Wall Art

Keira drew this last week and hung it on her wall. 

She was really proud of all the details that she put into Rapunzel's dress.

Rock, Paper, Selfies

Found this on my camera shortly after Lukas finished drawing his Green Day picture.

Hmmm...

Strength in Numbers

Lukas, Lennon and Pepper all joined Kassidy in her room after we had a severe thunder and hail storm last night.

Rad R.A.D.'s

Keira and Katharine had their R.A.D. (Royal Academy of Dance) trials this past weekend.

This is one of the most difficult dance tests that a student can take, and they both did great.

We were really proud of them.

Here are some videos and pics:

Morning Meet-up

These three kids are Sherman's friends who he stops and greets every morning on our way back from dropping the girls off at school.

Zoe is Katharine's age, but they have never met.

Pout Fish

Loving Kassidy's crazy art. 

She could turn into the next Picasso if she keeps this up :)

Champions League Cheers

Lennon, Lukas and Keira joined Fox at the FC Dallas Champions League semifinal tonight. They came back to win it 2-1, in a thrilling game.

Keira was a trooper, but fell asleep within minutes after we got home :)

Unidog

A little over a week ago, Sherman was not himself. He was unable to walk and obviously in pain. We were able to bring  him to our vet as soon as we called her. She listened to his symptoms, checked  his spine and within a few moments she diagnosed ruptured discs.  Carefully looking at the pictures, you can see the accupuncture needles she put in him. He looked like a little unicorn/ porcupine. He also got a steroid shot, two prescriptions for the pain and Chinese herbs in pill form (he is great at taking his meds), as well as crate rest for two weeks. I am happy to report he is doing much, much better and am confident that he will be released from his crate rest when we see his vet again on Thursday. 

Field Trips

Keira and Kassidy were on spring break this week and the boys had worked very hard the  last three weeks on their Greek History block: It was time for a couple of field trips.

Tuesday we went to the Dallas Museum of Art on Tuesday, checking out the ancient Greek art section, armed with markers, colored pencils, pencils, erasers and sketchbooks. It was time to draw some ancient artifacts.

Wednesday we spent the morning at the Dallas Zoo. I only took a few pictures, but we all enjoyed the merry go round, a ride on the monorail and all the wonderful animals, especially the lion encounter where we learned that it is projected that all large cats in the wild will be extinct in the next 10 - 15 years, along with elephants and giraffes.

Friday morning we went to the fair park to visit the butterfly house and gardens there. It is a favorite place for us to visit.

Here is a close up of the underside of a blue morpho's wing.

The kids posed like the sculpture behind them.

The flowers on this shrub look like purple ribbons.

Sand Snakes

First Concert

I took Lukas to his first rock concert on Saturday night. Green Day put on a great show, and I think he knew as many as the lyrics as I did.

"Go Away!!! ... please"

Kassidy still screams at me when I want to play with her, but at least she is starting to say please.

Frousins 4, Arabe Unido 0

FC Dallas scored a goal for each of the kids tonight, winning their match 4-0.

First game of the season- good times!

Art Pro

Keira's drawing was one of a handful chosen to represent her school in a local art show last night.

Here she is with her teacher, but we know it's all genetics :)

How to 'sort of' build a Computer

Last week my old computer died and I had to finally get around to replacing it.

I decided to build one from scratch to save some bucks, and finally got it up and running after a few  minor (ahem) setbacks:

- I bought the wrong size motherboard for my chip and had to return that

- I bought the wrong size CPU fan for my case and had to return that

- I had to reinstall the motherboard when the base of my CPU fan was too loose (which also required a trip to Lowes for some rubber washers)

- I dislodged one of the screws when removing the motherboard and had to carefully pry it out without snapping it

- One of the screws from my top fan dropped into the case when I was installing it, so I had to return to Lowes to get a replacement screw

- I found the lost screw a few minutes after I got back from Lowes

- And then I put the fan on backwards so I had to reinstall it again

- The computer turned on when I flipped the switch on the power supply, but the Bios never booted

- My old hard drive with all of my tax info wasn't showing up until I realized that I hadn't connected it properly

- I had to order an extra extension for my motherboard to accomodate a bunch of extra USB 2.0 wires that had nowhere to plug into

- After much anguish I realized that I had forgotten to turn on the main power switch for the computer (duh)

- The Bios came on and I was able to install Windows 10, but the next day I realized that it was the wrong version (32 bit instead of 64 bit) after enduring a frustrating night where all of my systems and monitors were not working correctly

- I then had to wipe the drive and reinstall everything again

And then it worked :)

Keir"A"

Keira's latest report card:

Kassidy Art

Kassidy has a very.. unique style of art.

I loved this bird that she drew last week, and dug up some companion pieces that she has worked on at school this year.