Aw. I'm a C student.

You paid attention during 74% of high school!

68-84% Pretty good, you know that there are libraries and newspapers, and you remember what you've read. You were a child that wasn't left behind!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
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If you get a better score than I did (better than 84%, I think, and also probably not that difficult to do), it will insist that you were homeschooled. ETA: If you get 100% it calls you an autodidact! Even better!

Also, it is important to me that you have a happy new year.

Photos and what I forgot

I had wanted to blog about how we had a candlelight dinner on the night of the solstice and I forgot to. I want to make this a new tradition. It was very pleasant and the girls loved it.

I feel like there was something else I forgot, but now I can't remember what it was. Doh!

Today the girls and I made marbled paper with shaving cream and paint. I neglected to look up any directions before we started and I ended up using way too much shaving cream. I also didn't smooth it out before we put the paint on and I can see how that would have been helpful. Oh well. Next time. They turned out kind of neat, but next time I think we can make them even better.

Here is a link to our Christmas photos on Flickr.

Here are our Lost Miis. The photos suck. I was taking a photo of the teevee after all. Here is Mr. Eko.



Here is Locke.



Here is Jack.



Here is Kate.



Claire.



And Hurley.



I think Jack and Hurley are the best.

Oh! And I almost forgot. Here's P@'s Mii. In this photo, he had just won a boxing match.

Christmas Recap

I like Christmas. It's good. The girls were very happy with all of their presents. I spent way too much money this year and was feeling stressed out and regretful about it until everything got opened up and everybody was all happy and enjoying it all.

Santa brought us a wi-fi connection for the Wii, so that we could connect it to the internet and download some old school nintendo games (he also brought us 2000 Wii points). We downloaded Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda (original), Wario's Woods (I think?), and Donkey Kong, Jr. We also found out we could download (for free) a trial version of an internet Wii "channel." This was an unexpected surprise and the girls are thrilled that they can both go on Club Penguin at the same time. Santa also brought Super Monkey Ball Blitz for the Wii. Saren and Harper both got two games each for their Nintendo DSes.

Irina got a Sit-n-Spin that talks. I'm not sure why I did that. The Sit-n-Spin part is great, it's the talking part that I'm not loving. Luckily it has an off button.

My husband gave me the new Decemberists CD and my brother gave me three copies of other good CDs and he made us all these awesome little stuffed animals.

We have far too many sweet things in the house, including four gingerbread houses (made with graham crackers), sugar cookies, two boxes of chocolates, a ton of hershey's kisses and little Reese's thingies, pumpkin bread, and um... candy leftover from halloween. Yes, it's true.

I will post pictures from Christmas later. Also photos of some of the cast of Lost as Miis. You probably can't wait for that!

Merry merry!

Bowling in Our Living Room

I haven't been around these parts much lately. This is largely due to the fact that Saren has taken over the computer and spends much of her time on Club Penguin while talking to her friends on the phone. I'm not sure when she turned 14, but whatever. I'm rolling with it. You know. Sort of.

Christmas stuff is still happening, but in a slightly more haphazard way. We did read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, so we're all good there. We also watched Elf and ate popcorn and that was good stuff.

Yesterday, Pat went out and bought our reserved copy of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the GameCube. Ah, it's good to be back in BUTTRCUP's shoes! I guess I'll opt for non-crypticism. I first started playing Zelda when I was in the eighth grade and got my first Nintendo. You know. The one that came with Duck Hunt. I've always loved Zelda. I can remember in my teens playing A Link to the Past until way past when my head was throbbing. Smart! Anyway, since the beginning, I've always named my Links BUTTRCUP. I was also very into The Princess Bride, you see. I think in some of the games you don't name your Link, but in the ones you do, it's always BUTTRCUP for me.

Moving on! But not far. Twilight Princess is awesome. Because it's Zelda. It's all the same type of puzzles and fighting as it's always been, but that's just how I like it. Mmmmmm.... Zelda.

And also! Back in Novemberish, I thought it would be a good idea for our big family Christmas present to be the new Nintendo Wii. I soon realized that the only way I was going to get one was by camping out in front of a store that was going to be stocking them the night before they got them in. So I pretty much told myself if it happened that one came into our lives before Christmas so be it, and if not, we could wait. Turns out my youngest brother told me (at my other brother's graduation from college party, woohoo!) that he and his friend were planning on camping out on Saturday night to buy one and he offered to get us one too. Yay! So, he did and we went and picked it up tonight and have been bowling in our livingroom ever since. Except when we were playing golf, which I was not very good at, and when we were making miis, which are little avatars. Later, I'm going to try to take a photo of Pat's cuz it looks just like him. I'm very excited about the future prospect of downloading old Nintendo games for our Wii off of the internet.

Also, if you're wondering why we didn't get the Zelda game for the Wii, it's because a) we had already reserved it for the GameCube, and b) I'm more excited about the Zelda aspect of it than I am about what kind of controller you use.

Also, also, the Wii really did get us up and moving even though I knew large movements weren't technically necessary. And it was so fun for it to be like a family activity, taking turns bowling and golfing, jumping up and down and cheering each other on. Harper got three strikes in a row on her last frame.

Also, also, also the reason why we're not waiting until Christmas is because a) we can't wait, and b) it's now our big family solstice gift, a tradition I hopefully won't have to keep up.

Hello There!

I got sick. A lot of that Christmas daily stuff fell by the wayside, so I won't recount what bits managed to be saved. Partly because that would require me to expend valuable brain resources in remembering stuff. But today was lip balm in the stocking (except for Irina who got chocolate), making reindeer out of candy canes, and we haven't read a book yet.

More excitingly, Harper has her first loose tooth! Though, I have to admit, she herself isn't terribly excited about it. It hurts and the thought of losing it is making her nervous. She's prone to worry about things. But it's pretty loose right now, so I don't think it will be too long before it falls out and then she won't have to worry about it anymore.

The other thing I can remember wanting to blog about was Irina's language skills, which are making some pretty big leaps right now, though it probably wouldn't be very apparent to anyone outside of the immediate family. Man, I love run-on sentences. I'm sure you know that by now. Anyway. The other day she was saying "woof, woof, woof" in response to Harper holding a dog mask to her face and doing the same. And she will sometimes shout "NO!" quite heartily, but it sounds more like "DOH!" She's known how to say "nee-nee" (our word for nursing) for a long time, but it's more consistent now. She sometimes says "kitty," but you have to listen pretty closely and it sounds more like "kityeah." And then she just says things that are really like words and I think she's saying words, but they aren't really words. That makes so much sense! Lately, in this category, she's been saying "nice" quite a lot, but it sounds more like "nish" (with a long i). Oh yeah. And she loves to say "wow." Like when we're looking at anything interesting, especially an animal.

I Choose Tentacruel

Yesterday's Stocking Treat: chocolate
Yesterday's Activity: Play board games together
Yesterday's Christmas book: Olive, The Other Reindeer (from Xmas I don't know when because I didn't write the year in the book)

Today's Stocking Treat: chocolate
Today's Activity: Sew some ornaments
Today's Christmas book: Pippin, The Christmas Pig (from the library)

We made a geodesic dome with newspaper today. It took three regular newspapers. No, wait. I mean four. No wait! I mean five. We had three. Pat brought home one. Then we had to send him out to get another one because we still needed more construction material. We made one a long time ago and the girls have been wanting to make another one. Also, now I can cross that off my to do list from, like, two weeks ago.

We also made some noise-making thingies out of styrofoam bowls and dry beans and ribbon. And we finished up some ATCs to send away for a Christmas trade and a rainbow trade. And, of course, we sewed up some Christmas ornaments for the tree. I finished mine, but Saren and Harper are still working on theirs. I think I might make some more. It was fun.

Nurse Joy is a girl, and she's so fun. But I like Jenny too!

Those Pokemon Christmas songs sure are catchy.

Today's Stocking Treat: Hershey's Kisses
Today's Activity: Go to the park and feed the ducks and come home for hot cocoa.
Today's book: The Bear's Christmas (from the library)

Rockin' Around the Irina Tree

Yesterday's Stocking Treat: New ornaments for the tree
Yesterday's Christmas Activity: Sing some Christmas songs
Yesterday's Christmas Book: Merry Christmas, Davy! (from library)

Today's Stocking Treat: marbles
Today's Christmas Activity: Draw some Christmas pictures
Today's Christmas Books: Sampson The Christmas Cat (from library) & Snowden Raggedy Ann and Andy's Christmas Eve Adventure (Christmas 1999)

We got our tree yesterday. We decided to buy a real one. I think it's only the second real one we've had since Pat and I met eachother. I love the smell of a real tree. I think I would rather get a live one from now on, though, and plant it when we're finished with it. There are several trees in my mother's backyard that were once Christmas trees. Course, they might all be dead now because that backyard is such a wasteland. I moved all of the decorations to the top half of the tree because Irina was taking them all down. I think I may find a few that I won't mind if she's constantly taking them down and fill up the bottom half of the tree. It does look a bit weird.

Here's Irina in the tree stand.



I guess I didn't have anything else to say.

Oops. Forgot to post yesterday.

Yesterday's stocking treat: Hershey's kisses
Yesterday's activity: Finish our Christmas cards
Yesterday's Christmas books: Max's Christmas (Xmas 2002) & Morris' Disappearing Bag (from library)

Today's stocking treat: foam Xmas tree ornament craft
Today's activity: Make a Christmas CD
Today's Christmas book: The Gift of the Magi (Xmas 2002)

We did not finish our Christmas cards yesterday. We're making them this year and most of them are going to go to a Christmas card trade on the imagination tribe list. We did get the majority of them done though and had a lot of fun with our little assembly line of card-making. They're pretty cool and they have patterned paper, stamps, and drawings. Remind me, though, to never again buy a JoAnn brand stamp pad. It's overflowing with ink and has made messes galore. Not washable messes galore.

Here's our CD playlist. I went against my principles and bought all of these songs off of itunes. It was easier than finding and getting used to some other music purchasing place.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen ~ Barenaked Ladies
A Holly Jolly Christmas ~ Burl Ives
Silent Night ~ The Click Five
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ~ from the soundtrack and without words
Run, Run Rudolph ~ Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Band
Jingle Bells ~ James Taylor
Carol of the Bells ~ Mannheim Steamroller
I'm Giving Santa a Pikachu This Christmas ~ Pokemon Christmas Bash
Pokemon Christmas Medley ~ Pokemon Christmas Bash
Christmastime is Here ~ Sarah McLachlan
Christmas Canon Rock ~ Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Welcome Christmas ~ The Whos in Who-ville
Holiday Mood ~ The Apples in Stereo
You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch ~ Thurle Ravenscroft
Go Santa Go ~ The Wiggles

Last night was crap. Harper threw up three or four times. That was bad enough, but every time she did, she woke up Irina, who, without fail, would have finally just drifted off to sleep. And each time Irina woke up, it was harder to get her back to sleep. Also, Harper rapidly depleted the blanket supply until I only had one thin, too-small, fleece blanket to sleep under and Harper had to use a sleeping bag. And the first time she threw up, she totally slept through it. That's funny and also sad. And also gross. She feels better today.

We were going to go out to get a tree tonight, but Harper didn't feel too well, so instead we strung popcorn in anticipation of a tree and I read The Gift of the Magi out loud to everyone. In previous years the girls haven't really let me read that one because they thought it looked too boring and whenever I'd look over the diction of it, it looked like it would be too over their head and I just deferred and skipped it. This time, I didn't really ask, I just read, figuring it would be good because it only had a few pictures and everyone was busy doing something else. Saren surprised me and liked it a lot and understood it despite some of the words certainly being beyond her grasp. Harper said she didn't really listen. I said that was okay.

Four is the magic number.

Today's stocking treat: candy canes
Today's activity: make some Christmas ATCs
Today's Christmas books: Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus (from library) & Toby's Holiday Hugs and Kisses (Xmas 2000)

(Added photos to yesterday's post too.)

December Threeeeeeeeeeee

Today's stocking treat: balloons
Today's activity: Pick out more Xmas books from the library
Today's Christmas book: The Twelve Cats of Christmas (Xmas 2005)

Baby, it's cold outside.

Today's stocking treat: Hershey's Kisses (cherry)
Today's activity: Put up the Christmas decorations.
Today's Christmas book: Winnie the Pooh's Christmas (from Xmas 2000)

I wrote another 100 word story. I tried again for 55, but it came out to 78 on the first try and it's easier to add than it is to subtract.

*******

"Don't forget the milk," she typed frantically, hoping he would check his email before he left for home. Several minutes passed and she began to have doubts. She decided to try a new tactic: telepathy.

He was about to make a left turn into the break in the oncoming traffic when his mind was suddenly flooded with a thunderous voice. DON'T FORGET THE MILK, it said.

"What the hell?" he shouted, as he swerved and then inadvertantly pressed down hard on the gas pedal instead of the brakes.

The telephone pole he hit was in front of a grocery store.

So Long, Turkey

No, I don't mean leftovers. Someone came and took the kitten away today. We called her Turkey (the kitten, not the person who took her). Well, sometimes we did. Some of us called her Socks. I'm feeling unaccountably bummed out about it. I really liked that kitten. I know we can't keep her. Realistically, we can't keep any of our cats because we're going to be living in an RV. But, I really liked that kitten.





In happier news, I managed to finish the stocking advent thingy. I stayed up until 3am last night and when I was almost done, Irina started to fuss from the bedroom, so I gave it up and went to bed. All that needed to be done this morning was hanging it up and filling it, so I did. I'm really happy with how it turned out, despite my poor sewing skills and the misshapen-ness of some of the stockings. It looks so festive up on the wall. Today's treat was Hershey's kisses.







Later on we're going to make a list of little activities and write them all on strips of paper to put in all of the stockings as well. Things like, "Go for a drive to look at Christmas decorations," "Make new decorations for the tree," and "drink hot chocolate together." Today's was... um... "make a list of activities to put in the stockings." We also need to get out our Christmas books because I like to read one each day until Christmas.

Saren has been spending most of the day on Club Penguin, while talking to her friends on the phone (they were on Club Penguin too). She spent some of her allowance on a subscription for the site. She's really been enjoying it. I say, hey, Neopets is free! But, oh well. It's not my money. I'm happy if she is.