9/15/04

Jump to info about:     David       Cindy       Kelli       Sophie       New One News about Dave:      David is in extremely high demand professionally these days.  Word of his excellent skills in repairing ceramic equipment has spread and he's had enough work to keep him out of the office for weeks on end with no end in site.  Additionally, a national gas kiln manufacturer has him on a type of retainer to answer all tech questions and provide customer service for their kilns.  Quite a feather in his cap!      On the educationial front, David continues to excel in his schoolwork.  Last spring, he was invited into the Honors program at KU.  Both his Spring and Summer semester grades averaged out to a 4.0!  This semester looks to have the same outcome.  His first German test was (drumroll please) an A!  (How surprising!)     Of course next you might like to hear about how David spends his free-time and how he is doing with those activities.  Please re-read the first two paragraphs and remember that David has a wife and 2 kids.  This should answer the question of David's free time. Jump to info about:     David       Cindy       Kelli       Sophie       New One News about Cindy:     Other than a belly that seems to grow daily, not too much new is happening in Cindy's life.  This pregnancy has been quite different than that of Sophie.  She's had two trips to the hospital in the last two weeks (nothing serious though)  The most recent was September 7th.  After an entire night of such intense headache-pain (which was immune even to heavy-duty painkillers), and after throwing up every 3 hours, she scheduled an appointment to see the Nurse Practitioner.  David had to come home from work to drive her.  Upon checking in and an initial once-over by the nurse, Cindy was given an anti-nausea tablet that dissolves under the tongue.  Moments later, she was once again throwing up.  The Nurse-Practitioner then came in and checked on the baby then consulted with the on-call doctor.  It was decided that Cindy would go over to the OB ward for re-hydration and some pain medication.  (Demerol is a beautiful thing!)  After about 6 hours of Saline and drugs, Cindy was released to go home with several prescriptions.  She didn't return to work until 9/10, when the pain had begun to subside.  Otherwise, she continues to recover slowly.  Even still, her appetite is minimal and her energy level is about 1/2 of normal, but at least the pain is gone, and the baby is well & kicking (A LOT!). Jump to info about:     David       Cindy       Kelli       Sophie       New One News about Kelli:     2nd grade definitely agrees with Kelli!  She is in the top reading group in her class!  Right now, they are reading "Freckle Juice."  At home, Kelli has finished "Charlotte's Web" and has moved on to one of the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary.  She also still enjoys reading her monthly edition of Zoobooks (right now, she is becoming the household expert on Kangaroos!).  Kelli looks forward to school every day, which I'm sure has something to do with her wonderful teacher, Tammy Valencia.  Ms. Valencia told her students on the first day of class that they were going to get so smart this year and all they would be doing is watching and listening to T.V. ALL DAY LONG!  This was a bit disturbing to the parents until they got the joke... T.V. = Tammy Valencia.  Ms. Valencia also has a fantastic website for her students and their parents.  I highly recommend visiting it.   For the science portion of her school day, Kelli is studying metamorphosis.  Unfortunately, her caterpillar ended up on the bottom of a classmate's shoe before it could become a butterfly.     Kelli is also a brownie girl scout again this year (which of course means you may be hit-up to buy girl scout cookies this January).  She recently marched in the KU Band Day Parade.  She wore her sash (which has 7 "try-it" badges on the front, and 2 patches on the back.  She will get an additional patch at the end of this year for participating in Band Day)  Her meetings are a little on the late side this year, every other Wednesday from 7:30-8:30pm.  Her bedtime is usually 8:30, so the meetings are definitely pushing it.  Hopefully, she will be able to handle the late night and still do well the next day at school or we might have to consider other options for scouting.  Please keep your fingers crossed for us!     For Halloween, Kelli wants to be the Queen of Egypt.  She likes the egyptian style of eye make-up from the times of Cleopatra.  This year is not our year to do her costume though, so no concerns about getting that ultra-important part of the costume right.  (Kelli has very round eyes which don't really lend themselves to looking egyptian.  I'm sure there will also be a wig or a temporary hair dye since not too many egyptians were blonde!) Jump to info about:     David       Cindy       Kelli       Sophie       New One News about Sophie:     Sophie's last well-child check-up at 15months put her above the 97th percentile in height and about the 75th percentile in weight.  She was still 1/4" shorter than her mom at that age.  Sophie continues to learn new words at an alarming rate.  There are nearly too many to count - close to 200 words used in context properly (most recent are "colors" (for crayons) and "paper"), plus several more that she repeats because she thinks they sound cool (such as "tractor" and "galaxies").  She can also count to 6, and then skips the odd numbers to 10 (1,2,3,4,5,6,8,10).  She likes to sing.  Her version of the "ABC"s is quite hysterical to listen to.  She also has her own version of "Twinkle Twinkle", "This Old Man", "Row, Row, Row, your Boat," and "La-De-Da-De-Dum La-De-Da-De-Dum, What's the name of that Song?"  She's been playing peek-a-boo for quite a while, but just recently learned the joy of playing hide-and-seek with her sister.  She's slowly growing out of Baby Einstein (although Baby Mozart will still hold her attention) and is now entranced by Sesame Street.  She knows most of their names (Elmo, Ernie, Bert, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Grover) and has 4 Sesame Street home videos.      Unfortunately, she will not be starting Raintree Montessori School at 18 months as planned.  She is still #10 on the waiting list!!!!  With the toddler room, there are only 10 spots available (24 in the pre-school room).  Once she is at least 2 years, 9 months old,  and poddy-trained, she'll qualify for the pre-school room and should be able to get in quite quickly at that point.  Plus, her attendance at Raintree will move her younger sibling to the top of the list for the Toddler room whenever s/he is eligible. Jump to info about:     David       Cindy       Kelli       Sophie       New One News about the "New One:"     15 more weeks until we meet the new baby.  Right now, we are simply calling it "NO" In the running for real, post-birth names are:  Natalie, Nicole, Brock, Andrew, Sebastian, and Nicholas.  If you'd like to send suggestions for names, please feel free to do so through the message page.  We do not know if it's a boy or a girl and probably won't find out before the birth in December, so boy and girl names are both welcome. Jump to info about:     David       Cindy       Kelli       Sophie       New One Return to Home Page