Our kids :-)

James has memorized the entire Dr. Seuss book "The Lorax". He stumbles on a word here or there, but for the most part, he knows the whole thing. He likes to "read" it to us. It's so cute to hear him use the different voices like I do when I read it to him. I've attached a video of his musical rendition of "The Lorax" at the end of this post.

He is growing into such a big kid, both in size and skill. Today was laundry day for us and I washed all the sheets. I had put one blanket back on his bed for naps, but I didn't put on the second one because it was warm enough in his room without it. Tonight, he asked me to get down his other blanket and while I was putting Gabby to bed, he made his bed. He was sooooo proud of himself! He had an ear to ear grin and he asked me if we could add making his bed to his chore chart on laundry day :-).

Gabby has grown several inches this past week. She has completely grown out of her size 3T clothes. I actually thought I must have accidentally left some 2T clothes in her drawer when she put her pajamas on the other day, but no. They were 3T. She just REALLY grew. Her dresses have become mini-skirts. Thankfully, God has taken care of us once again and the neighbor gave us bags of 4T clothes that her daughter just outgrew, so no clothing issues there.

Not only has Gabby grown physically, she has also gained new skills. She LOVES to draw, so I didn't think much of  it when I saw her drawing this morning, until I noticed that she had drawn people, heads, body, arms and legs! And then this afternoon, she drew a heart. Last I knew, she was drawing circles and squiggles.

She may be growing faster than a bad weed, but she definitely has not outgrown her princessness. She informed me this morning that she wasn't pretending princess today. She was a REAL princess and that she and Wawa (her most faithful imaginary friend/sister) were going to be playing in their castle and she proceeded to her room and did just that :-).

Here's Gabby in all her cuteness: 

And James and "The Lorax":

Political Musings....

Jason Here... this post will infuriate some... But it's been something that I've had rolling around in my head for a couple of weeks now....

To preface these musings:

•  I have to say that I have never been, nor am currently interested in "Political Correctness".  Political Correctness is designed to do one thing and one thing only, assuage people of their own guilt by forcing a pre-concieved language of fairness on the masses.
  
• 15 Years in EMS has taught me one truth above all others in terms of human behavior.  Words don't mean things, they are meaningless.  Actions are the only things that have value.  Put another way:  It's not what you say, It's what you do that matters.  Basic psychology admits this... the best indicator of future behavior is past and present behavior... not words...

So as I give these words, I already understand they are meaningless... Having said that...

The last 16 years of American Politics have taught me that we truly are an empire in decline.  Our little experiment in self-government is failing before our eyes... the inmates truly do run the asylum.  And we, the commoners have no actual control of our own government.

Of course, pointing this out to people causes them to instantly get defensive whenever it comes near something that matters to them... many people still believe that it matters...

• I remember in 1994 when the Republicans took over congress and the executive, the cries from the press and Democrats about how our system of government was not designed to be based on "1 party rule"  As I recall, the Republicans in Congress even did rule changes to give the minority party more power in response to the "1 Party Rule" issue.
  
• Conversely now that Barack Obama has been elected, and has a Democratic majority in both congressional houses, suddenly "1 Party Rule" is ok, approved of, and even endorsed.

Gasp... I knew it... Jason is a Republican!  

• I was for the impeachment and trial of Bill Clinton.  I felt that lying under oath to a Federal Grand Jury (regardless of about what he lied about) was an important enough issue that it warranted a thorough vetting in congress.  And now the precedent is set, a sitting US President will never be impeached or put on trial in the senate for lying under oath.  The senate made the right decision, but it was still one of actually following the constitution and using the process outlined to come to that conclusion
• I was also for the impeachment of George W. Bush and trial by senate for the intentional misappropriation of congressionally allocated funds from Afghanistan to Iraq prior to the Iraq invasion.  He then also through policy deprived citizens of their guaranteed constitutional rights.  Pretty simple right... except a DEMOCRATIC congress wasn't even willing to follow the constitution and use the process...  Nobody had the political fortitude to actually do the one thing that the constitution required of them...  he should have been impeached in 2005, tried in the senate, and probably removed from office.

I knew it... Jason is a Democrat!.... 

So I know I'm supposed to give the unending praise and platitudes to his hopefulness, the savior on high sent to save us Barack Obama but lets be real... beneath the image that so many people have bought into is the truth... and the truth is... he is one of the inmates...

He sold hope and people bought it... and still are... meanwhile the inmates are going wild...  I give you bailouts and congressional pork, rising national debt on a roosevelt type belief that we can deficit spend our way out of our financial woes... meanwhile, the same people who support it because of a flawed belief in Roosevelt style "new deal" programs claim that Ronald Reagan's deficit defense spending in the 1980's was wrong...

Either deficit spending fixes problems or causes problems... make up your mind people...  It's either OK or it's not... 

We've already seen the Obama folks frantically trying to lower expectations as reality has nothing to do with what they sold...

So on the eve of the historic inauguration costing millions of taxpayer dollars (that we don't have) I know the politically correct thing to do is to praise the new President and look towards the future.

The Future:  We've replaced Captain Joseph Hazelwood with Captain Stubing and the ship still is run aground and leaking oil (money).  

But hope is a funny thing...  So I leave you with this bit of absurdity...

I think I'll have all my bills sent to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from now on...

Herring Update?

There really isn't anything new going on here, but I thought I should give you all something to read anyway, since it has been over a week :-).

A cute story. James and Gabby were having lunch today before we had to leave to take James to preschool. I gave them their lunch and a salad fork. James picks up his fork, looks at it and says: "Mom, did you give me a kiddo fork? I need a grown up fork!" Gabby says: "I need a grown up fork too!" James: "Gabby, are you trying to be like me?" Gabby, in her cute little sweet voice: "No, James! I'm gwown up!"

My cousin Adam and his fiancee set a day for their wedding for May 30th, so it looks like the kids and I will be coming for an Oregon visit late May, early June! I can't wait to see everyone again, and especially to meet my new niece, who is due May 13th.

Let's see. Other news. Umm, pretty much the same old same old. I've been working hard to get the word out about my cake decorating classes. Michaels now has a 4 student minimum policy, so if I don't have at least 4 people signed up for a class, I have to cancel it. I'm hitting all the free outlets I can think of to advertise (craigslist, myspace, facebook, etc). We'll see what happens. I have to say though that getting all of the supplies I'm going to need at 75% off is SWEEEET! I had to buy a bunch of stuff to be able to teach the classes, but the nice thing is all of the demos I will be doing in January will cover the cost of that, so that even if I don't end up with any classes (not likely) I will still have a bunch of cool toys without having had to touch the "family" money *big grin*.

The weather here has been heavenly this week. Sunshine and 60s all week. I love the fact that our heater doesn't have to run at all during the day and that the kids and I can go to the park and not freeze our booties off.

Jp received a letter from Brendan yesterday and he cherishes that thing like it's gold. As a matter of fact, he's sleeping with it right now :-).

Excited!!!!

I had my orientation at Michaels this morning. I feel soooo blessed. I get to work at a job doing what I LOVE to do and get paid for it. How much better can it get?!

I'm a little thrown off by how much freedom I have, though. I wrote up a schedule, handed it to the store manager and she was perfectly fine with it. No changes. No suggestions. Whatever I wanted was fine. I told her some marketing ideas, but explained they would cost a little. No problem. She said she's completely aware that she will have to spend money to make money. I want to add special classes, teaching candy making, cupcakes, Kakes for Kids class. Again, GREAT! Um, aren't you supposed to tell me what I can't do, or tell me when I need to show up, or something like that? Freedom is a little...unnerving?  But no complaints here ;-).

Jp's new skill!

James can now ride his bike!!! He's been practicing so hard. Today, he was so determined to conquer this new skill that we decided to let him skip his nap so that he would have a few extra hours of daylight. He rode hard out there in the cold. We kept telling him how proud we are of him. His response: "I'm proud of myself too!" The next picture shows how he really feels about it all.

And of course, Gabby couldn't be left out!

I took a short video of James riding his bike. You can see it at 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LRA_dEFSPk

And Gabby is at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjZdTvcQzFw