Tonight Catherine and I were both in a meeting, so we planned to hook the girls up with a video…which wouldn’t play in the machine we had. I tried the MP3 player…which ran out of batteries. Fortunately, Lashi Dodge was a great guy and took them home while the meeting was going on.
Marta didn’t want to go, but settled down enough. Liesl was quite cheerful and as I buckled her into the huge car, said “Bye Daddy!” Not a care in the world.

Catherine sings nightly to Marta. Marta doesn’t talk well, yet, but she does talk. She can express thoughts and she occasionally pops out with a sentence. One song she likes is “Rock-a-by baby.” Catherine was playing with the name, as Marta calls it “Rock-a-baby” and tried a few different phonemes in place of the “R.” Mock-a-baby, tock-a-baby, shock-a-baby!
Marta enjoys saying “shock-a-baby” and it sounds so cute! Listen to Marta and Liesl talking.

Catherine has a headache, so I put Marta to bed. She said “Kürbis” and “Mond” after I had already sung “Twinkle, twinkle,” “Marta had a little lamb,” and “This little piggy” to her, so I made up a little song that sounded a lot like “Once there was a snowman” in German.
We got back into the Springs tonight a bit after seven. Traffic in Denver was terrible for about 10 miles; there had been an accident, so we were late for the Diwali thing. We saw a little bit of the last dance and got some Indian food. It tasted pretty good, but the aftertaste was far to spicy and hot for me. Catherine loved it and really enjoyed talking to an Indian girl. Liesl enjoyed running around with some children and the other costumed Indian children loved Liesl and Marta and said good-bye to them.
Earlier today, we went to the Celestial Seasonings factory. Catherine went on the tour and Iwatched the Liesl and Marta. Marta really liked the Acai Mango Zinger (the only flavor we could try while we waited for Catherine in the Tea Café; we could have sampled 99 other flavors, but we didn’t really have time to, as Marta is an active little girl.) There was one flavor Catherine heard about “Chocolate-Raspberry,” I had thought, on the way to the factory, that it would be cool to try chocolate tea, but then thought “Naw, they probably don’t have any.”

This morning in my session, during a break, Liesl and Marta came in to the conference room! Of course, Catherine had come in first to tell me what they were doing. Liesl greeted me and was so happy to have seen me. It was great. I think the other participants were pleased to see my children, too.

Last night, after we put Marta in her bed, she kept saying “Twinkle!” She wanted us to sing to her. I went and got her and put her between us and we sang several songs to her and Liesl. We changed “Mary had a little lamb” to “Marta had a little lamb” and she seemed to enjoy that, though I don’t think Liesl did as much.

Today was semi-grueling. The morning was spent going over how to create an accessible document in Word in preparation to turn it into a PDF. In the afternoon, we went over how to edit the PDF into an accessible format. So many things seem to be able to go wrong, it’s amazing anyone would want to have an accessible PDF as opposed to a DAISY book.
Later, Liesl didn’t want to go into the store, because she wanted to play “the game.” There were no games outside; only pop machines. After a minute, she started her little dance, so we ran to the back of the store so she could use the facilities.
There was Halloween candy in the bag…99¢ a bag.

I went swimming with Liesl, and by swimming I mean I held Liesl or she held me while I stood in the water. I actually swam one length of the pool with her holding on to my neck while riding on my back. She didn’t want to leave the water, though she was cold. She really wanted to swim.
We’re in Boulder now for a conference. We’ll see how it goes with all of us in a hotel room. Liesl keeps telling her pig and bunny puppets “I just love you too.” and giving them kisses.

I saw Marta walk backwards today! It was amazing. She was walking backwards away from me so she could see what I was doing. She has gotten so big! She also gave a car back to a little boy who was playing with it.
Liesl also gave the car back to the little boy. He had zoomed it across the floor and Liesl got it for him and gave it to him.

We stopped at the store after we went out last night. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of going through the toy department. Liesl and Marta saw the singing Ming-Ming ‘doll’ and loved it. I had to carry Liesl out of the store and then she refused to buckle up in the car. She was so angry.
Tonight, she’s got a tape measure and is measuring things. She measured my head…33 pounds! She measured her belly with the tape measure…25 pounds!

Last week we bought a few gift certificates to Edelweiss ($25 for $2!), so we went out to eat tonight with birthday money. The girls didn’t really eat their Kartoffelpfannkuchen, but they liked the Apfelmus. And Liesl liked the Brötchen.
We really enjoyed the nice, full German feeling, the gemütliche Umgebung, die Aussprachen der Kellnerinnen…it was lovely.
I worried a bit that Marta would wander off and break something, but she was okay. She really liked the Nussknäcker; two were bigger than she was!

The ladies and I went to the non-partisan election watch this evening. Is it still non-partisan if most everyone there voted for the same presidential candidate?
Marta loved the cookies while Liesl chose the pretzels. Me? I had too much Chex mix and too many hot dogs (of course, one is too many of those guys).

Fun movie. I had seen part of it (probably pirated) in the Philippines and got to see the whole thing tonight. The extended scene of male posterior nudity was gratuitous, but I really enjoyed being shocked at the rest of the movie.

Liesl has taken to repeating nursery rhymes lately. Thanks to Daylight Saving Time, it was dark at around 6:30 PM. I took Liesl outside to show her the stars and she repeated “Twinkle, twinkle” and “Star light, star bright…”
Marta enjoys copying Liesl and repeating words we say, as does Liesl. That’s the way they learn, so I need to speak more German with Catherine.
Marta had a rough day, thanks to DST. Her nap was late, then she woke up, then went back down for the nap and didn’t get up until 8 or so. She slipped a few times and cried.
Liesl finally decided she was ready for bed and so was Marta.

Liesl and Marta watched a little youtube tonight. Their favorites? “The Lazytown song” and “The Fast Food Song.” For your enjoyment:Liesl’s, followed by Marta’s, favorites:
 

Catherine sings to Liesl every night. Liesl often asks for new songs she’s never heard before. Catherine has made up the planets song and several others.

Tonight, she was asked to sing the pumpkin song. Catherine said, “Should I make it up?” “Yes!” Liesl answered.

Today we went trunk or treating at church. The girls wore little tiaras and princess-like dresses. They had a good time and got some candy. When we got home, we decided to take ‘em to the neighbors we know, then to neighbors we didn’t know, then around the block, then to the haunted trick or treat yard a block and a half away. Liesl remembered the haunted house from yesterday and didn’t like it at all. We went a couple houses down from the haunted yard and the guy there said we were the first people to visit him (he gave out Ghiradelli chocolates)! Then we went around the corner and there was the lady who ran the haunted house yesterday! She was generous with her candy and the children came home with a nice haul (for us).
Some of the college students handing out candy were also quite nice, though I didn’t see any I knew well or with whom I was even well-acquainted.

The Glass House put on a multi-cultural haunted house and invited the community. Liesl and I went about a half hour after they started; we were the first ones there. Catherine and Marta went after we got home; I don’t think too many people from the community went. I only hope several students did.
The scenes were based on different stories from different cultures. Liesl got scared in the second room, so I carried her the rest of the way; there were strobe lights and fake spider webs and scary people. La Llorana was kind of unnerving, as she followed us muttering or wailing for a while. Liesl didn’t really feel better even when the scary stuff was behind us and we were in the well-lit basement (kitchen?) where she was presented with two bags of candy. She didn’t even want to walk until we were home.
I fell kind of bad for the people who put it on, as they went to quite a bit of effort to move all the furniture, put on costumes and put up all the decorations and stuff.
I guess because Liesl was scared, a couple people didn’t pop out to startle us as they had planned.

Staying up too late these last few evenings. Then, when I go to bed, I cough and think until Catherine’s asleep. Catherine watched the new “Northanger Abbey” and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I’ve been clicking away in PROWL to get the student worker training schedule up.
Liesl and Marta…are happy, though we let Liesl stay up way too late tonight.

The debate coach asked me to help him by being a judge at the debate tournament. It was a lot of fun to judge the rounds. Finally, a chance to see things go the right way in a speech tournament…my way.
Unfortunately, I was also sick. Fortunately, I felt much better by the time I had to judge.
Judging was a lot of fun and many of the speeches were interesting. For example, there was a speech about how the price of poultry will go up or has gone up, because the fuel industry is taking the feed corn for ethanol. Another speech was about various alternate fuel sources. A third, which I saw twice, was about DHS requiring young immigrant women to receive Gardasil. The contestant accidentally gave the speech in informative, though it was a persuasive speech.

The girls wanted to take some photos tonight. Unfortunately, Liesl enjoyed being in the first photos, but developed a shyness soon thereafter