Starting to Throw a Little Caution to the Wind

Out of our three children I have to admit that Alyssa is our cautious one.  Never have I had to worry about her doing something dangerous, running too far away, or putting herself in harms way.  If anything, she usually tends to over think her situations and eventually scares herself out of doing anything that she thinks she could get hurt at.  In most cases it has been a major blessing, however there are times when it tends to be a little much.

At the age of 6, Alyssa is as bright and smart as they come.  She excels academically at school, reads a 100 page book a night, and loves anything that is technical.  Like most kids her age she loves going outside to play and wants to try new things all of the time.  Unfortunately though, she still can not ride a bike nor roller skate.  However, over the past few weeks she has begun to come out of her shell and is raising the bar when it comes to her daredevil tactics.  With a little coaxing from myself and her father she has recently started to hang upside down on the swing set.  As of yesterday she decided (with a little encouragement) to take the upside hanging a step farther and began to swing upside down.  The look on her face and the sound of her voice after accomplishing such a huge feat was priceless

Fall Fun

With a sunny, beautiful day staring us in the face yesterday we decided to get outside and get some much needed yard work done in the backyard.  Over the past two weeks nearly all of the leaves have fallen out of the trees and I'm embarrassed to admit that the weeds were seriously taking over the back fence line and were protruding out into the service alley.

As the guys (Michael and Dalton) got down to business with pulling all of the weeds off the back fence and trimming back tree limbs I got to work in the yard with the two little ones raking up all of the leaves. In a short period of time we had not just a pile of leaves but a huge pile and our hard laboring quickly turned to some fall style fun.  The kids spent the rest of the evening running and jumping into the pile of leaves.  Who would have ever thought that we could have had so much fall fun in the middle of December?

Reindeer, Running and a Class Party

Today was the last day of school for the kids before the winter break.  As with most schools the last week before Christmas (especially the days just before) are usually full of lots of fun activities, gift exchanges and classroom parties.  As the classroom "Mom" for Alyssa's school I am generally the parent who is there for all of their events.  Today was no different. 

Just after their Thanksgiving party back in November Alyssa's teacher (Ms. Smith) and I started planning the Holiday party for the class.  She'd decided that since there was already the "Reindeer Run" scheduled for today as well as early release for all of the students that she'd like to do their class party on the same day and to make it a sort of breakfast/brunch type of party.  So with some brainstorming we decided to request that each student bring one item for the party as well as a wrapped book that would be used for a book exchange.  After that we would provide some small crafts for the kids to do and their day could be rounded off with some movies and other activities or parents would be able to sign them out early.

My item to bring for the party was pigs in a blanket.  Now being me I couldn't just settle for bringing them some hotdogs wrapped in biscuits.  I needed to do something fun that they would love and would be just as creative as the "turkey" sandwiches I'd brought for Thanksgiving.  After a little brainstorming I cam up with the idea of turning the pigs in a blanket into little reindeer for the class to enjoy. 

As we (Michael took 1/2 day off of work) arrived at the school and checked in with the office we immediately saw Ms. Smith's class lined up in the hallway ready to start the Reindeer Run.  (This is an annual excersize measure taken by the school that gets the kids excited about the holidays but reminds them to excersize while on their break.  They get to run two blocks around the school while being cheered on by teachers and other staff members on every corner.) So quickly I went and dropped our things in the classroom and we were off.

At the finish lines the kids were all excited to be greeted by Santa!

After visiting with Santa briefly we headed into the classroom and started the holiday party festivities.  There were plenty of snacks, a Gingerbread man book exchange, and several crafts for the kids.  During the book exchange the children sat in a circle holding the wrapped book that they brought to school. While in the circle Ms. Smith read to them the story of the Gingerbread Man.  As she read the story any time that she would say any form of the word run (i.e. ran, running,) the kids were to pass the gifts in their hands to the right.  At the end of the story whichever gift they had in their hands was theirs to keep.

By 10:30am the festivities were over, the class was headed to p.e. and we were headed home for the day.  A very busy morning indeed but lots of fun!  I love being the classroom "Mom"!

A Visit From My Sister, Ice!, Girls Day out & Gifts

This past weekend we had a wonderful and much needed visit from my sister.  Sometimes we forget in the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives how important our relationships with those closest to us really are.  This past weekend reminded me just how much I sometimes miss those days of being able to drive over to my sister's house just to hang out.  It also reminded me how much my sister truly means to not only myself but to my children as well.  They too just loved having their wonderful Aunt here to visit and play with them, even if it was only for a few days.

Since it was the first time that she (my sister) was able to visit with us during the holiday season we of course wanted to spend a little time doing some holiday stuff around town.  I really wanted to show her everything that Dallas has to offer and only wish that we would have had plenty of more time and funds to do everything we wanted to.  On her first night in town the kids were literally climbing all of her in the excitement of having not seen her since June so we opted to spend the night hanging out at the house and playing games with the kids.  Plenty of smiles were to be had while we played Life, cards, and ended the night with a crazy game of Star Wars Monopoly.

On Saturday Dalton opted to stay home from his O-meet because he wasn't feeling well, but for him it wasn't a day of staying all warm and cozy in his bed.  Instead we decided to load everyone up and head over to the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine for some real Christmas fun.  First up was our tour through the Ice! exhibit.  For those of you unfamiliar with this exhibit it is housed in a tent that is kept at a chilly 9 degrees inside and the tour is of amazing ice sculptures that took artisans from China six months to complete. Each year the artisans are given a different theme to create and this year it was A Charlie Brown Christmas.

After freezing our way through Ice! we decided to thaw out while walking around the Gaylord Texan Hotel/Resort and enjoying their annual Christmas decorations.

Sunday was just a day for the girls. We headed over to the local AMC Theatre and watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1, stopped at Wal-Mart for a little shopping then headed home to make some Mexican for dinner.  What a meal! We had enchiritos, chicken & spinach quesidillas and chicken and black bean nachos.  After dinner Stephanie (my sister) let the kids open their Christmas gifts from her.

Our last day with Stephanie was a little less exciting being as two of the kids had to go to school but it did however give she and I a day to hang out before she left.  All in all it really was an awesome weekend spent with the ones that I love the most.