Transferring the Tree

A few years ago, Mom and Ron gave us their old Christmas tree when they moved into their new house.  We need a smaller tree and they needed a bigger tree, as they moved from a house with a small ceiling to a big ceiling, and we moved from a house with a big ceiling to a small ceiling.  But this year we decided we were ready for a new tree, and we had our eye on one from Costco that could switch from white to colored lights with a switch of a button (or via the remote!).  I love the look of colored lights, because it reminds me of the trees of my childhood, but white lights have been so trendy for years.  This tree lets us switch back and forth as needed.  Joanna and Kirk are now in Kansas City, so I asked them if they wanted the tree, and they in fact did need a new tree.  So Mom and Ron's tree has now moved from them, to us, to Joanna and Kirk.  It's serving our extended family well.  Anyway, today we decorated the tree, and here Joshua is putting the first ornament on our new Christmas tree.

Clara is 5!

Our sweet little Clara has turned five now. This picture is very "her". We were at the park and she took a break for art. She loves helping and it can be hard to accommodate that, but she loves helping me with everything I do and especially cooking. She is quite independent and prefers to go to the bathroom by herself in public places and get things out of the fridge herself and things like that. Not all of the things she wants to do are okay, so it's always a balance of letter her be free and keeping her safe. She enjoys things involving balance and coordination, like walking on balance beams, gymnastics, and roller skating. I think she will enjoy learning to ride a two-wheeled bike in the spring. She remains very social and gets along well with her friends and makes friends with pretty much everyone she meets. She likes helping younger kids and telling them what to do (usually in a good way). She doesn't like gross-out humor like the other kids, but she does love being silly and laughing. She loves art and her drawing skill has grown so much this year. She is 40.5 inches tall and weighs 31 lbs. She has recently gotten to the 2nd percentile of weight, which she hasn't been that high since she was two months old, so that's exciting. We love her to pieces and she brightens our life in so many ways.

Nolan's 6th Birthday Party

Today I took Joshua to a birthday party for his soccer teammate and classmate, Nolan.  They held it at the Olathe Community Center.  They started out with some cake and ice cream.

We then had plenty of time in the pool.  I didn't go in, because he's capable of handling himself (and there are plenty of life guards, so it's not like his life depends on me watching every second).  He borrowed a water gun from someone (or maybe he just found it; I don't actually know), and he used that for a long time.  You can see him here with his action moves while battling a friend.  After awhile we went over to the lazy river, and he happily did that for the rest of the time.  He was really interested in the large water slide they have there, but he's still a few inches too short.  But we had a nice time, and I also got to hang out with Nolan's dad, Ryan, who is my co-coach (he's the head coach, and I'm the assistant coach) on the boys' soccer team.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 We started the day with cinnamon rolls, which is always a popular way to start the day.

 Hannah wasn't about to let the cooler weather dampen her summer style. She is very specific about her clothing choices and this is what she was insistent on today.

Clara enjoying her Thanksgiving feast.

Christine was able to make it to celebrate too. We had a nice meal.

Pumping It Up

We have a long weekend this weekend because of Thanksgiving.  I wanted to take the kids out somewhere, and Meghan suggested Pump It Up.  I think Halie has taken the kids there before, but neither Meghan nor I had been there.  They had am open play day today, which isn't very common, because they are usually full with birthday parties.  The first thing we did was the giant dual slide.  My kids all climbed up together and slid down together.  Usually that went fine, and they had a blast doing it at the same time.

              But one time it didn't turn out so well for Hannah, as she faceplanted on the mat, but she was fine.

They also have a series of big purple balls that the kids can jump from one to the other and try to land on it and stay on it without falling to the ground (which was just a soft, squishy mat).  Joshua went first and rocked it.

Clara went across with not quite the success of Joshua.  I didn't think Hannah was going to do it, but she decided she wanted to do it.  And she even made it across one of them.  I was really proud.  That's one of the areas in which she has grown the most recently.  She's so much braver than she used to be.

There is a cool feature which allows the kids to load soft foam balls into guns and shoot them across to the other side, where a similar setup allows the other kids to shoot back.  Joshua was excited to do it,which I expected, but yet again Hannah surprised by wanting to try it as well.

They also had a cylinder with multiple levels of webbing to allow the kids to climb up from the bottom to the top, where they could get in a big slide and slide back down.  Joshua spent quite a bit of time in this.  He wasn't interested in going down the slide but just liked to maneuver around the different levels.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with this place.  There were a lot of different things to do, including many I didn't even take pictures of.  As I mentioned, it's not open for open play as much as I'd like, but it's definitely a place I'd consider taking my kids again.

Happy Birthday Clara!

We started celebrating Clara's birthday the night before Thanksgiving. The kids were all excited we got a mini-trampoline from my parents.

 

She wanted to go to Red Robin for dinner. You get a free sundae on your birthday. The kids all shared.

She enjoyed her gifts, especially her boots. She scuffs up her shoes when she walks, much to my irritation, so she goes through cowgirl boots pretty quickly. The old ones actually have holes in them, so she was definitely due a new pair. Which were scuffed within 24 hours. But she's happy anyhow.

We had cupcakes for dessert on Thanksgiving.

November

We had some unseasonably warm weather this month. The kids got to have a last hurrah with water baloons.

Joshua is learning to read. Right now he really likes Bob books and these that have small words for a grown up and big words for the emerging reader so we can read a book together.

We were able to go the park a few times in the nice weather.

Sprint decided to paint their interior walls garish colors. I think it's supposed to be motivating and energetic. The one by me is purple. I found it distracting until I got used to it. It's not my preference for a work space.I prefer clean lines and neutral colors.

Clara enjoyed making some mini brownie bites in her new easy bake oven. Here she is frosting them.

We went to the gym one day. The kids were excited as it had been awhile and it had gotten a bit colder so outside wasn't an option.

We had a good time experimenting with water colors, which is one of Joshua's favorite things to do.

Storks

Today I had a date day with Clara.  Sometimes on their date days, Meghan gives them them option to invite a sibling, though I don't really do that on mine.  But Clara today really wanted Joshua to come with us.  We didn't have as much time as we normally do, so we were only going to go see a movie, and I decided it would be okay this time.  So the three of us went to see Storks.  It was pretty good, but not great.  But the kids really enjoyed it, as they all now love going to see movies in the theater, especially when they get popcorn.

Amateur Family Photography

During the time that we normally book our family pictures, I was out of work, so we didn't want to spend the money on pictures when we weren't sure how long I was going to be without a job.  But we still wanted to do Christmas cards, so we still needed at least pictures of the kids.  So I was in charge of taking pictures of them.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a ton of days that would work due to weather and other scheduling, but I found a day that would work, which ended up being today.  I also had a location in mind that I thought would make for a good backdrop: the park near our house which has a lot of natural grasses.  The only problem was that it was chilly this morning, but since it was really the only day that worked, I had to make it happen.  Fortunately, it turned out pretty well, and the pictures above are the ones I took that we ended up choosing to use on our Christmas card.

It did take me quite a few pictures to get those, with the biggest challenge being the one with all three kids, as of course you need them all to have good facial expressions in the same shot, which is a never-ending challenge for me.  But the main issue today is that because it was cold, Clara, who is the most susceptible to the cold, and in a bad combination, also the most dramatic, made it very difficult to get a picture where it didn't look like she was freezing to death.  In the one we used, it wasn't too bad, but most of the others she looks miserable.  Here are a couple that I took that didn't make the final cut for obvious reasons, but they are pretty representative of almost every picture I took.  Given that, I feel really fortunate that I ended up with the one I did, as I think it turned out great, but it was pretty much the only passable one.

Thanksgiving, Elementary-School-Cafeteria-Style

Today they had a Thanksgiving-style lunch at Joshua's school.  Parents were invited to attend, and Meghan and I were both available, so we went.  While it was fun to eat lunch with Joshua, the food was, well, terrible.  I know they're not making it expecting to be judged as gourmet cuisine, but man, that was some sub-par food.  And I'm not even picky. Anyway, we ate it, and the most important thing was that we got to join Joshua and eat lunch with him.

Clara's Birthday Party

 This year Clara's birthday is on Thanksgiving so we had her party a bit early. We had it at our church. We had bike/scooter time in the gym and they were also able to play on the indoor playground.

Jason did a great job with the cake. We did a Toy Story theme, specifically related to Jessie.

Clara had a great time with her friends, including some from her old school who she was super happy to see.

We all had an awesome time and I can't believe we have a soon-to-be 5 year old!