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.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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.”
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.”
Saturday, January 13, 2007
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.
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