The Right and the Responsibility

So in addition to today being a big day in our family, it's Quentin's ninth birthday, it's a big day for America. We have the right and the freedom to vote, or not. This morning I took David and Joely with me to polls. I let David push the buttons. I hope that he and his siblings will understand this privilege we have to vote.

I always wax nostalgic on these days and I think of the women, yes I SAID WOMEN, who made it possible for me and one day Alice and Joely the right to vote. I am greatful to the Men who fought against England and gave all white men who own property the right to vote, but I admit I am more indebted to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony than I am to Paul Revere. I also admire and appreciate the hard work that President Johnson endured along with the Senate and House who passed the Civl Rights Acts, making it legal for all men and women to share the same rights and be able to vote without fear. Thanks Pioneers!

Here is a little more info on my favorite heroines!

This is Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She raised 7 children and still managed to fight not just for women's rights but for ending slavery. This was in the 1840's and 1850's. She drafted the declaration at Seneca Falls. She was amazing. She used the declaration of independence in her arguments and felt that being a woman or being a race other than white anglo saxon, was not an inferiority. She was most definatly a radical. I think of her EVERY time I vote. She also wrote speeches for this other more well known lady...

Susan B. Anthony... She is the younger one in the picture, the older lady is Mrs. Stanton. After the Civil War she began a magazine devoted to Suffrage. Their motto was

"The true republic-men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less." I love it. In one website it said even as a young girl she was independent and challenged her male teacher because he would only teach long division to boys.

And it's kind of odd to think that it's not even been 100 years of women voting. The nineteenth ammendment didn't ratity until 1920.

Joely gets a haircut, but keeps the curls!!!

Robert's dad has been hounding me for months now to get Joely's hair cut. I usually listen to him, but I rebelled on this. The thought of cutting off her beautiful curls killed me. After the other kids first haircuts, the curls were left on the floor never to return. Well Q-bone still gets some curls if his hair is left raggedy, but nothing like mine. I just really wanted one of my minions to have my blessing/curse of naturally curly hair. Well she's nearly two (wah wah wah) and I havn't cut her hair and her little paws keep pushing her hair out of her face, so I decided to bite the bullet and getterdone. I am happy to report she still has her beautiful curls.

Right now it becomes clear, she's not going to go peacefully along. She's saying "MOMMY!!!"

And here she is going to take her drink and blanket and go home. If you can imagine, Quentin was beside himself with worry, he kept telling me, "She doesn't need her haircut, let's just go." He's such a good brother always has her back.

H enegaged her in a cute game of "monkey see monkey do." It's her favorite game, once she figured out she could get people to copy her, we play it all the time, and it's a great game because it's all very quiet.

And once again there was peace in the Valley. Quentin gave her his pokemon handbook and she was happy.

And for some reason I didn't take a picture of the final product, but trust me she still looks adorable!

Halloween Fun for the boys

David was not happy with the first costume I had him wear last week to the church Halloween Party. I had been asking him for about a month, what do you want to be? What do you want to be? And he wouldn't answer. So at 4:00, when we needed to leave I gave him a cape and hat and told him he was a wizard. At that point he wanted to be an alien, which I could not just pull out of my butt in just ten minutes (even as some would point out, it's an awfully large butt) So he went unhappily as a sad Wizard who was embarrassed. My friend Gala was at the party and she took pity on the poor depressed Wizard. The next afternoon she brought him an alien costume over, all I had to do was add tinfoil. So he wore it to the School Open House on Thursday Night. He was real nervous to wear it because "what if nobody else wears costumes?" But there were a lot of kids wearing cosutmes, nonetheless, he came in Second Place in the school costume contest! Thanks Gala! He finally smiled AND he won a Pokemon Poster.




David the Depressed Wizard and David the award winning Alien.

As far as his depression goes, he never looks much more excited than the above pictures with the excpetion of when he's swimming or opening up a new game.

Last year Quentin was all about Tom Brady. Tom Brady was a football God. This year he suffered an injury and now his career his dead. So Quentin went to Halloween Festivities as a Dead Tom Brady. At the Church party, I did his make up real nice, but for the real day, I messed it up and he thought he looked ridiculous. So I dressed up even more retarded. (ok yes I know I'm not supposed to say that word anymore, but seriously nothing else describes what I wore better) I didn't want him to look the most ridiculous, so I put on the YELLOW Den leader shirt (and Aryn you thought the other one was a clown suit) and a Wolf Cub Hat and I looked VERY VERY VERY LAME- so Quentin felt better. I did not allow photographs taken of me in the costume, it's that horrific. The good News, Quentin won "funniest Costume" and was given a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" do it yourself book, that he wanted from last week's book fair.




After his friends Halloween Party Quentin and two friend spent the night to celbrate the 9th anniversary of Quentin's Advent. IT was fun for all involved. They stayed up until five am. Then rolled out of bed around noon in time to scarf down some hot dogs and head over to Travis' birthday party. Quentin has been recovering quite nicely from his strep throat problems, until after all the partying. I think he pushed it a little too much and he had to convalesce on Sunday. Here's a picture of the boys all trashed out on Saturday Morning.





Quentin got an Ipod Shuffle from us for his birthday and next weekend he'll spend with Grandma Mullens. My parents are sending him the game he requested, officially his birthday will be tomorrow. We have a little somthing planned for him, but since he reads my blog I won't spill the beans. The school just called and he's sick again, I will post about the girls fun later!

Flashback Friday err Sunday

If I did this right, you should be able to see Toonces the driving cat. Just click on the title. This was from when SNL was Saturday Night Live and it was consistantly funny. I am flashbacking to Toonces because we now have a stray that shows up for Tuna a couple of times a week. She/he looks just like Toonces from the Salad Days of my youth. When we lived on Thonig Road, we had a Toonces there too. I even trapped her and had her well him fixed. But when I tried to trap him to move to Laredo, he ran off, never to be seen again, until he/she reincarnated and came on our door step a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for the second chance Toonces.



Halloween was fun, and I'll post tomorrow all the pix and comments-- but David purchased a new computer game and Robert needed to do some work-- so I havn't had a chance to add anything- but as a spoiler, here is the cutest litte Trick or treater we saw!

QUACK! QUACK!