Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Dress Up Stage




Elle is now solidly in the dress up stage. Not yet the fairy princess and ballerina one, just the "if I see a piece of clothing on the floor I'm going to put it on" one. So, we are always finding her with daddy socks on her feet, big kid hats on her head, and bras around her neck. It's a cute stage and I know to enjoy it while it lasts - as it is too short lived. Cecily will still put on my shoes and maybe a hat, but that's about it.

Monday, November 21, 2011

First Prize





We've been competing in the big annual Sonatina festival (it always happens in early November) for a few years now. It's very competitive - children compete in one of 15 different levels, all playing the same piece, and a judge selects a few for honorable mention, and the top two, who go onto a recital (on the Steinway in the Morrison Center Recital Hall, yay) that night where they play again, in front of a large audience and more judges and are awarded either first or second place. Hero won first place, once, several years ago, and has gotten honorable mention twice. It's always a stressful thing that they spend months preparing for, and some years it's went better than others. By and large, this year, it was a great one. Allegra really challenged herself by choosing a difficult piece and received an Honorable Mention (usually I wouldn't be overly enthused with that, but her level was tough AND she squeezed a full Nutcracker rehearsal in as soon as she finished playing) and Ian, aka the smirky one (hence the chipmunk teeth - I swear they aren't that "bucky" in real life LOL), earned a trip to the Honors Recital, where he nailed his piece and took home the First Place trophy. He was insufferable (just ask his big sisters) for several days afterwards, but, hey, I guess he earned it. It was great for him to get to step out of the shadow of his big sisters for once.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Halloween






Halloween found us down one kid, as Hero is now too cool to trick or treat with her siblings, and instead went with some of her friends in the subdivision. Luckily they wore their costumes for the piano recital a week prior, so at least I have a picture of her. She was a Mad Hatter, Allegra was a Peacock, Ian was Luke Skywalker, Colin was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Cecily was Alice in Wonderland, and Elle was, of course, a duck. We took the big double stroller, and Cec treated it like her own personal taxi - she refused to walk from one house to the other, no matter how many few steps it was in between the driveway. It was a pretty mild night, and we trick or treated for about an hour before Elle got too cold (since she can't walk yet, she was confined to the stroller and was being bribed to be good with Smarties).

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Carving Time




Hero lost interest after two pumpkins this year, and James was working, so I was left with most of the pumpking carving duty. Luckily, Allegra, Ian, and Colin were totally into cleaning out the pumpkins this year. The boys stripped down to their skivvies and I got some good blackmail pictures (((insert evil cackle here))). Don't worry about the questionable hygiene, though, you won't be served any pumpkin pies from the kids' jack o'lanterns this year as I was too lazy LOL.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The Patch






Not the birth control or smoking kind - the pumpkin variety! We had a marathon pumpkin patch visit this fall - the only Saturday we could sneak it in into the schedule we had Hymn Festival in the morning, and Nutcracker rehearsal in the early afternoon. The kids were literally doing clothing changes in the car, and we each made a mad dash for the first acceptable pumpkin we could find as soon as we disembarked from the hay ride. But we made it and the kids had fun. I think it was one of our smoothest pumpkin patch trips yet (and it didn't involve any inappropriate peeing - as you can see, the bar is set pretty low in our house LOL).

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Hair Firsts




That's a funny title - let me explain what I mean. While the "fun" of doing girls' hair fades quickly (Allegra begs me to do hers but it doesn't happen too frequently), I always get a kick out of first ponytails and pigtails. Cec has super fine hair, but it grew quickly and is quite long. She's been wearing ponytails since before she was one, but in September I gave her her first pigtails. She was adorable. Elle, on the other hand, is a different story. Her blond hair is super fine and has grown very slowly. Most of the time it just does its own crazy mohawk thing. I did manage her first wispy little pony last month, straight on the top of her head, and I don't think she was impressed. We'll be sticking with soft headbands for her for a while still.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Go Team(s)!




It's almost hard to write this post after this last weekend in college football. But I'm not a fairweather fan, so I'm sucking it up and still showing my alma mater Broncos some love. We got the little girls all decked out to support both of our teams this year (Elle has a matching Packer dress, but for some reason I never got a pic of her). At least the Packers are doing awesome! I want a do-over on a Super Bowl party, so here's hoping!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Inappropriate


I think this is hilarious. If that makes me immature, so be it. James was so proud of his homegrown mutant tomato. We ate it, too. Ah, the joys of gardening. Once James started his new job he got too busy to keep up with it and we have some zucchinis still sitting on the patio that are the size of a human thigh. Luckily my freezer is already packed full of grated zucchini, so I don't feel too badly about throwing them out.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

School Year 2011-2012





The new school year thing has been getting passe lately, but this year we got to experience a first: we sent our first kid to Junior High! Wow, that is still weird, two months later. Hero is a 7th grader at West, and she's doing great (although I'm still having to adjust to the thought of her going to dances and wearing mascara). It's been an adjustment to get used to the uniform thing but it's worked out fine (except for the fact that she changes the moment she gets home, so I'm now having to do more laundry, grr). Allegra started 4th grade at Maple Grove and it's going swimmingly. At parent-teacher conferences her teacher told us that she's extremely capable and he sees her being able to do anything she sets her mind to, as an adult. Ian is in 2nd grade and he has Hero's 2nd grade teacher, whom we love. He's really taken off academically, and although he's a bit quiet in class, his teacher says that all his classmates adore him. Colin in is his second year of preschool and it's so funny to watch him become a quieter, more well-mannered child the moment we step through those doors. Hopefully it stays that way. It's hard to believe that Cecily will start preschool herself next year!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Grown Up Time





So, the fair was all about the kids. But that same weekend, James and I got a little grown-up time - we redeemed a gift certificate to the Anniversary Inn. It's SO much fun and a fantastic getaway in town. We enjoyed dinner, some wine, and a quiet evening in our Palace Suite. I can't wait to get back there again.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

An Entire Month!





I can't believe I missed an entire month! James has a new job, which is a HUGE blessing, but it's been a bit of an adjustment, and we're still working on it. I think that, combined with the increasingly busy school and extracurricular schedule really has thrown me for a loop. I'm so horribly behind, but I'll try to catch up quickly. Back to August, where I left off, the last big end-of-summer hurrah for us is the fair. This year was easier than last year (trying to deal with a newborn and new walker) but it was still a challenge. I remind myself that it's going to get easier with every passing year. We lost (not literally LOL) the big girls for most of the afternoon as they did their own thing riding all the big rides. It's hard to believe that the two of them were the ones riding the little tiny kid rides with us and now here we are doing it again with Colin and Cecily. Ian is in the in-between stage, which is frustrating for him (too big for the "kiddie" rides, but not tall enough for the bigger rides). It was hot, hot, hot too. Ice cream does wonders to keep kids happy, as long as I can ignore the mess.