, but I had to be very gentle with his head and blankie. A few minutes later "I stole some of mommy's cookies." She is apparently still sensitive to guilt and is referring to Mel's ginger snaps. they were too alluring for the 4 year old, but I respected her honesty and had a really good discussion on stealing that was of course immediately forgotten.

Lately Mel and I have had the honor to help out in nursery with her parents who are the nursery monitors/directors/leaders? I have had the time of my life since week one, and even Mel admits she likes being part of the excitement. Cuteness aside, it is a kick to help them learn to play nice with eachother, try to quiet them down for prayer, pop bubbles etc. My ace in the hole is pretending to eat plastic food, it just never gets old.

Today I had court. I am a Victim Advocate in the circuit court. I just passed my year mark a month ago so I have been upgraded to having my hand scanned. This is so I don't have to wait behind the hundred or so jurors that apparently always finish lunch when I arrive and have never been through a metal detector before. The secret is to take all the metal off your person and give it to security the first time or else you have to back and through again and again until you get it right while everyone waits. Luckily, since I am a part of the DA's office and am forbidden to so much as utter a word to them, the secret is safe with me. Also I got my first murder case. The only reason really is because I speak spanish (the victims are spanish speaking), actually it would just be attempted murder as everyone is alive... anyway I usually am a bit cavalier with these things so, on the topic of murder, Mel and I went to the Oregon v. Utah game.

It looks like she has already mentioned this with accompanying pictures (you'll find no such media from me). It has been a fun season despite the black clouds looming up from california for us later in the year, and not helped by the usual season killing injury count. It has been great watching our friends play since all three get to start this year, if you count special teams, and I do.

Danica 8/08

I have a 4 yr old. Isn't that weird?

GO DUCKS!!

Rob and I were very lucky and got to go to the game today.(Thanks Dan & Julie!!!) We kinda forgot to set an alarm and woke up 15 minutes before it started. Since we arrived late with general admission tickets to a sold out game we ended up standing. It was a good change from being in the stands. The last game I went to I was in front of a couple of REALLY drunk guys who seemed to have a vocabulary consisting of approximately three 4-letter words. I got bumped into a lot, knocked in the head and spit on....SO... standing was pleasant. The game was good. Utah state went home crying. Final score 66-24.

We got to see a couple of friends play. This is Bair. He can fly.And he can tackle...

America celebrates Rob's Birthday

And on another note... Monday was Rob's birthday. He is such an old man now, luckily he has a young hot wife who is simply days and days younger...10 to be exact ;) ...okay sidenote: my semi-colon key wasn't working so I got frustrated at it and tore it off- there was a grape stem hindering it. random. end sidenote: I feel guilty but I hate, hate, HATE planning things with a passion so his birthday was less than exciting. We woke up kinda late, in the afternoon, and decided we had to get out for his birthday. (I did make him brea.. err, lunch.) We went hiking around the Mt. Pisgah Arboretum. It was gorgeous out. Perfect weather for it. We skipped rocks for a little bit but soon learned the hazards of teaching a 4 year old to throw them. I almost got hit, then Rob did get hit and then we were done!

Grrrr!

I'd like to take a moment to vent at the world... (I worked today-thus the need to vent)
Please, please, PLEASE do not lie to your hygienist. It is not a little white lie to say you floss daily when you really ran out of floss 3 yrs ago. This is a grievous sin! And besides, hygienists know you're lying. If there is a solid wall of calculus across your teeth it's a pretty big hint to me that you are not able to fit floss between your teeth, EVER. I had someone today that I was tempted to tell him he must be one of the unlucky people who need to floss seven times a day because "flossing daily" just wasn't cutting it. =)

Meager beginnings

Okay so I have to admit that I hate writing with a passion and will probably fail miserably at keeping up with this but I have promised I would make attempts.

I'm fairly certain that the only thing I did this summer so far, despite me having ample amounts of free time since I've worked minimally, is go camping overnight and to the aquarium...back at the beginning of the summer. And, of course, I couldn't find any extra batteries to my camera and only got off a couple shots before it died.

Rob, Danica and I headed over to the coast to camp one night at Washburne State Park and then to the Newport aquarium. It was a good trip but it was SO cold. Danica never complained about the temperature but did seem to think I was silly for making her wear so much clothes. She kept telling me she was already wearing pajamas when I tried getting her to double up. We used one of the walk-in campsites. I was impressed. We had almost the first pick and chose a site where we couldn't see any other campsites. (I'd like to insert that Rob does not think camping in a site counts as camping...there must be no one within fifty miles and definitely no plumbing before he seems to deem it worthy to carry the name. haha) Rob and Danica got to work collecting wood. Danica loved helping. It was amusing to see her dragging pieces that were much longer than she is tall. In the meantime I was in charge of blowing up the airmattresses.(another non-"camping" piece of equipment) They did much better with their work since we all ended up on the ground by morning.

Danica and I made a quick trip to see the beach but it was super windy. I wasn't prepared for the wind and ended up layering us in clothes(meant for goodwill) that had been sitting in my trunk. Danica looked like a little hoodlum with a black du-rag to cover her head. I wished I had my camera for that. We searched for shells but most of them were just scattered pieces. Danica kept saying "look mommy I found a whole one!" We came home with a nice collection of -whole- rocks. =)

We went to the aquarium the next day. I'd never been. I was interested to see if it would be worth the $40 for us to go. I think we lasted an hour and a half and I liked it just fine. Danica looked at all the tanks and pointed out starfish. That was mostly all she cared about. She did point out when she saw fish that looked like Dory(finding Nemo) but mainly it was "look mommy, look daddy-it's a starfish!"x 571.