Early Reader

You really had to see it to believe it, but the eight year old kid who has to be told to turn off her reading light, put down the book, and go to sleep, was always in love with books.

Chloe was about 6 weeks old in these pictures, and she loved to be read to even then! Don't you just love a good book?

The Christmas Wait

This is my first Christmas without the girls. Up until this year they have spent the last three Thanksgivings with their dad and Christmas with me. This year we switched that. The girls will be home on the 29th for us to have our Christmas together. So right now our Christmas tree looks like this...

and has since Christmas Eve. Santa has come and I promised the girls that I would wait until they came home to open anything. It has been a little odd to say the least. They will, however, be home soon and we will have our Christmas together.

Along this theme I found it really cute that Chloe came home from school on Wednesday having written this poem about our Christmas tree.

She is right. It has about another week and the tree will be out to the curb for the truck to come pick it up. Destined to become wood chips.

Preschool Concert...again

Preschool Concert

Alexa's Preschool Concert

Alexa had a preschool concert tonight. She was very excited. She wanted to dress up.

I also let her wear a dress coat that was given to her by a co-worker of mine. It was a coat that her daughter had long since out grown, but Alexa loves to wear it for special occasions.

She did a wonderful job singing. I will try to post some of the video clips if the site cooperates.

Gingerbread Men

Alexa came home from preschool the other day, and asked if we could make gingerbread men. Apparently her teacher had made playdough for the kids to use and added ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon to it. That way it smelled like gingerbread. Alexa thought it smelled good enough to eat, so she wanted us to make some of the real stuff. I actually had never made gingerbread dough before. I found a recipe this morning and mixed it up. My plan was for the kids to be able to make them when they got home from their dad's house. It was then that I noticed that you needed to refrigerate it for four hours. I decided to distract them while the dough chilled by taking them ice skating. When we got back things were nicely chilled and we got to work. My trusty helper ...

I had to do the rolling out as the dough is really hard.

They cut out a lot of gingerbread men!

They only took about ten minutes to bake and then they set to decorating.

Alexa wants to save hers to give to Santa, but in the end they both had no problem eating them. It turned out to be a good recipe and not one of them tried to run away!

Super Puppy

There is a new super hero in our midst.

Super Puppy. Yes, Super Puppy. See her here in her cape?

She has a trusty side kick.

Another Super Puppy. They defend the world against dragons. At least this is what they tell me. The two dragons they were defending the world against didn't look too ferocious. This one appeared to be running to find food.

And this one was hiding her eyes from it all.

But fear not world you are safe. She promises to don her cape first thing in the morning and continue her quest.

And Now She's 8!

Chloe woke me up at a few minutes after seven this morning running into my room asking, "Mommy am I eight yet?" We headed downstairs and started the day by opening this pile of presents that I placed on her spot at the table.

She got a lot of fun new things including a new sweater from Grammie Eva,

and a headband made by Aunt Andrea.

This afternoon the girls got all dressed up to go to Zachary's Pizza for Chloe's birthday party.

They played lots of games,

had pizza while sitting in a special birthday girl chair,

and blew out the candles on her special ice skate cake.

She is now upstairs recovering from all the excitement.

Good-Bye Seven

Chloe wanted me to take a picture of her at bedtime tonight. So here she is on the last day she is seven.

Can't wait to see what year eight brings!

Holiday Spirit

I decided to get our Christmas tree today. Usually I wait until after Chloe's birthday, but she asked for a party at a local pizza place this year. It makes it so I don't need to worry about having enough party space, so we went ahead and picked out our tree. We went to our favorite lot run by the Boy Scouts. It is nice to give them money and they are extra helpful in putting the tree on the roof of the car for you and tying it down. The girls got right to work decorating when we got home.

It turned out really nice!

Now we are just bursting with holiday spirit around here.

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.