Worthington Family Photoblog

We all managed to get two weeks off together for the Christmas holidays this year by some miracle. So we've got a lot of projects on deck - the first of which is to get the clutterfest that the house has become in shape and cleaned up again. We paid off some bills, got a new fridge, and we're working on cleaning and organizing now. I'm looking forward to being able to spend more time together as a family, even though I know that by the end of these two weeks, we'll be sick to death of each other. ;) I finished preparing most of the Christmas cards today and they'll go out in the mail tomorrow. This year's card is based on the art of Meg Lyman, who seems to share our fascination with the cephalopod.


The cards turned out so cute, and I am so grateful that Meg decided to let us use her artwork at no charge. We've been fortunate to find people who are willing to share their art in such a generous way, so I hope you'll all go check out her stuff, and if you see something you like, buy it! :D Or at least tell her how much you like it.

For those not on the Christmas card list, here's the annual family newsletter:

s always at this time of year, I find myself approaching the prospect of writing this letter with a mix of excitement and dread. I know how much I love to read the letters we receive from friends and family, but at the same time, I never know quite what to write. Well, they say the longest journey begins with a single step, so I’ll put my left foot in and put it back out, and then back in and I’ll shake it all about. I bet you didn’t know we were doing the Hokey Pokey today, did you?

It seems like time passes faster every year. An older woman told me recently that life is like a roll of toilet paper – it seems to take forever to get all the way around at the beginning, but by the time you get close to the end it seems to spin out of control. I can understand that feeling completely! We are so busy that sometimes it’s hard to remember to slow down and enjoy life.

Sophie is 4-and-a-half-going-on-14. She still attends preschool at St. Bernadette’s, and is learning the hard way that her whining isn’t just unpopular at home – her classmates don’t like it either. She is turning out to be very artistically inclined, both in music and in fine arts. She started piano lessons this year, and continues to do Kindermusik with me, but she really loves to sing. She recently informed me that she is going to marry both of the boys in her class named Jack and have two husbands. I thought that 4 was too young to be boy crazy, but boy was I wrong! It’s hard to believe that next year my baby will be starting Kindergarten. This year, she’s decided that when she grows up, she wants to be “a fashion.”

Korben turned 7 this year, and is enjoying 1^st grade. He struggled to find his balance in the beginning of the year, so we had to work on some behavioral issues at school, but he’s come around since then. He’s still studying piano and singing. In May, he once again was able to participate in the All-State Music Festival in San Marcos, Texas. This year, he was eligible to compete in both piano and voice. He worked so hard, and did such a great job. This year, he was chosen to be the All-State Musician for singing “Yankee Doodle Boy” at the competition. That means that he beat all the other entrants in his age group and was named the best singer in Texas for that group! There’s a video of him singing it at the winner’s recital posted on YouTube. We are so proud of him!

Also in May, we flew to Las Vegas to be in my little sister’s wedding. It was a beautiful affair, and it was so wonderful to see so many family and friends. Here’s a photo of me and the kids with Grandma Wynn.

I am still teaching music at Harmony Music not too far from home. It sure is nice not to have a long commute! My Kindermusik classes continue to grow and the kids are a constant source of joy for me. No matter how bad a day is, seeing their little faces light up when they get to play with their favorite instruments or hear their favorite song make it all just melt awayI like to keep busy, but I’m also looking forward to simplifying things a bit for the spring so I will have more time to devote to the family. I’ve been working on brushing up my skills on the guitar and have been using it to accompany some of my students during their lessons, which is a lot of fun. I also have been more involved in drawing and painting again. My friend Andy from college published a book and asked me to illustrate it. It’s called “What Do You Say To The DJ?” and I drew all the interior art. Apparently it worked out well, because he’s commissioned me to illustrate a novel he wrote as well, but it’s not published yet. This has inspired me to get back into art a lot more, so I’ve been painting and drawing a lot.

Ryan is also still with Impact Weather making sure that nothing breaks on their network. He is getting to be pretty good on the guitar after taking lessons for over a year now. He is still very serious about his photography and is working on a new photo studio website to promote himself as a photographer.

We hope you and yours have had a successful year, and that 2010 will be even better than the last.

Sincerely,

The Worthingtons

I got a new camera for Christmas (early) and took a bunch of test shots last night. The new camera is a Nikon D50 Digital SLR and it has more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick at. I just unloaded my first batch of photos from the camera, and I wanted to show how awesome the photos are. On the bottom is the picture as it came out of the camera with no adjustments. On the top is the same picture after I ran it through Picasa and did an "I Feel Lucky" run on it to color-correct, adjust lighting, etc.

So you can look forward to better quality photos of the kids and stuff here soon!

Well, I did my best to save her, but on Monday night, sometime during the night, Judy gave up the ghost and died of her injuries. I am very sad, but I'm glad that I got to enjoy her, Scarecrow, and Roses as pets during the brief time that I did.

I find it absolutely fascinating that even reptiles have distinct individual mannerisms within the normal behavior for their species. Judy and Scarecrow were much more tolerant of handling than Liza is, but I am hoping I can change that with time. Liza seems very content all alone in her enclosure, now.

As many of you know, I've become a reptile hobbyist. We caught a green anole (anolis carolinensis). She was pregnant, laid eggs, and subsequently, in October, one of the eggs hatched. We were thrilled. In the meantime, I'd become hooked, and bought two more anoles at a pet store. One was an emaciated male I named Scarecrow, and the other a female I called Judy. The wild-caught lizard was a total Diva, and constantly displayed towards the other female and even became aggressive, chasing her around the cage with her mouth open. I named her Liza. Scarecrow was so thin, it was kind of scary. I'd read online many stories from other hobbyists who had tried to "Save" thin lizards from pet stores and no one ever succeeded, but hope springs eternal. After three weeks, he started eating, was active, and seemed to be doing well. Then suddenly, he took a turn for the worse, passed a waxworm half-digested as stool, and after that, on Halloween night, he turned spotty and wouldn't drink anymore. Within just a few hours, he was dying. I tried to warm him up by putting him in a container and running warm water underneath it, but he began gasping for breath, and he died shortly after 10 pm that night. Meanwhile, I had accidentally left the door of the upright cage ajar... and tragedy struck. My blue tabby cat, Ripley, had just taken an interest in the lizards for the first time the day before. He jumped on my desk, got into the cage, and killed the hatchling, whom Sophie had named Roses, and caught Judy and was holding her in his mouth when I discovered this. I would have thought they just escaped and ran off if I hadn't heard him growling in the hallway and seen her dangling from his mouth. He dropped her, I caught her, and I have been treating her wounds. He had her hips between his canine teeth and left puncture wounds just over both hips, and bruises and scrapes elsewhere. I have put her in an infirmary cage and I'm feeding her small prey - fruit flies, pinhead crickets - and I built her a mesh "hammock" to hang onto, since she isn't using her hind legs much right now. She can still move them, but it's obviously painful. I'm cleaning the wound daily with hydrogen peroxide and treating it with neosporin and an antiseptic reptile wound treatment I got at the pet store.



Here's a photo of her progress today. She is looking better, although you can still see the swelling and the injury. She is more active and alert today than she has been. I think she's starting to chafe at the small infirmary cage, so tomorrow I will clean the 10 gallon tank again and set her up in there.

Here's a picture of the mesh hammock I made for her to climb. She has been MUCH improved since I made it last night, as she was having trouble holding onto the leaves with just her front legs since she was injured. The mesh holds water similar to how the leaves do, only better, and she's seemed more comfortable with it. I made it from the extra substrate mesh I had from setting up the tall tank with hydroballs. I hot-glued the mesh to some sticks that I had also hot-glued together to make a support system. I baked the sticks in the oven for 30 minutes at 300 degrees to kill anything on them first, of course! I also used this mesh to make feeder insect storage boxes out of some awesome sterlite snap-lock boxes so the cat can't dump my crickets out on me in the middle of the night again. :)

Kids at the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago


Kids trick or treating tonight.


Our house was ready for the trick or treaters...


My pumpkin


Ryan's rotten bottom pumpkin that I carved anyway. Notice the backdoor glow...


Korben's pumpkin that Julia helped him carve. Julia is the German exchange student living with Mel's family this year.


The dogs were confused by the copious use of the word "Treat"


Crashed out.


At Korben's class party on Friday.


School turns him into a zombie.

I made a gigantic photo collage of Korben through the years. If you click on it, it'll take you to a gallery of the images used in the collage.

From Collages

I made a cake yesterday and Ryan frosted it/I decorated it last night. We gave Korben his family gifts just before dinner time - a DS game called "Legendary Starfy" and a fancy DS case that holds like 40 games or something ridiculous like that, and also has room for all his other accessories. Ruma gave him a Sonic the Hedgehog game for the wii.

I want to win nifty shiny things, so I will tell you all that you should go to Girlpirate's shop and take a look at her awesome jewelry, and maybe buy some if you find something you like. Or shop for Christmas. I do! I've bought gifts from her the last two years. :)

http://girlpirate.etsy.com/

She starts her pre-k 4 class at the Catholic preschool down the street. This will be her third year at this school. She started making faces like she did last year but I told a joke and made her smile. :)

Korben gave her a name, but I can't remember it. I totally love my lizard.



She has scrapes on her jawline on either side, but they are healing. Not sure what they're from, but she had them when I caught her. She likes for me to pet her!



She watches me while I sit at my desk. She also changes color a LOT. Right now her head and shoulders are brown, her midsection is green with a brown and white stripe down her back, and her tail and legs are brown.



Eggs! Only one of them appears to be viable, as the other shriveled up. I'm watching and waiting, with fingers crossed. We'll know by mid-to-late september!

Ok. Funny Story. I bought that shirt for Burgundy, but Korben comandeered it because it was a cool "Star Wars Shirt" - hahaha!





Oh no! it's the mama monster!




























Apparently they needed to document the mess they made.

















Me and my bitches, sleeping.