A little old and a little new

First, I saw this picture in my widget bar and realized how much I miss Walter, and how much those kids have grown. It was a very sad moment. And then I noticed the fairy wings and had to smile. It's little things like that, that make me realize how much I miss living close to our Utah family.





Second, I told you about Cora's note to her mom. Well Here it is. You may have to open it to get the full effect. Go ahead and do that now.



Okay, so translated it says, Mommy, you are hurting my feelings. Carol saw it and had the expected mixed emotions given the seriousness of the note, but couldn't help but laugh since she is smiling so big in the drawing as if she enjoys hurting Cora's feelings. I have to say the faces are my favorite parts.
Anyway it is the weekend and I have a paper to do so, enjoy those big gulps.

Winding Down

News from the girls, lets see. Jess got an ear infection :(:( (two because it is very sad). She actually has an inner and outer ear infection, so she was leaking yellowish puss. It is so sad to see her like that. But Carol texted me earlier and told me she was smiling and eating breakfast, so hopefully it will pass soon. In the meantime she is taking quite the drug cocktail; eardrops, amoxyl, and alternating tylenol and ib profine for the fever. She should be off of the last two soon though. Cora, as you heard was doing standardized test and excelling. Her teacher actually told us that she could skip kindergarten and go straight to first grade, however, because of Cora's size she didn't recommend it. Carol and I talked about it and decided the same thing. I think she is definitely smart enough and socially she could handle it but she is so small I worry that the kids would tease her, especially after hearing that Claire, who is taller than Cora, is teased for being small. Still, it is awesome to know that she is doing so well. She wrote Carol a letter, and drew her a picture, but I will have to scan it in and post it because I couldn't do it justice without the visual. Maren, oh Maren, she is so Maren. She is picking up some on the talking thing, and I have a feeling she is going to take off in full sentences at any point, but until then, we keep working. She is such a hand full, and all the "baby proofing" is quickly becoming obsolete. As for Carol and I we are doing fine. I just gave my last presentation in Physio, which went well. Fortunately for me my professor is more about quality than quantity, since my lecture was about five minutes shorter than average, and I got an A on my test, WOOHOO! Which in the short run means I definitely got a B or A in the class, and also I am done with that class. I just have to show up for the rest of the semester. Such a relief. Now I just have one major paper (ugh!) and one more test and I will be done with my first year of Graduate School. Only 4 more to go. That is laced with so much sarcasm, I can't even describe.

Future

As some of you may or may not have heard. Annette had invited us to spend about a month and a half living with her while Rollie went to boot camp. He is planning on joining the National Guard and is going through MEP's on Monday. My semester ends the first week of May and I go back for summer semester around the first week in July. That window, as it turns out would have been just about right for the first phase of his training. However, as we planned and prepared, discussing options with family and friends, we found out that Rollie wouldn't be able to start training until July at the earliest. While the news was discouraging, it was also releaving. As you can imaging making plans for our apartment while we were gone and other factors was a little strenuous as well as plans for packing 6 weeks worth of supplies into suitcases was less than encouraging. So even though we were looking forward to living as close to a beach as Annette is, as well as Disney World, it wasn't meant to be. In other news I am applying to a few places around here, and hopefully one of those will pan out. I did get a response email today, and it sounds promising. It is at a Behavioral Medicine Hospital in Dallas. The most discouraging is that it is around 30 miles away and with gas prices as high as they are that is something we will have to figure on if I get an offer.
Since everyone is really reading for news about the girls, Cora is doing well. Cora's preschool teacher was running standardized tests and said Cora is doing exceptionally well. She's a smarty. Lately she has picked up Claire's habit of writing notes in her own little sounded out form of spelling. I believe she spells daughter "dotr" which is so cute. She loves to write them and then hand them to Carol and I. Yesterday she gave me a note that said Dad, I love you tooooooo. This on a little scrap of paper a little bigger than a quarter. Jess, well you have heard about our little sweet Jess, she is full of adventure, maybe that has something to do with the animal in her. She definitely keeps us laughing. Maren is continuing to learn. She is struggling with learning to annunciate, but we keep working with her. If we ask her to say something she usually can get the intonation right, but struggles with moving her tongue to create any different sounds. She love to antagonize Cora and Jess. I have mentioned they try and play their game out of her reach, but Carol and I have tried to make that more difficult by not letting them close doors and lock her out. Beyond that she is now capable of climbing up on the chairs and tables and even moving chairs around to reach where they are at. Consequently she will grab something they are playing with and take off with it. It is cute to see her run and smile like it is some great game, not so cute to hear the other two whining about it. The other day she took something of Jess' and was running back and forth on the couch just out of Jess' reach. She had a ball.
Beyond that Carol and I are doing well. Looking forward to the end of another semester and whatever our summer brings.
Josh
P.S. These posts have been spread out over a week because nobody is commenting and I keep expecting more comments. That is a not so subtle hint.

Jess' funny little sayings

For quite a while now, I have wanted to post Jessica's quotes. Some of you might not find them very funny, but she keeps us laughing regularly. So here it goes (this is all from my memory, so bare with me).

A few months ago she came running up to me and said/shouted "I'm full of adventure." Anyone who knows Jess well will laugh at that.

Last week she yells to me from the bathroom, "Momma will you come wipe me?" As I enter the bathroom, I ask "Are you done?" She says "yep, that's about all I can handle coming out of my bum, it's a big one hu Mom?" It was massive. That girl can lay some pipe!

And heres one more bathroom quote from dear silly Jess. I was called in once again to help wipe her and she said "my pooh looks like a fish, I must have an animal in my body."
I hope that you all got a good laugh.
-Carol

In this one Jess was trying to get her Daddy and had this possesed look on her face. It was so cute. The one above we were trying to recreate the expression with the flash on the camera.
I was trying to get a picture of Maren, and the others couldn't pass up an opportunity to pose for the camera. I can't complain.

How sweet are they.

As I said earlier, here are a few of the picture s of the girls over the past few weeks. Doesn't Jess look stylin' in her glasses?
We also took the girls to a local park, it has a huge play structure that looks like across between a castle, a maze and a fort. The whole thing is made out of wood, and is absolutely crazy. The girls love it, but Carol and I worry because it is so easy to lose track of them. On this particular day they all spent about a half hour on the swings.
Jess wanted to help push Maren, isn't that the cutest. I believe this is her attempt at an underdog.
Cora loved the tire swing, Maren not so much, she slid down through the center hole while the swing was still in motion. She was not happy about that.

Oh they are cute.