Dallas Museum of Art

Last week we went to the Dallas Museum of Art. After visiting the Kimball over President's Day, we were expecting another nice, but small museum. We were in for a big surprise.

The DMA is not only huge, it's gorgeous. The hallways are large and interestingly shaped. When we arrived, a jazz band was playing in this open area decked out with huge glass Chihuly flowers. The kids were interested to learn that not only had their Aunt Amelia taught yoga to Dale Chihuly's wife in the Chihuly home, but the artist wears an eyepatch that kind of makes him half-artist, half-pirate.

Elsa loves Georgie O'Keeffe, and we were glad the DMA has two of her works on display. (Elsa' is posing with her Flat Stanley.)

Not sure who painted this. But it made us a little homesick. It's offers a better view than the one we had when we visited it in person.

In the Asian and Pacific art section, Elsa discovered these warriors. Apparently this art really spoke to her.

Ansel can spot a Modrian a mile away. Actually, I guess anyone can. But it's one artist he knows, so we're happy about that.

We had a great night at the DMA. We only stayed an hour (hard to do more than that with four kids in a "do-not-touch" museum). But it was a great victory for us when we were leaving to have Elsa ask, "Can we come back here tomorrow?"

Henry's Big Guns

Last weekend, Henry went with his scout troop to Camp Wisdom to fire some BB guns and get his shooting pin. Here he is outside the fort with his friend Jack.

That's a real Red Rider BB gun he's firing. And no one shot their eyes out.

They didn't bring a flag for the Pledge of Allegiance. But the one on Henry's sleeve worked just fine.

Most of the kids got tired of shooting after a while. But Henry and Jack kept firing until they ran out of BBs, and talked about saving up for their own guns the whole drive home. Not sure that's going to happen. But if it does, neighborhood rabbits, beware!

Fort Worth

We took our first trip to Fort Worth for President's Day. We started off with a trip to the Kimbell Museum. Not exactly the Louvre or the Chicago Art Institute, but it's free and they did have a Cezane and a Monet.

Not sure who this is a picture of (someone Spanish), but Elsa's doing her best impersenation of him.

Later we went to the Stockyards. This is real Texas. We saw people with hats and boots and missing teeth and everything. Twice a day, they bring the cattle out into the streets. We couldn't believe the size of these horns! Everything's bigger in Texas. (This street, by the way, was full of BBQ joints and smelled fantastic. Wonder if the cows knew how much better they'd be smelling with a little dry rub.)

We ate lunch at Joe T. Garcia's - a restaurant that's been recommended to us ever since we landed last May. The food was good, but Greg and I still think it's pretty tough to be Chuy's. Although Ansel seemed to appreciate the meditation pool.

Elsa turns 7!

Elsa's birthday was on February 19th. She made a pretty good haul. I think Henry's used the pogo stick more than she has. When she finished opening up her presents she said the words no parent who was up until midnight getting a party ready wants to hear: "You know what I really wanted?"

Hesitantly we asked her. "More birthday cards," she said. We explained that birthday cards usually don't come from parents (at least until you're in college), and that she'd be getting some from her friends later that day. That brightened her up. And other that having another confirmation that she's a little nuts, we were very relieved, too.

This year's theme was an Artist's Party. My cousin Brittany, who is an excellent illustrator, came to show the girls how to draw Tinkerbell and unicorns (and the girls' renditions were surprisingly good). While Brittany had the illustrators at one station, girls at another station were painting their canvases.

Just so they weren't at a loss and suffer a humiliating artists block in the middle of the party, we gave them the theme "Your Best Summer Day." We had lots of blue skies and ice cream cones. But only Elsa gave us an ice cream cone floating in the ocean near a pink palm tree. Very Dali.

My artistic contribution was this rainbow cake that I found on the Martha Stewart website. It's a double rainbow all the way!

Oh, you're sick, are you?

A couple weeks ago, Henry said he was sick enough to stay home from school. But this is what he was doing by mid-afternoon.

I'm not saying he wasn't sick - he really was. I guess you're just never too sick to rock.

Henry's introduction to the NBA

Greg took Henry to his first NBA game last night. It was the Mavericks vs. the Cavs. It looks like Henry's gagging at the Tyson Chandler poster, but it was just his eight-year-old brain confusing machismo aggression with excitement.

And you know those t-shirts they catapult into the stands between quarters? What are the chances that at his first game, Henry would catch one? Between this and the free Tyson Chandler bobblehead doll he picked up, the kid's going to think NBA games are a giant swag-fest.

Final score

Mavs: 99

Cavs: 96

Henry: Super happy

(By the way, this was Cleveland's 25th straight loss in a row. Ouch.)

Is that you, Texas?

Last week, we were hit with some crazy snow. Tuesday, the roads were so iced over, newscasters were telling people as early as 6am to stay off the highways. Greg worked from home. And school was closed for the rest of the week.

It's all melted by now. But we sure had a good time hanging out and doing absolutely nothing!

Elsa and Chairman Mao

A few years ago, Greg's mom went to China. She brought back some great art, as well as a copy of Chairman Mao's little red book.

As I've posted before, for some reason, Elsa has since claimed this book as her own. Although she hasn't read it, she has made some interesting contributions to it.

Christmas Recap, Part 4: Nana's House

How does someone who has a house like this...

Have a backyard that contains this...

We love Nana and her goats! (Named after her grandmothers Minnie and Myrtie Bell.)

Christmas Recap, Part 3: Snowbasin

If there's one thing Henry loves, it's skiing.

It's really been kind of hard to go from skiing every single week to one or two trips a year. Maybe Greg and Henry will have to take another ski trip in February. I'm fine staying in the lodge drinking hot cocoa.

Christmas Recap, Part 2: Brother Cooper

While we were in Utah, we met up with our old friend from Geneva, Ryan Cooper. At Hire's Big H.

Coop was Henry's Sunday School teacher in Geneva. Just look at these tough guys.

Pinewood Derby

Henry just completed his first Pinewood Derby. He didn't come in 1st or 2nd (or 8th or 10th), but he had fun. And he won "Most Gamey-est" because of his Donkey Kong theme. (I would have thought "Most Gamey-est" would have gone to the car that tasted the most like rabbit.)

Christmas Recap, Part 1

Two things we loved about Christmas break:

Bedtime stories with Nana.

Eating out. (Even after waiting for 45 minutes at the Mandarin.)

Christmas Recap Coming

We had such a great Christmas break - full of family, friends and skiing. I'm going to have to break it up into several posts. Coming soon.

Can you tell which of our kids had never been skiing before?

Still the New Girl

As the Relief Society secretary in the ward, I'm responsible for a newsletter that gets emailed once a week.

As the new girl in the ward, I guess shouldn't feel so bad when I include a list of birthdays in the newsletter and someone sends me the following email:

Dear Sister Christensen,

Sister [so-and-so] died a month ago.

Our ER Thanksgiving

The day before Thanksgiving, Louisa woke up with a temperature of 103. The doctor told us to monitor her temperature for a day, and to not take her around other people. So that pretty much scuttled our plans to celebrate with our Plano friends. We thought just Greg and the three oldest Banshees could go, but when our hostess said she was feeling a little sickish too, we cut the T-cord and decided to improvise our own dinner. (We were planning to bring one of the turkeys so we weren't completely marooned.)

Thursday morning, Louisa was still 103, so I called the doctor and was told to take her into the ER. Greg gave her a blessing before we left and we spent Thanksgiving day from 10:00 to 1:00 in the ER. Awesome.

A blood test, a urine test and a chest x-ray later (great appetizers for Thanksgiving), Louisa was fine. I came home and spent the next two hours getting ready for dinner, and we were eating by 3:00. I think I could be on Iron Chef America. Especially if the secret ingredient were "Take an infant to the ER!" Mario Batali has nothing on me.

Here's a picture of Greg and the Banshees in the backyard of our neighbor Al, with his son John. Al deep-fried our turkey for us - he and his wife are all-star neighbors.

Here we our at our improvised Thanksgiving dinner. At least I got to use my china and crystal!

Here's a video of Al taking our turkey out of his deep frier. This was probably the best turkey we've ever had. Once you go deep-fried, you don't go back!

How Our Kids Swear

Conversation in the car this morning...

HENRY: Dad, you know what I say if I get disappointed? I say, "Aw, jackrabbits!"

DAD: That's a good thing to say.

ANSEL: Yeah, and you know what I say? I say, "Oh, geez! I'm gonna kick their butts!"

Halloween

A ninja, Hannah Montana, and Super Why.

Representative Henry

Henry was elected to his student council on Wednesday!

Each class elected one boy and one girl. He was the only boy who prepared the mandatory campaign speech, so he won by default. But we’re sure he would have won anyway. We hear he has a strong female base. Here’s a transcript of the speech he wrote (with a little help from Greg and me):

"When I am elected to student council, I will have promises to keep. I can’t promise to change the water fountains into root beer fountains. Or to give us longer recesses. Or to send a note home to your parents saying we have the rest of the month off. But I can promise to be your friend. And as your friend, I can take your ideas to the principal. That’s what a friend would do. And that’s what I will do for you. Vote Henry Christensen!"