Photo Blog

IMG_4927
Originally uploaded by bl3.

I'm just doing a little photo blog test.

Here is a picture of Emma. I thought it was cute.

If you use shift-click on the picture it will open the flickr account in new window so you can view more pictures. (use ctrl-click if you use firefox).

Who Made Who

Amazing Similarities

I am continually surprised by both of the girls and the traits that they picked up from both Angela and me. I know that traits are passed on between parents and children but to see the traits divided among the two makes me scratch my head. Here are a couple of examples...

Alex is so much like her mother that sometimes it's like looking at twins. I guess it's a first born thing. Alex is very detail orientated and a list maker. We haven’t quite figured out how to channel the list making into anything but hopefully professional lister will happen soon. She’ll make list of pretty much anything. Names, places, books it doesn’t matter. I’m not talking about a little list; I’m talking about a couple of pages, front and back stapled together. I don’t get it. However, I see where it came from pretty much everyday. It came straight from my beautiful bride. Whose list making isn’t to the same extreme as Alex but she makes them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the list that Angela makes. It helps out more than ever.

On the other hand there is dear sweet Emma. She is a fly by the seat of your pants type girl who can make a mess to bring Mr. Clean to his knees. She’s happy go lucky and can get over things that go wrong pretty quickly. She is the polar opposite of both Angela and Alex. I can see so much of myself in Emma that it is scary. If I was half of the kid that Emma is I don’t know how my parents kept their sanity. I can definitely see me doing a lot of the stuff that she does. Emma is a ham, she puts on a show like she’s always on stage. She makes it seem like she’s shy but you can tell she wants you to watch her perform.

Chatty Patty

A Constant Din*

I’m not sure where she gets it from but Emma talks more than any person I know. She is pretty much non stop from the time she gets home from school until she goes to bed. The only time in the evening when there is nothing coming out of her mouth is when there is something going in; namely dessert. It was actually pretty strange and I had to look up to make sure she wasn’t in some kind of trouble last night. I guess the peanut butter fingers were better than talking.
What does she talk about? I really have no idea, it just a constant “blah blah blah.” She’s not like this when she’s around other people, just at home. So maybe she just wants to make up for lost time but she goes 100 miles an hour until her head hits the pillow.

*din - a loud continued noise; especially : a welter of discordant sounds

EDIT **
I was watching the baseball game tonight and a Volvo commercial came on that pretty much hits the Emma talking nail on the head.

A man is picking his daughter up from school and she is talking about bugs or something and going through the whole story while the dad tries to get her in the car. The look on his face is exactly the glazed over look that goes on around here. Don't get me wrong, the stuff Emma comes up with is rather funny but... it just goes on, and on, and on. ;-)

Thanks For Visiting

Just so you know

I wanted to make a quick post to thank everyone for helping out by visiting the site. I'm going to continue updating so keep coming back.

Posting about the girls has been suprisingly easy and helpful for me. I'm not usually a writer/typer but I enjoy relaying stories and thoughts about the girls.

More posts about the girls to come. Let anyone you know who you think could assist us to come and visit. Thanks again.

Brian

BTW - we're up to about $14 of free college money so far. Keep up the good work.

The Trickster

Someday she might succeed

Emma is dying to trick me. She desperately wants me to believe that she’s gotten her ears pierced. It’s probably about once a week that she tries to convince me that her ears have been recently pierced. The other day she came home and put in her magnetic earrings, pushed her hair behind her ears and then stood in front of me waiting for me to notice her. Once noticed she starts in on a very elaborate story of these new earrings.

She informed me that they had made a trip to the mall and she had her ears pierced. I congratulated her on her accomplishment and took a look at her new jewelry. She noticed me looking at the backs of them and then she informed me (without me questioning her) that they make these new special earrings that don’t have a post that sticks through the ear. These earrings only have a post inside and they magically heal in only 2 days. Or was it that they should be removed before bed so they don’t fall out and the hole will not heal over.

Whatever it was I’m amazed at her ability come up with her elaborate rues and play them for all their worth. I’ve told her that she can get her ears pierced whenever she wants but she seems to be avoiding the “pain factor.”

Alex the Reader

she reads and reads and reads

Alex is a reader. She constantly has a book to read, sometimes two. I, too, like to read but our reading choices rarely coincide. That is rather obvious, seeing as she is eleven and well… I’m not. We do both however like the Harry Potter series and we’ve also shared the “Series of Unfortunate Events” but for the most part there isn’t a whole lot of overlap. I usually come down to her level. I really can’t blame her. I don’t think she’d get a whole lot out of some of the crazy science fiction that I’ve had lately (A Scanner Darkly comes to mind, that was one weird book).

That brings me to our current overlap. Alex was showing me one of her school books that had some comic strips in it. She seemed to enjoy them and was getting a kick out of one in particular, “Calvin and Hobbes.” I enjoy them also. Imagine her elation when I informed her that there were a couple compilations in the closet upstairs waiting for her. They’ve been waiting for awhile; I think I’ve had them since 1989 or so.

I know they’re not really books in the novel sense, but it’s always nice to find something in common with one of your children. It’s even better when you can laugh together.

The Beginning

Let's see how this goes.

Here is my first post to a blog on which I hope to supplement the cost of college for my two girls. I plan on sending the link to family and friends and encourage them to click on the adsense links by google. This will allow them to quickly and easily help out with the cost of college.

By clicking the advertisements I get a credit to my adsense account and hopefully over time I can save that money and use it for the girls. I'm not sure how long it will take but hopefully I'm starting early enough to make a difference.

The girls are now in 6th and 1st grade so... Let the clicking begin!

BTW: if you use firefox ctrl-click the link to open in a new tab and for the IE users shift-click to open in a new window.