Picture Time Picture Time

Ok faithful friends, we are finally settled into a house and able to upload pictures again!!!! I have a bunch from this summer, I'll give you a tidbit and work my way through them. The kids are growing so fast. Sophie looks so different just from the beginning of the summer. Our lives are busy, moving quickly, but packed with fun. For the most part, the kids get along really well and love playing together. I love listening to them play and have "deep" discussions about the toys they are playing with. Sullivan has been in a bit of touble in kindergarten. He apparently is a little Romeo and has a problem keeping his lips to himself. He is learning though. It is amazing what missing a little recess and a few ice pops will do. He loves school, its a wonderful school, and is learning so much. I thought he would be totally bored in kindergarten, but now I am afraid we'll never get him to want to move to first grade!!!

Sophie loves her school as well, its much better than I ever imagined. Last weekend, she got mad at us for telling her she couldn't go to school because it was Saturday. She tells us all about her friends and how she bosses them around. She is really getting a little drama queen attitude. She can cry in the middle of a sentence for dramatics and adds the lip quiver for extra attention.

Alright, more later, but for now, here's a few pictures to prove my kids are alive and well.

Sophie enjoying a blue snowball on a hot day.

He doesn't think he's too big for this car he had when he was 6 months old.

Mother's Day- before I lost 27 pounds!

Sullivan laying next to a REAL dinosar bone.

Daddy's first attempt at pigtails. You should see him now, his look 50 times better than mine.

The girsl are playing house with dinosaurs. Just proves that girls will be girls.
Notice the cape, we wear it everywhere (except school because you have to wear a uniform and folow dress code, otherwise ....) Oh yeah, they are digging for dinosaur bones.
Sophie found a ballooon!
Sullivan explaining that they aren't real bones, someone just made them look that way.
Kids posing before the party at our FIRST Baton Rouge house.

The above pictures are from a dinosaur party we went to in May. The kids had an absolute blast.

So, we got a new house, and while I was unpacking , I thought it would be a good idea to let the kids try out the new bathtub. It has jets, so I figured it would make bubbles ok. I put some water in, a tiny bit of soap, threw in the kids, and turned on the jets. They were having such a good time, then the bubbles took over. Well, I should say, they kept having a great time. I had to grab my camera. Of course, I had to shower the "clean" off of them after they were done.

Hello There

Hello, I can't believe we are almost to the end of August. NUTS. Sorry for the lack of posts, you'd understand if you knew our life right now :) So, updates-

Sullivan started first grade last week. He hated "sitting in a boring desk listening to a boring teacher talk for two hours" and was having some emotional adjustment challenges. So, we made the decision to enroll him in my school and let him do kindergarten. HE LOVES IT. He begs to go and has such a blast. He loves every minute of it.

Speaking of love, apparently Sullivan has found his true love. I went to pick him up yesterday and was informed that "we need to talk" by the teacher. She said that he and another little girl are very close and seem to love being together and playing (which I already knew- they were in summer care together during my orientation- the little girl cried everytime I picked him up). Anyway, she says that Sullivan told her that K kissed him and was telling because he knew the rule- "you can't touch anyone else without asking." Apparently K didn't ask for the kiss :) So, the teacher pulled them both aside, talked about spreading germs through kissing and how its a bad idea. She explained that we save kisses for our mommies and daddies. Sullivan tells K that they'll have to wait until their wedding day to kiss again to which K gets very excited by the idea that Sullivan is planning on marrying her. HELLO THEY ARE 5!!!! Anyway, his teacher said it was by far the funniest thing she has dealt with and reiterated to her why she is a kindergarten teacher.

I asked him about it later, he told me K is his girlfriend and he REALLY loves her. I told him that he is too young to really understand love to which he replies- "Mom, this is TRUE love". OH BOY. He also told my mom that K tells him what to eat at lunch. Mom asks if she controls him and he said "sort of".

Little Miss started preschool this week. She really loves it. She cries a tiny bit when we go. Wednesday her teacher asked her why she was crying and she cried "because I WUV school." It was really sweet. She talks about her friends and how they play babies. She tells us that she eats nothing but crackers there. Overall, she is having fun. She brought home her first school work Friday with a packet of what she had done all week.

They are really growing up on me quickly. I'll post pictures soon!!!

Funnies...

Well, life as we know it is kind of sucky right now- just pray for us if you get a minute. But, rather than give you a sob story, I thought I would share a few funny things the kids are doing.

Sullivan now wears his batman mask when swimming. It looks really funny to see that black ears poking up on top of the water when he is under. The other day, someone at the pool said "look it's batman!" To which Sullivan quickly pulled off the mask and matter of factly pointed out the obvious, "No, its just me- Sullivan, I was wearing a mask."


I just brought Sullivan to Vacation Bible School, Sophie was NOT happy about leaving him. She told his teacher "Dat's not fair!!! I AM big enough to go to school. I am two and a half!"

Sophie still tells the same knock knock joke over and over and is still thinking its funny. Three months of the same joke is not funny, but the monotony of her thinking its funny is a little funny. "Knock Knock- who's there? Orange, Orange who? Sit in nanny's lap!" (Are you laughing?)

Sophie is a little spit fire. She WILL not be fun to deal with in the teen age years, trust me. Anyway, perhaps she will :) So, the other day she tells me she needs to poop. I put her on the potty, she tells me to "close the door and turn on the vent". I assume its gonna be pretty bad, so I do. A second later, she comes running into the living room. I ask her if she pooped, she says "no, just tee tee". I ask her if she's sure, because I need to wipe her hiney, "nope just tee tee." I tell her I can go look in the potty. She runs in the bathroom, flushes, comes running out and says in her little two year old voice "now you can't check."

EDLD 5363 Debrief

I am currently taking a multimedia class in my search for a masters degree. We had to complete a PSA in a group of four. Here is the link for the one that my group produced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9VV98sfFeo&feature=channel

I feel we worked really well as a group. It was quite difficult at first trying to figure out how four people in totally different areas were going to complete a project that included videoing clips and editing them together to form a great end product. We started collaborating using a wiki. It turned out to be a VERY useful tool in this project. We started brainstorming ideas about what topic we would create the PSA about. This took a few days, we all threw in ideas about what we wanted to do. In the end, we decided on the booster seat law in Texas.
After deciding on a topic, we started brainstorming ideas on what we would do. The wiki was great, as everyone could throw an idea out there, and we could all see it and add our own thoughts. I really learned the value of wikis with this project! Once we had some basic ideas, we started to develop a script. Once we had a basic script, we had to decide on shots that we would need. The online collaboration was totally made possible by the wiki. It proved to be invaluable.
Once we had a well developed shot list, I started taking video of Sullivan and the different shots that we had listed. It turned into about 4 different times that I had to go back and collect more shots that we liked. I rought edited the shots on my computer since the footage was so large, then I would upload them on to youtube, and the different members of our group would download them and edit them on their own computers. One member was solely devoted to the sound editing and creation. This worked out well for our group.
We posted the work we had and made comments, finally coming up with an end product that we all liked. Overall, I think we worked well as a group. I thought we should have more special effects on the video, which was not the group concencus. I learned to "go with the flow" a little more. The quality of the video was low because of all of the uploading and downloading we had to do. But, overall, I am proud of our work.

Daddy

Some people didn't have a great example of a father growing up. I did. I had a daddy. My earliest memories are him having tea parties with me, taking me on rides at Disney world, building me a playhouse and then PLAYING in it with me, reading stories with really funny voices, and telling me funny jokes. I remember him teaching me to skate and ride my bike. I remember him listening to me when I whined or threw fits. I remember wanting to run away and him carrying me back kicking and screaming all of the way. I am so fortunate to have had a VERY active daddy in my life. I am even more fortunate that he is gonna stick around a while so my kids get to enjoy him in their lives too. He still reads stories really funny and uses great voices. He still gets down on the floor to build lego structures and plays baby dolls as if its really for him.

My kids are super fortunate too, because they get to have just such a dad in their lives. Aaron is a fun dad, the kind that wrestles with them on the bed and sneaks them little treats when mommy isn't watching. He is the kind of daddy who sits on the floor and plays dollhouse with Sophie as if he is a two year old girl and will read books until his eyes hurt. He loves playing with "Sullivan's toys" that he buys for himself to enjoy. He climbs at the playground and slides down the slides, he tries out the toys before the kids do- just to be sure they are safe :) He is passionate about being a father, which makes him a daddy.

I am blessed to have had two great daddies in my life. Happy Father's Day Dad, Happy Father's Day Aaron.

Video Editing Project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fcvCcqCwGQ

For my class I am currently in, we were practicing with basic video editing skills in order to prepare for a big project we will be working on during the remainder of the class. The link above is my project. I chose to do a motivational video for teachers with an emphasis on the fact that our kids now learn everything digitally. I wanted to point out that kids feel trapped when they sit in a classroom listening to a lecture for 30 minutes when they are used to playing video games and watching tv all of the time. I am learning alot in the classes I am taking about the changing minds of the kids growing up today. Their minds basically are built differently than ours are, and they learn in different ways. This is why I chose this theme for my video.
The video was fun for me to do, but I had GREAT difficulty finding videos to include. You had to find already taken video and stills on the internet to use in your own compilation. The trick was, they had to be free use- not copyrighted and royalty free. The music was simple to find, but I spent about six hours routing through websites (searching the creative commons) looking for anything I could use that pertained to my theme. The video came out ok, with more time it could have been great. I enjoy editing and attempting to be creative, so I suppose I enjoyed myself :)

Anatomy of a Good Swim

So, this week, we went to Beaumont for a while to spend some time with my parents. My best friend, Tiffini, moved there from College Station about a year ago, so it was a convenient excuse to let our kids play again. We hung out at my mom's pool ALL week long. The kids had such a blast, and it was so wonderful to get to visit with her like in the good old days while the kids played.At the beginning of the week, Sullivan was swimming, but not very brave. We have gotten him private swim lessons for the past two summers, and I was terrified that he was going to have to learn everything again (which was really scary as the swim lessons involved ALOT of tears). So, finally, I enticed him to swim by bascially throwing him in (I was there to help him). Once he saw that he could swim, he was a FISH!!! He began getting very brave. He swam everywhere- so exciting. Then, he started exploring with his "dives". He has perfected the cannon ball, and I'll show you his latest invention- the "sun dive." Sullivan "walking on water". If you ask him about this picture, he'll inform you that he can't really walk on water, the camera just makes it look like he is. (Just so you know.....)

This is the knees bent cannon ball. You must yell "knees bent cannon ball" while performing the stunt, or your score doesn't count.

Yet another walking on water picture, I like the look on his face- I am about to enter!!!

This is the traditional cannon ball. This apparently is a move like Sonic the Hedgehog makes, and you must pretend to be him while performing the stunt. (or your score does not count)

This is the sun dive. In case you would like to perform it, here are the steps (according to Sullivan):

1. You must be five AND a half (otherwise, you can't walk in 3 feet water).

2. You must turn around backwards and look up into the sun.

3. You must jump backwards.

4. You must hope your back doesn't hit the water, because that WEALLY hurts!!!

This is the sun dive with the feet entering the water first as opposed to the back. This is what is performed after a few unsuccessful attempts at the sun dive and a back that is "red and stingy".

This is just fun. You jump and say "AHHHHHHH". It's fun.

Miracle man? Just saying...... he's pretty good at walking on water. But, seriously guys, its just the camera making it look like he can walk on water.

SPLASH!!!! I hope you are enjoying your summer as much as we are!!!