Mad Libs

For some silliness at snack time we got out a Mad Libs book this afternoon that the kids got for Christmas. They have gotten these books once or twice in the past and never shown much interest, but today it clicked! We went through a bunch of them. Most of the time I did the writing and the kids came up with words, but for a few of them Lex did the writing while Eve and I came up with words. It was fun! I think it would be a great car game. I’ll have to remember for future car trips :)

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Mad Libs Lex

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Eve got pretty excited thinking up crazy words!

At one point, when asked for an adjective, Eve said, “Love.” I said that’s not an adjective and she said, “‘Love’ means ‘I love you.’ I’m describing you with love.” So sweet!

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Lex diligently writing the crazy words we thought up.

Christmas 2011

I know you all thought I forgot about this blog. I’m sorry! I’m suffering from a severe case of post-holiday hangover! We have slowly, slowly been putting the house back together, unburying the living room, finding gifts tucked here and there. I had a massive pile by the curb for the recycling truck yesterday. Today I busted out the vacuum cleaner (twice!) and swept the floors. I feel like I can breath again. The family is gone, the chocolate is gone (sent to work with Alan!) and we are starting to find places for things. Alan is back at work and the kids and I are home, trying to clean and not be too crabby with each other as we all suffer through sugar detox together. Good times! :)

I know what you’re all waiting for is the photos, so without further ado…

If this fancy slideshow thing doesn’t work for you, click on the photo below and you’ll be taken to the Picasa album.

1112 – Christmas 2011

Finally, it’s beginning to look like Christmas…

We finally got snow! I guess mother nature was waiting for the “official” start of winter on December 22nd. Yesterday was beautiful. Warm, sunny, birds chirping, kids on bikes…

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Riding bikes on Dec 22nd.

Today, SNOW! Not a ton, but enough for now. :) Enough to get out the boots and shovels, enough to build a (small) snowman, enough to look like a white Christmas. Hopefully enough to survive the high 30’s and mixed sunshine day!

I let the kids open a few presents today. We had a pile from Greg and Kathy, and a pile from Jim and Julie. I was waiting for Christmas but decided they would have more fun with, an appreciate more, the presents if they weren’t all piled up on Christmas morning. I let them pick a few today and the rest tomorrow. Actually, I let them open a few presents IF they behaved well at the grocery store this morning. Can you believe, it was an excellent trip to the store?!? I had two perfect little helpers, sweet and nice in every way. Maybe I should bribe them with Christmas presents more often ;)

presents

Presents, presents, presents!

Lex is VERY excited! He hasn't stopped working on this since he opened the present. He keeps saying "Awesome! This is so cool!" :)

Eve loves her portable easel. She went right to work drawing me pictures and we discussed all the different places she could use it.

"This is the most awesome Lego piece I've ever seen!" he declared.

Eve doesn't smile for the camera much these days, but I sneak pictures of her. She packed up her easel to try taking it with her.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Christmas notes

A few years ago I started an ongoing note to myself about Christmas for next year. I store it as a draft in Gmail, ’cause I’m slick like that! (or too lazy to figure out a better way) It’s now December 21st and I’ve already started my “reminders for 2012” list. Item #1 is “Put Christmas tree in back corner so people don’t bump into it constantly.” I swear I warn the kids a hundred times a day not to bump into the tree (and I bump into it constantly myself!) and not to play immediately under it. The problem is the tree is right in their normal play area!

Is this the most boring blog post ever? :)

Teacher presents

Despite many good ideas, this year’s teacher gifts are hurried and last minute. Sigh. For each teacher we put together a little baggy of cookies, a cinnamon ornament, and a card from the kids. Eve wrote her name and drew a picture on the cards for her teachers, and Lex wrote nice messages. This is the card for his “helper teacher” (para… educator, right?) She is on vacation in Antarctica. According to Lex she is there taking pictures of penguins for their upcoming unit on penguins.

He also made a sweet card for the substitute helper teacher telling her that she is a very nice substitute teacher. He put that one in an envelope and sealed it up before I could take a picture of it though!

Little fishes, moving up!

The kids did swimming lessons twice a week this session, our first try at this. I think it was a huge success!! They both learned so much and progressed so quickly! So quickly, in fact, that they only had to do one session at their current level. The both moved up from level 3 to level 4 this time! I’m so proud of them! We are going to do twice a week lessons again in January/February and hopefully everyone keeps having fun! :)

showers

Pre-swim showers

A busy week…

I realize it’s been almost a week since my last update. Gasp! :) Just kidding. Life goes on. What have we been up to? This and that, laced with sugar and spice. I’ll give you a tour from my camera…

I put them to work this year. Check your mailbox.

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Signing Christmas cards

We made these super easy treats I found on Pinterest. The kids did 95% of the work.

lex with pretzels

He's so good at smiling for me!

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It's like heaven for them, surrounded by chocolate. See that orange M&M in Eve's hand? Guess where it's going? Not on the pretzels!

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Eve, hard at work.

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Lex decorated his in a very organized fashion. We had 3 different varieties of M&Ms, so he sorted them by color and then alternated type (dark, milk, pb). After awhile I had to hurry him along because the Kisses were hardening, so he settled for just arranging by color. (the unorderly ones in the front left corner were my attempt to speed things along.)

These have been relegated to the outside freezer because they were jut too quick and easy to eat when stored in the inside freezer. I’ll get them out again next week. They won’t last long.

Hugo Cabret, all 515 pages…

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Lex's teacher thought he might like this book. We almost bought it at his school book fair, but it's HUGE and pricey and we worried it would be indimidating for him. By chance I saw it on display at the library later in the week, so I grabbed it. Lex was a bit put off at first but then he and I read the first few chapters together and he loved it. He powered through the rest of the book on his own. I'm going to have to finish it on my own now, I guess. I wish I had as much time to read as he does! :)

The kids “built” a masking tape race track on the floor this week. Complete with pit stops, a Nascar logo, and ads! They have been having fun racing their cars. I discovered I can run the vacuum right over it too. Fun for all! :)

race track

This is the early version of the race track. Ove the past few days additional pit stops have been added, plus random tape patterns (Eve's contributions) decorate the area.

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Mema and Grandpa Tom, I hope you're proud of your influence in this house! :)

pit stops

All pit stops are labled by color. The masking tape is also colored to match. BP = black pit, WP = white pit, etc.

Lex came home with a Venn Diagram from school. In first grade! I was impressed.

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A Jan Brett Venn Diagram :)

There is also an adorable letter to Santa, written by Lex, hanging on the 1st Grade bulletin board at school. I wanted to take a phone pic of it on Friday, but sadly my technology curse has struck again and things are failing all around me. Hopefully I can post a picture of it on Monday. I’m sure it will come home with him after Christmas too, but it’s so cute I want to share it now!

Eve, however, decided to bring her letter (well, list anyway) directly to the big man himself. Her school hosted a Breakfast With Santa this weekend and we all went. We enjoyed pancakes and donuts and arts & crafts projects and lots of running around with friends. (Or standing around for the over 15 crowd!) Lex wanted nothing to do with Santa, other than a peek from afar, but Eve shyly waited her turn (luckily the line was short!) and handed Santa her list. She wouldn’t sit on his lap, but that’s ok by me. She told him what she wanted and then let him keep the list! Good think I took pictures of it last week!

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Eve with Santa. Silly us did breakfast first, so she has a nice wet mark on her shirt from spilling. Oh well.

Last night Alan and I went to his company’s holiday party at a somewhat local Inn. It was great! I didn’t take any pictures, but again wished the camera on my phone worked because they had a display of gingerbread houses that was just beautiful, including one of the Inn itself. His company spared no expenses on a beautiful dinner, 5 courses!, including a Passionfruit Kiwi Sorbet course. And the wine was flowing. I finished the evening off with a Godivia Peppermint Hot Chocolate while others had coffee. Soooooo goood……. His colleagues are all very nice, the babysitter got the kids to sleep, and we all had a nice evening!

One more week…