Thanksgiving

OK, so I have been holding out on you a bit. I owe about a weeks worth of posts. Things have been rather busy around our little house. We had a lot of company over Thanksgiving which made for a really fun week. Along with the usual turkey and fixings, there were...

Cute, cuddly, little babies named Sam...

piano playing...

tiara adjustments and princess finery...

dance shows...

a lot of taira wearing factored into things...

butterfly sunglasses...

cute, cuddly dogs...

pathetic mooching dogs...

worn out squirrel chasing dogs...

and more cute, cuddly Sam moments.

We also learned a few things. We learned:

• three girls can all sleep in one bedroom and actually mostly sleep
• two little girls can share one bed and actually sleep, if they are properly worn out from a long day
• making a good case for downsizing the McMansions of this world five adults and four children can actually get along in a house just under 1,300 square feet with one bathroom. Although I wouldn't want to test that for too long.
• Grammie Eva will just keep on knitting things for ever if you keep feeding her and giving her access to new yarn. Her week's work: three hats, three pairs of mittens, and one pair of socks. The woman is a machine!
• snow pants are excellent protection for children going ice skating for the first time.
• a scant 1/8 inch of snow can send three children outside on a quest to build a snowman... not terribly successful, but it cleared them out of the house for a bit.
• Three little girls can take a shower at one time and think it is fun too
• four adults working together do not actually know a lot of the crossword puzzle answers

We really enjoyed having everyone. Alexa told me on Sunday, "I am really sad that everyone had to go home." We miss you and are so glad you came. Next time we will make sure to pack in Aunt Andrea and Uncle Ryan. I know they both look great in tiaras.

Alexa's Drum

On Wednesday I picked Alexa up from preschool, and she was so excited to show me this drum. Their theme this week was Native Americans. The drums were a part of the study. She rattled off all the information her teacher had given them, "You have to play them softly because they are made out of paper and an oatmeal box, Mommy, so don't hit it hard." I would personally like to thank her teacher for the soft drum. She is a parent herself, so I think she was aware of the instant dislike parents would have for a teacher who would send eight four-year-olds home pounding on drums. The soft drum, however, is not too bad at all.

Literacy Breakfast

Chloe had her Literacy Breakfast at school today. Twice a year they invite parents in to eat breakfast, hear the kids read, and to read what they have been writing. Chloe was really helpful with her sister making sure that she got a bagel.

She read us one of her favorite stories about a horse.

She shared her writing folder with me. I thought her Aunt Andrea would like to see that she wrote a story about her cats. She wrote about all five cats.

Sadly two of the cats are no longer alive, but I guess that is the best part of writing your own stories- you can make it happen in whatever way you want.

Brownies

Chloe is in her second year of Girl Scouts. Last year she was a Daisy and has moved on to the Brownie troop this year. She loves Girl Scouts, and as a former Girl Scout I have to say I am so happy she likes it. This year she has begun to earn badges. Two weeks ago when I arrived at the meeting she was working on earning her first badge. Last week her leader presented them with their sashes. They put on their badges and she couldn't be happier.

Now every Tuesday she wears the sash to school. She is really proud of herself.

Letter Work

We were at the craft store yesterday. Our task was to find something Thanksgiving related to do as a project. I was disappointed to see that there were only about five items relating to Thanksgiving and one was stickers. Apparently the world has passed right on by the holiday and cruised to Christmas. That leaves the holiday project to me so looks like the kids are making paper bag turkeys this year for decorations. In our explorations we came across these little letter cabinets on sale. They only had the letters "A" "B" and "C". What luck I only have a kid with an A and one with a C. I thought they would be the perfect things to clean up the small stuff the girls keep collecting on top of their dressers. So we took them home and the kids set to painting them.

They took the work very seriously and they turned out really cute.

The tops of the dressers look a lot neater now too!

Bringing Your Work Home

When your mom is a teacher there are certain things that happen to you that don't for other kids. You have to get up much earlier than any of your classmates because your mom needs to be at work so early. Your parent conference is always either before or after the actual conference days because your mom is having conferences on those days too. She is always off with you on vacations and snow days. No matter how much you try to convince her she actually can tell you no, that really isn't a closed syllable word and she is right. And don't even think about trying to get out of doing your homework, trust me your doing it. You also get to be guinea pigs for projects she wants to do in her own class.

Here is the lesson plan, my science class is studying geology. As an interactive lab the kids will practice taking core samples just as real geologist do. How do we practice such a skill? Well, with cupcakes naturally. The cake batter is divided into three different bowls and different colors of food coloring is added to each bowl. A little of each color is then placed in each cupcake wrapper to bake with a multicolored layered effect. The cupcakes are then frosted (we choose to make that green... you know grass). Each child gets a straw to press into the cupcake and get a sample. They sketch their findings and make predictions about what the inside of the cupcake looks like. As with all hands on activities to be done with a class of 26, it is helpful to test it to make sure it works. Bring in my test subjects...

As you can see they took their work very seriously.

And in the end it was a success!

Now tomorrow I just need to do that all over again. Hopefully they as excited as Chloe in doing 6th grade science.

And Another....

Check out the kid that turns around and gives me a great shot of the back of her head.

Chloe's Play

If you look at the stairs on the left the second puppy from the top is Chloe...

101 Dalmations

Chloe was in a play tonight at The Very Merry Theater. They are performing 101 Dalmatians. There are actually three shows two today 4:30 and 7 and another tomorrow night. Chloe is a Dalmatian puppy. Actually she tells me her title is chorus puppy.

She has had a lot of fun at the rehearsals and would like to be in another one.

And remember there are no small roles only small actors... and actors who don't have moms sitting in the front row capturing everything on film.

Silly Girl

Alexa added some things to her pajamas tonight. She was suppose to be in her room picking her clothes out for tomorrow. However, when she came out of her room she was looking like this.

Apparently she found some pull ups way in the back of her drawer. She hasn't used them in a couple of years, so I had kind of forgotten they were even in there.

Charming no? She danced all around making Chloe and I laugh.

I vetoed them as part of her outfit for tomorrow though.

Invitations

The girls will be with me for Thanksgiving this year. We haven't spent on together for three years now. They are excited to say the least. We are hosting the dinner and the kids love to have people come to our house. Alexa wanted to make sure people were excited about coming. She drew a picture of all a yummy things we would have for Thanksgiving.

Does that not look delicious? How the real food will compare I really don't know.

All this drawing to get people to come for Thanksgiving made her think about Christmas. She wanted to make sure Santa knew he was welcome. So she drew this Santa.

I thought it was to hang up some where. It turns out it is a necklace.

She said, "Santa will definitely come now. Since I look all Santa-y."

Cold Weather

This week the weather has taken a decided turn toward the cold. This isn't any surprise; it is November after all. I have mentioned before that Boston Terriers are not cut out for cold climates. I am not sure he would be cut out for hot ones either, but he definately becomes a heat seeking device in cold weather. Yesterday I found Cabbie and Lucy huddled together in the same sun spot.

Whatever it takes to stay warm.

Alexa Sick

Alexa came down with a stomach virus yesterday at daycare. I kept her home today. I knew she was feeling much better when she started smack talking while crushing me at Candyland.

Then there was the massive defeat I suffered at her hands in a round of the Princess Memory Game.

Don't let that cute little face fool you she is a tough competitor.