Ballet Class Finale!

Annabel's ballet class is finally over! I say finally because it was sort of a blah kind of class. It was a loooong session (all of Fall basically). There were a few weeks in there when Annabel did not even want to go. When she was there she was fine of course. She liked the dancing. (She dances ALL the time at home!) She liked wearing her ballet outfits and shoes. But from the parent's perspective, the class was boring as heck, the girls learned very little, and so on. We are glad to be done with it. I was not going to sign her up for Winter/Spring sessions anyway, because those sessions must pay for and participate in the recital and I really wanted NO part of that. So it all worked out just fine. Annabel got a taste of ballet, it gave her something to do on one of the days she was not in school, but now we'll move on. We did get to go in on the last class day and see a little dance (that I think they "learned" that very day and basically they copied their teacher anyway, but still, it was cute). Annabel was very excited that Daddy, Mommy, AND Grandma Cheryl would all get to come in and see her. That in itself was fun for Annabel. And it was a hoot for us to watch! Check out the pictures below!

Coming up in January...Annabel has big news...she gets to move up a level in gymnastics! She was in Preschool One and now she's graduated to Preschool Two. She is VERY excited. This means she can now go to class at the same time as Daniel- this was huge for her! She loves this. I now have free days with Annabel on all the days she does not go to school. We'll be looking for ways to stay busy...playing at home a lot I'm sure, but I'm hoping some morning play dates will work out, we'll go library story times, maybe try out the indoor pool at the park district...I've some ideas in mind.

More Christmas Fun!

December really flew by this year! I feel like we didn't do a whole lot this month, since it went so fast. We did our advent calendars very faithfully (the kids didn't miss a beat on those at all!) and we/I did do a fair amount of baking, but other than that, the month just sort of sailed by. My mood was a little off this year- we learned that our best friends (Patricia, Delilah and Asher's family) are moving out of state the first week of January (I knew they were never gonna stay, they've been wanting to move for years, but that doesn't make their move to Portland, Oregon any easier), we witnessed a pretty big house fire in our very own backyard (that was just beyond scary and it took me days to shake that off even a little bit), and the weather was much too gray the whole month basically (and not a drop of snow to show for it!). My push for simplicity and my minimalistic outlook these days didn't do a whole lot for me festivity-wise either (which frustrated me at times, but really, I was glad for not being a total nut and trying to do everything, like I've done in the past...but, I do need to find a happy medium between this year and others), but- it was a good month, I have much to be thankful for and such wonderful kids; I enjoyed spending the month following the kids' leads as usual, being in the moment and just playing whatever came to mind.

We were on a role-playing kick this month, mostly playing "family," and sometimes that included playing "Santa." The kids loved reading a different Christmas book every night this month, and towards the end of the month, when I did need to finally pull tricks out of my hat to rein in their Christmas excitement, they were pretty excited to do the activities I'd found for them. Otherwise, the kids had really short attention spans this month, so mostly, it was just all play around here. I kinda missed doing as many crafts as we did last year (though, really, I kinda went overboard last year...hence the happy medium idea, again!), but this year it seemed like they really just wanted to play. And that's okay. They are still so young and we did still have a lot of fun and Christmas was sort of huge to take in this time around. Their little minds were filled with all these new understandings about Christmas and new questions and all. It's a lot to take in, I know.

We enjoyed picnics under our Christmas tree, we enjoyed driving to houses around town that I'd heard had a LOT of lights, the kids sang Christmas songs like crazy (probably my favorite part of the holidays this year! it was the cutest thing ever to hear them sing all these songs!), we enjoyed a few Christmas DVDs from our home collection and the library's collection, the kids loved decorating our house, bringing home their school projects and proudly sharing them, we listened to all our Christmas CDs and danced, and we played Holiday Spot-It...to name a few things we did manage to do! We had fun and enjoyed each other's company and that's what matters in the end.

Some of our baking fun!

Christmas sticker books and a Christmas tree craft to color!

The kids LOVED making cards for their teachers! They turned out so cute, too! I was kind of sad I had to give them away! So, I scanned them. Here are a few of their pictures...Annabel's Santa, Annabel's Snowman, and Daniel's Christmas tree complete with a race car in the present ornament.

And of course I got some fun videos of songs the kids have been singing! The first one is "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." The whole naughty/nice thing was huge this year- I'll be glad when that's just all over with and out of mind! It brought tattling to the forefront in our house majorly- ick! 

The second is some song Annabel learned about making a snowman, I'm guessing; I only ever heard that song the one time and I never heard any other lyrics...this is all that stuck apparently, but it was cute! 

And the last video is just a hoot- mostly Annabel spinning so much it'll make you dizzy, but I love her fancy dance moves that pop up, too! 

And, disclaimer- I did NOT dress Annabel that day! She picked out her own outfit- red matches red she said, weeeellll sure but oh man my eyes hurt. She's a hoot, that girl.

Meeting Santa!

Last week we finally took the kids to see Santa. Annabel was very excited to see Santa, Daniel wanted to see him, too, but fretted quite a bit over which of his list items to tell him! Annabel was just excited to be able to talk to him and tell him whatever came to mind at the moment. But, she clarified to me later, it wasn't everything on her list, just one thing, and apparently he misheard her, too, "silly Santa!" She said she told him she wanted Playmobil. Daniel told Santa the top two things on his list, the Scooby Doo Cyclone Tumbler (you may remember? the one thing that doesn't exist!) and the Hot Wheels race track. It was so cute to watch the kids eagerly walk up to him and chat with him. They did such a great job!

And then of course we had to check out the rest of Santa's little village set up with games and toy demos. The kids liked the rifle arcade and remote control cars. But the hands-down hit was the bow & arrow toy demo. It was one of those easy, "my first" types of bows and it was so cool and so fun. The Easter Bunny may have to think about picking these up- they really were seriously fun! And then Daniel and Annabel wanted to ride the mini merry-go-round there; I think Annabel would have done that many more than the two times she did ride it! We also treated the kids to a favorite snack of theirs- popcorn! It was a fun outing all around!

Enjoy our pictures!

 

Lego Show at Cantigny!

A couple weekends ago we took the kids to see the Lego Show at Cantigny. It's been a couple years since we've gone, so we were really excited to go this year. I found these super cute Lego movie themed Christmas shirts at Target the previous week and saved them to give to the kids the morning we went to Cantigny. The kids loved their new shirts! Annabel was particularly pleased to have the same shirt as Daniel...it was huge, yes, but she was a happy camper!

We got to the show a little earlier than we have in the past, which was nice, so it wasn't too crazy crowded, but it was still busy, as always. The kids had a lot of fun spotting their faves- superheroes, Thomas the Train, Emmett, Darth Vader and other Star Wars guys, Santa, Uni-Kitty, and so on. It was fun to play a sort of I Spy with the millions of Legos there and point out cool features and characters! We all had a great time. Annabel also LOVED posing for pictures with the Star Wars costumed guys wandering around the place- we had to get a picture with every one of them! Daniel eagerly joined the pictures, too, which I was happy to see. Got some really cute pictures! And then of course we had to climb on tanks. Annabel liked the tiger striped tank the best. I also think she could have climbed on the tanks all day...she had the most fun climbing all over them, fearless girl that she is!

Christmas is AWESOME!- Cool shirts!

Daniel liked this Lego van.

 I liked the snowmen.

Such a cool Lego city- we spotted Superman and Batman on top of these buildings!

Annabel had the best seat in the house!

Posing for pictures with Star Wars characters!

Climbing tanks! This girl had a lot of fun!

A little blown out lighting wise, but such a great mega-watt smile and beautiful blue eyes!

Daniel was very proud that he climbed all the way up here on his own!

Annabel's favorite tank!

Sweet picture.