In LOVE with Laura Ingalls Wilder

At the beginning of the summer, on a hunch, I gave Ellie the box set of The Little House on the Prairie Books, all 9 of them. I thought maybe she'd find an interest. Well, as a parent, you think that quite a bit. Always looking for things that might strike your child's fancy. Right? Unfortunately, if you looked in the closets of our house,
you would find...
barely worn dance shoes,
unread books
lonely leotards
and even a couple games that have never been played.

NOT THIS TIME.

The books became her obsession this summer. Every spare moment she had, she'd come beg me, "mommy, can I pllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaase go read my book?"

Hmmmm. Let me think. Engross yourself in a set of classic sequels, many of which have been named Newberry Honor books?

Delve into a multi-layered story that was dear to me as a child?
(though I didn't read the books, I LOVED the TV show)

Well.... OK.

So read them she did...
one by one soaking up the details of Laura's life.

From childhood to marriage and everything in between,

• Little House in the Big Woods
• Farmer Boy
• Little House on the Prairie
• On the Banks of Plum Creek
• By the Shores of Silver Lake
• The Long Winter
• Little Town on the Prairie
• These Happy Golden Years
• The First Four Years

and by mid-August she had tearfully shut the last page.

Like a great movie you never want to end, so felt Ellie as her dear story came to a close.

Thank goodness my cousin Ronda came to the rescue.

They themselves had been on quite a summer Laura quest... visiting all the Laura Ingalls Wilder houses in America, traveling to places such as North Dakota, Minnesota and Missouri!!! Wow!

The last piece of their puzzle was the Little House on the Prairie in Independence, Kansas. Graciously, they asked Ellie to go with her cousin Ana, and here are Ellie's pics!Thanks Ronda and Cousin Ana for taking Ellie along on your trip!!Post Note: While at the library, looking for something else to grab her interest, the librarian told us about some books by Roger Lea MacBride. They are the fictional account of the life Rose Wilder, Laura's daughter. So, she's at it again. Waking up early so she can read before school, reading while eating breakfast, reading in the bathtub, reading with a tiny flashlight in bed at night. Poor girl, she can't help it. Her obsession with reading is a genetic trait!!

Our American Idol

Do you remember Granny's 97th birthday party a year ago???

The horse-drawn-wagon-prairie-lovin'-hoe-down of a celebration?

How could THAT be topped?

Well, hang on folks....
it doesn't get any more rockin' than this!!!!!

We celebrated Granny's big 9-8 with an American Idol themed party.

Granny, of course, was game. We had singers and dancers..... see some of our acts below....Hallie and Ellie did a cool Miley Cyrus inspired number.I was so impressed with Ana's confidence and choreograpy!Luke the breakdancer. (Ok, we stretched the rules a little bit - should have been a So You Think You Can Dance party!)Shae rocked the electric guitar!Wo... no kidding, we even had a hula hoop duo... too funnny!For the grand finale, Granny, who does have problems with her ears, sang "How Great Thou Art."

Kim and I stood up there with her and mouthed the words, but by the end all I could do was grab her hand and let my tears fall.

Then everyone in the room sang it again and we would have all been crying if not for the humor of granny's loud and off-key voice singing "Then sings my Soooooooooooooulllll, my savior God to theeeeeeeeeeeeeeee." It was such a moment.

To top it off, when our emceee Uncle Lewis (not pictured) interviewed her afterwards, like he did all the other contestants, she popped off to our judges (pictured below), "do I get to go to Hollywood?"

It brought the house down. Our judges, from left, Jim (Randy), Jami (Paula) and Melissa (Simon). The audience was all smiles.
There were a few non-performers too. But aren't they cute?Granny blowing out the candles on her American Idol cake. Granny and her greats.Granny and her great great.Proud daughter and granddaughter of the birthday girl.Ida Pondarae is a shining star.

What a celebration of the birthdate of our true idol.

Cause it is NO LIE:

We all want to be like Granny.

**credit goes to Ronda, Kim R. and Judy for putting this party together! Girls, it was a ton of fun!

Astronomical

Tom and I took a little getaway to Las Vegas this summer. That vacation destination is not on my top ten list of places to go, however, due to a free plane ticket for me and Tom already traveling there on business, it was a way for us to have a nice mommy-and-daddy-only outing.
We stayed at a great hotel and went to some shows and slept in and ate out and enjoyed our time together.

What struck me this year wasn't the grandiose hotels, the slick and quick neon signs or even the casinos and their neverending beeping, humming and whirring with the occasional ding-ding-ding. It wasn't the entourage of media surrounding Blake Griffin when I saw him walk by or the live taping of Wheel of Fortune that I attended. (PARQUET was the winning word in the bonus round)It wasn't Blue Man Group (though that was the HIGHLIGHT of the trip) or the magical acts of Penn and Teller. It was the people.
The lines of people.
The crowds of people.The gargantuan scope of the human race came at me with full force while in Las Vegas.

People there, people here. Tall people, short people, brown people, yellow people, smiling people, sad people, people with blank stares, people alone, people in groups, people lost, people found. The old. The young. The hopeful. The confused. People from faraway. People who never moved from their space of cement.

There were so.many.people.

It is overwhelming and quite honestly unfathomable for me to consider the amount of lives represented in the city of Vegas, much less Nevada, much less the United States, much less North America, much less the world.

The world.

So how does God balance the sheer number of people on this earth with the innate need each of us have to connect with other human beings?

Friendship.

And that's when it hit me....

out of 6,706,993,152 people in the world (i looked it up)
He chose YOU to be my friend.
YOU to interact with.
YOU to laugh with.
YOU to raise my children with.
YOU to cry with.
YOU to have fun with.
YOU to ask questions.
YOU to be the object of my admiration and respect.
YOU to inspire me.
YOU to help me.
YOU to be helped.

Even my blogging buddies, who I have not met in person, but have met in heart.

So, if I know you, I'm not taking this thing lightly.

I'm thinking, with the amount of people currently in the world times the amount of years the earth has held human kind.... the chance that I know you and that you know me....

is pretty Astronomical.

September Babies

Kim was one of my two best friends during high school and throughout college.

We have been through just about anything you can imagine together.

Even pregnancy.

One day in early 2000, unbeknown to us, little cells were splitting like crazy inside of each of us.

Those little cells grew into embryos that turned out to be Will and Ellie, born only 4 days apart.

Kim lives in another state. We don't get to connect too often. Our kids have only been around hers a handful of times.

But it doesn't matter.

There is a familiarity and bond that only time, experiences, and God could forge.

I got to see my friend Kim a few days ago; she brought Will along for the visit. Ellie was the only one of mine home. So we took them to lunch. They talked about Bakugans and Wii games. Fishing and fun.

Kim and I talked about life, love, family, faithfulness, children, changes, surprises, school,
.....and our Super September babies.

Dog Days of Summer

A new dog park opened in our town and it has been a huge hit with everyone around here. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to enjoy the park because our dog Cosmo not only doesn't think he's a dog, but he loathes other dogs of any size. Going to the dog park would be tantamount to torture for him. Luckily, Nana and Papa have newly adopted two adorable Yorkies into our family, Rae Rae and Rocko. They brought the dogs out to Biscuit Acres and we all had a great time, dogs and people alike. Rocko is on Papa's lap and Rae Rae is Nana's dog.Kami, Ellie and a couple of their friends romped with the dogs for a long time, running around with bright eyes and wagging tails.
One hilarious aspect of being at Biscuit Acres is taking in all the dogs... their shapes, sizes, colors and personalities. Here is Jack, getting a handle on the situation... oh so cautiously. He looks a little concerned.And Pete, he's one happy-go-lucky guy. Couldn't miss him with his head sticking out the back of the truck.
This white dog was one of Ellie's favorites.Our own Rae Rae is enjoying some frisky exercise.Now that the Dog Days of Summer are nearly over, we'll have to see how it is over in Biscuit Acres during the Dog Days of Fall!

firsts/lasts

first
day of sixth grade
last
year before she is in middle schoolfirst
day of third grade
last
day before she really has to memorize the times tables (eek!)
first
day of school
last
time my baby will be in kindergarten

War

There's a war going on in our house.

Look carefully.

Can you see it?

No, it's not mommy vs. Kami during piano practice

Can you feel the epic saga going on right under our noses?

Here, let me zoom in for you.It's a classic story of good vs. evil.

Of tragedy and courage. Of heroes and villians.It's the solider willing to die for his cause... never giving up hope, following the orders of his commander to the death. The stormtrooper um... stormtrooping over the smooth piano casing waiting for destiny to occur.
As Yoda and his protege look on.

Of Cell Phones and Toilets

This ones for Baloney. Just so she knows she's not the only one.

I won't get into the gory details, but I will say that my cell phone died in a toilet accident involving Luke.

And that it was ugly.

And that it required an extraction that in the end, didn't really matter.

The phone went to pot, so to speak.

The miraculous ending to my tale of poo, I mean woe.... is that it was the perfect opportunity to get a new phone. (Amazingly, my contract for my old phone was up too - the stars aligned!)

I have resisted. I have proudly carried around my Sony slider phone, telling myself that I didn't HAVE to have the iphone. I didn't NEED the iphone.

An iphone would not complete me. (harumph!!)

Weirdly, I did the same thing with capri pants. Back about 10 years ago, when the fashion came back in, I thought... I'm not giving into that! I don't have to wear THOSE to fit in. There must be a bit of a noncomformist ghoul lurking in me. I think I was the last person to give in to the fashion, but give I did. Thank the fashion Gods above. That's about all I wear now - some kind of cropped pant.

Well, you've guesssed it by now. I got the iphone. I was nervous, but my friend Lori took the plunge with me. I was thankful to have a friend who was going through the same iphone growing pains that I was.

And now, (brace yourselves) I tell you how truly complete I feel.

Not in the shallow way, like please see me hold my iphone. See me dial my iphone. See me talk on my iphone. Look at my signature: sent from my iphone.

But in an organizational, I have got-it-all-together kind of way.

Ok, I'll never have it all together, obviously, if I dropped my iphone into a pot of poo.

But wow, the myth of the iphone is no myth at all.

It is fantastic.
I have converted from a paper calendar to my iphone calendar.
Love it.
I have a camera with me at any given moment.
Fabulous.
The email.
he texting.
The GPS.
The music.
The way it stores your contacts.
The ease of the touchscreen.
The apps.
The APPS!!!
They are so creative and very useful.
I have the entire Bible on my phone.
I can pull up any version of any verse any time I need to.

No, the iphone is not overrated. It's genius.

Now if I can just keep from dropping it in the toilet.