Our Year in Review

Another year has come and gone and what do we have to show for it? Well, a couple thousand digital photos that will never see the printed page, let alone some fancy scrapbook. In lieu of such obvious things to do with our pictures I decided instead to post some here for the world, or the six of you that read this, to see. Enjoy!

Some highlights:

Spring:

In April, Claudia turned two and she was thrilled just like she is in every other picture we ever take of her.

May was Cinco de Mayo time and our little town puts on quite the party. Here the girls are rocking out. Claudia actually looks happy in this one. She really is a very happy little girl but for some reason the camera brings out here serious side.

Summer:

Here is Claudia both serious and not on her Great-Grandpa Dale's horse farm.

While they raise Arabian horses there he also dabbles in other animals just for fun. Here Emily is riding one of his miniature ponies. It is only slightly larger than our dog.
While Emily was riding the Mama the tiny little baby just followed along behind.

Here Emily is peeking through a whole in the barn trying to see the sheep. She was both incredibly excited by them and a tiny bit terrified that they'd come after her. They never did, although she eventually worked up the courage to try to touch them.

In July, Grandma Marilyn took Our family and Eric's sister's family to Kansas City for a long weekend. The girls were giddy in the car the entire way there and home. I have no idea what got in to them but I wish that I could bottle it. Lately we can't get across town without them complaining that the five minute ride is too long. I have to say though, I'll take 1000 crabby 5 minute rides across town for the joy of two four hour rides to another state.

The girls loved watching the fountain outside our hotel room, if not actually playing in it.

What they did love was the party room our hotel turned into with the addition of their four cousins... and Eric.

Also in July, RAGBRAI (The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Race Across Iowa, or something to that effect) came by our town. The girls loved watching all the bicycles going by... for about 20 minutes, then they'd had enough.

Luckily there were huge slices of watermelon to save the day.

Claudia and Daddy have a moment in the sunset at Aunt Lynn's house.

Autumn:
In September, Claudia was so thrilled to be at the ultrasound where we found out that we were having a boy that she fell asleep. Emily was so excited that she chose to go to a friend's house rather than come at all.

In October, Emily turned five and continued her love... um, obsession... with all things Curious George. I think that it goes without saying that I had no part in making this cake, unless you count picking up the phone to order it and writing the check to pay for it having a hand in making it.

Also in October, we took our annual death-defying ride atop a local fire truck in celebration of Fire Safety Week. It was freezing cold and as always, there were tree branches to hit the adults in the head at 30 miles and hour and daredevil kids hanging off the side.

Winter:
Here, in early December, the girls played for hours with a fleece blanket that we got last year as a gift at a grab bag Christmas party. Who needs a toy when you have a blanket?

And finally, earlier this month, the girls took a "Big Sister" class in anticipation of their brother's arrival. It is put on by the hospital where I will have my c-section and the girls learn such things as how to hold a baby and how to change a diaper. Even with their new-found skills I think I am unlikely to let either of the girls change many diapers, let alone do the babysitting that Emily is convinced that she is ready for.

The happiest kids in the world

I have uploaded the photo of the girls on Santa's lap for those that have been waiting on the edge of their seats. And really, when it comes down to it, who isn't waiting on the edge of their seats to see other people's children on Santa's lap. I know I am.

In any case, either scroll down the page or click here. http://simonsongirls.blogspot.com/2007/11/getting-their-requests-in-early.html

I swear to you they really did like going to see him.

Really.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

When a state-wide winter storm and ice warning is sent out many families decide to stay in for the weekend. Not us! In fact, there is rarely a weekend that you won't see us making the hour-long trek to Eric's parent's house for the weekend. This icy, cold one, where we fully expect that we might get stuck away from home, or even on the road, is no exception.


In fact, early this year Eric actually drove us here in snow that had piled up higher than the van and had been cleared only in a single car wide path on the highway. We, in our cruddy old van that held our beloved small children, ventured down this path only to come upon a car heading right toward us. After a small stand off we ended up backing up almost a mile, uphill, through blinding snow in a car wide path of six foot high snow. We are not the smartest people that you know.



Even still Eric and the girls are enjoying the icy covering in the backyard.

Ben, our dog, likes it too.

Getting their requests in early

This is a picture the the Ft. Dodge paper put on their website after the girls and I were caught visiting Santa on Friday. If there is a less attractive position for a very pregnant woman to be in than squatting down, I can't imagine what it is.

Here Santa is asking the girls what they would like for Christmas and I am translating from very quiet, shy girl speak into English. The two girls ahead of us in line had each written a book, the heft of which would rival War and Peace, of their wish lists. My girls are much less greedy. One thing makes them as happy as a hundred.

When Santa asked Emily what she wanted she said a fish, that's it, nothing else. "Really?" Santa inquired, "Nothing else?" she said, "Mmm, maybe a tank for the fish." (Hear that Dean and Cynthia?)

Next Santa asked Claudia what she wanted. She answered, eyeing the box of candy canes that Santa gives to all the children that come to see him, and said that she wanted a candy cane. "Anything else?" asked Santa. No, that was pretty much all she wanted.

Here are the girls on Santa's lap. Clearly they are thrilled.

Halloween!

Ahh, Halloween! Here Claudia (as a Lion) and Emily (as a bride) sit just before heading off to trick-or-treat on Wednesday.

Although we did have a big, uncarved pumpkin on our front step you cannot see it in this photo as someone took it earlier in the week. We have decided that it was a poor child that could not afford a pumpkin of his or her own and not a total jerk that was just trying to be mean. Somehow roving bands of poor pumpkin less children make us feel better about our loss.

There was a smashed pumpkin in the street around the block from our house. Luckily, it was a pumpkin that had clearly been carved and so, although there was a great sadness about the destroyed pumpkin, the girls didn't seem to suspect that it may have been our beloved, still missing pumpkin splatted there in the street. The girls were obsessed for two days by the pumpkin roadkill, begging me to drive that way home any time we were out. They would crane their necks to look out the windows while pleading, "Drive slower! Please slow down so we can see it!" Then, once they had worked up the courage, the three of us walked over to see it up close and that seemed to give them the closure they needed.

Also, in general, we do not have a mini trampoline sitting against our front steps but we are in the process of fall cleaning and everything is being cleaned and stored (or at least moved somewhere else) and this trampoline was on it's way to the garage for the winter.

From out of the mouths of super hereos

At Emily's Halloween party on Wednesday another mother and I were approached by a little boy in a Spiderman costume that was quilted in such a way as to make him look muscular.

We smiled our little room mother smiles and then he looked up at us and asked, "I really like being Spiderman and all, but why do I have these big boobs?"

You can be happy and vomiting at the same time, who knew?

I feel a little like I have fallen off of the face of the earth these last few months. Here’s our update.

Eric and I are thrilled to be expecting out third little bundle of joy in January (a boy, they tell us) but it has been a hard road for me this time. With Emily I had no morning sickness, with Claudia just about 12 weeks worth, and with this one it had been a virtual 27-week, non-stop vomit fest!

So much so, in fact, that I lost enough weight from the beginning that even now that the problem has subsided a little I am still not back to my starting weight, let alone carrying any “pregnancy pounds.” Not that I am complaining about that! I haven’t ever been six weeks pregnant and still in my regular jeans, let alone at 27 weeks.

I did however get a prescription for anti-nausea medication and a stern warning from my doctor that if I didn’t knock off all the vomiting, he would have no choice but to put me in the hospital. You’d think if I could stop because of a stern warning I would have stopped weeks ago just form the sheer lack of fun I was having.

So, for those of you that didn’t know anything about this… and that would be most of you, I’m sorry to have taken so much time to announce it. We are thrilled beyond words and can’t wait for the arrival of our newest little baby no name!

Feel free to e-mail names to us at katesimonson@yahoo.com or add them to the comments here on this page. Eric and I are notoriously bad at coming up with baby names in a timely manner and this baby is no exception.

Some summer highlights

Perhaps the biggest thing to happen this summer, and I do mean this summer, since here kids begin school weeks earlier than I did as a child, Emily went back to school! Here she is, on the first day of four-year-old preschool, standing in front of the house, looking quite excited.

Sadly, she has not been this excited since. She loves school once she is there, but the drop offs are still a little hard for her. A little hard we can do. It was the sobbing Emily, teacher-pulling-Emily-from-me-while-I-walk/run-away-trying-to-wait-until-I-get-out-the-door-to-sob-myself fun of three-year-old preschool that I just couldn't handle.




Here is Claudia on the floor of the dining room enjoying a little school of her own. Clearly she has already figured out that it is better to be the teacher than one of the students.

Here are the girls at their cousin Kyle's birthday party. Kyle is one of Eric's sister's four children who, along with their parents Lynn and Brian, live on what I can only describe as a child's fantasy land acreage. They have, among other things, their own soccer field, a trampoline, a huge pool, and the biggest private-family playground structure I have ever seen. I secretly imagine sneaking over there at night to play with their stuff, Lynn and Brian waking to the sounds of me jumping on their trampoline.

Here Emily is enjoying the pool and Claudia is enjoying the perks that living in the country bring: like giant corn spiders! Both girls are crazy about snakes and spiders and bugs of all kinds, so these spiders that big cousin Ryan caught were a huge hit!

Okay, so Claudia getting her bangs cut wasn't exactly a highlight of our summer, the faces she makes while having her haircut are pretty funny!

Here are the girls, fast asleep with Uncle Brant. The girls asleep was always a highlight... and I mean that in the best way possible.

What the girls have been up to

Well, here it is August. The summer has seemed at times to drag along so slowly here in this house.

You literally cannot win with these children these days. Emily, who still will not wipe herself after going to the bathroom, hates to wash her hands after using the toilet, using the aforementioned lack of touching as an excuse. Still, in our house there is a “cross the threshold, wash your hands” policy. So, about ten times a day, after wiping wet and soiled parts that do not belong to me, there is the inevitable argument about hand washing. For the most part I tell her to do it and we drop it there, but sometimes, for no particular reason she fights on, and some of those times, just because I cannot possibly be so invested in each and every detail in this house I tell her to forget and just go on. Then, like some sort of spy Eric has embedded in the family, she tells me that Daddy ALWAYS makes her wash her hands, and so, really, shouldn’t she do it?

Plus, it has been so hot and muggy and just plain awful outside that the days just seem to drag on endlessly. But even as I write that I look up and suddenly it is August. School is going to start in two weeks and soon fall will be here and then, maybe, I can breathe again.In the meantime we have had a lovely summer full of short trips and tons of time with family and friends. There have been no Make-A-Wish type events. We have filled the days with swimming, a few whole-family naps, just about every frozen treat known to man, and lots and lots of yummy sweet corn, butter running down our chins in little rivers. There has been very little illness and no injuries, so really, what more could we ask for.

The girls are funny and beautiful, smart and so creative. I am happy beyond words that children seem to turn out so well from pure dumb luck on my part. For those who have been harassing me about updating this site (you know who you are) here are some snapshots of them playing in our “back yard” which at our house is located on the side of the house. Enjoy!

No snack for you!

I think that the Department of Human Services may be about a block away from my house. Eric is probably filing CINA petitions as I write this. And even if neither of these things is true, the fact remains that I am an awful failure of a mother, or at least Emily’s teacher thinks so.

First, a little background: one day a week Emily goes to three-year-old preschool. Her teacher, Mrs. Sifert, is a woman who is so clearly made to be a preschool teacher that it makes my breath catch at our good fortune to have her for Emily’s first two years of school. That said, I have developed a pathetic need for her to like me. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to hide the fact that I am clearly an impostor mother-want-to-be that has no idea what she is doing when it comes to raising children.

I fret about the clothes I send Emily to school in, vacillating between wanting her to look nice enough that it’s clear that she comes from a home with responsible parents, but not so good that it looks like she lives with tyrant parents that won’t let her make such minor decisions for herself.

I am a room parent, and not just a room parent. I am the head room parent. I was in charge of calling the other mothers to plan the room parties. I spend about $25 every time they send home one of those book orders even though our house is bursting at the seams with books. I even sent her a letter at the beginning of the year, which, if you read between the lines, clearly begs her to like my child and me. But, it turns out that any good I may have done up until this point doesn’t matter.

Last Friday, after waiting patiently all year for the privilege of bringing snack, we were told by another mom that her son was on his second go ‘round. A tiny bit outraged, and a whole lot worried that we had been passed over because all the other families had gotten together to talk about how none of them wanted their children eating anything that came from my house, I nonetheless screwed up my courage and went to ask Mrs. Sifert if there was some sort of misunderstanding.

And what did this woman, on whose judgment all my parenting self-esteem is hung, say? “No, there’s no misunderstanding. She was given a date on which she was responsible for snack, she just didn’t bring it.”

SHE JUST DIDN’T BRING IT? Was she kidding? She thinks that I looked at the notice, balled it up, threw it in the trash, and just thought, “Screw that. I’m not feeding a bunch of Emily’s friends.” She may as well have just kicked me in the stomach.

I tried to tell her that I would never forget to bring snack but she continued to offer excuses that all boiled down to the single point that I had screwed up. And she said it in a kind of casual way that may have meant that it was really not such a big deal either way, that perhaps they have some sort of contingency plan in place so the kids don’t just sit there starving to death and staring with hatred at the kid whose loser parent was too good to bring them basic sustenance, but that I am sure actually meant that this came as no surprise to them. That they has all written me off long ago and that, in fact, the head-room-parent thing was just meant to be ironic, like when they call the biggest guy in the group Tiny.

I knew it!

So what now? Emily had no school this week. But next week I will have to go drop off my child again to spend one day a week with a woman that I am convinced sees me for the thirteen-year-old in thirty-three-year-olds clothing that I am. She knows that deep down I have no idea what I am doing. And next year, when Emily is in four-year-old preschool four days a week, I will have to work even harder to pretend that isn’t true.

Let’s just home DHS makes it here in time.

The Easter Bunny

Here is a photo of the girls all decked out for Easter. The smile Emily has is because she is SO excited to be holding a REAL LIVE BUNNY! Claudia's look is because she has, once again, realized that we, the kind of people that take pictures like this, are the family that she is stuck with. Or, maybe she just has something against rabbits. I left off the photo of her, dressed all in frilly, pink silk strangling the Easter Bunny.

Link fixed

For those of you that were bothered by the fact that the link to our house website didn't work, it is now fixed. I guess some people are bothered by links that go nowhere.

Also, I should mention that there is nothing new at the site, it's just that now you can get there.

Who we are this week

We have been gone so long from this Internet documentation of the girls’ lives, and they change so quickly, that I feel as if I have to introduce them all over again.

Emily is passionately striving to expand her vocabulary. She has mastered the most important things: “Where is the food?” “What is that food?” “Can I please have some food?” And, to a lesser extent, “May I have some food?”

She won’t go hungry.

Now she is on to the luxuries of language. She rolls words around her mouth as if learning English by taste. “Palm tree. Paaalllllmmmmmm. Palm.” It is, in a strange way, a bit like watching an office romance unfold.

Emily eyes the word from across the room. You can see it in her face when she hears it. She begins by asking about it, trying to be subtle, but it is clear whom she fancies. She may as well be asking if it is seeing anyone.

“The fire is so delightful...” I sing.

“Sing that part again… the fire part.” She asks.

Finally she begins slipping it into conversations where if not exactly out of place it is nonetheless awkward at best. “This dinner was delightful.” She says, though much of it sits untouched on her plate. Better yet, it comes out deyightful.

Also, she can now write all of the names in our family, including the pets, so they adorn absolutely everything. Stick figure pictures now have labels. No ears, mind you, but names.

And Thursday, while talking non-stop about who-knows-what (she gets that from me!), she told me about something she had typed out. “I put in z, y, x…” I tuned out for a bit while the string of letters seemed endless and without reason, then came back in again as she said, “e, d, c, b, a.”

“What did you say?” I’m not so good at hiding when I’m not listening. “Did you just say the alphabet backwards?”

“Uh huh.”

“Do it again.” And she did, and not the way that I would do it, by saying one letter and then singing through the alphabet until I got to the next letter. She said it, albeit slowly, as though she was reading it. Apparently, her strength will, most likely be, in passing sobriety tests. So she’s got that going for her, which is nice.

Claudia, on the other hand, has given up what little language she had acquired and has instead embraced a single, solitary word, changing only her inflection to fit the situation.

The word? Mom. Or, more specifically, “Maaaaaaaaam”. Or “Maw am.” (said with a teenagers distain) Or “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom.”

Oh, and she’s decided to change her name to Jo Jo. So much for months spent combing baby name books.

Question seven: What the...?

Wednesday night at the dinner table we decided to teach Emily the game of 20 Questions. She is big into games now and actually she has been playing an informal version of this very game for months now, making Eric guess some detail about her day over dinner.

She is learning to write now and so usually he has to guess from phonics, “It’s starts with duh, duh, duh. What do you think it is Daddy? It has four legs. Duh, duh, duh.” Then Eric spends the next 20 minutes throwing out more and more outrageous answers until Emily has collapsed with laughter.

“Donut!” He’ll yell enthusiastically.

“No Daddy. Donuts don’t have four legs!”

“Dump truck!” And on and on like this until the end when the answers don’t even begin with the right letter anymore and I imagine that Emily can hardly believe just how dumb her parents are. My god people, it’s a dog for goodness sakes!

So, Wednesday we explained the rules to her and she picked the stray dog that we saw in the yard that day as the answer. By the way, should you ever find yourself in our house at dinnertime playing this game and what starts with “duh” and has four legs just isn’t coming to you, let me give you this hint: the first round is almost always a dog. Wednesday was no different.

Eric asked a few questions, narrowed it down to a four-legged domesticated animal that barks, and then asked what I think was supposed to be the outrageous question: “Can you eat it?”

“No,” Emily said quickly. Then she paused and clarified, “Well, we don’t here. But in some other countries they do.”

At our weekend home

Here the girls try horseback riding while weekending at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

For some reason, the weekends don't seem to be all that relaxing for Eric. I can't imagine why.

Proof that the political process works

Eric was reelected by a landslide in November and it was thanks in no small part to this little campaign worker and her Simonson for County Attorney button.

Or, maybe it was because he ran unopposed, it's really hard to say for certain.

Emily Simonson, photographer?

Here is a series of photos that Emily took of Claudia with our digital camera. I love the last one especially. She takes better pictures at four than my mother-in-law does at 64.

What you didn't see...

This is our Christmas card as it was sent out this year (by which, of course I mean last year.) We got a lot of comments about how cute it turned out.

What you didn't see was the rest of our little homemade photo session. I can tell you it was a real toss up over which one to use.