Dr. Seuss, eat your heart out!

There's a resident of Who-ville living with me....
Okay, NOW she has some hair! Although Abigail's "bangs" are still less than an inch long (after more than a year of growth), you can see that the rest of her hair is definitely getting longer. Tonight while I was washing her hair, I started playing with it, and then I started laughing. I called Frances to bring the camera...



Photos by Frances, hairstyle by Mommy!
This made me think back to the day when we received our children in China. Keith's comment (forever captured on our "gotcha day" video) was, "She's got more hair than you said she did!"
Okay, but take a look at the blog photos from China; she was pretty much bald! And now we can do the antennae, the kewpie curl, the unicorn, all sorts of Seussical hairstyles... but only when there's plenty of shampoo to build up and stabilize her 'doo. Frances and I were cracking up. I love my girls!

An idyllic morning

Last Saturday morning, the girls had the option of watching television, but disappeared quietly until I finally went looking for them. I found them in Abby's room, playing on the floor with the Little People.

These toys used to belong to Frances, and when we were preparing for Abigail's arrival, she was ready to pass them along. After all, Fran is a "big girl" now, and Little People are baby toys. But.... they are still fun to play with!

The girls were playing nicely, side-by-side, without any arguing or strife. I had to grab the camera and take a few pictures to remember this day!

Superbowl Sunday

As has become tradition, we spent the afternoon of Superbowl Sunday with my friend Linda's family, in her backyard. The girls and I play out in the backyard, and each time there's a commercial break, the sportsfans yell, "Commercial!" Frances and I come running, to see the amazing and hilarious ads.

This year, we also celebrated two birthdays at halftime. Frances' 9th birthday (January 28th) lingered on, and Grandma Hunter's birthday was coming up the week after the Superbowl.
The girls always have a great time in Aunt Linda's backyard. There's a great climber/slide/swingset, and Frances plays with the dog (while Abby runs away from it).





Frances, the gymnastic girl, can do the splits while going down the slide. Abigail can't do the splits yet, but is quite flexible, and wants to do anything her big sister can do!

Funny signs

I had to laugh at some of the signs we saw at the zoo...
These were both in the Children's Zoo!



The San Diego Zoo is very close to the border between the US and Mexico, and there is a really funny highway sign that has silhouettes of a man and woman running, dragging a child (whose feet are not touching the ground) by the hand. I think it is a warning that people may be running across the highway after an illegal border crossing, but the sign itself is hilarious! I was driving, so could not take a picture of it. My favorite sign of all time is in Oklahoma. It's along a highway in the middle of nowhere, and reads, "Caution: Hitchikers May Be Escaping Inmates."

A not-so-rainy day

On Friday, Frances' school was closed for parent-teacher conferences. I decided to take a sick day, to do something fun with the girls. Our friend had given us free tickets to the San Diego Zoo, but the weather forecast predicted rain. Well, as our friend Dana pointed out, at least we wouldn't have to worry about crowds...

As we left in the morning, big splats of rain were hitting the windshield. Uh oh. But as we traveled south, the rain turned to sprinkles, and then stopped. The weather in San Diego was a mix of clouds and sun. It was a perfect day. We had brought raincoats and umbrellas, just in case, and spent the day taking the jackets off and putting them back on, as the sun came and went. But the cool weather meant that most of the animals were active. We saw so many amazing animals: giraffes, elephants, jaguars, lions, tigers, bears (oh my!), rhinos, camels, condors, peacocks (that were wandering around loose), dozens of different types of monkeys and birds, you name it, we saw it. Frances loved the miniature horses, and Abigail just loved being there and taking it all in. One of the animals that intrigued me was the New Guinea Singing Dog. Both times we saw him, he was silent, but looked as if he really wanted to sing.... Maybe he suffers from extreme stage fright. I'll bet that after the zoo closes, and everyone goes home, he starts belting out show tunes.


It was a great day. Abigail walked a lot, and rode in the stroller when I made her climb into it. She did not nap, so fell asleep on the way home at 5:00, and barely woke up when we arrived home. I just put her into bed in her clothes. Frances got to "bungee jump" (as she calls it), with a harness that held her up over a huge inflatable base. She jumped and turned flips for about 20 minutes, so she was pretty tired at the end of the day, too.





Of course, both girls loved the children's zoo, because it had a great playground, and they also enjoyed climbing on the various animal-shaped statues throughout the zoo!

I can hardly believe it... we came home without any new stuffed animals! Frances did want a "squished penny," and for 51 cents, I was happy to oblige.

It was neat to see so many of the animals that God created, all of their differences, and the unique things that they can do. It made me think of a song that I heard when I worked at the ranch in Montana:

All God's creatures have a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wire
And some just clap their hands, or paws
Or anything they got

A "movie star" birthday party

This year for Frances' birthday party, our friend Haley came up with the idea of having the kids see a movie, and I remembered that at a local mall, the theater has a party room. I called them, and arranged to have Fran's party there. Frances came up with "FCB Awards" for all of her buddies. FCB stands for Frances Camille Bushnell, but we decided that it also stands for "friends can be..." and came up with awards for each friend, based on a characteristic of their personality that makes Frances glad they are her friend. On the invitation, we encouraged party guests to dress up as movie stars or celebrities. We laid down a red carpet and brought Fran's microphone from home, so that it was like an awards show.

I baked cupcakes (and forgot the ice cream and drinks at home, thank you Carrie for coming to my rescue!) and we decorated the party room with streamers and balloons.

The guests arrived, and we all got snack boxes with popcorn, a candy, and a drink. The movie was "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." After the movie, we all went to the party room, and I think that the most popular activity was playing with all of the balloons I'd blown up!

She's NINE?!

We had the first of Frances' birthday celebrations on the night of her birthday, which was Thursday, January 28th. After school, we came back to my work and she opened presents from me (from the Only Hearts doll series at Target; three dolls, seven outfits, two ponies, a horse, and the stable, all of which I found on the after-Christmas clearance aisle, great bargains for a gift that knocked Frances' socks off). Then we went to her piano lesson (sorry Fran). Afterwards, we met up with our friend Haley at the mall for dinner at Red Robin (thanks, Daphne). The restaurant staff sang "Happy Birthday" to Frances, and we all shared her birthday sundae.



To finish our evening, we went to Build-A-Bear! Frances made a snow leopard, and dressed it in roller skates. Abigail chose "Frosty the snowman" (on clearance, that's my smart shopper). She then chose the sound chip that plays birthday music, and she now refers to this stuffed animal as "FrostyMan."

Same class, different day

So remember a while back (October?), I posted about how some days I love my job? Today was not one of those days! It was Monday, all over the place.
In our afternoon class (usually just a delightful group of kids), while the children sat at the lunch table, eating, all of a sudden Raul started vomiting. Eskayla (my terrific instructional assistant) grabbed a trash can, gloved up, and started doing the hazmat routine. I sat in her usual spot, to supervise the other children as they finished lunch, and all of a sudden, Alejandro started vomiting! I grabbed his head to keep it over his plate (we have no linoleum in our room, only carpeting, and the sinks are down the hall). Alej didn't like that, so after he wiped his nose & mouth with his hand, he reached up to push my hand away. Ick. Eskayla tossed me some gloves, but I needed to get the slime off first. Our brand-new student (transfering in from another district, with a diagnosis of autistic-like behaviors) yelled, "Disgusting!" and started to gag. We sent all of the children to the circle time area to look at books while we cleaned up the two sick boys, their clothing, the table and the carpet. A kind-hearted assistant from the DHH program called the custodian for us, and he came in with the barf dust for the carpet, and promised to shampoo it when the kids had gone home. Eskayla called the Spanish-speaking mom, I called the English-speaking mom, and the boys were picked up within the hour. I sprayed Lysol all over all the tables, chairs, and toys once my students were gone for the day! Tomorrow should be a better day. I have an IEP after school, at which I get to tell a parent that her child definitely does not have mental retardation; he just has severely delayed expressive language. Whew.