Saturday, December 18, 2010

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

Although our time has been more limited this year, we are doing our best to keep up with past traditions.

We put up my vintage aluminum tree first and spent plenty of time staring at the color wheel as it lit up the room with changing colors.

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The following weekend we put up the tree and the rest of the decorations. We had planned on getting a live tree this year, but the weather was not cooperative, and we decided we just couldn’t wait any longer! It was a little chaotic (okay, a lot chaotic) and I may have had a small OCD moment when I went a little crazy because the kids were unpacking ornaments without putting the wrappings back in their appropriate boxes, but other than that it went pretty well. We did have to stop at one point to back up from the tree and point out to the kids the thick four-year-old eye-level ring of ornaments they were creating (leaving the tree otherwise empty on the top half and very bottom) and encourage them to spread the ornaments out a little better!

And this year it was Zachary’s turn to put the star on top of the tree!

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Last weekend, we went to Bass Pro Shops to see Santa, but had to postpone the visit when we realized there was a THREE AND A HALF HOUR wait!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me?!?!?!? At least the store is fun to walk around in, so the kids weren’t too disappointed! We’ll try again soon!

Other than that, we’ve just been madly scrambling to get the shopping done or at least partly done. God bless the man that invented Amazon! The crazy weather hasn’t helped! We missed school three days this past week because of snow and ice! Before Christmas! That’s unheard of! It has certainly thrown a kink in the final exam schedules!

Oh, well! Somehow we will manage to get everything done! And it will be great! I’m looking forward to every minute of it! Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanksgiving in a Nutshell

We spent Thanksgiving in Memphis this year and had a blast! It was a quick visit since I needed to get back to prepare for going back to work that coming Monday. Here are the best shots from our visit:

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I know, it’s not much. Apparently, we didn’t take many shots on the trip. I think Jim and I were both a little preoccupied with all the changes our lives were about to take! Oh, well! They’re cute anyway!

Thanks to everyone who made our visit a great one! It was especially nice to get to visit a little with the Perkins clan and share an absolutely delicious Thanksgiving meal with them!

Love you all! Happy Thanksgiving!

Learning to Write

The kids are learning to write, which means they write their names a lot since those are the best words to write! Here’s a few shots of how they are doing these days:

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Obviously, there’s lots of room for improvement, but I think they’re doing pretty well so far!

Christmas is Coming!!!

AND WE ARE NOT READY!!!!!!

I’m sure that comes as a surprise to no one! It certainly is no surprise to me! We have been crazy busy since I went back to work, but it’s been a good kind of busy!

I’m really enjoying working again, although I DON’T love getting up before the sun every morning! I’ll be glad when I no longer have to drive to work in the dark!

The kids are LOVING preschool! There’s always so much for them to do and so many other kids to play with! They are so social; it’s really been great for them to be back in a classroom!

Cute preschool-related story: Reagan and Zachary lucked out and got in the same preschool class as a little girl they went to preschool with last year! Since she already knew them, she (and her mom most importantly) also knew Thomas and Jonathan even though they are in a different class. So when this little girl had a birthday party last weekend and invited all the other kids in her preschool class, she also invited T and J from the other class! (Yea! No explaining why Z and R get to go to a birthday party, but T and J don’t! We dread that day!) Anyway, we went to the party, and everyone had a great time, but Jim and I were MOST entertained by Zachary who spent almost the entire party following another little girl around! It was SO CUTE! He kept chasing after her, yelling her name. Luckily, she didn’t seem to mind!

Now, I’m going to attempt to shoot out a quick series of posts that will likely be heavy on pictures and short on words! Enjoy!