A Day with Daddy-O

Walking fast just like Daddy

On Friday, Robi took Flannery to explore the city and see a puppet show at the Center for Puppetry Arts.  They had a great time together.  I'm so glad Flanna will have these sweet memories of special times with her daddy.  He's such a good example for the kiddos in our life.

Today, Flanna was telling her aunt Anne that "R-O-B-E-R-T" spells Robert.  Anne said, "Oh, so that's your dad's name?  But what do you call him?"  And Flanna said, "I just call him Daddy-O."

We love that Daddy-O.

Her very own marionette!

What special times have you created for the children in your life?

A Picnic

 We had a picnic with some wonderful friends on Saturday.  The girls climbed trees and made mud stew while the adults sat in the sun and chatted.  (OK, the moms sat in the sun and chatted.  The dads played with the kiddos quite a bit!)  It was a gorgeous day, and a real treat to get to enjoy some outside time as spring approaches.

My hubby is just the sweetest and best dad around.  It brought tears to my eyes watching him play soccer with Flanna.  Such a gentle and kind soul--she just adores him.  Plus, isn't he cute?

Remember to wear green on Thursday!!

Donuts with Dads

Today, Flanna's school had a special program to recognize the students' dads. Donuts with Dads was reportedly a big hit, and the teachers said that a class full of children with a donut sugar high was really entertaining.

Here are some cute pics of Robi and Flannery before school. So sweet!

Seriously, sometimes I can't believe how lucky my daughter is to have such a fantastic dad. I fell in love with a great guy, but I just got lucky that he turned out to be good at being a dad AND a husband. I'm so thankful for him.



What are you thankful for today?

Why I'm Covered in Green Paint

Oh, I forgot to say why I was spattered in green paint. I thought I had bought a watercolor set of paints. Turns out it was oil paints. And I didn't buy any turpentine or whatever you need to clean oil paints off of your hands. And I really needed to get this family tree art project done so I could send it to my dad for his birthday. So I used the oil paints.

It was like The Cat in the Hat all over again.

But the finished product is pretty cool.

Once I send it to my dad and he sees it first, I'll post more than just this teaser pic. You know, don't want to spoil the surprise and all.



Oh, and by the way, we had goo be gone, so hopefully I won't be all green for my morning of IEP meetings tomorrow. Hooray!

Notice Opportunities

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.
--Thomas A. Edison

For some reason, I made the naive decision to put together family tree information for Flannaberry for her baby book. I was thinking I would go back maybe 6 generations and draw it on a little chart like the cute tree you see in the photo. And then tuck the cute family tree into her baby book for posterity.

What I didn't expect was that I would be given tons of information on my family (and my husband's) dating back to the 1700s.

Yup, the 1700's.

So my little family tree chart might be expanding just a weeee bit.

Because I just can't take all this information that my mom and dad and my husband's grandmother have given me and just tuck it away in a file somewhere. All the lists of names and dates look like a bunch of hard work right now, but I'm trying to see them as an opportunity. (Thanks, Edison, for being so spot on in your advice.)

So, I've started entering all of our data into Ancestry.com's cool website. It's so easy that I'm really getting sucked in. I promise I won't become a genealogy freak, but seriously, I love all of the cool family names I'm discovering like Sultanah, Stony, Zella, & Silas. And I also love reading the little notes my dad took in the margins of the papers my parents sent me, and learning things like the fact that Robi's grandmother is 2 years 2 months 2 days older than her brother, who is 2 years 2 months 2 days older than their other sister. See, cool, right?

But goodness gracious, it's a lot of work to organize 4 branches of a family tree!

I'm throwing my overalls on and digging in, though. This really is an opportunity to bring my dad's hard work to fruition, and to be a storehouse of family memories for my daughter. So wish me luck as I roll up my sleeves!


Do you have any interesting branches in your family tree?