Raimy’s Twister

By: Raimy

This morning I saw on the floor a pair of broken socks. I decided to make Twister. I started sowing one sock at the top and bottom with the other sock inside. Then I sowed a string to it and tied it to my foot so that it could come on and off. I started circling it round and round and jumped, just like in the video. You can make your own too. Twister!

Happy Birthday Shawn!

Dear Shawn,

Wow - you are what? 26? Congratulations on this your birthday!

I am sure that mom could tell it much better than I could; but I always loved your birth story best of all...

The nurse that assisted in the delivery wore flashy earrings because everyone was partying for the New Year. Mom was praying in tongues so loud they thought that she spoke Spanish - so they called in a Spanish speaking person to translate. Mom knew she had nothing to prove so she wanted pain killers. Dad was watching the injection and he fainted! He hit his head on the doorknob and had to be taken out to get stitches. And you were born on the last day of the year.

You have always been my sweet little sister. I love you very much! I hope that you feel special today and that you are able to do something fun. Happy Birthday!!!

Check out Christmas Slide Show!

Happy times and Holiday warmth while cold outside. Family gatherings in Omaha and Wichita.

Washington Family Christmas Photos - part two

Here are some fun moments from yesterday:


Tyler showing off his new trick of sticking out his tongue and waging his head.


Raimy got a few canvasas and paint brushes. She was inspired to paint a portrait of one of our new guinea pigs, Patrik.


Gabrielle grabbing some sweet goodies from the kitchen.


Timothy by the glow of the Christmas tree.


Papa and Tyler listening to Christmas music. Tyler singing along.


Gabrielle with "Patrik".


Raimy and Timothy with "Rosebud", the girl of the pair.


Tyler playing with his awesome new toy.


Timothy trying out his new golf set.

Just the 6 of us (well, 9 if you count our pets) celebrated Christmas at the house. The day was bright, warm and sunny. The kids went to the park to play golf. DaRonn got a nice nap in. And I finished reading "East of Eden", a great, great book. We lounged around all day eating baked goods and Chineese take-out. It was a nice day. I hope all you had a good time too.

Washington Family Christmas Photos - part one

Merry Christmas!

Plans for the holidays have begun to slowly trickle in from my dear family. Keep 'em coming. I want to hear about everything!

We had our Christmas celebration with church. You can go to my personal blog to read about that.

Today is a normal day in the office. Some of our staff is on vacation, including Pati my house help gal. So I will be cooking and cleaning (gasp!) for the next couple of days. :-) An American holiday!

We found a website that has online radio stations that only play Christmas music. So I have been filling the house with traditional Christmas carols. It has been fun to dance around with the kids to the familiar tunes that are new to them. I did my baking last week: 200 cut out sugar cookies, 2 loaves of banana bread, a coconut cream pie and a batch of brownies. Looks like I need to do a bot more today. I think I will do an apple pie and another batch of brownies. Oh yeah some of my famous bread pudding too. Yummy Yummy! Our tree is just exactly like I wanted it. (Pictures will be posted later.) We are going to do presents tomorrow morning.

Here are the christmas pictures from last year and this year. Thought you might like to see the comparison. You might notice that is this year's picture that Gabrielle lost her first tooth. She was happy about that. I will be posting more pictures after the family celebrations.

We love you! Merry Christmas!

Exposé of Grossness

(Warning: the content of this post may be considered unnecessarily gross to humans of the non mother persuasion.)

The pediatrician told me that the reason my son’s front is constantly drenched in slobber is that he has an over active salivatory gland that he will grow out of. I swear people, this boy is like a leaky faucet; you just can’t turn him off. The endearing nicknames that he has gained due to his zealot of a gland are: slobber-bot and drool-miester.

And while I am on it, sometimes I feel like my day consists of the meticulous gathering, inspection, categorizing and proper storage of every bodily fluid and excretion ever created. Am I comparing toddler care to the exact study of a scientist? Yes. How else do you think I can endure this demeaning yet all so important work they call care-giving?

How bad can it be? (You so naively ask.) Here comes the grossness! Shall we start south and work our way north? Or should we just do the good ol’ head to foot routine? Going with the latter… There is that orange dandruff like stuff growing under what few hairs they have on their heads that no matter how much you pick at it there is a new crop daily. Eye-boogers are your early morning greeting. Then there is the ear wax that you are not supposed to dig out even though it looks like the child has been attacked by tiny aliens and they are constructing a weird colony in there. We mustn’t forget the rainbow of snot that drains out of not one but two nostrils on an occasional basis. If you do not know the color, consistency and frequency of that slime then don’t even think about calling ask-a-nurse*! Before moving on to the mouth the nose does have one more function. In the unfortunate event that a child begins laughing while drinking milk (why is it always milk?) said milk will reroute itself through the nose expelling itself with such force as to successfully cover all persons present with the physical manifestation of the intangible joy that your child is experiencing. Moving on to the mouth: drool, spit-up, juicy blenching, smelly burps, regurgitated baby food, unswallowed mashed up food, rejected medications, phlegm, goobery tiny pieces of toys that are supposedly “a choking hazard” but are actually a cause of temporary deafness due to the screaming that is invoked from the baby when the extraction takes place and last but not least the infamous, odorous, staining and sickening vomit. Oh, and we haven’t got to the most exciting bits yet folks!

A few words about blood. Blood is meant to stay inside the body; yet almost everywhere on the body can bleed! Band-aids* are a joke. They stick for all of 3 minutes. After that, if the child has not taken it off then it comes off in some kind of water play or it is so full of dirt that you gasp and work as hard as you can to pry the thing off without ripping the tiny hairs out of their follicles. The only things band-aids* are good for are bribes. You bribe the kids to stop wailing by promising them a cute little band-aid*.

So you have your blood that you have to take care of. If you do it right then you won’t have to take care of the pus that accompanies infection. That’s right – do not avoid the blood because the pus is 10 times worse to take care of than the blood. If you see blood do not waste one more minute. Grab that wonder water that make the fun little bubbles when killing infection (technical term: hydrogen peroxide) and douse that wound! Disclaimer for parents: you do not have care for or treat broken bones. Take the kid to a doctor for that. Whoo, load off! Right?

Wrong! We have now reached the pinnacle of grossness. Below that adorable little belly button lies a load of worries. And by load, I mean load! The things that make their way out of your child’s abdomen and into that Mickey Mouse* diaper are unthinkable and unspeakable. Little bit of trivia for you. You will have what color poop when you eat Froot Loops*? If you said bright green then give yourself a gold sticker. Yes, as a parent you have diaper duty. And speaking of “duty”, why is it that we invent funny little names for bodily functions? Pee-pee, poo-poo, doodie, pees, stinkies, uh-oh, tinkle, and any other cutesy name that pops into our heads at the time. Oh, and speaking of heads. You know you have reached the brink of insanity when you see one of those tiny pieces of toy in the diaper all covered in yuck and after your initial panic attack thinking it is some part of the child’s guts that need to be taken to the surgeon so he can put it back where it goes you seriously think to yourself, “Do I dig it out and clean it off?” or an even more demented thought, “Do I call the big kids in and show this to them so they quit leaving their little pieces of toys laying around.” Recognize this as a sign that you are about to go insane and stop. Just fold the diaper up and throw it away. Pretend you didn’t see the object. It doesn’t exist. It was never there. You are still a good mom!

I said we were going head to foot. I thought it was some kind of practical joke when I smelled my infant son’s feet and they had the odor of a high-school gym locker room. My girls’ feet never smelled like anything else than baby powder. But my boys’ feet have stunk from day one. Not to mention the toe jam and sweaty, sticky sock fuzz that you gotta scrape off.

My precious gooey children haven’t yet reached the age of puberty. They tell me that the teenage years are so much worse. Frankly I don’t image how it could be worse. It will have to be my next chapter in the exposé on grossness.

People just don’t tell you all this stuff when you are oohing and ahhing over the soft cuddly bundle wrapped up in the stroller of a radiant starry-eyed young mother. It’s all a trick! They are wrapped up so you don’t see all the grossness. And those aren’t stars in her eyes, the poor woman hasn’t slept in days and her eyes are frozen open. But that is for another post.

* The name brands that I mentioned above are probably like protected by copyrights and have a bunch of trademarks. So like somebody buy some of their products and I think that they won’t mind that I mentioned them.

All Me by: Raimy

Peanut’s Plan

Last night my four little nuts and I were eating our dinner. I said, “Guys, after you go to bed tonight…”

Peanut-butter interrupts rolling her eyes with a little grin on her face, “I know, I know. You are going to go out.”

“I know where she is going! She is going to see papa bowling!” Peanut-man declared triumphantly.

“Nu-uh! You don’t know!” Peanut-butter stated trying to get the upper hand.

Peanut, ever the peacemaker, raised her voice above the din of the argument brewing across the table, “There is a way we can know! In the morning we can go into mama and papa’s room. If there is a trophy there that means that papa was bowling!”

Cheers of approval from both sides of the table revealed their enthusiasm as to the validity and rightness of this plan to verify mama and papa’s extracurricular activities. The unanimous observation was completely founded on logic (in their heart): If papa is indeed bowling then a trophy will be the sure proof of this activity.

In conclusion: Papa bowling = a trophy won.

All in their jammies this morning my little nuts gathered around the gleaming white trophy in the shape of a bowling pin. The comments were varied.

“You got another one?” Peanut-butter clarified.

“How many of those do you have now?” Peanut asked with proud grin on her face.

“Is this one bigger than the last one?” Peanut-man implored with eyes wide inspecting the first-place, city-wide championship prize.

Nutmeg just watched and listened, contented to be in the middle of the mix as his papa showed the trophy to his ever adoring and most faithful fans. Someday they might actually get to see him win one of those things; when the championship is not held past their bed-time.

Lynde's Blog

Hello my bloggerful family! :-)

I just found out that there is another person in our extended family with a blog. She actually updates it rather frequently. Hey this gives me an idea. Maybe I should compile a link list of blogs by family members to go on our side bar... hmmm... I like that... I think it just might work... oh, yeah - if I knew of other blogs! Ha. So, if you know of any cousins or aunts or auncles that keep their blog up regularly just get their site address to me and we'll make that info available to everyone. Thanks. Oh yeah... Lynde's blog (you know, Chad's wife). It's a great blog - check it out and leave a comment to let her know you stopped by:

http://awordygirl.blogspot.com/

per request...

For Thanksgiving, Terry, Allison and I went to his mom's in Ponca City, OK. Terry's sister and her three kids (youngest 14) came too. We went to a restaurant because his mom's apartment was too small for eight. The restaurant served the traditional stuff. The best though was the fresh buns, hot out of the oven.
Then we went back to his mom's for some cake (it was Brian's birthday, Sherry's son, Terry's sister). We also had a veggie tray and fruit tray and chips and dip.
Then we went over to Terry's dad Terry's house for an encore. Terry Sr.'s wife Pat had made the feast earlier for her kids and we continued to eat it.
Then we went back to Terry's mom's house. She had bought a pumpkin pie at Perkin's restaurant and we continued our munching and I ate a piece of pie. I got to take the rest home with me because everyone else was too full.
Friday we spent at Mom's. I helped her shop and cook the meal: ham with pineapple sauce, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, stuffed eggs, relish trays and pumpkin pie for dessert. It was wonderful! It was the best meal, mainly because it was the freshest. The stuffed eggs turned out great thanks to some hints from Martha and for Terry's stepmom Pat.
We played some UNO and then watched some football. It was a nice evening, relaxed and delicious.

A short list of what I am thankful for is:
My family and Terry and Allison especially.
For Terry's new job (he is still painting but at a better shop and making more money, lots more).
That the semester is almost over.
That I have a beautiful Christmas tree (Allison helped a lot with it).
My jobs.
My health and my family's health.
My apartment.
My car.


I love you guys. Happy Holidays

Angie's Uyuni, Bolivia Trip

Hello Family! Here are some pictures from my trip last week to Uyuni, Bolivia. It was a blast. I went with Marisol and her dad who is here for about a month. You can click once on the slide show, then slide your mouse over the picture to read the caption.

I got back the day of our 11th wedding anniversary. I can hardly believe that it has been 11 years since that snowy evening in November when we headed out in our decorated roller skate (Geo convertible) to the hotel for the night and then off to Colorado the next morning. What an adventure that was driving in the mountains with ice and flurries. These last 11 years have been quite an adventure as well; akin to the thrills of driving those rocky hills. We got back from our honey moon late Thanksgiving day and had dessert at Bec' and Jake Gomez's house (which made up for the 7/11 hot dogs we had on the road which comprised our Thanksgiving feast that year).

Speaking of Thanksgiving... I think it would be fun if you all posted what you did last Thursday or your favorite Thanksgiving memory or a list of things you are thankful for - something "thanky". That way I can sort of feel like I was with you; so I can live that American holiday vicariously through you. (grin)

Happy Anniversary Smiths!

Wow - five years! Congratulations!

Since this:

is the only electronic picture that I have of you two together I thought that we might have a little fun and post this:

picture of a couple not nearly as wonderful as you two make. (smile)

Happy Birthday Nick!

Happy Birthday to Nick!!!

I am going to share my most favorite memory of Nick.

The newly wed couple had arrived safely in the foreign land of Bolivia. They had been enjoying beautiful Santa Cruz. DaRonn and I invited them over for an evening at our house. We decided to watch a movie. Nick was so excited to know how cheap the pirated videos here were. We watched a Star Trek movie (and forgive me my brother for not remembering which one - oops - may I be zapped by a Klingon for my negligence). We drug our rickety couch into our room were the T.V. was. The windows were open to let a breeze in. I think we had some kind of snacks. And it was just fun to watch Nick get all excited about this movie. It made it so much more fun for us to watch with him.

Love you Nick! Hope you had a great birthday!

Art Article

I dug up an article they wrote about my August art show. Thought you all might be interested in reading it.

http://www.thesunflower.com/web/isite.dll?1187830440703

Clay castles

In our little gallery we have some Jill's newest art...castles and fairy houses. I also wanted to show off her new bike. It often gets parked in the entry way when not in use.

new duffers

On a marvelously beautiful Sunday afternoon in October, we remarkable got Jill to play her first 9 holes of golf. She did fine and had a good time. We may get her to do it again as long as she gets to drive the cart.

Gallery Expansion

We moved the restroom so we could take down some walls and make a larger kiln room.

We added shelves in the little room in the studio to accommodate the new students. We have added more classes due to the demand.


We put up shelves in the entry for more art and pottery display .














We added lights ot the sign over the front door.














We have a large flight cage for our four finches.

snapshots

Well it has been a while since the last post. Being busy isn't a very good excuse but I will try to submit more soon. Here are some snapshots that are good even if a little late. Mom on her new bike was back in September. Mom, Kent, Sheila and I all took a bike ride today. I was a beautiful fall day with mild temperature in the mid 70's. The weather has been great and I suppose it will not last much longer but we have been outside enjoying it as often as we can. The days will be shorter now that we no longer are in Daylight Savings Time.

Shawn, Nick and Sasha visited in the middle of October. We celebrated Terry's birthday at TGI Friday's on October 12. We worked on expanding the studio the past few weeks. Mainly moving the restroom and making a larger kiln room. I'll take some photos for the next blog.

Happy Birthday Timothy!

Here is our birthday boy making a run through the obstacle course at Panchita, a chicken restaurant; his choice. He was very interested to know how fast he did it. The video shows 40 seconds - not bad. :-)

Here is his fun lunch the Panchicono; the chicken and fries are on top of the cup of lemonade with a straw to take sips while you munch.

Here he is enduring a double whammy of kisses as his sisters congratulating him for his birthday.

CD trading post

Ok
I need the Wichita crews help. The cd trading post in wichita has a couple of seasons of Stargate Atlantis on dvd that I would like to get. They said they would hold them for me till saturday. But i don't trust them. The last time i had one of these stores hold something for me they let it go. I was hoping that you could go to the store and pick them up for me. The have seasons 1 & 2. They should be about $30 each. I would wright you a check when we get down to your house next weekend. They are under my name. Here is the address:
South Rock Wichita
1210b S. Rock Rd. - Wichita, KS - Map
316-682-6640
M-Sa: 10a-9p, Su: 12p-6p

If it is out of your way dont worry about it. I will just go Friday afternoon when we get there. Please let me know.

Quick Update

Hello, It's so good to see people post recently so I thought I'd do my part.

School chugs on whether I'm ready for it or not. I am more ready now than the last month. I spent all of September sick with the worst chest cold I've ever had. It kept me up at night so rest was spare. Meanwhile school, work and family still require the same amount of energy. Terry was good while I was sick, he didn't get much sleep either though because of my coughing and he came down with the same thing last week. We is better now though too.

Allison has an eye appointment next week. She seems to squint sometimes when reading signs or T-shirts. She likes to play pretend a lot. Last night Terry took her to our apartment's playground and she played Captain Hook and appointed him as Peter Pan. However, in her version, Peter Pan got thrown to the sharks. Monday she was Snow White and appointed Terry her prince and me the wicked queen. After I got tired of being the bad guy I became Cinderella and appointed Terry as the dragon. We had lots of fun, but Allison seems to take it real serious sometimes. She was glad to have our undivided attention for more than an hour!

Tabor is going great. I have a lot of fun teaching (especially now that I feel better). Last class we had a circle discussion about art and abstract. Being that the majority of the class is NON art majors, it was fun and interesting to hear what they thought of art and abstract. I think I'll try to incorporate circle discussions every week now.

I think now I'll feel like I have a ton more time on my hands now that I'm not super tired and sick. I look forward to a mind-bending scrabble game. Go Angie! Always the initiator of special family-bonding activities via the web! Lucas, you game for a game?

I think about you all often. I love you all. Thank you for being my family.

"My Art" by Raimy

Scrabble

We have found a fun new web-site: www.scrabulous.com

If you want to be in on the next online scrabble game then let me know. You get an email when it is your turn and click through the link to play. It is fun!

Got Milk?

Lasagna Lover

Hope you enjoy this little movie. Again - there is no sound. Tyler loves lasagna! By the time he was finished his whole face was an orangey greasey mess. He even got it into his hair. (smile) He had lots of fun in the bath that followed, too.

Sisters

I googled "sisters" to get some ideas for painting the girls' room. These are some of the interesting samples I found. I threw in a couple of pics of my sisters and me for fun. Let me know what you think of the images.

Our Camping Trip