Lady Gaga

Annabel's favorite music is lady Gaga, and she loves to make up jokes.

Here's a recent joke she told:

"How do you wake up Lady Gaga?"

Answer:

"Poke her face."

Invention box

 

Recently Annabel has been asking if I can help her put together an invention box. An invention box is a shoebox or plastic bin full of parts of broken toys, pen springs, magnets, paperclips and other ingredients for inventions.

She likes to make things. Her imagination is way bigger than her abilities at this point. Some of her invention ideas involve conveyor belts, like the one she had in mind yesterday that would "bring food to dogs, cats and people". Some of them are rube-goldberg like contraptions that do household tasks, like making her bed, and others involve airplanes that can actually fly.

The invention box is a real throwback for me, as I remember having one of my own back when I was Annabel's age. I remember a broken cassette player in particular that I rescued from the garbage to salvage the motor and battery pack.

I've long since upgraded to computer software as my invention box, but the urge is the same.

Brandeis' featured artist of the month

Annabel's is the featured artist at her school this month. She has
her work displayed on a big wall just outside of the gym.

Her first solo show and it's already a retrospective that covers
several of her phases of development. It features several of her
monster food drawings along with a variety of self portraits and
several rainbow and butterfly themed works.

She is very proud.

And the training wheels are off!

After seeing a younger girl riding without her training wheels last week at the park, Annabel asked if she could take off her training wheels yesterday. "It's time." she said to Kristin.

She was a little bit tentative but certainly up for the challenge. After a few runs back and forth on the driveway with Uncle Rick and I, she was off to a wobbly but auspicious start.

Today we went to the park just before dusk on a cloudy and drizzly cold San Francisco afternoon, and she was riding off on her own in no time. She wasn't the best student in the world, preferring to "do it her way" then to listen to instruction or coaching. That meant falling several times, but not hard and it never seemed to upset her.

As I think back now, she really didn't seem to respond much to feedback at all, whether suggestions for how to improve of just words of encouragement. Once she got going though, she was LOVING riding her bike. When she crossed over from the green center to the red box of the basketball court, I heard her say:

"Annabel Goldman is riding through fields of hot lava!" That was awesome.

When we got back into the car for the ride home I said.

"I'm so proud of you guys! You both learned how to ride on two-wheelers in just one day!"

I sensed that Anabel may have been feeling a bit strange because Gaby too had managed to ride unassisted today.

"and Annabel, you could have learned when you were four and a half too if you had wanted. You never liked the idea of taking off the training wheels."

"I didn't want to then though because no one else had theirs off. But now everyone is taking them off and so I did too".

"You sure did. And it only took you one day too. Awesome job!"

I looked back in the rearview and could easily see that he was proud of herself.

Tooth Fairy / Santa Claus Double Header!

This is going to be a very big night for Annabel. She lost her second tooth today, so we are expecting evening visits from both the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus tonight if you can believe it! It's going to grand central in here for childhood figures bearing gifts.

As you can see from the girls thoughtful note, Santa is still a very important figure at Christmas. In case you can't quite make it out, that is a potholder that the girls made for Mrs. Claus. Annabel seems to have some interesting suspicions. She is often quiet when the topic comes up around me, and she has asked Kristin if Santa Claus is really your parents. Kristin of course said no. Gaby is 100% on Santa and can't WAIT for tomorrow morning.

They are both off to bed and we just finished getting the house ready for tomorrow morning. Merry Christmas everyone, we are missing out extended family this year. We hope you have a wonderful holiday and a peaceful New Year!

Lost Teeth, Thanksgiving and Paying The Bronco, Dude!

From ThanksGiving

It's been a very busy few weeks for Annabel.

She lost her first tooth on November 13th. She said she was playing with it at school and it came out on her tongue. She said that it didn't hurt and it only bled a little. She also got word to the tooth fairy (using her Mom as a trusted go-between) that she wanted to keep the tooth so she could show her grandpa who had said that he wanted to see it.

Much to my surprise, Kristin told me that the tooth fairy agreed to let her keep it! I also heard that the tooth fairy is now paying outrageous amounts for first-time teeth. I think there must be a shortage of teeth in fairyland or something.

Shortly thereafter I started to notice some changes in Annabel. She seems suddenly a bit more playful and a bit more at ease around strangers. She was practically performing for our house guests on thanksgiving.

"Pay the Bronco, dude!" she would say in a very funny western accent, holding out her hand, as if to accept payment. Everyone was laughing at the performance and she was eating it up. Kristin and I have never seen her so outgoing. We were also surprised that she was (apparently) the Bronco and needed to be payed.

She has also been reading much more readily. Last week she read practically all of fox in sox fluently and without problems. There is some talk about the fact that losing teeth and reading frequently coincide. That is certainly the case with Annabel.

Here are some recent pics from Thanksgiving which we had here in San Francisco and then our weekend in Lake Tahoe.

From ThanksGiving

From ThanksGiving

Thanksgiving play

Here's the video from Annabel's thanksgiving play. She played the horse (Kristin did an awesome job on the costume).

Her line in case you can't quite hear it is:
"I prefer Cherry Pie, myself. When is Cherry Season?"

It's at about 7:00 in the video if you want to skip ahead. : )

First Soccer Game

A Venture In Lemonade

First day of school

 

I know its been forever since I've updated this spot. I have a huge backlog of posts that I will try to fill in, but I just saw this picture that I took last week on Annabel and Gaby's first day of school that I thought was so cute that I just had to put it up right away.

So far both girls seem to be loving school this year. :)

Annabels 6th Birthday

I can't believe that Annabel is 6 already!

Kindergarten graduation

I can't believe I didn't put these up earlier. They happened almost a month ago now. As you can see it was quite a production. It featured inspirational speeches, gifts for the teachers and administrators, three songs and two dances including one with prop sunglasses, a diploma ceremony and a potluck lunch afterward.

Getting a new tooth

Annabel is getting her first tooth before losing one. It's her right rear molar. Just coming in now.

(click on the pic for a bigger picture).

Camping with K-White

The girls and I went camping with Annabel's Kindergarten class last weekend. We all had a blast. Here are a few shots.

Fathers Day

Sleeping Bags

The girls got sleeping bags today in advance of the official kindergarten camping trip that is scheduled for next weekend. We are going to be camping here in petaluma.

They were so excited about the idea of sleeping in them, they decided to give it a try tonight on the floor of their room.

Surfing

Kristin decided she wanted to try surfing last weekend. I was delighted! We went down to Linda-Mar, which is the main surf beach in Pacifica.

We rented wetsuits for everyone and headed over to the beach. The girls aren't strong enough swimmers yet to even walk into the surf, so I carried them in and let them feel the waves splash up against their wetsuits.

Kristin did get out into the water, which was awesome. She wasn't quite able to paddle out past the breaking waves, but she says tat she enjoyed being in the water, and I think we might be able to find some smaller waves up north in Bolinas next time.

I managed to catch a wave or two.

The Annabel and Gaby Show

Last weekend I noticed Annabel running around the house with the Video Camera making movies. I wasn't exactly sure what she shot until just a few minutes ago when I downloaded everything off the camera. Turns out that she has shot several segments of "The Annabel and Gaby Show".

This is a milestone for her: Her first explicit contribution to her own blog.
Annabel plays a great straight-man host and Gaby plays the role of the comic cut-up. It's sort of a Felix and Oscar type-thing, but with a younger twist. I think it has real potential...

There is a good 20 or 30 minutes worth of these videos. Here is one of the shorter ones:

The Life Cycle Of A Butterfly.

Annabel has been learning about the animals in her kindergarten class, and she has been checking animal books out of the school library at her weekly library visit.

She now regularly whips out Animal fun facts that surprise me.

The Onza is a long legged panther for one example, and the Coyotes that live around here are nocturnal for another.

A few weeks ago, I came up for breakfast and saw this sitting on her drawing table. Kristin pointed it out to me. Apparently Annabel had drawn it earlier in the morning. (She still gets up at about 6:30 no matter what). Kristin had asked her about it and she said:

"It's the lifecycle of the Butterfly. That's the egg, that's the caterpillar, that's the cocoon, that's the butterfly coming out of the cocoon and that's the grown-up butterfly."

"Wow!" said Kristin. "And what about these guys?" pointing to the butterflies up in the corner and the one under her very fancy signature.

"Those are her friends." Annabel said.