January 30 - Go to Burger King!

Head out to your local Burger King and grab a Robonaut action figure!! J.D. worked on this robot before the DARPA project started. Pretty cool!!

And speaking of the DARPA project, Popular Science did a feature article on the DARPA Robotics Challenge with some pretty great illustrations. Copy and paste the below link to learn more about the challenge. J.D. is the Controls Lead (controls is the software team) on the NASA JSC team. Go J.D. and go team JSC!

www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-01/how-build-hero?single-page-view=true

Happy Wednesday everyone!

January 28 - East Coast Migration

Monday, January 21: Parent Teacher Conference

"Good morning Mrs. Y. Julia is such a pleasure to have in class. She is so friendly and loves to talk and share during circle time. We were talking about migration last week and Julia shared with the class that she has family "migrating" to Houston from the east coast. I was thrilled she understood the concept of migration and she is also so excited about family moving here. May I ask who is moving?" - Ms. Farah (preschool teacher)

"No one is moving here." - Christine, chuckling

And.....

Tuesday, January 22: Picking up the kids from school

"Mom! The robot can't come to school anymore. He is bleeding all over his body and there aren't any bandages big enough to wrap the wounds. He's pretty sad so I need to color him a picture when we get home to help him feel better." - Julia

To keep things constantly interesting around here...

Wednesday, January 23

"Mom, my name is Holly today." 

Thursday, January 24

"My name is Bella today. Why can't you remember my name?" - said with dramatic flair 

Friday, January 25

"I'm NOT Bella, My name is Roxie." - Julia/Roxie
"I thought Jewel's name was Roxie?" - Mommy
"We are both called Roxie now." - Julia/Roxie

Saturday, January 26

"Sally, mom, Sally. Remember, that is my name." - on the way to gymnastics
"Ok, but coach Alex will probably call you Julia. Be prepared." - Mommy
Sunday, January 27

"What's my name today? What do you mean? My name is Julia." - Julia
"Okay, you can be pretty confusing sometimes." - Mommy
She gives me a look like I'm crazy and semi-rolls her eyes. 

Seriously fun times at our house!! I know I keep saying it, but I love age 4!! So fun!! 

January 22 - Chocolate Thief

Last week, one night after dinner:

"You guys have been so good today and you both ate all your dinner. You can each have one chocolate kiss for dessert." - Mommy (dessert is not standard fare in our house, definitely a special occasion type of thing)

Sparkle (as Julia was calling herself last week) and Luke each devoured their Hershey kiss. They asked for another one and I said no. Next thing I know, Luke is dragging their little table over and climbing up the kitchen cabinets like a monkey trying to get to the kisses. I reprimand him and pull him off the counter. As I am reprimanding him, Julia climbs up onto the counter and gets the bag out. After repeated warnings, she stuffs 2 more in her mouth and earns herself a timeout (she also lost some book privileges).  

After bath time, I was Luke's room (putting his diaper on and getting him dressed). Sparkle told me she was running downstairs to grab her baby (currently named Bella):

Sparkle comes upstairs walking funny.

"Julia, I mean Sparkle..please put your hands to your sides." - Mommy

"Oh no." - Sparkle

Sparkle drops her arms and three kisses fall out of her pj's. 

"Did you eat any chocolate downstairs?" - Mommy

"No, definitely not, I just thought I could eat some in my room." - Sparkle

"Open your mouth. I want to smell your breath." - Mommy

"Um, hmm, eek." She opens her mouth-her teeth are brown and her breath is reeks of chocolate. 

"I cannot believe you just ate chocolate downstairs and tried to smuggle it into your room!" - Mommy

Sparkle shrugs. "Sorry Mommy. It just tastes so good."

And that my friends, is our little chocolate thief. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. 

Happy Tuesday!

January 17 - Sore Throat

Wednesday afternoon:

"The robot wasn't at school today. He has a sore throat." - Julia

January 16 - Oh My Goodness Mom!

Monday afternoon:

"Hi Jules! How was your day?" - Mommy

"Oh my goodness Mom! What a day. Guess what? There was a robot at school today. He came on his own truck. It was a white truck and pretty nice. He met us on the playground and wow, we had fun. The girls called him 'Robo-tika' and the boys called him 'Robotic-sho.' I gave him a high five, a hug and a friendship kiss. You know what a friendship kiss is, right? It's when you kiss the palm of your hand and then press it against someone's cheek. Like this (she demonstrates). And then guess what he did? He pulled my hair! It was kind of funny but it also hurt. He pulled all the girl's hair and all the boys tackled him. Then, he went into Ms. Ernestine's class and the boys there-you know they are crazy boys, right? They tackled him so hard they knocked him over! But you know what mom-he was OKAY. It was so much fun. After that we went back outside and played with him. Did I tell you his name? Robotica. What? I called him something else earlier. No I didn't Mom, his name is Robonaunt. Wait-that is the name of daddy's robot, right? Yeah, my robot was Robotica." - Julia

Tuesday morning:

"I heard there was a robot at school yesterday. Julia loved him. Is he coming back again soon." - Christine to school administrator

"We didn't have a robot here yesterday." 

I love my daughter and her imagination! 4 is such a fun age!!

January 3 - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!! I hope you all had a fabulous, fun filled celebration. Things were pretty tame in our house. In fact, J.D. had to work until 11:45pm NYE but he was home before the clock struck twelve so we rang in the new year together (what a difference from 10 years ago when we went to one of those hotel parties in downtown Austin and partied the night away! But I wouldn't trade our kiddos and quiet NYE for the world!). I was talking to someone on New Years day who was shocked (SHOCKED!) that we didn't watch the ball drop. Does anyone watch that anymore? I'm curious, because I don't think I've watched the NYE special on primetime tv in probably 15 years. That could just be me though, I was pretty happy to have a few minutes to update my book blog-yes, that is what I did while JD was working. Nerd alert!!


Enjoy these additional Disney pictures and happy 2013 everyone!!

Awesome Animal Shots (courtesy of my brother, great shots Greg!)

Face Painting Magic

I Love these Two!

Little Princess

Sorry Donald-Andrew really has no interest in meeting you