Holiday Ready

I know it isn't quite Thanksgiving yet, but Thanksgiving is late this year and we're headed out of town, so we've decided to go ahead and get in the Christmas spirit! 

Over the weekend, we put up our decorations while we had carols going on the record player.

 I always love the way our house looks with lights!

 Yesterday, the girls and I made a full day of ICE at the Gaylord. The theme this year is "A Charlie Brown Christmas", which of course is one of our favorites. We had tickets for 10:00, right when they opened, and it was perfect. We had hardly any waits for anything!

The girls rode the ice slide multiple times.

 And they snow tubed a whole bunch, too. Those hills look little, but they were fast! Lots of laughter!

Emma asked to do the holiday build-a-bear station that was part of the event. I normally would have said "no", but yesterday just felt like a "yes" day. Sara told me she didn't need one, but I was glad she changed her mind!

 Had to ride the carousel (well, Emma had to; Sara humored us).

 After spending lots of time at the ICE exhibit, we went out into the hotel to enjoy the decorations and find Santa. Sara asked for books and Emma asked for Legos.

 After seeing Santa and a couple more rounds of tubing, we headed to downtown Grapevine to eat a late lunch. After eating, we walked up and down the street. They were setting up for a festival, so we took a couple of pictures and hit up the candy store.

 Such a fun day with my girls, and now we are officially holiday ready (except for buying gifts, planning meals, etc., etc., etc.).

Book Talk

Looking for a book to enjoy over the holidays? Here are a few good ones I've read recently.

The New Girl was a great suspense novel about the abduction of a girl said to be the daughter of a wealthy business man from her highly secured school in Switzerland. There are a number of current event political references, and lots of twists and turns.

Talk Before Sleep is about the final stages of Ruth's battle with breast cancer, and the friends who were with her until the end. It's a powerful story about illness and how it impacts our relationships, feelings of hope and desperation, and the importance of friendship.

I finally read Crawdads! I had to bite the bullet and buy it for way too much, but it was worth it. The world through Kya's eyes was both fascinating and frustrating, and left me wondering how people lead lives like the ones described here. In many ways, this story reminded me of Educated, and the backwards livelihood described in that memoir. Everyone has heard about this book by now - if you haven't read it, you should

Going Underground is a YA novel about Del, who makes his living digging graves since, at just 17, some circumstances have made him a felon and he can't see any future beyond the cemetery. Heart-wrenching and redeeming, this was a powerful story about how our actions, however small they may see, can have lifelong impact. Especially timely for today's YA readers.

"So many books, so little time."

-Frank Zappa

And...break!

The last few weeks have been fast and furious, and we've miraculously made it to Thanksgiving break! November started with another lost tooth (#7) for Emma. We didn't even know her tooth was loose when she went to school that morning, and next thing I knew, her teacher was sending me this picture. My girls love losing teeth at school - it's just more special that way!

 We had a nice weekend for the final fall soccer game. Proud of these girls. In their final game, they beat a team who had beat them 6-2 earlier in the season. So fun to watch them improve and play hard. They've continued to practice, and winter games will pick up in December.

 The girls had a November field day this year, which had to be moved inside due to cold rain. They still had a good time, though this is the only shot I found of either of the girls.

 November 11th-13th, Sara and I were at 5th grade adventure camp! Three schools go during each session, and I had put in a special request last spring for my school to be matched with Sara's, and I'm SO glad my request was honored. I loved being able to see her once in a while - at meals, occasionally out during activities, etc.

 She had a fun cabin group. The cabin moms brought the girls goody bags and lights that projected snowflakes when they slept.

 It was SO cold while we were at camp. In fact, while we were there, North Texas was recording record cold temps and some of the earliest freezes ever. The mornings and nights had real feels in the 8-12 degree range. Some activities had to be moved inside, but we did our best to give the kids the same experience as they would have in regular temps.

The fish weren't really biting...but we tried anyway and canoed, too.

 It was fun to see Sara with her friends, having a great time.

 I happened to be walking by when her cabin was doing their campfire skit, and I was so proud to see and hear Sara leading it!

 In unrelated news, Steve got this head massager from work that we all love. Emma was wearing it and I told her she looked like an egg-beater. Emma has been busy this month with a variety of art projects, primarily for her teacher. Her best masterpiece was a coaster made of popsicle sticks. Emma was so proud when her teacher displayed it for everyone to see.

 Sara had Colonial Day in 5th grade yesterday. She looked so cute in this outfit that my mom made for my sister many years ago when she went to Old Cahill. As Sara said, "wow, I'm actually wearing something for Colonial Day that really is ancient." She had a fun day of quilting, making applesauce and butter, calligraphy, candle dipping, and tin punching. I'm so glad she's having a great experience to finish elementary school. Her teachers this year are awesome!

Our biggest and best news this month is that we have a new family member, Calloway Michael Wickert. After so many years of waiting, Melissa and Adam are parents! Cal was born in Kansas on November 12th, while Sara and I were at camp. The time between his birth and those papers being signed felt like forever, and we were all relieved when Melissa texted to say he was theirs. Cal has now been home in MN for a week. We cannot wait to meet him in December!

 Today we watched the Cyclones and decorated for Christmas. We have a few days to hang around home, then we'll head to Kansas to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Lyons family. Looking forward to a relaxing week, starting on Monday with a fun date day with my girls!

October in Review

Well, I have absolutely NO idea where October went. I started to write a Halloween post, and then realized I hadn't shared anything else from the month, so this is going to be a total photo dump. 

Earlier in the month, the girls' school had an end-of-quarter assembly. Since Sara is a Student Council officer (secretary) this year, she got to help lead the assembly. She was so excited and I hear she did a great job!

 That evening, the girls came to my school's Color Run. Being the principal's kid at these events means you stay til the very, very end - so they got their picture with this sign in the dark.

 Someone captured these great photos for me. It's fun to have the girls come to my school for these events, especially now that they are old enough to make new friends and just hang on their own.

 Right after our run was our fall festival, so they had pizza and ice cream, played games and did bounce houses before retreating to my office to veg out while I wrapped up the night's events.

 Near the end of the month, Sara marched in the Plano West homecoming parade with her school. We had all hoped to go, but Emma had a softball playoff game that evening.

 It was a neat parade. We'd never been, but I hope to go back. We had planned to go to the homecoming game, but after 24+ hours of very cold rain, we opted out.

 It had been crazy sock day at school, so Sara kept hers on for the parade. She was easy to spot that way! She enjoyed handing out candy to the parade-goers.

 The weekend before Halloween we finally picked up some pumpkins. I was so proud when we had our costumes purchased in September, but then the weeks flew by. Next thing I knew, we were hitting up Trader Joe's on a super busy Saturday. Thankfully they still had lots of great pumpkins! I had to take a photo since this was the closest we got to a pumpkin patch this year.

 Emma's fall soccer season is almost over. Due to all the rain, last weekend's game was moved inside. As the team manager, I get an inside view of Coach's conversations with the girls!

 The indoor fields are near a Mexican place we love, so we headed there for dinner after the game last Saturday night. After all the rain (and before the hard freeze), it was a beautiful night to wait on the restaurant's porch for our table.

 By Monday night, we were watching a softball game in freezing rain. The playoff game that happened during the homecoming parade went to extra innings (thanks to an RBI from Emma to tie it up and cause overtime!), and the girls ended up winning. Sunday they lost in the semi-finals to a great team, but they were proud 3rd place winners on Monday night! This was Emma's first season of softball and she loved it. Hers was one of two 1st grade teams in a 2nd grade league, so they had their work cut out for them and obviously did very well. I'm excited to watch her play again in the spring.

 It was perfect that Wednesday is our non-sports night of the week because we were able to carve our pumpkins just in time for Halloween! In this picture, Emma was mad at Sara about something and refused to turn around.

 I got her a few minutes later.

 Digging in. Sara gutted a pumpkin entirely on her own for the first time this year! I was busy pulling seeds from the guts to bake.

 Here are our finished products. While Steve was carving, Emma used the extra bits and toothpicks to build a little "haunted house" out of pumpkin. It was very creative ... but I didn't get a pic and of course now it's shriveled in the trash.

 The girls always have book character day at school on Halloween. Of course this means everyone just wears their costume and finds a book to match. One of Sara's former teachers sent me this pic of Emma; unfortunately she didn't get one of Sara. As a 5th grader, Sara was too cool to wear her costume all day and brought a change of clothes for right after the parade.

Almost as soon as last Halloween was over, the girls knew what they wanted to be this year. I was surprised that they stuck with these ideas - pirate and witch. They looked really cute!

Steve and the girls went trick-or-treating. It was COLD - our coldest Halloween in 25+ years or something like that (and last night was the first November 1st freeze in 113 years!), so there weren't tons of trick-or-treaters out, but the girls had a great time.

 As always, they have more candy than they'll even begin to eat. So far, the only trades have been milk duds for lemon heads.

 Now it's November and I know it'll fly by as quickly a October did. In a couple of weeks, Sara and I go to 5th grade camp! I "called in" a favor so our schools are going at the same time this year. She's relieved I won't be her cabin chaperone, and I'm so glad I'll get to pop in and check on her once in a while. The following week I'm in Houston for two days, and then it'll be Thanksgiving break. I have a couple of fun things planned with the girls, not the least of which will include putting up the Christmas tree!  In the meantime, I'm close to having the Christmas cards ordered, and I have a decent start on Christmas lists (not buying, just listing). The next two months will be fast and furious, but they are my favorite!