Stick Figure Drawings, Hurray!

Some people are fast bloomers, some people are regular bloomers, and some are slow bloomers. In my young life I was a bit of a regular/late bloomer. There was the lower reading group of the "more advanced" class in my grade that I was a part of. (There were 1 and 1/2 classes per grade. One class always had 1/2 of one grade and 1/2 of the another) I always loved reading and would take the city bus by myself at age 8 to go to the city library to get books. However, I was painfully aware, because of my love for reading, that my reading speed and comprehension was not up to the upper echelon of the classroom. Over time, I got over the fact that I wasn't the smartest person on the planet. At the same time I am grateful that I wasn't the most challenged person either.

However, my heart aches for my kids when they seem to have a hard time with developmental issues. You don't want them to hurt or struggle, but that is part of life. Earlier this fall I became aware that Christian was having a hard time with his fine motor skill. Hindsight is 20/20, so I realized all those things he didn't enjoy doing that I found puzzling at times (not wanting to color, to do puzzles, refusing to do his seat belt, etc,.) were because he found it frustrating. Apparently there is a diagnostic tool to see how children are comprehending their surroundings or something by seeing how detailed a stick figure they can draw. Well, Christian never really did anything but scribble. A few weeks ago, he started to do stick figure Aliens that consisted of a smiley face head, a stick body, and a huge foot with toes sticking out all sides of it. Very cute. Finally, today, the first stick figure I have seen from Christian. Not just one, but two. Christian was making a card for a girls birthday party. Katie wrote it and drew a cake and then everything in marker is Christians. He even made hands with fingers (reminiscent to the alien "foot" since he and the girl were holding hands (as friends, he holds his sister's hand all the time). So Hurray for stick figure drawings!

Gilbert Day Parade

In the midst of packing for our trip to California (okay, I am totally putting it off), we decided to attend the Gilbert Day Parade that ended about a half mile from where we live. We packed up our new folding chairs and got the camera, and away we went. I am not sure why we have a parade this time of year except that it is cool enough. It is just to celebrate our wonderful town of Gilbert. So while we were waiting the kids took pictures of each other and had me take pictures of them and that occupied them until it started about a half an hour later.

What a great smile!

Our little ham bone....
The police color guard started the parade with the fire trucks sounding their sirens as they came down the road.
We had a great time, and then we went home. To start packing. Yeah...I am taking a "well-deserved" break right now. (I'll leave that up to your interpretation).

Another Day, Another Trimming

When one moves to different areas of the country, you learn all sorts of different things about the amazingly different flora and fauna the Lord has put on the earth. Here in Arizona, plants are predominantly spiky to different degrees. Not all, but most of the things in our yard. Also, the plants LOVE the heat. No joke, they do not grow much or at all during the "cooler" season. No, they love to grow like crazy when it is a blazing 110 degrees outside. Growing up in the Northeast, California, even the living in the Pacific Northwest you only trimmed trees if a branch was annoying, or was growing into important phone lines.

When we moved here we experienced something entirely new. We have a Mesquite tree in our front yard. We moved in at the end of March with the tree looking nice. I kept wondering as time went by if the tree was really that full when we moved in. By the end of May, I was getting a little flustered about what might be wrong with our tree. Then the branches were touching my car. Finally, a big branch was resting on my car (it is a soft wood) from the weight of all the new growth on it. As I backed out (amazingly without any scratches) it continued its decent to the ground. Of course, now professionals had to come out and take care of it. Still, it took us a few more months to realize, we would need to thin out the tree at least 4 times a year between April and November. Luckily, we already had a sawzall and just needed to get a long tree pruner.

Once, I trimmed it by myself. That is not a smart idea, being on a ladder by yourself with a sawzall. Mesquite trees are a very soft wood. So when I would cut off a large chunk, what I thought was a good clearance of tree to ladder would swiftly disappear as the tree limb would rise. It happened often enough (yeah, I am a little slow, it should have only taken once) for me to realize, Mike should be around for the next time. The tree was trimmed without incident, but I am not sure it wasn't without attentive angels (shaking their heads at me), as maybe my time wasn't up yet.

This last Saturday was another yard cleanup day. The last one we did all the bushes that had grown past the point of acceptable and it was finally cooler which was more acceptable to me. It is once again bulk trash pick-up this week, so we needed to trim all the palms and our two trees. The kids were really cute and helped us haul the non-spiky tree limbs to the front curb. As long as it is not horrendously hot, I actually don't mind it. We are getting faster as it only took us 2 hours for all of it this time. Katie is a real sweet heart and helped sweep the driveway and brought us tall glasses of water without being asked. I was really touched. Katie and Christian have both learned to stay clear of the trimmings as the type of Mesquite we have has small to two inch spikes on its limbs. (Another wonderful aspect of that particular tree.) Here is a picture of the kids in front of the trimmings (that pile is over their head). It brings us great joy that trimming is done, and we are hoping it doesn't grow a whole lot over the Arizona winter.

Later the kids were ready to go outside and have a water fight. Here is a cute picture of the kids together, soaked. Mike had just cleaned the glass doors that morning, of course.














They later went to the park with Mike, by scooter and by bike. So a little work and a little play, made it one great happy day!

Student of the Month

Warning: Parental Bragging will be taking place. Skip this blog entry if you loathe this concept.

This morning we had an opportunity to honor Katie. She was once again chosen as Student of the Month. She was chosen twice last year, once by her teacher and the other time by her music teacher. Last months virtue that they focused on was Perserverence and Katie was chosen to be the student in her class that exemplifies it. We are very proud of her. She works really hard in school to do well and is just so sweet (especially when she listens to me :) ). You may not be able to tell from her picture but she was very excited. She gets a little shy at times and won't smile really big.

This is what her teacher wrote:

"I feel this student deserves The Student of the Month Award because this student works very hard each day. She models Perservernce in our class when she sticks to a difficult concept and works it through without giving up.

"She is a kind student and is a role model to all her peers and I am happy to have her in my class this year."

Here is a picture of Katie's teacher Mrs. Radziwon and her after the ceremony. You can see she is more comfortable one on one with her teacher. She absolutely adores her teacher. Look at that huge smile!

Marchese Genealogy Find

We just found out some great stuff on Mike's genealogy! We are very excited. The information on his grandfather is not completely accurate at this time on the website (4 vi on the page), but we can now go back 5 generations! We emailed the webmaster of the sight and got a return call. So Mike got to talk to the grand niece of his great-grandfather tonight. She is 73, but looks 60 or 65 on the website. She was just wonderful to talk to. Here is a picture of the Marchese family crest.
















Here is a picture of Mike's Great Grandmother Maria for her 80th birthday. His Grandpa Joe is 3rd from the left in the back row.













We think it is pretty cool. Thought we would share our excitement!

Halloween Arizona Style!

Halloween Pumpkin Carvers Unite! No more dangerous knives that could kill you (like when we were kids), now we have pumpkin carver kits. Love them. The kids are getting better at it. I think they need their own pumpkin next year so I can let go of my perfectionism. :) It turned out great though (partly because I was holding on...let go, let go, let go).

It is a different land here in Arizona on Halloween. It becomes a neighborhood block party. (Well, not our neighborhood, we had to go a few streets over. But the cops tried to arrest our neighbor right before we left to go trick-or-treating). Neighbors set up tables in their driveway, have games to play, s'mores to roast and dancing to do. One house had their Nintendo Wii projected onto the garage and trick-or-treater's stopping to play. Christian was all over that one.

Here are the kids in their Halloween costumes. Katie was a Fairy and Christian was once again Buzz Lightyear, his cartoon hero. It wasn't until later that I realized Katie's costume was sleeveless. She had a jacket on before we left. Kinda funny, she danced in that, so it was never a question on modesty when doing that, like swimming. Never thought about it in a costume way. Just thought it and wrote it. If I pointed it out to her she would probably be mortified.

We had a lot of fun. Christian wanted to go home after a while because we had "too much" candy. When we got home he went in and got himself ready for bed. Katie stayed out with us while we talked to some of our nice neighbors across the street. Such a social creature like her Mom. She doesn't want to miss a thing. They are so precious. It is fun to see share these experiences with them.

Happy Halloween!