Appearances can be deceiving...

Looks all innocent, sweet and adorable, doesn't he? Yeah, that's what he wants you to think...

The (nonexistent) tact of children

Last Sunday, we were getting ready for church. Erich wore his dress pants and nice grey shirt - he looked very handsome and dapper. Even Gabby noticed - she said, "Daddy, you look really nice! You look like someone else!"

December 28, 2007

Gabby asked Jesus into her heart! She and Zoe and I prayed, and she was so happy! :o) :o) :o)

Flat cat!

Not my cat. But I laughed so hard I nearly hurt myself when I saw this, so I'm sharing it with you all. (Three, or four, or however many people actually read my blog these days. :-P )

Zoe

Zoe is raptly watching VeggieTales Silly Songs (a Christmas gift) and has stopped eating. Since she was shoveling it in enthusiastically a few minutes ago, I'm trying to figure out if she's actually full or if she's just mesmerized by the fact that Mr. Lunt doesn't have a bellybutton.
I say, "Zoe, are you done?"
She blinks and says, "No, I'm finished."


Well...that didn't help much at all.

DPNs are fun!

Also known as double-pointed needles. :o) A friend gave me a wonderful set of them, ranging in size from teeny-tiny all the way up to a honkin' size 10, which are good for big people hats. :o)
So of course I had to try them out, and here is the result!

Otherwise known as a hat for SophieSue!

She was surprisingly willing to leave it on, considering her usual propensity for yanking any and all items off her head or feet.

It's a little big for her, but I figure that's a good thing - she'll probably be able to wear it this winter and next. Now I just need to make a matching one for her brother! :o)

"And now it's time to sing...the Bunny Song!"

Any of you familiar with VeggieTales? Specifically, the story of Rack, Shack and Benny. In it, Mr. Nezzer (Nebby K.) sings the Bunny Song.
"The bunny, the bunny, oh, I love the bunny
I don't love my soup or my bread, just the bunny
The bunny, the bunny, yeah! I love the bunny"

Etc. It's a very funny song, and Gabby loves it.

This evening at bedtime, I told her to turn off her light and go to sleep, and she blew me a kiss as she danced into the bedroom. Then from in the room wafted the sound of her singing,
"My mama, my mama, oh, I love my mama
I don't love my soup or my bread, just my mama
My mama, my mama, yeah! I love my mama!"
I laughed so hard I think I pulled something. ;o) Never a dull moment!

He passed!

Thank you all for your prayers!
They had three major tests today - he made a 90, a 98, and then the big one was mostly pass/fail, although there was a gradient score as well. And he passed them all! :-D That's a HUGE weight off our shoulders, since that's all the tests until after Christmas. Tomorrow will be a long day slogging through PT and ACT, but no more tests - yay! :-D
He asked me to pass on his sincere thanks for all the prayers and encouragement - he really appreciates them! (As do I!)

Prayers for Erich, please

He has a very important test tomorrow at 2 pm. He's one of only two guys left to take the test, and this is the third time they've rescheduled it, which is very frustrating. It's been hanging over his head (and by extension, mine) for the last two weeks, and we're both very ready to have it out of the way.
Please be praying for him to remember to be strong in the Lord and trust in Him to bring him through this. This is apparently a very difficult test - quite a number of his class had to take it twice before they passed.

Deet's turn

To give me a heart attack. And a makeover, apparently!
I looked down and saw that he was drooling green. So I grabbed him and started fishing bits of crayon out of his mouth. Just then he opened his mouth wide and vomited all down my white shirt. I am now liberally bespattered with green crayon all down my front.
Then he pursed his lips and blew a raspberry at me. Icing on the cake, I guess.
But that's not all! A few minutes later, Gabby yelled, "He's green again!" Sure enough, he had MORE crayon in his mouth, and there ensued another battle to fish the drooly green bits out. I still don't know where he got it in the first place.

By the way, he clearly swallowed a surprising amount of it, because he was pooping bright green all day yesterday and today. Hurk!
Someone pointed out that he's just getting into the Christmas spirit and he would have gone for the red crayon next. ;o)

A Gabby-ism again

She asked for yogurt last night. I buy sweetened plain and add flavors to it - the favorites being cinnamon vanilla and lime (not together ;o). So I was standing in the kitchen stirring it up and Gabby was waiting for me to hand her the bowl. She kissed my hand as we stood there, and I glanced down and smiled at her. She smiled up at me and said, "I'm so glad I got a good mama."

All together now - awwwwwww.... :o)

Do what now?

Gabby and I went to town the other day. On the way, we were listening to the radio and "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" came on. I started singing along with it just to be silly, and Gabby just listened. Then a few minutes later, she piped up, "Are you going to marry Chris?"
Huh?
She clarified, "You said you were going to marry a little Chris. Are you?"

Pikchers!

I believe I've mentioned the "monkeyness" of Sophie-Sue before. She is quite the determined climber! She's also good at getting herself out of the situations she finds herself in, so I mainly just watch her and try to provide a soft landing spot just in case she does fall.

Both of them LOVE Duplo. I think it's the clink-clink sound it makes when it's held in a fat little fist as the baby crawls. You can always hear Deet coming, no matter where he is.

Sophie in the adorable outfit Erich's (and now my!) friend Sandra in Switzerland sent her.

And Deet in his. (He is SUCH a drool-puss - the next project on my needles needs to be a bib.)

I'm not sure what they were after here, but they sure were determined!

When it rains, etc.

It seems that I'll go for weeks without putting up a new post, then I'll log in and leave three or four in rapid succession.

Anyway, this is a Gabby funny. She was playing in her room, making "food" with her Duplo blocks. (Like Lego, only bigger, so no chance of accidental swallowing by babies.) A few minutes later, she called to me that she was going to throw the food away. I asked her why, and her response was, "It's essgusting and I don't want to eat it. Pony doesn't want to either!" (I guess it must have been really bad, then!

My latest project

Erich bought me a gorgeous knitting book for my birthday (and thank you for the well-wishes, all!) and the first things I made were this little stripey hat and a pair of booties, for Erich's bunkmate, Mickley. Well, not for HIM, actually...more like for his brand-new baby girl, born the day before my birthday. :o)
The booties were surprisingly easy and worked up quickly, even on size 3 needles.
Mum borrowed the book to make some copies - we'll muddle our way through it together.
I've been reading a lot of knitting books and for some reason, knitting with double-pointed needles has suddenly *clicked* with me (Heh. As it were.). I don't HAVE any dpns, so I can't try it out, but now I can visualize what it should look like, and I'm dying to get my hands on a set so I can try making a seamless baby hat (those seams KILL me!).

Family Day!

Friday, November 30th, was Family Day at the academy in Austin. Gabby and I drove down early in the morning and found the academy itself easily enough, although I misjudged and parked about half a mile away from the actual building. Whoops!

We signed in and one of Erich's instructors introduced himself (can't remember his name, of course) and exclaimed over Gabby. "So tall! So pretty! So polite!" Etc. :o) He directed us to the classroom where the recruits do their studying. It had about 6 long tables in rows and we sat at Erich's spot. He was standing against the wall with the other recruits while everyone got situated. Gabby did a lot of coloring and drawing while we waited for things to get underway, and was I ever thankful that Mum had sent that coloring book with us! :o)

The class officers (all except the class president, Recruit Castle, who was off to the side). Erich is second from the left, for those who don't know (Scarlett ;o), and is Class Secretary. Meaning he keeps everything organized and together - he got a lot of praise from everyone we met.

Kind of hard to see him, but this is "Mr. Travis", as Gabby calls him. He's the guy that Erich carpools with, and has been just the biggest blessing to us! (Sidenote: Gabby was startled to realize that Travis was a recruit too - she didn't understand that he's going to be a state trooper as well, silly girl!)

Erich and bunkmate Mickley, demonstrating cafeteria formation. They line up, execute a sharp right turn, and fill their trays down the line - all very shipshape and squared away. Mickley is another really nice guy - he attached himself to us as Erich showed us around because his wife was just days from her due date (she's scheduled for a C-section tomorrow) and so he didn't have any family there. He is very funny - did his best to corrupt Gabby at one point. Erich left her in their sleeping bay for a few minutes while he went to pick up some laundry, and when he came back he heard Mickley whispering to Gabby, "And you be sure you tell your daddy that I said you can have some ice-cream and maybe some cake on the way home." Gabby got quite the kick out of that. :o)

This is Instructor Ballarda, in charge of their Arrest and Control Tactics classes. He's Filipino, and incorporates a lot of Filipino martial arts into their training. He is Lance Armstrong's personal bodyguard, and once a year or so, he takes about a month off to go to France with Armstrong and his entourage for the Tour de France. He is really amazing and the recruits all like him and respect him a lot. I got some videos of him and the recruits doing some sparring and other stuff, and if Blogger will let me, I will post them.

Gabby eating lunch and watching the ACT demonstration. (That's her backpack underneath her daddy's sweatshirt, not a Quasimodo hump. :-P )

Random picture of a cruiser and a CVE (Commercial Vehicle Enforcement) Tahoe.

This is one of the walls in the dorm building - one huge picture of the original building way back in the 1800s.

This is all the storage space Erich has! (And that's my purse there, in case you're wondering.)

This is above the door going into the gym. (Sorry it's crooked.)

And this is going back out of the gym. The recruits slap each sign as they go in and out.

A female recruit (C class - Erich's in D Class) taking down a "suspect".

Video of them just doing basic ACT - Erich is not in there, sadly. He was relieved, of course, but I would have loved watching him do this. :o)

Instructor Ballarda sparring with another ACT instructor. This was unrehearsed, and I wish I'd gotten more video of it, because the flow, grace and precision of their movements is just mesmerizing.

This is another example of ACT - some of the stuff they do every day.

And one more takedown video. That's all, I promise! :o)

All in all, we had a wonderful time. We were all completely wiped when it was over, but it was so much fun, and getting to see where Daddy is living and working was really good for Gabby.