Molly & Mike

No -- that's not Molly & Mike -- That's Kevin & Sarah! Yesterday (Sunday) we went to a baseball game. Well, we went to the game because Sarah's teacher was giving horse and wagon rides. They had two wagons going together and our wagon's horses were "Molly & Mike". The ride "route" wound through the city park which is a tad under water right now due to the swollen creek and all the rain we've had. The horses did well with going through the water but apparently weren't real keen on it the first thing in the morning -- I don't think I would be either! And the last photo shows Sarah with Mike -- I think he was sweet on her!

Derby Time?

We went to see "Kung Fu Panda" today at the movies. Sarah seemed to enjoy it although it may be a toss up as to whether the movie or the popcorn was more fun!

Afterwards we stopped by Target and Sarah spied a hat with a pink ribbon. As soon as she picked it up she said, "I want to use my money to buy this!" Now, she probably has 4 different hats already so I kind of looked at her and said "why this hat?"

"It goes with my dress!" That really didn't help me much as she had oodles of dresses!

But after we were home a bit she came bouncing down the hallway all dressed up. My first thought was, "It looks like she is ready for the Kentucky Derby!" Isn't she cute!!!! It's amazing how much fun she can have with a $2.50 hat!

"Project Runway" -- Here I Come!

As I'm sure you can tell from many of the posts, Sarah is quite interested in art and fashion. She especially loves to draw dresses and told us that ever since she can remember she has wanted to be a fashion designer. One look into her closet will tell you that this kid LOVES clothes! And when I asked her to pose for these photos she ran to her room to put on a new pink dress "just because she hasn't had a place to wear it yet!"

We've tried to think of ways to help her learn about fashion, fashion design and art techniques. Aunt Kimberly and Uncle Jason have been AWESOME in supplying her with the best in drawing and painting supplies! She always carries one of the drawing pads they've sent and pencils (usually many pencils from various thicknesses to colored pencils) in her school bag and comes home many days with some new dress she's drawn or some type of drawing.

We rented seasons one and two of "Project Runway" which is a reality fashion design show and Sarah really seemed to enjoy watching the episodes and asked lots of questions. She was fascinated with how they worked on mannequins and draped fabric. After just a few episodes she was wanting old shirts to cut up and redesign! We are gearing up to watch season three soon. And, yes, Kevin is a great sport and we watched all the episodes together as a family!

In the past few weeks we've been working on making our spare bedroom into a "fashion design" studio where Sarah can just plop down, play around with fabric and get her creativity going. Once summer school is done at the end of this week, Sarah and I are going to learn to sew! We've picked out several patterns and I've tried to stock the shelves with various colors and types of fabrics and trim. I've been able to pick up great lots of stuff on Ebay -- from a giant box of assorted thread to boxes full of assorted trims, buttons, and zippers. Each box that arrived at the front door would elicit an "oooooooh -- ohhhhhh!" and it was really fun to see her wade through the various items. She's gone with me to Walmart to dig through the $1 a yard fabric and, won't you know it, always complains that they don't get enough pink fabric in!

A few years ago my mom bought a sewing machine and left it at our house. The poor guy sat lonely for many years but now will have some fun things to sew! Plus, we bought him a little friend -- a serger. It took me several hours, but I waded through the serger book, figured out how to thread it and make it go and was so happy with myself -- Sarah sat down, flipped open the lid, looked inside, said a couple of "uh-huhs" and was off an running with fabric flying everywhere in no time! Kids.

Sarah has already dug through the shelves and picked out three kinds of PINK fabric. We did Sarah's measurements and made the mannequin match her form exactly so she can work on the mannequin and see how the fit will be on her. She calls the mannequin "Sarah #2". She's already done some cutting (without any type of pattern) to start a slip dress design she has in her head. She's serged the fabric and has started pining it to "Sarah #2". Maybe she won't need me to teach her anything after all!

Mini China Family Reunion

Hi all! I know, two posts in one day -- what's the world coming to?!??!?! Please be sure to see Sarah's big taekwondo day in the post below.

I just had to say a HUGE thanks to Shandra, William, Lilly, Lulu and Xia for stopping by yesterday! This awesome family was in our travel group on our journey to China and we were able to get together yesterday for a few hours as they were making their way through our state on a vacation. It was so great to see them and we couldn't believe how the kids had changed in such a short time. Such cuties!

Now, here's the part where you all get to send me a big cyber slap across the forehead as I was so excited to see everyone and just enjoying watching the kids and talking with the adults that I didn't take one photo! Can you believe it!??! I can't believe it. Sometimes I'm such a big dummy! And this is even after Shandra got her camera out and we were talking about different kinds of cameras! So I know Shandra has photos and when she gets home I'll see if I can beg one!

Okay, in my defense -- I'm claiming that the "forget drug" they gave me after my colonoscopy and EDG on Friday was still working -- and I forgot to get my camera out! Okay, I know that's lame but it's the best I got! And really don't feel the need to tell me how stupid I am as I already know!

Here's a photo from China of Sarah with Lulu (on left) and Xia (on right) -- believe me, they each look so different now!

Taekwondo Testing - Hello Green Belt

Saturday Sarah tested for her next taekwondo belt. She was a camo belt and now is a green belt. Yeah! Starting with this testing, she not only had to do her "form" which is a sequence of choreographed moves (photo above), but she also had to demonstrate her sparring in order to pass to the next belt. She had two sparring matches this time, one with a girl who is one rank above her and one with a boy who is two ranks above her.

For testing, each student must wear the official white uniform with a white shirt underneath -- no other colors are allowed. BUT, Miss Sarah just had to have something pink so she wore a pink ponytail holder!

And here she is putting on her new belt. Bye-bye Camo - hello Green! So, when is PINK belt?!?!?

Who is that Masked Girl?!?

Sarah has been having lots of fun in summer school art class. Last week she brought home a very cool mask (and note there isn't a speck of pink on it!) and today she brought home three neat paintings. The animal skull is drawn and painted and then she used a q-tip dipped in bleach to "distress" the white part -- it's really neat and much cooler when you see it in person!

These two are water color drawings. One place on Sarah's "to visit list" is a beach -- she's never been to one. Just tonight she also was telling us she'd like to ride a horse someday. Maybe she can ride a horse on the beach!

And here are two more projects from last week. In her right hand is a folding card with a colored pencil drawing of a Chinese mountain/village landscape, a hand with gold fingernail polish and the Chinese characters for "mountains", "house" and "drawing". In her left hand is a pink and purple replica of "Pleakley," a character from "Lilo & Stitch" -- Pleakley is an alien who has three legs, two purple tongues, ONE large eye and a spaghetti-like body (photo of the real Pleakley is at the end of this post). While the real Pleakley is yellow, Sarah thinks he looks better PINK! In one of the cartoons we watched Pleakley wished for ears so he could wear sunglasses, so Sarah gave her Pleakley big ears! Sarah's Pleakley is made with computer wires.

I wonder what they'll do tomorrow in class!!?!!?

Happy Father's Day!

Sarah has been busy getting things ready for Kevin's First Father's Day! A few weeks ago we went shopping and Sarah picked a new fishing box for Kevin and a cute hammock for Kevin's hermit crabs! She also picked out a PINK reward ribbon that says "Dancing Star!" on it -- she loves to tease him!

After shopping it was on to Hallmark to get a Father's Day card. She went with the intention of getting one of the cards that you can record a message on and she found a great one that has Superman and on the front says nice things about Dad, but inside it says "but I don't want to see you in a cape and tights!" We've been watching "Smallville" which is about the early days of Superman, so the card is perfect. She also picked out one which is PINK and has images of Minnie Mouse -- she wanted that one to remember our trip to Disney.

Today we are going to make Kevin some homemade gumbo. I've never made gumbo before, but Kevin loves cajun food so we'll give it a try. There's always McDonald's if the recipe doesn't work out!

Hope you all are having a wonderful day! Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!!

Rock On Strawberry Girl!

Sarah finally got a strawberry from the garden before the turtle ate it! Kevin has been watching one that was just about ripe and told me last night that there are two little bites taken out of it! Somewhere a little turtle is laughing his shell off!

Have you ever wondered what happens at our house on Saturday nights?!?!?? Well, you just never know! Actually, usually we watch a movie or two. If Sarah is picking, the movie will either have a dog or a princess in it -- a super cool movie will have BOTH! And you get extra points if the dog can talk!

Lately we've been watching "Project Runway" as well as Sarah wants to be a fashion designer. She's also getting into the "Smallville" series and is currently on Season 2.

Now, sometimes weekend fun also includes kicking mom or dad's butt at video games! She can whip me good at ANY of the Wii games! And on the XBox 360 she likes to play Rock Band and usually it's just Kevin and Sarah on the guitars but sometimes they get me to play drums (and once or twice I've even handled the singing part of the game -- but dogs for miles around went crazy!). Here is the "Dad and Daughter" Band rockin' out!

Color Me Stunned!

When we visited New York City a few weeks ago Sarah took along her little digital camera which is an inexpensive little Samsung which basically is a "point and shoot" model. She rarely takes photos (she's maybe taken 50 photos in her whole life), but took a few in NYC and a few when Mimi and Papa visited.

I had forgotten she had even used her camera until recently. When I uploaded the card from her camera I have to admit I was just amazed at the photos she had taken. I'm no expert at all about photography (and I realize it's "mom" talking here) but I think these are really unbelievable for someone who has never had any training or instruction. I wish you could see them full size as they are even more stunning than the small shrunken photos the blog allows.

The first three are from NYC and the last one is on the grounds of the Precious Moments Chapel.

You GO Girl!!!

Our girl certainly has SPUNK! Today was "day 2" of a 3 day volleyball camp sponsored by a local college. Sarah has never played volleyball before except for a few days in PE, but she seemed to have a bit of interest in it after playing at school so we asked her if she'd like to go to a 3 day volleyball camp. She said "sure!"

Before yesterday's camp was done, Kevin and I weren't too sure she'd be wanting to go back again today. The camp is lots of fun and lots of work. But when the day was over it received a resounding "that was pretty fun!" comment and she was ready to go back today. The coach had told them that camp starts at 1:30 but you need to be there early because "if you are on-time, you're late!" So today at 12:45 she was all dressed (knee pads and all!) and rushing Kevin and I around to leave even though the college is just down the road from us.

Today they ran various drills and then played some games. Sarah loved two drills in particular -- smashing the ball down on the ground and seeing how high she could get it to bounce & standing on a box and smashing the ball over the net (photo above).

After today's session she actually has bruises on her arms but she's ready to go again tomorrow! So, "You GO Girl!" -- or should we call you "Smash Girl!"?

(And yes, she was wearing pink shorts today and yesterday she did have black shorts on but a pink shirt! And, she learned to dye fabric in art class today so now she wants to dye her knee pads PINK! Go figure!)

NYC -- The "Times Square Shuffle"

I'm very late in posting photos of our trip to New York City. Sarah and I tagged along with Kevin and his students when they visited the Big Apple at the beginning of May for a Finance Club trip. This was my 5th or 6th trip to NYC and Kevin's 6th or 7th trip (he's gone once more than I have). We stayed right near where the World Trade Center Towers were which is on the lower portion of Manhattan right near Wall Street and just a quick walk to Battery Park where you can see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We took the subway up to Times Square, Central Park, FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) and Chinatown.

It was a bit cold while we were there so most photos look like we are always wearing the same clothes! And we stumbled upon a Romanian Street Festival on Wall Street which was an unexpected treat and we enjoyed some new foods and Sarah LOVED looking at all the booths full of jewelry, purses, etc. Her souvenirs from the trip are items from the festival.

This photo is of Sarah in front of the NY Stock Exchange on Wall Street.

We Kevin in front of the Wall Street Bull. (You actually have to wait in line in the middle of a street to have your photo taken with this bull as so many tourists want the same photo!)

One of the very few times you'll see Kevin in a dress shirt and tie!

In Battery Park.
The Romanian Street Festival on Wall Street -- Kevin enjoying some new foods and Sarah shopping at the festival.



Central Park -- Sarah's FAVORITE part of NYC! We bought a salt-free pretzel for her to feed to the squirrels and birds.

We took our budding fashion designer to see FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) and we toured their permanent clothing museum on the first floor as well as the ultra cool bookstore. But the closest she got to any fancy clothing stores was standing outside -- like in front of Hermes!

And after a few days in NYC with tons of walking and subway riding and loud noises and different food and tons of people and lots of rain and cold -- it was SO FUNNY to me when we saw this sign in Central Park. By the time we saw the sign, Kevin and Sarah were too tired to honor my request for them to dance in front of the sign while I took a photo, but you get the idea. Okay, maybe it's just me, but a sign telling me to "Use The Times Square Shuffle" just sums up the trip -- we came, we danced, we got all pooped out!