Because we don't want Jesus to cry.

We were driving in I-35 traffic and My Redhead was reading the bumper sticker of the car in front of us. I've told her in the past that we shouldn't waste our eyesight on bumper stickers or bathroom stalls because they're usually inappropriate, but this one caught her attention. It caught mine too.



"Vote Democratic or Jesus will cry."


Then my Redhead responds, "we better do that because I don't want Jesus to cry!" And she was firm too. She took it quite literally.


I then follow this with, "I already do, sweetheart."


"Whew! That's good!" Then a long pause....


"By the way, what does, "democratic" mean?"

We are not a spontaneous household...

Okay, so maybe The Redhead is. As for her parents, not so much. And when The Mommy is spontaneous, or at least was, it wasn't always her brightest moment, in fact, it never was. But this past weekend, we took an impromptu journey up north to blessed Minnesota. And what makes it so blessed? Two lovely people were getting married! What could be more blessed than that?

So it's not like it was completely spontaneous. They knew about this ordeal for some time, and debated over it, Daddy finally talked Mommy into marking the little spot that says they'll be there. She was worried about the travel time and trying not to have Miss B miss a day of school. Then soccer came up, but it's just one game, right? Then ballet recital practice came up. But it's just one, right? Then a double header for soccer magically appeared on the schedule and a 3pm Sunday business flight for The Daddy. Whew. Okay, so they weren't going to make it.

It didn't feel right and Mommy was having the hardest time typing up that e-mail that says, "I'm sorry, but we can't make it..." and the keyboard was just being a delinquent when it came to THAT task.

And just when I couldn't delay it any longer, and had tired from juggling the "we should make it work, we can't make it work," lack of logic, it was raining, and soccer looked canceled, and we started rationalizing the drive all the more and how we could do it all before the 3 pm flight. But that was crazy, right? We said so too, about 9 different times, before suddenly, I had the bags packed, a dog hotel reservation booked, and a teacher told I'd be picking up a certain wee tot by 1:30. And as crazy as it was, we made the trek to the Minnesota countryside.

I won't bore you with further details (well, too many), but it didn't rain as much as we had feared, but enough to make it impossible to visit a Minnesota Zoo. We did make it to the Minnesota Children's Museum all before driving out to Red Wing for such a lovely wedding. And after enjoying a little Greek dancing, we headed out and stayed the night in Des Moines before making it to the airport in with time to spare for Daddy's flight. Everything worked as is should have and better, and we had a fantastic time. You can see for yourselves.

How she can tell we're in Kansas...

"I told you the sign with The White Man means we're in Kansas."

By the way, "The White Man" is the KFC billboard.

But she's made a valid point on many levels.

Unfortunately, not every question has an answer

I love my Redhead and like any parent, I think she's one of the brightest, most brilliant children ever. As I'm reminded of those feelings daily, today was no different. We just made it back from school and I was trying to figure out where she went since I was getting afternoon snack ready. I discovered her in her bedroom on the floor on top of her big, brown dog engrossed in a book. The book was a Martin Luther King, Jr. book I had lent to her teacher and the book had obviously not made it back to the shelves, but soon would be promptly buried with my others. She realizes I'm in the room and looks up at me with contemplation deep into her blue eyes and asks me, "Why would someone shoot someone as nice as Dr. King?"



That's a very good question. I'd like to know that answer too.

A Fear of Needles Comes in Handy

There are a couple things positive about people who are scared of needles- they're probably not going to go around stabbing themselves with any sort of object just because they're upset, they're not as likely to inject certain "products," and they're probably not keen on body piercings. These following ideas more than make up for the times my Redhead is screaming in the doctor's office and having to be held down just so the nurse can prick her finger for an anemia test.


We were playing Bailey's new Wii Princess game that Grandma graciously gave us and you get to pick out earrings for your character and Bailey was just changing her cute little character up a bit and so I asked her a question since we were picking out earrings after all. "So, are you going to get your ears pierced?" Now, don't tell Daddy the part where I asked the question, because he will NOT approve at all, but yes, I asked it. BUT, I only asked it because I knew what her reaction would be, because we've been down this merry little lane before.


"NO!" Bailey proclaims as she holds on to her precious little earlobes. "That would hurt. I'll just wear fake earrings. But maybe someday when I get married I will."



I have to admit, I like that idea. Not so much the marriage idea, but that it's in the far off future. Yeah, I'm rather fond of that part and the part where maybe, just maybe, she's not so likely to show up one day with her nose pierced.

Your Annual Dose of Us!

I know some people are probably going through withdrawal (cough, ha), so I'll post this here for their well-being. Wait...does anyone actually read this??? If so, you poor things. Just in case I do have devoted fans though, or more like people just that bored, I will indulge them just this once.

If you received this newsletter with your Christmas card, I apologize. I didn't mail them out to everyone though!


Drumroll please....


Dear Family and Friends, and anyone in between—

I don’t know about you, but 2009 felt like it flew right by, barely giving us much time to enjoy it, let alone savor it. But what an adventure of a year it was!

In late January, we had no choice but to embrace “out with the old” as our ancient Saturn died leaving a very cold redhead and I no choice but to walk in eight degree weather one morning. It was indeed dead and beyond repair and without any hesitation, we found the perfect fit in another Honda Fit, now proudly owning not only our 2007 Honda Fit, but a silver 2009 Honda Fit as well.

Our first trip of the year didn’t happen until the last week in April as we flew off to Florida again. (Oh how we love their sunshine.) We flew into Orlando and drove to our timeshare in Daytona where we enjoyed a week of our ocean view. Also on this vacation we took three different trips to Orlando’s Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure where we ate breakfast with Spiderman and the Cat in the Hat, met Spongebob in person, hated the Simpsons ride, loved the Jaws ride, and hung out with the Grinch. Other highlights included discovering Portuguese man-of-war’s on the shore as well as finding our first whole sand dollar, spotting manatees swimming right under the dock in New Smyrna, seeing some huge sloth bones at the Museum of Art and Sciences, and eating dessert in a racecar at the Cruisin’ Café.

In May, Bailey graduated preschool and we prepared for life as a Kindergartner. We also had our dance recital where Bailey sailed magnificently on the Good Ship Lollipop. It was such a proud moment in our lives!

We celebrated Bailey’s fifth birthday in July at the Great Wolf Lodge and had an out of this world birthday party. Her party was space themed and she made such an awesome astronaut. Soon after Bailey’s birthday, we celebrated Mommy’s thirtieth birthday at Sesame Place near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was such a fabulous vacation as we discovered much of what Philadelphia offered like the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Bailey really wanted to see mummies), the Franklin Institute, a Phillies game, the Liberty Bell, a Ride the Ducks tour, IKEA (a first in our lives), the Academy of Natural Sciences, and the Please Touch Museum. Other area excursions were to the Crayola Factory in Easton, Pennsylvania, the Jersey Shore, visiting family in Mantua, New Jersey and the Discovery Museum in Cherry Hill. We were so busy on that trip; I think I probably left out quite a few things.

Bailey started Kindergarten in August and still amazes us constantly. She’s reading and doing subtraction and addition, as well as maintaining her active imagination. She also started tumbling and a ballet and tap combination class. She has a lot of energy and is putting it to great use as well as never ceasing to make us beam with pride.

Other key moments of the year included Sesame Street Live, Disney on Ice, converting the front room into a play room for Bailey, visiting Thomas the train again, a landscaping project, a week of ballet princess camp during the summer, fall soccer, and celebrating Daddy’s fortieth birthday at the Great Wolf Lodge. Life was full of so much adventure we can only wonder what 2010 will hold!

We wish you just as many adventures with a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!



Love,

Rob, Terra, and Bailey
(Aerial and Fudge too)

We quite possibly have a swordfighter on our hands

Right now, as I type before bedtime, my precious Redhead is finishing up sword fighting on our new Sports Resort game on our Wii. And she's quite good at it and has been since she first tried it yesterday afternoon. She's currently undefeated and still as fearless as always.


I'm constantly amazed by her vigor for such things and her fearless nature. The moment she tried it yesterday, she went at it in a fit of giggles, jumping up and down and defeating her opponent within seconds, at a much faster pace than her father had. And she did it again and again, almost the same speed each and every time.


Just another reason we shouldn't have swords at her next birthday. I'm not going to be happy if I have to be on blood splatter/bio hazard clean-up duty. No, not happy at all.