Dance

Last week was Parent Viewing week at Emily Grace's dance studio, so parents got to sit in the studio and watch class and take pictures/video. The girls put on a short performance at the end.

Emily is in two days of ballet and one day of tap.









the tap studio is so SMALL, I didn't really get any good pictures of her




Then I forgot to take a group picture after I was done videotaping the tap routine!

I didn't take many pictures of the 2nd day of ballet because the warm-ups were all the same, but I got a decent group picture (ignore the random heads at the bottom of the picture, the girls were too close, and I couldn't back up any further due to the wall behind me!)

Elf on the Shelf

Evlis was having a grand ol' time helping himself to the new container of syrup! Crazy elf was danging upside down from the cupboard while sipping from a straw. The kids thought this was HILARIOUS!




Another night, he picked such a good hiding spot, the kids started getting worried he might not have even come back to our house! He blended right in with the stuff in Santa's sack.




Sunday night, he got them into the Christmas spirit with some red and green streamers zig-zagged in front of their doors, as he hung out in the hallway in a self-made hammock. LOL!

Connor lost his 1st tooth!

What do you think? Does he look excited about it?? (hahahahaha!)


Always a bittersweet moment when my "babies" reach different milestones, but this one seems especially bittersweet. It's the last "first lost tooth" we'll have in this house! Still throws me off seeing that little space in his mouth, and it's adorable when he lisps that tiny bit while speaking now. *grin*

Quote of the Week

Connor keeps talking about all the ancient things from the 90's. "Look at this! Doesn't it look ancient, like it came from the 90's?" "Wow! That's ancient! Maybe it's from the 90's!" etc.

If I was born in 1978, I'm curious what that makes me? Anciently ancient? I'm not sure how I feel about this.

And if I'm older than ancient, how does he view his grandparents and great-grandparents?? Sucks to be them! ha!

Christmas photo "fun"

Here's just a small taste of what I had to deal with the night I was trying to take the kids' picture for our Christmas card this year!


Jared's face cracks me up!!!

Elf on the Shelf

Elvis Elf got into the "buy 3, get 3 free" candy bars I was saving for Family Fun Night!


Didn't even try to hide the evidence or wipe his face!


We've also discovered him playing a game.


Not pictured: Elvis coloring in a Christmas coloring book, and Elvis drawing holiday scenes on the white board.

Sock Bun Curls

Our first attempt at sock bun curls flopped big-time, due to the fact that her hair didn't dry overnight...

Our second attempt worked slightly better for two reasons. 1) instead of waiting until her hair was halfway dry after a shower, we started out with totally dry hair and then just very lightly spritzed it with water. 2) we used three socks instead of one, so her hair wasn't rolled up as thickly.

(I didn't pull her hair into elastics first, because I didn't want the crease in her hair, so that's why they look a little saggy and messy)






That all said, I think we may need slightly more water, and possibly a fourth bun (and maybe some sort of gel??) as her hair isn't nearly as curly as shown in the how-to instructions we found.

Biggest disappointment is what little curl we DID end up with pretty much fell out the minute we tried to gently comb through so it wasn't all clumped. She's got more waves naturally than we ended up with from the sock buns when all was said and done!! LOL We're determined to keep fine-tuning things.

Respectful Student of the Month

Miss Emily Grace won an award at school last week for the Student of the Month program they do. There is a theme each month, and this month's theme was "respectful." Usually the teacher chooses one student, but I guess Em's teacher has the class vote each month, by writing down one person's name. Em and her friend Erin tied, so both won the award. Kind of neat that she was chosen by her classmates!

I didn't find out until less than three hours before the awards "ceremony" that she was getting the award, and was heading out the door to Seattle for the Deck the Hall Ball, so frantically called my friend Jami to see if she'd take pictures for me (her daughter was getting the award as well), and then called and begged grandparents to attend in my place, so she'd have SOMEONE there to support her!



classic nervous Emily expression! If you see her biting her lip, she's nervous, embarrassed, and/or stressed. LOL


posing with Grandpa Dan after the assembly was over


Congratulations Emily Grace! Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you, and we're sorry we didn't get to see you receive your award in person. XOXO

Crazy Sleeper!

I wish these pictures did justice to just how contorted Connor actually was! His head was in perfectly alignment with the length of his bed, but his body was completely perpendicular (the proof is in the foot poking out from under his blankets and propped against the wall). Try as I might, I couldn't get quite the right angle to show the unnatural angles of his neck and waist! crazy kid!!






As a sidenote, don't you love how he's just buried in lovies? I'm constantly taking the less-loved ones and shoving them in the closet, or piling them at the end of his bed, but when I check on him before heading to bed myself, I find he's gathered them all back up again. Ever the collector of "soffie" (his baby word for soft, which sort of got adopted into our regular vocab) things (stuffies and blankets--FYI Kristina, he totally sniffed out that green&brown monkey/frog blanket you sent home with me, and adopted it as his own; did you see it in the picture?)... One of these days I'll find him sleeping on the floor because he'll have run out of room for himself!

Splashball

The boys are in the middle of their first-ever session of splashball and they are LOVING it! Splashball is the "micro" level of water polo. It's for ages 5-11, though I think the 6 kids in their class are all under the age of 8. It's been fun to see both boys really take an interest in it, and see some skills improving already. Jared shows more interest and involvement than we've seen with any other sport so far!

practicing catching with only one hand


practicing aiming toward your team-mate and throwing accurately


Connor making a spectacular attempt at catching a ball that another boy threw WAY over his head, jumping way up out of the water and flinging himself backward. LOL!

Zoo Lights 2011

We took advantage of the rain-free weekend and bundled up and headed out to Zoo Lights Saturday night! We arrived shortly after the opening time of 5pm, and people were already swarming the parking lot. I'm so thankful we were smart enough to arrive when we did, because it was a MAD HOUSE as we were trying to leave around 6:30pm. (Learned our lesson from the year before! *grin*)

My mom took this picture with her camera at the request of Connor, who thought a family picture in front of this tree would be nice:


It was a COLD, but beautiful clear night, with a brightly shining half moon, and tons of Christmas lights for us to walk around and enjoy. Connor's favorites were the lights in shapes of tigers and monkeys (of which there were several); Jared's favorites were the lights in shapes of polar bears, and Emily liked the tigers, as well as a beautifully lit large pink/green tree.

I thought this years' newest display of a wolf howling at the moon was really neat!

Elf on the Shelf

Elvis Elf showed up at our house for his second holiday season the day after Thanksgiving. I walked into my room and found him sitting on the windowsill above my bed, with the Elf on the Shelf book propped up on my pillow. The kids were THRILLED to see him again! He also left (on the sly) a great link to a website with 101 ideas for Elf on the Shelf so Dan and I would have a heads up what he might be up to this month...

I haven't remembered to take pictures of him every night, but I got pictures of the three that the kids got the biggest kick out of:

He swiped the dry erase markers and spent time coloring on the kids' school pictures from last year (because I haven't taken the time to frame their current school pictures... bad mommy!)




Then he got into the bag of knitting things my mom bought for me at a garage sale recently. Looks like he got partway into a scarf and got a little tangled up!


What do you know? Even our elf is a Harry Potter fan!!


I have a hunch we'll be finding him playing a board game with the kids' favorite stuffies soon, but I could be wrong!

Thankful Tree

The kids and I made a Thankful Tree last Tuesday, in preparations for Thanksgiving. We wanted to have some sort of table decoration at our table. It's not the prettiest end result (intsead of seeking out really nice looking branches, we were dashing through the yard in the POURING POURING rain grabbing up the first branches we could find!!), but the kids had a BLAST making it! Even Connor, who all but refuses to do any sort of writing at home, was happily writing words on leaves to add to the tree.



One home-grown pumpkin + branches from the yard + paper leaves cut out on the Cricut + a hole puncher + strips of yarn + a permanent marker = super fun Thanksgiving project, and a nice visual reminder of all we have to be thankful for!

And for the record, the idea stemmed from this pin, which I found on Pinterest.com

Getting what you paid for

Dan offered the boys a $1 to make him his lunch for work the following day (prepping the night before since he leaves at 4:30am!!). I'm kind of thinking when you pay a cheap rate, you get cheap quality:





Mutilated bread, too much PB, ITTY BITTY circle of jelly, with the two slices of bread closed up in opposite directions! LOL!!!! Connor was so stinkin' proud of his attempt though, and both boys loved that they were helping Daddy. Jared was in charge of putting some Pirate's Booty in a bag (a lot of which ended up on the floor in the process), picking out some fruit, and packing the yogurt.

That all said, I ♥ that my little gentlemen tried so hard to help Daddy, and Daddy was thrilled not to have to have to deal with packing his own lunch! Win/win!

Science Fun

Jared's favorite subject in school is science; he would spend all day in the science room, if allowed! I tried talking the science teacher into having an after school science club of some kind, but she said she didn't have time to deal with one (pout!). After researching the Internet and speaking to different people in the community, and still not coming up with any good leads on a science-based program to enroll Jared in, I finally just purchased him a thick book full of different science experiments.

He and Dan flipped through some of the pages and opted to try this one out the other day.


Have you ever boiled water in a paper cup over a candle? Well, neither had we! The end result was that we got really hot water, which steamed a LOT, but never fully boiled. The steam started collecting as condensation outside the cup (something along those lines), which would then drip and snuff out our candle, but it was a fun attempt and we ALMOST managed to boil water in a paper cup over a candle. The boys LOVED the attempt, and were so excited putting it all together and watching as the water heated.

Jared can't wait to go through the book and pick out his next experiment!

Veteran's Day Assembly

I came across some pictures I forgot to share! I attended the Veteran's Day assembly at my kids' school and snapped a quick picture of each them performing. Grades K-2 just sang from their place on the floor. Grades 3-5 got turns up on the risers. It was a really neat assembly. Emily Grace said that at the very end, a female Veteran came up with tears in her eyes and shook Em's hand. I'm so pleased that the kids were able to be a part of a meaningful event in honor of those in our community who serve their country.

Connor:


Jared:


Emily:

Connor Snuggles

Connor invited me on a date to snuggle with him on the couch and watch his new movie (Santa Paws, in case you're interested). He even provided pillows, a blanket, and a stuffed animal for each of us. This kid takes good care of me! ♥♥♥

Baby Hat

In the past, I have totally avoided making baby hats with a cuff, because I really felt they would be too bulky on a baby head. However, the flip side is making a baby hat that may or may not even fit (or won't fit for very long, even if it fits initially), since babies aren't all born with the same sized heads, and then taking into account how quickly they grow...

I recently decided to go ahead and make a hat with a cuff in order to make it more adjustable to various sized heads. Best I can tell, the hat I made is small enough to work for a newborn, but also worked GREAT on my friend's nearly 7 month old baby. Can't beat getting 7+ months out of a hat! I'm in love!




I'm pretty sure this is how I'll be doing baby hats from now on!

So proud

After resisting reading the Harry Potter books for a couple of years, Em's hooked!


I found this on the white board after she finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. To my fellow HP fans, she's one of us! *wipes tear* So proud! LOL!!

Breakfast in bed

I am blessed with two sweet little boys who surprised me with breakfast in bed a few weeks ago, without any prompting from anyone! I love my little gentlemen!!

More Knitting

I knit this scarf over the weekend as a gift for someone, and Emily Grace has been bugging me ever since to make her one as well!