We traded out the girls' old double beds for twin trundle beds a couple weeks ago. This has been the subject of lengthy discussions at our house. Jason (6'3" tall boy) believes that it is better for the girls to have big beds. Katie (5'6" girl) believes that the girls will be happier with smaller beds with trundles underneath. I think Jason's mistake (because he is wrong after all) is that he's approaching this from a guy's perspective. He doesn't understand that little girls LIVE for sleepovers. It's the most fun I ever had as a kid. He believes that sleepovers would be just fine using a sleeping bag on the ground. So, anyways, we finally came to an agreement and the trundle beds arrived a couple weeks ago. We've already had 2 sleepovers with Payton, and the girls love it. This morning I took them out to a girls-only donut breakfast. Yum. On the way home, we saw these awesome hats at the craft fair in the park. Had to get them for our upcoming trip to Disneyland in March. Then, I forced the girls into some photos just because (although they loved it). And, Jason's reward was that he got to sleep in. See, I knew he'd grow to love sleepovers too.
 

Tonight the DiSimone family entertained ourselves with a good clean game of b-u-t-t-'s up. (Sorry, I can't type the word correctly since inevitably there will be all sorts of perverts coming unnecessarily to my site with the google search terms for b-u-t-t-'s up if I spelled it without the dashes. ewww.) If you haven't played it in awhile, I highly recommend finding some of your favorite 5 year olds to play with. The girls were giggling and laughing until they had tears streaming out of their eyes. Jason and I were just dying because they could not hit the "target" for anything. Just count how many times it took Holly to even hit Jason's back...and that she missed standing about 3 feet away. But her excitement when she finally did connect was just awesome. So, yes, that's what we do for fun around here. No monopoly or reading...good trashy fun.

Edited to add: Jason says the reason Holly couldn't hit his rear was because he "has such a small, toned b-u-t-t". Um....yeah, babe. Sure.
 

Today I saw a matinee of Slumdog Millionaire with my friend Marcelle. Jason generously watched all the kids while we went to the Crooked Kilt, ate potato skins, had two Kilt Lifters (yummy!), and then went to the movie. It was kinda like how my college days were, only everything happened in the afternoon instead of night time. Oh, and there wasn't the smell of fresh cologne in the movie theater...instead it smelled a little of Bengay. Friday matinees get a different crowd, if you know what I mean.

Anyways, I loved the movie and especially loved the way it was filmed. Very cool angles and post-processing work on the colors. I also really liked the soundtrack. I am a sucker for the Indian music. In fact on my way home from a wedding in October, the hotel had an Indian MTV channel. I watched it for 2 hours. Seriously. And, then I decided to brush off the camera and take a couple shots of the kids. I haven't approached them with the BIG camera in a loooong time. I am a little worried that I won't have enough photos of them growing up. Need to take more pictures and videos. But, then I got outside and realized how cold it is. Burrrrr. My kids will probably only have their lives well recorded when it is summertime. I don't do cold.
 

I am going to be out of town for a few days in Las Vegas. There's a big convention of photographers that meet there annually, and I'm going for my first time. I have previously tried to avoid this convention due to my incredible love of gear. Somehow I don't think it is safe for me my wallet to be walking a tradeshow floor full of the latest camera gear. But, I'm throwing caution to the wind and packing my bags, including an empty one just in case. If you need to get a hold of me, my iPhone is coming of course...so I'll still be in touch.

And, since no blog post is complete without some photos...here's a few point & shoot from when I took the girls down to San Diego last month. Anna's highlight of the San Diego trip was taking my aunt's dogs to Dog Beach in Del Mar. She spent hours throwing the tennis ball for the dogs, and even had fun giving them a bath afterwards. Holly's favorite part of the San Diego trip was seeing family...but of course, I didn't take any photos of that. UGH. So, here's a few from Disneyland. She got a stuffed cat (Marie?) that she carried on every ride with her. I couldn't figure out why Holly rode the merry-go-round with her head facing up so strangely, until I saw this photo...she was imitating Marie who she had put on the horse next to her.
 

It was just a matter of time before someone broke a bone, I suppose. Anna was playing kickball at school last week and twisted her ankle. We had to pick her up from the school nurse's office because she couldn't (wouldn't?) walk on it. We iced it, raised it up and let her rest. We figured it was just a sprained ankle.

(here comes the bad parenting part) Later in the evening, she still wasn't putting much weight on her foot at all. I was thinking that she was just playing up the injury for sympathy. Tried to tell her to "walk it off", but she wasn't having anything to do with that. So, I told her that if she still couldn't walk on it in the morning then we would take her to the doctor and he'd give her a shot. I thought that she would immediately start walking on it with the threat of a shot looming overhead. She didn't. In fact, the next morning she hopped to our bedroom door and said she still couldn't walk on it...then immediately burst into tears exclaiming "I DON'T WANT A SHOT!"

I felt lower than low. Obviously she really was hurt, and it was more than just a sprain. Took her to get xrays and turns out she fractured her ankle in two spots. Just from a simple turn of the ankle. In fact, the doctor told us young kids don't ever really sprain things...they just break them. The way the ligaments are developing, there is just no room for sprain. It's just a break usually. They let her pick the cast color. She chose (Laker) purple over (Celtics) green much to Jason's agony.

The most amusing part of this story? In 6th grade, I fractured my foot and my mom made me walk on it. She didn't believe that I was *really* hurt. And I've always wondered how she didn't understand me when I said it really did hurt. Why didn't she take me to the doctor right away? And now...I've officially turned into my mom.  Anna has a walking boot for the cast and she goes back in 3 weeks to see if she can get it off. She was pretty excited by the whole thing at first, especially the xrays. But, I think the novelty has worn off and now she just wants to run and play again.