Photos I thought were lost due to an unfortunate sd card formatting incident

  

Zoë turns 11 and meets Meg Cabot

Despite my begging her not to, Zoë turned the big 1-1.  Party plans to come since her birthday was on TAKS testing day and the weekend after was Easter but we celebrated as a family.  Happy Birthday, baby girl!

The Friday before her birthday I drove her into Houston to meet one of our favorite authors, Meg Cabot (Princess Diaries, Avalon High, and for adults the Queen of Babble series among others). 

Bluebonnet Hell

Every year as spring does its things our highways and roadways are dotted with beautiful bluebonnets and every year I coerce my children to go stand in the prickly, buggy, bramble and smile pretty for the camera.  Here is this years results.  I LITERALLY took 207 frames and got only 4 or 5 that were usable.

Easter pics

Despite a rainy start, our Easter turned out great.  We all met up at my parents' house and had a huge feast and after the rains worked through, the sun came out and we were even able to have a little egg hunt.

Here Comes the Sun

After some really cold weather, we had an early warm up in time for Miss Sadie to head out to the backyard and partake in some trampoline jumping.  She's so happy in these photos and I love love love them.

Soaking in the warmth and just so happy to be outside.

I taught her the belly flop.  She looks sort of like she's flying here.

Hair courtesy of gravity and static electricity.  Love her eyes here.  Zoë's eyes had turned green by this age so maybe Sadie will keep her baby blues.

She's growing up so fast :-( It honestly seems like last week when Zoë was this age and now she is in 5th grade and trying to survive the horror of THE FIFTH GRADE "TALK".  Girls had it yesterday and the boys have it today.  She was wholly mortified but happy to hear that I hadn't lied to her in my explanation of the facts.  She was quick to tell me that it was strictly about periods and junk and nothing about the sex stuff.

The Weekend

There's nothing quite like a weekend free from expectation and/or duty - okay ... well relatively free from expectation and/or duty.  For some reason the humans in this household insist upon eating on a regular basis and that job falls upon me.  But other than cooking and the requisite clean up afterwards, I have been rewarded with a blissfully slothful weekend.  I didn't have to drive car pool on Friday since it was a school holiday nor do I have to drive it tomorrow for the same reason.  My super cool new laptop arrived at the end of last week and I've been able to tweak it to my specifications without thought or worry to childhood accessibility issues.  Yeah me.  I have been able to check my e-mail and surf the net from the comfort of the living room couch and not have one person ask me if I was done yet.  I also have some new photo editing software and I have been able to play around with it.  Example A:

me likey!  I have visions of lovely denim in the bluebonnet photos this year if the children cooperate.  If not, I'll be shopping around for either more cooperative children or convincing mannequins. Aside from my mommy guilt over having such a cool tool only for my use, I'm blissfully happy.

Ah well ... back to the slothdom.

Merry Christmas from the Morgans

May peace be in your hearts and in your homes this holiday season.

Halloween 2008

It was a typical Morgan family Halloween.  Zoë changed costume ideas at least 5 times before deciding upon Bella Swan, one of the main characters in the Twilight series of books.  Sadie has had her costume for months now but tried to do a Zoë-inspired switcheroo and go as Plex from Yo Gabba Gabba.  Because apparently I can pull random costumes out of my butt.  Needless to say, she had to get over herself and go as Super Why as planned.  Zoë received a last minute invitation to go trick or treating and partying with her BFF Savanna and they had a blast.  I have photos of the two of them together at Halloween every year since kindergarten.  Such sweet friends.  David was still in Plano working, so Sadie and I took to the streets and hit a few houses of friends and family before stopping at Sonic for slushes and heading home.  All in all, uneventful but fun nonetheless.

Two minutes and fifteen seconds

That was how much time was left on my audiobook playback on my Ipod yesterday.  During the storm I made use of my time by listening to Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture.  I knew going into it I could only do it incrementally and I was okay with that.  It was pretty emotional stuff so I welcomed the breaks (for those that don't know, Pausch was a college professor who had married and had children later in life and was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.  The book details his preparation and thought process behind his last lecture that he did).  Typically I like things all at once.  I forget details, I lose imagery, etc.  I had weeded through the 4 hour and change reading and was down to the last 2 mins and 15 secs.  Yesterday afternoon I loaded Sadie up into the van to go pick up Zoë and her friend from school.  I started a movie for Sadie and went on my way, thinking that I would use the time I was actually in the car rider line to listen since I usually use that time to cuss out people that are doing it wrong.  Long story short, due to sibling arguments, ridiculous questions and requests, and one particularly vocal time out, I was finally able to finish 2 hours later.  Yeah ... being a stay at home mom is a total cinch.  I have loads of time to myself and to pursue my own interests.

Hurricane Recovery Kid Style

Lack of electricity tends to flush people out from behind their doors.  We played outside in our front yard a lot!  Out of everything that happened, maybe one of the best things is that Zoë finally learned how to ride her bike that Santa brought to her 2 years ago.  Ahem.  We have tried and tried to teach her but she gets so tense and worried and scared and all of that is really counterproductive to the process.  I was wheeling out Sadie's trike and thought to myself, "Self, go get Zoë's bike out and see what happens."  She looked at me as if I had horns.  I carefully aired up the tires and set it straight and said, "Zoë, you're old enough and smart enough to figure this out.  I'm here for you if you have any questions and I'll help to keep you safe.  The only way I would be disappointed is if you flat out give up."  And with that, off she went.

(ominously tinted photograph to represent the fear and angst associated with the long forgotten Huffy)

Here she is just trying to balance while rolling down the incline of our driveway.

Oh, at the bruises the child incurred.  The backs of her legs are black and blue from being hit by the pedals.  David was horrified but guess what.  She survived and is quite proud of her "war wounds".

A few days later, able to pedal up that incline and stay upright.  Yeah, Zoë!

"I like to ride my bicycle, I like to ride my bike"

Sadie trying to figure out how to catch a lift.

And now for the video:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And some general Sadie cuteness.  Trike and car and sidewalk chalk and Fun Dip.  Mmmmmmmm.

She fell in love with the Nintendo DS during the power outage.  She and Zoë would "picto-chat" between the two.  Here she saw where I had the camera out and begged me to take her picture.  I love her expression.  This is one of those photos that totally captures her.