Christmas is the best!

I love Christmas! Tomorrow is Christmas! This Christmas tree reminds me of our Christmas tree. Because under our little Christmas tree there is a lot of presents. I know my family is going to love their presents! Christmas is the best!

Halloween pumpkins!

I love the pumpkins. We got acorns then we painted them with orange paint, then I drawed the faces on them. If it looks cute to you, it matters to me, but it never goes out about this. Okay, um, this conversation is over! 'bye.

I made this at school. Oh I love it so much. It's great with the nature of it I could finally do something about this.

Lisa

I made this out of clay. The turtle's name is Lisa, same as my nurse when I take a lip biopsy yesterday. I love her so much, and I don't know why. I took the photo.

family drawings

I love what I drawed, and I took the picture myself. This is what I love the best: My mommy and dad, and we were going to Dutch Wonderland in the car.

the turtle princess

[I made this turtle princess from an appropriately wonderful wee wonderfuls pattern to accompany Marian to her first day of school this year. I just found a bit of paper where I had scribed her background story last month. It's a must-share.]

One time the princess stayed in her bed.
Then her brother woke her up.
Then she say "Ahhhhh!!"
Then she woke up and she like "Oh, brother, you so silly."
Then she decided to draw all the colors of the rainbow and that princess turtle was on the tippy-tippy-top of the rainbow in the picture.
Then brother said, "I'm not so silly. Remember you're supposed to go to that place to do the princess contest."
And she said, "Oh my gosh, brother, I forgot about that." And then she runned to the door and runned outside.
She goed to the princess contest then when she got to the princess contest she was the winner! They see if the person got the right questions, then they get a prize if they win. And this is her prize. Her prize is a turtle that's just like her.
Then she runned home, then she ran in the castle, then she hopped in her bed, then she took a nap. She wanted to finish her nap!
And that is the THE END.

Unicorn Magical

I love my unicorn so much! I watched the movie called The Last Unicorn, and I wanted my own white unicorn. And I had a white horse, so I decided to make that to a white unicorn. And I like my white unicorn so much that I can't believe it's magical in the world of white trees and white flowers. [Marian liked this picture with the flash because it is glowing "magical".]

I wanted curly hair so I used some silk, real silk that's so soft. I got it from Sara and Jeff when we were visiting them [at a great Asheville craft supply] and it's the magical unicorn.

I separated the silk into pieces that were the right size and my mom sewed them on. My mom said what should we do for a horn and we decided to make it out of felt. I said "cut a fat triangle" and my mom cut it out of paper. We tried it on the unicorn to try if it looked good to me and we tried it again and again and again and again and it turned out so good at the the end. I stuffed it with stuffing. We did a spiral and we got some silver thread and put it around it so it looks like it's a spiral. I'm done.

V is for violin!

I love my violin so much. Is the size 1/16. My teacher is named Haylie. Haylie is really nice. And when she told me what to do, I did it so right! I couldn't believe it of all my joy. Of all the things I could do of my violin teacher.
This is when I'm picking up my violin. I love my violin so much. I just love it, love it, love it, love it. With joy!
[We are renting from a marvelous little violin shop, The Chimneys, in the middle of nowhere (aka Boiling Springs, PA), that still does a great business since the cool old guy who owns it is a rather beautiful violin artisan. He's in one of the pics above, but you can't see his waxed, curly mustachio because I wasn't brave enough to ask him to pose. He's working on her bow. ]

My Scientist Experiments

This is what I did: I found an empty of one of my dressings packs and I took a ziploc bag and I filled the dressing pack full with water using a syringe and put the dressing pack in the ziploc then it soaked out into the ziploc bag. I learned that water stays in [the dressing package] for a minute and then it soaks out. The water stays in the ziploc bag for a long time. And then I made letters showing my experiment how it was. That's all for my experiment story!

fashion designer

We had a wee family reunion while on vacation, and Marian's superstar drawing was chosen as the shirt design. We printed them via acme prints, which I highly recommend; good prices & stellar customer service. I know I was annoying w/ my questions...

Here's Marian's Uncle Justin sporting his. Plus a little raspberry juice from one of his twin boys, whom ADORED grandma's berry canes... Photo taken to show off Marian's new smile (dental student Justin helped her get rid of those super-loose top incisors).

a vacation dream

We've been a vacationing, but I think I can talk Marian into posting a bit more again. I did record a sweet dream while we were gone. The girls had asked me to help them go to sleep by talking them through some imagery, choosing a forest and meadow. When I went to check on her awhile later, she popped up out of bed, announcing: "I had a beautiful dream!" Here it is.

The flowers opened and there was a horse that's butterscotch colored and she have curly hair with her mane and her tail. She runned around in a circle and her [hair] swooped a little while she was running and also while the wind was blowing. And she entered into a pathway then she saw fairies dancing, then she put her nose down to the fairy and smelled it and then she runned like the wind, saw the trees blowing and that's all.

wee

I wanted to do it because they kinda looked cool. 'Cause i thought my mom did great of it [the wees mom made for baby cousins for Easter are here]. I like it so much. The bottom was the hardest to sew (and dad did it for her when they went to get dad's hand x-rayed together). I just wanted to have the wee to be my baby, and it's a born little baby that just got born. It was a little bit hard [to embroider the face: her first embroidery & I think she did great!].

[free wee pattern (and others) available for you to sew & modify from craft blogger superstar Hilary Lang at her website, www.weewonderfuls.com]

The drawing Marian made for me when I didn't know what project she was trying to explain to me:

hoping to dream of fairies

[We went to a fairy festival yesterday and the pocket fairy gave Marian a blue plastic gem: “a water drop from the waterfall in the north” and said if she put it under her pillow, she would dream of fairies. Marian was crazyexcited to try it, checking its under-pillow position several times. In a moment of good parenting last night, I asked if she thought it would happen right away or if she thought it might take a few days. Marian: “I think a few days.” True. This morning, no fairy dreams. But she cheerfully recounted what drama did unfold in her golden head last night:]

I was at the ocean with daddy and mama was there, too, and really there was a big dinosaur and he was trying to fight me but daddy held me in his arms and daddy hand was like this in front of my face and after that the dinosaur didn't find me and he was like this: “grummmm” [cute disgruntled face] and after that we went in the ocean and we parked on the sand and that was the “the end.” Oh, there was something else, too. Put it down. I dreamed about we had a boy hamster and we had a girl hamster and I loved them so much and they had their own little cage and they were also nice to each other, too. And that was the “the end” of all of my great dreams.

fine motor skills

I found these bitty drawings by the computer yesterday. Cut and drawn by miss fine motor skills.

Treasure Hunt!

I did a treasure hunt because Audrey wanted to play a game where she just walk around a lot and I don't know why she did that. You find the clues of the picture and at the end, you get a big piece of paper and at the front it says "Go downstairs." It has a picture of a house. When they got downstairs to the room and you turn it over and then it says "you are a superstar!" I did that because I wanted them to feel good.

[make sure you take a good look at the superstar-singer's face. This girl has been watching American Idol! I was so impressed with the expression.]

For Easter we visited Sara and Jeff.

comment trouble

last post buggy & won't let you comment.

so I'm putting this up so you can!

A mystery story

[While looking for another drawing, I came across these, and found out that they were actually mystery stories Marian wrote a few weeks back. Luckily, she could still remember the dramatic plots, and read me the whole thing, as follows:]

(top left) Marian had solved another mystery. It was an airplane and a car.

(top right and right) Part one. Marian had solved a mystery. And i found a thing with buttons on it and an airplane that comed with it.

Good stuff.

My new teeth!

I like my new teeth. The doctors pull my old teeth out because they were loose [didn't want to get knocked about with the breathing tube during surgery. Marian has been wildly excited. They have been loose for forever, but, not eating much, they haven't quite come out]. The tooth fairy comed and gived me a note at the hospital. I got to take my teeth home for the tooth fairy tonight. Bye bye!

I used to have a port

Yesterday they took out my port. My port used to be over my heart. It was just under my skin. The doctors used it to get IVIG [intravenous immunoglobulin]. I'm glad to have it out.


[mom] Marian was a very sweet little patient, even though she had a bad trip (hallucinations :( ) with her premeds. The nurses let her choose one of the quilts a sweet group makes for children at the hospital. This is an exhausted Marian sleeping under it last night after we got back from Philadelphia. Besides removing her port-a-cath, she also got tubes in her ears and a full GI scope, combining as many procedures as we could under one anesthesia, as she is high risk because of her lung disease. Marian usually won't sleep with a blanket, so it was folded at the foot of her bed, but when I came upstairs to hook up her formula pump, she had tucked herself in. I have to share one more thing about Marian's surgery. She has been long anticipating the ear tubes, as the driving force for their placement was her developing deafness, rather than frequent ear infections. On the way home, I asked if she was hearing better, and this was her reply: "Yes. Usually when it's raining, it sounds like music, but now I hear the drops." She's such an artist at heart. We love our princess and are overwhelmed with gratitude that all went well yesterday. It's always so scary to turn your baby over...

I'm a doctor

When I grow up, I want to be a doctor because I like doctors and they're cool and I like them so much. And the doctors do blood tests with me a lot. They do blood tests on me. That's why I wanted to play doctor with my dad. I like playing with my dad. I love doctors so much because they help me and when I get a blood test my mom squeeze my hand or one of the helpers. The end. [mom note: Marian's technique at blood tests is excellent: she's found a "tourniquet" (a strap off of some old swim goggles) and ties that around her patient's arm before drawing blood, tapping around the inner arm for a good vein. She counts down to the "quick pinch", and holds a square of gauze on the site until bleeding stops. So gentle and kind. Looks right into your eyes...and look at that sterile technique! Even a mask!]

My picture I drew when I couldn't go to sleep

When I couldn't go to sleep, I knew I can't draw on the wall, but I drawed on this piece of paper that was already hanging on my wall [by her bed--Marian's sweet class sent her some drawings after she was out of school for several days this winter]. The picture is of dinosaurs, and each has a buddy: one has a star buddy, one has a baby buddy, and one has a heart buddy. I love it so much I couldn't believe it. It has four legs and two arms. All of them have hair and a bow. They have teeth and angry eyebrows! They're poky teeth.

I like my rock collection

I made this rock collection. I got my rocks at my old house and also at my new house. I find them on the road, and also at Pennsylvania. I made a rock collection because i like rocks and I think they're cool. That's why I made a rock collection. (note from mom: This is a completely independent effort. While I was busy packing for our Easter weekend trip, Marian found the rocks she'd collected in her coat pocket this year, gathered paper and pencil, made the numbered grid, and laid each out carefully. She's only missing 48, which is pretty good for a girl who cannot yet "read" numbers above 10--at least she understands the system!)

Felt duck

I sewed this duck over President's Day weekend when I went to visit my friends Emme and Will and Olivia. Emme made a dog. Audrey made a cat, and she will never finish it! I sewed the wings on. I sewed the body on. Mama stitched the eyes on, and I sewed on the beak.