Hair Salon

Well, I'm getting pretty good at doing my own hair every morning before I come down for breakfast so I asked Mae if she wanted me to do her hair and she was really excited.

So we set up shop in the bathroom and got started. First we looked through our accessory options and then I went to work.

After I got the back pony done with a trifecta band, I had one last piece that was the front of her hair coming to the back.

Eventually Mom helped me out with that piece because it kept falling out, but the rest of this masterpiece is all mine.

An Education, by Mabel Jane

I hope you are all ready to be educated on childbirth and the developmental stages while the baby is in the womb because Mabel is about to drop an intellectual bomb on this place.

Evil Finleivel

Okay, so as my gymnastics are improving I've decided to take it to another level. It's time to go straight for some hardcore stunt action, and I needed some help from a friend.

I started with some of my warm-up routine which included some splits stretching...

And some handstands.

Then it was time for the show. I called up Mom's friend Jill to see if she would participate. A hard negotiator, Jill cost me three green grapes, a bag of my favorite pretzels and two stickers. Her agent takes quite a stand. But it was worth it, I needed something to jump over, after all.

Pre-jump you can see the scene. Jill is in position, thousands of fans attending the event (you can't see them here, they are behind the cameraman) and I'm down the hall getting myself psyched.

And then it began... a swift sprint down the hallway... and... TAKEOFF!

The crowd went wild, the sponsors went berzerk and NBC said ratings were through the roof.

I, after such a taxing evening, had a small bowl of ice cream with some strawberries and went to bed.

Advanced Literature

So it was reading time on Sunday morning. Mae and I got a bunch of books from upstairs and headed for the couch.

So Mae was reading Clifford or something of that sort and I was getting pretty deep into my book.

So Finley, what were you reading? Looks like an awful lot of words and very few pictures

Well, I got myself into some "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac and I just could not put it down. I followed that up with "About a Boy" by Nick Hornby. After about 45 minutes it was a wrap and we headed for the park.

Naughty or Nice

So every Friday at school if you've been good for five days in a row you get to pick something out of the prize box. Nothing big, it's usually a sheet of stickers or a special pen or something.

Well, there is a group of us that gets to pick out of the prize box every week, without fail, and then there's this crew...

I got home last Friday and decided to write the names down of the kids in my class that continuously do NOT get to pick out of the prize box.

I don't know how many times to tell them that Santa is watching...

Gold Medalist

So it started with the Olympics. Mom and I had the stomach flu and so we spent three straight days laying on the couch watching the Olympics. And that's when I fell in love with gymnastics.

So much so that we went to see the U.S. Gold Medal team at the United Center, where they performed some amazing gymnastics for us, and our seats were almost in the front row.

It was only natural that I sign up for gymnastics classes. So I go twice a week near our new house and here are a couple of my moves.

And since Mae and Stacey were bringing me to gymnastics Miss Maria (our teacher) fell in love with Mae and now she is in my class, too, with a bunch of four and five year olds. Here's Mae doing her thing.

My father's daughter

Okay, so you know how there are those moments in your life when you say to yourself, "Am I seriously a product of that person?" I often think this when my Dad throws the TV remote across the room and breaks it after his favorite team loses; or when he just lays on the horn for 20 seconds or so at someone blocking the intersection.

Well, last night we were out bumming around - you know, the usual: the grocery store, Home Depot, that whole bit.  Anyway, I looked at what the two of us were wearing and we both had the same thing on.

It was about 40-degrees and we were rocking t-shirts with no coats on and in our favorite flip flops and I thought to myself, "Yep, that is DEFINITELY my dad."

Now if only Mom can hang on to that remote on Saturday afternoons.