For the sake of comparison

This is Savannah now, age 12, 7th grade.

This is ME when I was little. (I think I was in Kindergarten in this pic.)
This is Larry when he was a little boy. (on the right with the shadow behind his head that makes him look like he has more of a melon head than he really does...sorry hon, you know it's true)

Who does she look most like? I think Larry & I look like we could be siblings (at least in our kid pics)....so Savannah's a good blend of the 2 of us. Then again, we hear people say ALLLLLL THE TIME that Savannah looks just like one or the other of us. (mostly me) What do you think?

More hair pictures!

Ok, so you remember last night's post about Savannah's new 'do....check out what it looks like after I curled her bangs & did a little curling on the ends. Let's see the before picture again, and then the "new" one.

How cute is that??!!

Thursday Oct 30th

Today was Day 1 (of 2) of my class parties. Instead of calling it a Halloween party or a Fall Fest party or whatever, we have Pizza & Pajama parties. The kids and all of the teachers wear their PJs to school and we have a pizza party at lunchtime. It's great fun. I put my hair in pigtails & probably looked like a dork, but "my" kids loved it. I don't have a pic of my pajamas (but seriously, it wasn't that exciting...red sweatpants & a gray Wrangler T-shirt...which really IS what I sleep in most of the time), but I did get a shot of my hair for the day.

I started out like this.

I quickly realized that getting slapped in the face by braided pigtails all day would NOT be fun, so I changed it...to THIS. (I just unbraided them....ahhh, much better!)

Of course, I had a headache by the end of the day from having my hair pulled up like that all day. But it was worth it. Nothing that a little Tylenol won't cure. :)

After I got the kids picked up from school & Larry came home, it was time for us to all go get our hairs cut. (ha ha...did you get my joke there? Yes, I am a preschool teacher. I laugh at stupid stuff sometimes.) I just needed a trim. Samuel & Sarah, too. But Savannah.....well, I wanted them to do SOMETHING with her hair. I just couldn't get excited about continuing to see my sweet baby girl with such flat, lifeless hair. She's got super thin, fine hair & it just lays flat on her head all the time. I love her just like she is, but I was hoping that the salon lady could give us some ideas on something else to do...a new cut or style? She reminded me that thin, straight hair will always look flat & lifeless when it's longer. It needs to be shorter & layered to have a little body. And so, without further adieu.....

Before (this is her school pic that we just got back yesterday--isn't it great??! It would be the ONE day that her hair was fluffed up a little bit & not laying totally flat on her head.):

And AFTER:

Of course, in this pic, it hadn't been styled or curled or really done anything with....but we'll get there. She wasn't truly this GIDDY about the pic, but she had just made a series of silly faces & this was the first one I snapped after she'd made a semi normal face for me. Silly goose!

And hey...I keep forgetting to show you. Instead of carving the pumpkin this year, we bought a $3 kit from Walmart that works like a Mr. Potatohead. It has a bunch of pieces that you poke into the pumpkin to change out the face & features. Right now, we have a puppy. We had a pig last week. How cute is this??

Tomorrow evening we will go to the church's Halloween carnival (err...Family Fun Fest). I'll be sure to post pictures of my little policeman & slumber party girls!

Pediatric allergist/immunology specialist

In 1997 when Larry & I moved back to the area & began visiting churches, we met a sweet couple, Paul & Elizabeth S. at our new church. They were in our Sunday School class & became friends of ours. Over the course of the 7 years that we were at Bethel Bible Church, we stayed in touch with Paul & Elizabeth, even though we were not always in the same classes. It was just a few years before we left the church (when Larry went into full time ministry at another local church) that we began to need Paul's expertise. You see, Paul is a pediatric allergist & immunologist.

When Sarah was a year old, she had pneumonia. Her respiratory & allergy-related health went downhill from there. By the time she was 2, we knew she had asthma and some mild allergies. And so, we made a call to Paul & got into his office to do allergy testing. Sarah's allergies & asthma are both very mild. She's like her mama & grandmother... changes in the weather are the biggest source of grief for her where allergies are concerned. And even now, with her being 4 months shy of turning 8, we still don't really know what triggers her asthma. In all the years of asthma attacks, she's never had one during the light of day. They ALWAYS begin in the middle of the night. They may roll over into the next day, but whatever triggered her always starts during the night. {It isn't her bedding, stuffed animals, etc because she's swapped beds a few times, has had multiple sets of bedding and she swaps out stuffed animals every few months...so who knows!}

Today was our annual check up w/ Dr. Paul. {Note: We don't call him Dr. Paul in the office...I'm just using his first name here for his privacy's sake.} He came in & talked to all of us for a while, joked about Halloween costumes with his nurse and generally shot the breeze. It's always nice to visit w/ him because we don't feel like we're in a DOCTOR's office. It just so happens that a good friend of ours is a doctor. Ya know? Anyway, we visited for a while, then moved onto the real reason we were there. He did an exam of Sarah, asked us lots of questions about her asthma & allergies and gave her a thumbs-up for the year. After a quick flu shot (which I'm praying wasn't a mistake....we've NEVER given her one before), we were out of there with an appointment to come back in a year.

Here's hoping that this coming years is as good as the past year. She had croup in March and has had only 1 or (maybe?) 2 asthma attacks all year. Yahoo! Way to go immune system & good drugs! :)

Another "interesting" Samuel story

Last night, we had another interesting/funny thing happen with Samuel. I'll just copy the email I sent to his best buddy's mom.

Just wanted to give you a heads up so you & your hubby won't have a
heart attack like we did tonight. (I'm copying this to Mrs. T--- because I
figured she'd get a kick out of it too...after the shock wears
off.)

The girls & I were eating supper and Larry was in our
bathroom. Samuel went to the bathroom door & asked Larry "Is smoking
weed bad?" Larry said yes. Samuel said "well...I was smoking weed at
school today. I didn't know it was bad." Larry said he very quickly
finished what he was doing in the bathroom & came running out to ask Samuel
who he was smoking weed with. Samuel told him several boys had done
it, so he joined them. As the panic set in, Larry realized it would be
best to ask a few questions.

Larry asked where he got the "weed"
& what he did with it. Samuel said "you know those things that we have
in the yard when you haven't mowed...they come up & then look like this on
the end (he made a #2 with his fingers)? Well, we pulled them up & put
them in our mouths."

(at this point, Larry said he realized that
Samuel was talking about a weed, not "weed"....but he continued & asked
some more questions)

Larry asked "did you light the weed on
fire?"

Samuel acted completely dumbfounded & said
NO!

He asked him "so what did you do with the weed when you were
done?"

Samuel said "I spit it out because it tasted
bad!".

Larry used this as a teachable moment & explained that
Samuel had not "smoked weed" but "sucked on a piece of grass". I guess
someone must have a big brother/sister who's used the term "smoking weed" &
they repeated it on the playground. :::sigh::: Thank goodness this
was not a case of REAL "weed" being introduced to 3rd graders. And during
RED RIBBON WEEK, no less!!!! ha ha!

His teacher wrote back & said she felt sure that this came out of his mouth because they watched a video about drugs in school yesterday. She & the school counselor got a kick out of this. Don't ya just love the innocence of it all?!

Samuel's silly

Of course, I already knew that, but I am reminded frequently.

Just now, he was standing beside me bouncing up & down, fidgetting & generally being hyper. I asked him to stand still.

He said "I can't. I'm naturally move-y."

ha ha! He's a nut.

myspace vs. facebook

Shortly after Larry went into full time ministry at our church, a couple of the staff & their wives created myspace accounts primarily to check on some of the youth kids' sites. We were concerned about the content of their websites. I wasn't sure who these kids were since I was still new to the church, but I was trying to be a helpful pastor's wife, so I did my duty--checked out their pages & then forgot all about the account I had created. Fast forward about a year. One of the ladies in the singles group (Larry was the singles pastor at the time) emailed me & encouraged me to add to my myspace profile. She was getting into myspace & thought it would be fun for me. I went back & added a picture, changed the background color and that was about it. I was on dial up at the time & it was soooo slow that I didn't want to mess with doing much else. But I did enjoy playing around with myspace. I located & reconnected with some old friends from high school and from places we've lived over the years. Over the next 2 years, I became quite fond of myspace, posting pictures & cross-posting some of my blog entries there.

Earlier this year, we had some computer trouble that all seemed to stem from myspace. I brushed it off & prayed that wasn't the case because I was really enjoying myspace. But by late summer when the computer crashed, I was pretty sure I knew what had happened. Eleven viruses were removed from the computer. Yuck. Thankfully the computer guy we had fix it was able to restore everything & we didn't lose anything. After getting the computer back, I tried to access myspace & immediately, I started having the SAME issues we'd had before. Ugh. And so....I very sadly gave up myspace. And wouldn't ya know it? The problems we had w/ the computer IMMEDIATELY stopped when I quit visiting myspace. Everything has run perfectly ever since! I don't know if it was virus stuff or spyware or what, but whatever the case, our computer & myspace aren't compatible.

When I left myspace, I knew that I'd switch over to facebook. From what I can see, it's the "grown up" version of myspace. You can still post pictures & do many of the same things you can do on myspace, but in a more streamlined way without so much glitter & neon pink flashing lights. ha!

Social networking sites aren't for everyone, but I really enjoy it. If you have a facebook page & we haven't connected there yet, look me up!