Birthdays and Blizzards and Ipads...Oh, My!

November and December--gee, who can remember back that far? Just kidding, although they were kind of a blur. I've already mentioned/whined about not feeling 100% with this pregnancy, so anyway, I'll get on with the post. Although I'll add that I've been feeling better now in some ways, but getting big and uncomfortable already. We'll find out the flavor pretty soon, though, so we can't wait!

Anyway, John's class had a sock hop on the 50th day of school and I went in to "help" which is code for enjoy myself thoroughly! They had to do some activities like make these bead necklaces with 50 beads (which is the table I helped with). They also had to draw 50 of something and color a car and then they got to hula hoop. That was out in the hall, so I couldn't see it, but John really wants to get one to try and practice. In fact, that was something I was thinking of getting for Christmas. Oops! After the activities, they got root beer floats and then the teacher put on some records--really--and they had a little dance. It was so cute!


Also early in November, my brother Jason came to visit us since he had a conference in Minneapolis. Somehow I didn't get a picture of him, but I did get a picture of the kids' favorite thing about him--his Ipad and Iphone...he bravely let them play the silly games on them and then tried to convince them to ask for them for Christmas-ha, ha! We had a great time with him and showed him a little of the town, and then he skidaddled before the weather turned too nasty!

I had been planning to chop Sara's locks, so I wanted to get a picture of how long they were before we did it...

And I don't remember which storm this was, but this seems to be a fairly typical view out my back window these days...
And I don't think I ever posted about the squirrel circus that Jared built from the kids' designs, but here it is covered in snow. He really did have each of the kids think of a squirrel feeder and draw it and then they built them. We really had quite a regular group of squirrels all through the fall, especially after we put the jack-o-lanterns out and they used those as homes and then dinner.

See? This had a whole design in it, but they ate it. Can't blame the poor little guys though. Jared has such a soft spot for squirrels for some reason; he even left them a stack of newspapers in our shed so they could use them to make their nests up in the loft of it. Not a bad pet, though...


And someone decided to turn 5 somewhere in there...
Evidently, she was overcome!
Oh, yeah, the poor thing had to wait till after church and a meeting that both Jared and I have to be at before we finally got home and did birthday stuff.

Cute outfit and princess polly pockets from G&G Morton...
and lots of clothes, fairy dolls, play dough, markers, and treats from G&G Whiting...

and John picked out this big art set for her and now asks pretty much daily if he can use it. :o)

Is that mean that I got her a scooter and soccer ball, even though she won't be able to go outside for six months?
And then I finally pieced together a party for her, which was kind of a trick. She kept saying she wanted a Star Wars party, but we had just done that for John, and I don't know, it just didn't seem right somehow. We finally got non-themed invitations out, but she did pick Star Wars silly bands to give away, so I was still at a loss of what to do with this party. Anyway, she finally said something about doing all the Disney movies, so that's what we attempted. We played a Robin Hood archery game, an Alice in Wonderland croquet game, a Captain Hook pretzel pick-up, a Mulan "find the pennies in the rice with chopsticks" game, and one I didn't get a picture of, racing John's old Cars down the stairs in rain gutters. She also wanted to invite two of our "piano kids" as we call them, who are 12 and 9, which was genius! They were so helpful and fun for the kids--I hope they had a good time. The only silly thing with the party was that I did it on a Thursday night since Saturdays can get so crazy in December. Well, anyway, almost everyone had to go early for something else they had and one friend was sick, so that was kind of sad. Anyway, I think they had a fun time.







I must say, this rice thing was so funny. I put 50 pennies in there and then let the kids keep what they found in take-out containers, and they acted like I had given them the moon. They were so amazed that I was letting them keep the pennies!! It was too cute, and too cheap. Really you should try this for something sometime, although I'm sure older kids would not be so ecstatic about 8 pennies, but these little ones loved it!

And I boycotted stressing over a cake and let Sara pick out an ice cream treat instead. I consider myself fairly competent, but cake decorating isn't really my thing, and I'm coming to terms with it--slowly. These little sherbet cups were pretty good actually!





This picture reminds me that we haven't done thank you notes yet. Sigh. Thank you to everyone! She has loved everything so much!

Oh, and I also didn't want to do Sara's party on the Saturday that week because I had a Christmas Recital that day. However, the weather had a different idea and we had to cancel. I was so bummed! Some of my students had some quite impressive stuff ready and some of the teeny ones were just too adorable, but it totally DUMPED on us--I forgot what the total was that time--17" I think. I try to pretend these things don't happen and block them out before, during, and after. Anyway, even the next day it was all still a mess, so church was canceled. Thank goodness for the kindness of our friend Scott, who came over with his snow blower, and we eventually got clear of the mess. We joked that he probably saved Jared's life.

Can you tell that the snow out on the balcony is up to John's chest? Yeah.

I'll be back with the rest of 2010 soon!