Glenn had to put a stop to a little boy calling the house for Alex last night. He had been calling for the last 3 days, 2-3 times each day! And, they’re only 7 years old. I saw into my future at that moment. Glenn told the boy that 8 p.m. was too late to be calling. The boy claimed his parents knew he was calling. Things that make me think “what the…?” Anyway, Glenn took care of it. Alex was upset but she got over it. Alex also had her first cavity filled yesterday. She was so upset that she had a cavity and then she was scared silly about it. But she was brave and once the laughing gas took affect she was good to go. She even told me she wanted some of the gas to-go.  We’ve been busy making homemade Christmas gifts. I will share those later this weekend, but for now here is a layout I did of Parker sitting on Santa’s lap at daycare and also an easy candy recipe that I got from Taste of Home magazine.

My Ni Hao! Kai Lan party ideas with be featured on The Creative Place http://creativepartyplace.com/ blog on Monday! Go check it out. There is lots of fun party ideas for every occasion.

Every year when one of my two daughters turn another year older I design a scrapbook layout celebrating them. I like to list their likes and dislikes, such as fav color, fav food, non-fav food, fav tv shows, nickname…just fun things about them. This layout is purely digital except for the hand print of my daughter who just turned three years old. After receiving the digital print back from Winkflash I painted up Parker’s hand with white acrylic paint and stamped her hand print onto green cardstock. After it dried I cut it out and taped it to the layout then framed it. I have 2 frames that hang in the entryway of our home that I rotate layouts featuring my daughters.

My Sister’s Keeper.
by Jodi Picoult

Yes, it is also a movie starring Cameron Diaz (love her). No, I haven’t seen the movie. Somehow, like most books I read that get turned into a movie, the book seems to get lost in translation (think Memoirs of a Geisha). So I imagine this one will too. Although I admit I probably won’t be able to resist and watch it when it is out on DVD. The book is deep in emotion. It’s about the choices we make for others, in this case our children, thinking it is the right thing to do when we could be really, really wrong. Beautifully written. The topic of the book is heavy and the ending I never saw coming…so have the tissue nearby.

PS It’s snowing here again in Denver. 8.5 inches so far on my back porch. Thank goodness it’s Sunday and me and the girls can hangout in our pjs all day! Alex woke up with a low-grade fever…just great!

Parker is getting creative holding her sucker between her toes!

I’ve been on a roll reading books lately. I am still reading the Bible but have to admit I get distracted reading these other books!

Precious
by Sapphire
This book is based on the book Push and is now a major motion picture. I read this book in 2 days. I guess I liked it! It’s a heart-breaking story of Precious and all she endures in her short life. Pregnant at 12 by her father, her baby girl has Downs, father sexually abuses her, her mother abuses her, another baby by her father, everyone thinks she is stupid and ready to write her off as a lost cause. She endures sexual and physical abuse unimaginable to most of us and yet she finds her way out; a light in the darkness. Warning: it is very sexually graphic. In the end it is a story of survival, redemption and compassion. A story I won’t soon forget.

 

The Girls of Riyadh
by Rajaa Alsanea
Novel.
Think Sex in the City meets the Gossip Girls of Saudi Arabian young women; although the sex is implied, and there is no Samantha here. Written as if being told through a series of emails, Riyadh is the story of 4 young women looking for love and freedom in the male controlled world of Saudi Arabia. Someone is spilling all their dirty little secrets via the web! I had a hard time getting into this one. It wasn’t until about chapter 10 that I did so. It took me that long to get emotionally connected to the girls and care about their lives. I found the email response portion that begins each chapter a little catty so I ended up skipping most of it and just read the story of the girls. But once I gave it a chance I it really did enjoy it. It would be a great poolside book.

Halloween is over. I am over the candy. Can I dump it all in the trash without the girls taking notice? Probably not. Even though we had 23 inches of snow this past Wednesday thru Thursday, in typical Colorado style, the snow was pretty much melted by Halloween night. The air was crisp and a little bit windy but not a bad night for haunting. Alex wanted to be a vampire so bad this year (because she is borderline obsessed with vampires). We even had to carved a vampire pumpkin, which the squirrels attacked and ate the fangs. It’s the first year she hadn’t chosen to be something cute. Even her witch costume 2 years ago was “cute”. She did “cute it up” a little with some stick-on bling next to her eyes. Parker was the cutest “butterfly fairy” ever! This was the first year that she really understood the trick-or-treat concept and it didn’t take her long to get into it, running after the older girls and yelling “wait for me!”

 

The Vampire and the Butterfly Fairy

Today is a snow day.
11 inches and counting.
The girls think it is fun.
Me, not so much.
I am quickly going out of my mind.
7 year old attitude started at 6:45 am.
That’s A.M. people!
It’s only noon.
Lord help me, give me calm.

Picture taken on the way up to Mt. Evans.

In light of the story that has made national headlines of Somer Thompson, who was abducted while walking home from school in Florida and killed, I need to revisit with my own children the importance of “stranger-danger”. I don’t believe talking to your child a few times is enough, but I realize I have fallen into the we’ve-talked-about-it-when-she-was-4-years-old-so-she-knows-what-to-do-so-she’ll-be-safe trap. I know I am not alone. I am in no way judging Somer’s mother. I don’t know what she may, or may not have taught her child about stranger-danger. I can only assume that she did talk to her daughter but this monster found some way to get to her baby. She allowed her child to do what all of us should be able to do: let her child walk home from school. Somer even walked home with a group of other kids. One newspaper report I have read is that she got angry at the group, for whatever reason, and ran ahead of them. That was when she was abducted. I have a 7 year old girl and she is moody as hell. I can totally see my daughter doing this exact same thing.

My heart hurts for the Thompson family. I would be out of my mind if a monster took my 7 year old daughter, did God knows what to her, killed her, then dumped her body in a landfill like yesterday’s trash. What Somer’s mother may, or may not have taught her daughter about strangers is irrelevant. Somer is not at fault. Her mother is not at fault. The monster that perpetrated this heinous crime is at fault!

Some parenting blogs have went on the attack criticizing parenting style. Mommy against mommy blogging I call it. When will we realize we are all on the same side? We all want our children to be safe. We just all do it differently. Some have even gone as far as to compare the danger of getting into a car crash to the danger of abduction killings. That is like comparing apples to oranges. One is an accident, the other is called murder.

The important thing to remember is to talk to your kids about stranger-danger. Never ever stop. So, I have pulled out my copy of “The Safe Side” DVD and will be watching it with the girls again. So we can talk and ask questions.

The video is called The Safe Side and it is produced by John Walsh (host of America’s Most Wanted and Julie Clark, the creator of Baby Einstein.) Host Safe Side Superchick walks children through “hot tips to keep cool kids safe with people they don’t know and kinda know”. Kids will laugh as Superchick finds herself in a series of hilarious spoofs.

It’s never too late to have this very important conversation with your child. Do it today!