Hey Mom, what's up?

Me? I'm great! Just back from next door. Why do you want to take my picture?

That's silly, Mom. From the side, too? You must really think I look great!

(I have pulled the wool over your eyes just like the skullcap over mine. Awesome!)

Came home to hide this stuff say hi. Chillax, Mom. It's all good in the 'hood.

Shortly after this picture was taken Vera was frog-marched back to her Aunt Lissa's house, as is. Aunt Lissa and various cousins are probably still laughing at Vera's skillful heist of their clothing.

Oh, Vera. You are one in a million!

Thankfully.

I guess Richard Simmons fired his CEO

Disaster Preparedness Training, part IV--You've got to be kidding me!

I really thought my THIRD Disaster Preparedness Training would be my last. I mean, how unprepared for disaster could one family be?

You know the answer because you know the writer of this blog is, ahem, a bit challenged in the area of emergencies. Calm, cool and collected I'm not.

Take, for instance, our first summer of wedded bliss. In the heat of a July Texas night, I was awakened around midnight to the sound of gunfire. Did you hear me? Gunfire in our new little suburban area. I was flat on my back in bed one moment and in one amazingly athletic move, had catapulted myself over John, grabbed the phone, poised my index finger over the 9 button and shouted, "I'm calling 911!!!" John, ever poised in the face of his lunatic wife, did what every calm, cool and collected newlywed husband should do...he started laughing uncontrollably.

When he was once again calm enough to speak, he said, "Jill, it's July 4th."

"Those are fireworks."

So today...I was driving down a busy street in our small town at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, apparently for the first time ever. All of a sudden (because these things always happen suddenly), a loud siren is heard and I see a huge firetruck coming toward me from the opposite direction (in his lane, I might add). I quickly swerve to the right lane and pull over and stop.

I'm proud to say that it only took several seconds for me to notice that the firetruck's lights weren't on, it was in no particular hurry, no other cars were pulling over and stopping and, most importantly, our city's civil defense siren comes on every Wednesday at 1 p.m. and is apparently located on this busy street.

Let's recap: my kids don't know how to survive a tornado, I don't know how to properly treat a fainting person and I'm confused by loud noises. The common denominator?

Me!

Vera redux

I was looking through old posts and found this gem. The formatting is terrible but what can I say, I was just glad it published at all! I think these pictures of Vera are so funny and are so representative of her style ever since we've had her and she realized she could exercise some free will compared to the way they were dressed in Russia. All I can say is that she hasn't improved much, other than to refrain from covering herself in mud or mashed potatoes lately.

Enjoy!

A sampling of my wardrobe enhanced (or impaired) girl who thinks she is a boy...

She also thinks she is Spider-man, mud creature, Small but Mighty man, Mashed Potato baseball player, and Western baseball cowboy. OK, I made the last one up.

Funny story about the batting helmet she is sporting in the last picture:

Vera wore it to Luke's first baseball game of the '06 season. We have no idea why but it wasn't a hill we were willing to die on so we let her.

During the game, she had climbed to the top bleacher and had her back to Luke's game while she watched another game. A kid in Luke's game hit a pop-up foul ball which came straight down on Vera's batting helmet. No kidding! She turned around like "What was that???" and the crowd (who had been watching Vera's antics prior to this) all busted out laughing in unison. This is just the sort of thing that would only happen to Vera!

Bits and Pieces

We've had a few days of painting around the house lately, coinciding with the purchase of some nice watercolor paints! Here are some happy results from Dean and Emma. I thought Emma made a friendly looking house, don't you? All I could discern of Dean's drawing was that the X is actually an airplane. Love the colors, though!

The silly kids had to hold their paintings upside down, too.
This is Missy (not her real name). She has taken up residence on our back porch. At first it was an occasional visit but now it's more permanent. I have called the pound, the SPCA, looked in the paper and craigslist and haven't found her owners. She seems to be very well-trained and likely was a house dog because she opens our doors, lets herself in and comes in and relaxes like she owns the place. Wish she had tags because I think someone must be missing her.
The next pics are my attempt at capturing beautiful, full, double rainbows. I haven't seen very many complete rainbows so it was really fun to have two. I also found it interesting that the order of colors was a mirror image for the two rainbows. Thanks to Song for noticing that detail!

We also thought it was interesting to see that the sky was so much lighter inside the rainbow than outside. Anyone know why that would be the case? The rainbows were visible from Waco (about an hour south of us) to North Dallas (about 45 minutes north of us). I guess a whole bunch of people needed a reminder of God's promises.

Another truly remarkable sight from the Spicer home. I knew it was going to be special when I heard Song urgently yell, "Mom, QUICK, get the camera!"

Yeah, so manners are a work in progress around here. I'm thinking of changing my facebook avatar to that picture. Wonder if anyone would notice?

I found a special charity

Here's the backstory: Our family was recently discussing car travel, and my husband John brought up his family's long, boooooooring car trip to the east coast when he was a boy. He said he was so bored that he was bouncing a piece of gum between his hands, watching it go higher and higher then all of a sudden it was gone! Back to being bored until, when they reached their next rest stop, their dad's exit from the car was impeded by a piece of gum stuck between his shirt and the car seat. OOOPS!

So, of course, I ask John why in the world he didn't bring anything to keep him occupied in the car. I brought up short road trips my family took and how my mom would encourage my sister and me to bring books, cards, art supplies, etc. "ART SUPPLIES!? We didn't have any art supplies!!", said in a tone that indicated I must not have been paying attention to his mom all these years. Truthfully, when I thought about it, he's right; no way my mother in law, who is otherwise chock full of great qualities, was going to think about getting her children much in the way of art supplies. (In her defense, I must mention that while processing this childhood trauma with his sisters over the holidays, they reminded John about that box of broken crayons.)

Back to the charity. I was reading the Dallas Morning News the other day and saw an ad for their DMN Charities featuring a forlorn looking little girl so obviously I had to read the ad, being a sucker for forlorn looking children and all. Here is the actual text:

How do you have a childhood without imagination?

A gift of $50 could mean art supplies, books, toys, school supplies -- a chance to imagine.

They grow up fast. Living a world of quiet desperation and of very harsh realiies. These are the lost children. And they are living right here in our city.

(Yes they are!!) I ran to John and thrust the ad under his nose. He made it through the first line and with a withering glance said, "I guess this is about those art supplies?" Through hysterical laughter I pointed to the next line and cackled, "They have a charity for you, honey!"

If you get a chance, you can donate to this charity so children like John and his sisters don't have to grow up to be lawyers, nurses, and math teachers.

Photo shoot

I had all the kids at my parents' home recently and we took some cute, and not so cute, pictures in their backyard.

We'll start with Song in a tree!

Ella was certainly gave me a full range of emotion during her photo shoot!

The picture above is of Ella spitting at me. We're working on that.

That's a typical Ella smile for the camera. That's a typical Ella reaction to life!

Last we have Ella explaining that she'd like to get out of the flower bed!

Dean, showing how handsome he is!

Really, I have no caption for that picture of Luke. Please feel free to add one for me in the comments section.

Oops, forgot to have him take off his rubber bands until more than halfway into the shoot.

Yeah, he's all about peace.

He's also all about disrupting a perfectly lovely picture of Song and Ella.

Alex, chilling.

Vera showing her maternal instinct with Emma.

Emma pretending to sleep.

There's the sweet and innocent Vera we all know and love!

Here's the sweet and innocent Anna we really do all know and love.

Mr. Photogenic

Emma and Alex

Once again, any ideas for a caption would be much appreciated.

Alex having fun with Ella.

A beautiful Song.

Emma just naturally posing.

Another beautiful Song.

We had a great time taking pictures and I was so happy to have a good one to use on my blog header and my Christmas card!

Merry Christmas!!!

If you give a kid a camera...

she's going to take a picture of her feet.

She'll be so excited that she'll want a picture of her brother's hands and amazing eyes

and her sister's belly button

and her baby sister's tongue
The tongue will remind her that she's hungry, so she'll go downstairs for a snack and hand the camera off to her belly button sister to take a picture.
After her snack, she'll want to watch some Hannah Montana and she'll snap this great picture of a Hannah impersonator.

The Hannah impersonator will remind her of her other sister who loves Hannah Montana most of all, so she'll get another picture of that sister.

While looking for Hannah on TV, she'll run across Dora and snap a picture of her sisters again.

After taking all these pictures, our kid will be very tired, so she will hand the camera off to her oldest sister who is very persistent in taking the same basic picture again...

and again...

and again....

and again, with an important addition.

Now that the kid is rested from her photo session, she'll remember how much she loves taking pictures and will start again on her little sister.

Watching the little sister leave will remind her that she hasn't taken a picture of her living room yet, so she'll decide to take one.

The kid might decide the living room needs to be lived in, so she'll ask her sisters to join her again.

While taking that living room picture with models, the kid will notice her sister's amazing eyes.

And chances are, when the kid looks at her sister's amazing eyes, she's going to want a picture of her feet.

The end.

Many thanks to the kid: Vera,

and her substitute photographers: Emma and Song