Christmas Time Is Here Again

Merry Christmas one and all!!


It's been a quiet and low key holiday here in the 'ville.  It started a week ago with a surprise trip taking the kids to see the Hobbit 3D.  3 hours long and they were completely entranced.  Jeff can't wait to see the next one.  I think he'll have to wait at least a year.

Biggest down side, was that same day, Meghan started feeling icky.  2 days later, and one fainting spell resulted in a trip to the ER and a bag of IV fluids.  A little medicine and 2 more days and she was feeling much better.  Unfortunately she missed out on the Christmas pageant at church (where Erin had a solo singing The First Noel) and finishing up Christmas shopping.  But by Christmas day everything was hunky dory.  And magically both kids and Tom still healthy.

Pageant Ready

Christmas Eve day, did provide the first magic of the season.  We woke to a mid-morning snow fall.  The snow came down for about 2 hours.  A whole range of snow from little tiny icy flakes to huge soft ones.  All was gone by afternoon, but the magic of watching it fall was completely worth it.

Catching Flakes

The kids work early, but not too early.  They were excited to head downstairs and explore what Santa had left them.  Our general rule is that stockings can be opened before breakfast and then we open gifts after breakfast.

Gift opening was wonderfully relaxing.  We all took our time.  Kids enjoyed a toy as they opened it.  Everything got its time.  The big hits of the morning were the Lego sets  -- several Lego friends sets for Erin and the Hobbit hole set for Jeffrey. There were also several games, some gift cards, gloves, hats and slippers that all were immediately donned as well.  Santa brought alarm clocks that dock with their iPods so bedtime was even enjoyed.

Stompeez!!

 

Legos!

 The rest of the day was spent building Lego sets, playing games, watching movies and just relaxing.  We had steaks on the grill for dinner with potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts.  Cookies for dessert.

Yum!

Thursday we packed up and headed to DC for a day.  Tom, Jeff and Uncle Jon played a long came of LoTR cards while Erin played with her Oma.  We had a second Christmas there where we discovered more Legos, a new Wii game (LoTR Lego) for Jeff and Erin got her first Kindle and a new book from her Noni.

Silly, Uncle Jon

 

Our nice quiet Christmas is just what we all needed during this busy month.  Now that the flu has left the house and we're all feeling up to par, it's just about time to head back to school and work.  Hopefully rejuvenated and energized  for 2013.

Repeat Suspects

This year our duo's Halloween costumes were somewhat "repeat suspects".  Last year the kids broke the pattern of going out as a pair (a witch and a clone trooper not exactly from the same genre).  I was rather hoping that they would return to the paired Halloween costumes this year.  No such luck.

Erin, still on her Dorothy kick from March, chose to unearth her Dorothy costume - wig, ruby slippers and all.  Jeffrey asked to be Han Solo.  This was an interesting request since Han has never been one of his favorite Star Wars characters (sadly he leans towards the "new" characters).  It only made perfect sense when he explained that if he was going to be Han Solo, he'd need a blaster.  Ahhhhh....the things they will come up with in order to get a new toy.

The funny coincidence is that Erin was Dorothy when she was 3.

And while Jeff has never been Han Solo, he was classic Luke Skywalker when he was 4.




















Anyway, Halloween fell right after Hurricane Sandy stormed through (see what I did there?) and knocked out our power for 2 days.  Halloween night it was cold and dark at Wallace South.  We visited a friend who goes all out for Halloween.  The kids trick-or-treated around his neighborhood and then we hung out on his front lawn for an hour or so.  We have hung out there on several other occasions for Halloween so the kids were excited to return to his house.

Here are a few pictures of the pumpkin carving activities (which had to be concluded by candle light and flashlight when we lost power).

At this point, the candy is almost gone, except for those boxes of DOTS that Jeff insisted on picking up.  The pumpkins have gone by the wayside, thrown down the back hill.  The costumes are tucked back into the dress-up bins.  And the planning for next year has begun!

Planets

Another hallmark in mommy-hood.  Erin had a "space" project that she needed to do for science class.  The only requirement was that it needed to be a 3D project.  Erin chose to build a model of the solar system.  Although I don't remember building a solar system when I was in school, I've watched enough 80s sit-coms (Full House Anyone?) to see it as one of those parental stepping stones.

So last weekend we worked together to build a model solar system.  Erin wanted to incorporate movement (for an extra credit bonus).  She decided to hang planets from foam core supported by a shoe box.  She made her planets out of paper and masking tape, then did research online to determine the relative size of each planet and then how to paint them.  She took it very seriously and was especially careful when painting and adding detail to her planets.

She also had to write an accompanying paper for her project.  I asked if she were allowed to type it, but she insisted that mechanics included neat handwriting and spelling (turns out she could have typed it).  She wrote a rough draft which we talked about and then took a long time to neatly write her paper.  She was very proud of her work.

It might not be the work of a great artist or future architect, but for a 4th grader she has a right to be very proud.  The amount of work, her not waiting until last minute (it was finished 4 days before it was due), her interest in doing the research make mommy very proud too.

Theater Photography

We are blessed to have an amazing photographer as part of the family theater group we act with.  Over the past year she has gotten some great images of all of us showing our very best on stage.  I even asked her to come out and shoot Erin's performance of Wizard of Oz in March.

Here is a link to her Blog.  She has such a wonderful artistic eye for photography.

AFT Photography

So here are some of my favorite moments Ashley has captured over the past year.

So proud of my Dorothy

The composition of this just makes me smile.  I never would have thought to take a picture of feet.

Could they be having any more fun?

Jeffrey is starting to come into his own on stage.

My beautiful Marta

And the goofy Prince

2 girls so in the moment

Speaking of being in the moment

 

And precious moments

Goofball can have some poise and sing beautifully too

And speaking of beautiful...

More Idol

Here are the videos from the kids' 2 other solo performances.  I didn't get any pictures of Jeff in his outfit, and none of Erin in her fairy dress, but the videos tell it all.  I did get some adorable pictures of Erin with her close friend after the show.

So proud of my sweeties!!

Country Girl

My Ghostbuster!

3 great friends!

Idol Pt. 1

There will be more to come after Erin sings again on Sunday and then Jeff also sings his first solo.  I will have some backstage pictures and eventually some pictures from the shows to share.

But for now, here's the end of Erin's solo of "I Have Confidence" from The Sound of Music.

M-O-M

Car conversation from last night.  Just one of those moments you want to hold on to forever.  Absolutely adorable.  

Jeff has been working more and more on spelling and getting some of the gist of English language rules (but honestly all those rules end up being broken anyway).  

Erin's teacher is the director of her school play from last year.  She's been trying to get him to come see Bye Bye Birdie this weekend and he was able to come out to last night's show.  She couldn't remember the time it started though.  Erin started the conversation in the car by relating one between her and Mr. W. in the morning.

Erin -- "Mr. W. asked me how to spell your name.  He wanted to e-mail you, but I didn't know so he had to look it up.  How do you spell your name?"

Jeff -- "That's so easy Erin.  M-O-M.  You should know that."

Completely straight tone.  I love that in his life right now I'm not Meghan, but just simply mom.

4 Miles Later

Getting Lined Up Pre-Race

Yesterday was the culmination of Erin's and my summer running together.  All summer we've been training for the local Women's 4-Miler race.  It's an amazing event to fund raise for the University Breast Cancer Research center.  Picture 3500 women of all ages, races and walks of life lined up on a country road running 4 miles together.

The View From Our Starting Position Before Walking to the Road

Erin and I have been training all summer.  We started with a half mile back in June and worked all summer to build up to 4 miles.  Erin definitely has the running bug.  She really seems to enjoy it and certainly can get competitive with it.

So, bright and early yesterday morning we all piled into the van and headed to the race.  We watched a beautiful sunrise and were ready for an awesome morning.  The rain started once we got there.  Just a light misting rain though, and certainly better than hot and humid.  It did throw Miss. Boo into a tizzy for a bit though.  Once I convinced her that running in the rain could be fun, she relaxed and once that gun went off and 3500 women started running down the road she was all business.

It's pretty congested for the first mile or so.  Since the girl is so tiny she could make some darts and moves that I couldn't fit through.  Once she got ahead of me I was done for.  I briefly caught up with at the 1.5 mile mark, but she darted off again and I never got back to her.  She finished the race a solid 30 seconds ahead of me.  And I was trying!!!

Look at That Form

 

A Little Sad When She Didn't Place in the Top 8

Erin finished the 4 miles in 41:05, so that's an average pace about 10:15 a mile.  I'm so amazingly proud of her.  She was 22nd in her age group (there were over 100 in all in her group) and somewhere in the 900s of total runners.

No More Sad

While those numbers are super cool they aren't what counts.  What counts is that Erin can't wait to run another race!!