Amelie's Silhouette

Amelie's turn:

It's more pixelated than the one I did for James, so now I'd like to do it over, but I've lost a little of the momentum I had for the project. Sam was confused about the way her hair looked, because it's usually in pigtails & it was! Probably they should have been more even for a silhouette.

Silhouette

Isn't this neat?

I got such a nice profile picture of James when I was taking the photos of his hair, I decided to try a silhouette even though you're supposed to use a plain background (which would have made it easier!) It looks like I took a little creative license on the curls in the back, but it was hard to see up close with the background color being so similar.

Now I'd like to do one of Amelie, but I think getting her to cooperate for the profile photo may be harder than tracing the outline in Paint (yes, I traced the outline in Paint).

Young Sam

Does this look like anyone we know? 

Sam downloaded this photo & James walked up to the computer and said, "That James!"

I took some photos of the glorious head of hair on James when we were in the bootheel. Can you get over this? It looks like he has a perm. 

Happy Birthday

James and Great-grandma Doris pose with an ice cream cake.

All weekend long, Amelie had been angling for Aunt Tara to give her an extra dessert - I think she must be going through a growth spurt. The ice cream cake was so rich, Tara couldn't finish it, and she offered the rest of her piece to Amelie who said, "But I'm all full of cake, too!" 

Papaw Leroy

We went down to the bootheel last weekend for my Grandma Doris's birthday. We got a text on the way down that the hospice worker said Grandpa Leroy wouldn't last much longer. He ended up passing away on Saturday night.

February 12th, 1928 - March 14, 2015 

I'm glad that so many of us were able to be there. 

My Aunt Lana's good friend had written a nice piece about Grandpa on her blog a few years ago, but I just read it: http://writecreateclick.com/2012/04/16/home-again/

He lived a long, full life. 

My best memories are of when he let me drive his truck - very slowly, going the back way - from church to the grocery store on Sundays when I was 14 and 15 and learning to drive, and of course him being there at every volleyball game when Holly and I were playing. I remember how surprisingly empathetic he was when I was in 6th grade and got contacts - I had to wear these huge, red "Sally Jessie" glasses for the week or two before the contacts came in and I was vainly upset about it and Papaw was upset right along with me (not that he came out and said it in so many words!) 

LegoLand

Two weeks ago, we went to Kansas City to sell a drum kit to a friend of mine from college, buy another drum kit from a friend of Sam's from high school, eat at Fritz's with Jen, and take the kids to LegoLand. 

Fritz's had nifty conductor hats. 

We ordered our burgers using the telephone at the booth and everything.

Sam didn't tell me how crooked my hat was. I hadn't  yet adjusted it to my adult-sized head.

Amelie was fascinated with the train that delivered our food and the apparatus that lowered it down to the table.

But anyway, enough about food.

We killed some time, then walked across the street to LegoLand.

It would probably be ideal for an 8-10 year old, but the kids certainly had a grand time, and could have stayed longer than we did.

Amelie and I built things out of various-sized legos at different stations (send the car you built down the racetrack, build a tower & then turn on the earthquake simulation, etc.), but the kids really probably could have played the whole time in the big play structure. Another big hit (not that you can tell from this picture) was the 4D movie. (The "4" meaning it snowed on us when it snowed in the 15-minute movie & wind blew on us when the racers went around the track. It was neat.)

Waiting on the show to start.

Don't let her too-cool posture fool you. (This was before the movie started.)

We had frozen custard afterward, of course.

Happy Birthday

Also belatedly - we celebrated Grandma Mary Beth's birthday a little early in fact (to beat the snow), but I'm just now posting the pictures.

The kids put their serious faces on for the cake.

Yum!

Thank You

Here is my ridiculously belated (and ridiculously public) thank you to our friend Caitlin for the This Is Texas book. This Is Paris is a perennial favorite at our house, too. Now you guys just need to move to Moscow & all of the rest of the locations :)

 

Sledding

This is a post about sledding, with no actual pictures of sledding (this is the main problem with not having a camera phone -- the real camera can't go everywhere nearly as easily).

But we bundled up after lunch and all walked down to our neighborhood park, where there's a kid-friendly slope. There were a few other families there enjoying the new snow and relatively warm weather.

James went with me and Sam, and Amelie went down several times by herself.

We were out an hour and a half before coming home for cocoa. I'm amazed! I think they only lasted half an hour last time we went out in the snow.