How Much is a Cat Worth?

Tomo, the morbily obsese, lazy-eyed cat is requiring dental surgery. She had a tooth extracted 4 years ago, but there seems to be some root material stuck in there. Now her whole face is swollen and she's running a temperature. The good news is that it hasn't really affected her eating. She is still a whopping 15.5 pounds. That's my girl! She'll be on antibiotics for a week prior to jaw surgery.

Anyhoo, if you were planning on giving us birthday gifts, please send us money so we can pay for cat teeth. Also, if you were not planning on giving us birthday gifts, please hire us to clean things, grade your paper, or take pictures of stuff.

What's Up?

Well... we've been playing outside, playing inside, planting flowers, playing in mud, reinacting Star Wars, playing "chest," drawing sea turtles, counting to 100, and planning future global excursions.

Jacob has been using his monkey hat, pulling it over his face, and saying, "Luke, I am your father." To which one should reply, "NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" He also has the breathing down and everything. This is how he wakes me up at 7AM every morning.

Ella is Princess Leia and wants to have her hair in little buns.

Jacob and Kris play chess every day. They've progressed to Jake having all pieces and Kris having all pawns, a king, and a queen. Kris always loses so he might be awarded a bishop soon.

Ella the Amazing has been drawing circles with a dot in the center and calling them sea turtles. I don't know where she got this idea, but we're going with it. I need to post pictures...

Jacob can count to 100 now, but just so you know, his favorite number is infinity.

Ella's currently into: princesses, ballerinas, the color pink, and monsters.

Jacob is trying to learn all the countries in the world. This is because he thinks that he can speak all languages. He has the They Might be Giants song, "The Alphabet of Nations" memorized so he's constantly asking, "Where is Suriname? Can we go there? Where is Zimbabwe? Can we go there? Where is Pakistan? Can we go there? Where is Egypt? Can we go there?" His favorite places on the map are Antarctica, China, Russia, and America. He is also learning the planets, but he only wants to go to Jupiter.

Ella is just advancing all over. She's quite the little gymnast- she can put one hand on a table, one hand on the couch, lock her elbows, and bring her feet out in front of her like she's doing the rings at the Olympics. She can do somersaults. Her drawing is in the lines and she's started making circles. Her sentences grow more and more complex and her vocab is huge. Her memory is a little too good - since going to the doctor two weeks ago, Ella constantly remarks, "I don't wanna poke a finger!" Sometimes it's the first thing she says in the morning... Other Ellaisms include "Holdja!" when she wants to be held, "Lemme do it!," and "I gota owie." She talks about owies that aren't even there anymore.

Darth Vader

Easter Eggstravaganza!!! Sort of...

Saturday after Ella's nap, we wrangled the kids into the kitchen to dye eggs. Grandma had prepped the eggs earlier so all we had to do was get the dye ready and go. The kids seemed very interested in this strange ritual and we made it out with no spills or major accidents.

Next it was time to make a bunny cake. Jacob and Ella both got to help spread the frosting and put in toothpicks. Each kid was given an ear to color and place on the bunny's head. Ella put it in his back. Next they sprinkled coconut "fur" and added jelly beans for eyes and a nose.

Easter morning, I was so sick that I barely got out of bed. The kids had their Easter baskets waiting and had an egg hunt in the living room. I went back to bed and Kris got the kids ready for church. John and Nikki were in town so everyone but me went to Easter service and then came back to the house for a huge lunch. I stayed in bed hacking my lungs out and reading a book. John was kind enough to make a sign for my door.

3.5 Hours of Our Day

This morning we left the house at 7:30am to head to Wichita Falls to get the kids' check-ups. After much waiting, we ended up with the following stats:

Ella:
28.8 lbs, 34.25 inches

Jacob:
38.3 lbs, 40.25 inches

There was a little trauma when both kids had to have a finger prick, but they calmed down in time to do some developmental tests. Part of Jacob's test required him to draw with a pencil. Once he finished, he continued to draw while the nurse asked us more questions. Then Ella decided she wanted to draw too. She climbed up, grabbed the pencil, and played tug-of-war with Jacob until she ended up getting a scratch right below her eye. This took a total of 5 seconds and was supervised by three adults. Once we had her calmed down from that, she was walking out the door and hit her head on the corner of the exam table. More crying. Then once we got her calmed down AGAIN... she got a shot for Hep A. After all that, Ella was the one calling the shots for lunch. She chose pizza, so we headed over to Double Dave's for the buffet. We tried to get the kids their first snow cone, but the place was closed. We headed back home and Ella fell asleep in the car.

It was too windy to play outside, but once the electricity went out, we went outside to find all the neighbors gathered talking. That's when I found out that everything was on fire. Grandma cam home soon and the power came back on and we spent the rest of the evening finding out whether we needed to evacuate or not. What a day!

Egg Hunt!

Holliday had a city wide egg hunt this morning and we were there bright and early. The fire department delivered the Easter Bunny with sirens blaring and the kids were excited to see their "amigo" (Jake's words). The unfortunate part was that they split up the ages and had all the egg hunts going at once. That meant that Jacob went with Kris and Ella came with me. I'm the one with the camera, so there are no pictures of Jacob hunting eggs-- I'm sure he didn't mind! We regrouped, ate some candy, and went home. Once there, Grandma hid the eggs a couple of more times while Kris sorted the candy. Ella really REALLY wants a Now 'n' Later, but just doesn't have the teeth for them yet. We took some pictures out in front of the house and it looks like it'll be a beautiful day.

Jake and Daddy Go to the Movies

I (Kris) took Jake to see a movie on Tuesday. We saw Monsters vs Aliens in 3D. Jake was pretty impressed with the 3D-ness of it all. "How does it come out?" he asked, as he flipped his glasses back and forth over his eyes trying to figure out how it worked. About halfway through the movie, though, he decided he preferred the 2D version, probably because the glasses were far too big for his face. (He probably was seeing a lot of rim.)

Before the movie, I fulfilled a longstanding promise to get him a "small chocolate shake." He's been fantasizing about drinking a "small chocolate shake" for quite a while now. "Before the movie, I'll get you a chocolate shake!" I told him--whereupon he himself extracted the additional condition that it must be "small." Because his fantasy was not to have just any chocolate shake. It had to be a "small chocolate shake."

Jake watched attentatively and asked questions about the plot throughout the movie. I don't know what he's going to do once we finally break the bad news to him that in the movie theater you're "supposed to be quiet." That will make for a sad little Jakey. (It was okay this time because the only other people in the theater also had a kid who was also pretty talkative.)

Afterwards we played Air Hockey in the theater lobby. Jake won 7 to 6. I need to work on my game.

Next our task was to pick up Grandma from her eye doctor appointment. While waiting for her, I tried some frames out on him. Almost all of them looked really cute. They actually make frames that are correctly proportioned for kids' faces. Why they can't do this for adult males, I'll never understand.

What a Week!

Wednesday night was like Christmas. We waited up very late for a visit from our friends, Maroua, Ryan, and Rami. They arrived around 1:15am and we spent the next two hours catching up, even though we were all dead tired.

The next day, the kids' doctor appointment had been cancelled so we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and drove into Wichita Falls for lunch at Double Dave's pizza. We then drove to Fort Worth and stopped by dad's house before hitting John and Nikki's. Nikki made a fabulous dinner and we all sat around talking until late into the night.

Friday, we went sight seeing. We started off at the Log Cabin Village, which was surprisingly really cool. The kids ran around and got to pump water, pet fake chickens, and try on coon skin caps. I may have been photographed in a bonnet... I left my camera in Holliday so I'm at the mercy of Maroua and Nikki to send me pictures. After all the candle dipping and corn milling, we headed to a sushi place for lunch. So good! It had been a long time since we'd had Japanese food. A front came in so it began to feel freezing outside so rather that check out the Botanic Gardens, we headed over to the Omni Theatre and watched The Grand Canyon Adventure. It was pretty cool. The kids didn't get scared or bored (though they would have probably liked the dinosaur one better!). Afterwards, it was Free Family Friday at the museum so we checked out the museum stuff which was being housed inside the Cowgirl Hall of Fame due to renovation. After that, we made our way to an Asian grocery store and picked up a few things for dinner.

The last event for the evening was cake baking. The plan was to bake the cakes and freeze them overnight. That worked for the two 9" rounds, but the bundt was a problem. Half of it stuck inside the pan. We salvaged what we could, but decided to try the other bundt the next day.

Saturday morning we had orange rolls and baked a cake-- this time it worked! Around noon we headed over to dad's house to frost the cake and get ready for the party. By 4:30, we were full up with Jessica, Kris, Jacob, Ella, Maroua, Ryan, Rami, Michelle, Lisa, Johnny, Grandad, Grandma Linda, Grandma, Mommy-O, Daddy-O, Jonas, Kaemon, and Melody. We ate pizza and fruit flowers; sang happy birthday; ate snake cake and ladybug cake; and opened presents. The kids got tons of clothes and toys and will be very stylishly playing for weeks.