Christmas 2014

Christmas 2014 is almost in the books now. It seemed like an eventful month, but in retrospect they all seem that way. The girls got to pick their own dresses this year. They've been wearing this and last year's dress every week since Thanksgiving, they really enjoy them.

Both girls had Christmas concerts this year. Abby got to play the maracas in hers and Nora was about the only kid in pre-school who had all the words and motions down. Nora made sure to practice her songs to and from school every day.

They also had a great time at the church's Christmas pajama party this year.

After Nora's birthday we made our annual trip to visit Santa. I think Nora is still a little unsure about the whole Santa thing, at least she didn't hide this year.

(Yes, Mrs. Claus is texting)

Christmas Eve we took the girls to their first Christmas Eve service. It was a little long for them, but they were duly impressed with holding candles and singing silent night. Christmas morning was a blur. This year they spent some of their allowance money on presents for each other, it was fun to see them really experience the giving side of Christmas.

Nora's Birthday

Nora J turned 5 this year, this was probably the first year she really had a hard time waiting for her birthday. I've lost track of how many times she asked if her birthday was tomorrow.

On the eventful day Abby woke Nora up at 6:00, the earliest they're allowed to be up, to be the first to say, 'Happy Birthday!'.  Nora brought Hello Kitty cupcakes to preschool, the kind with a ring on top, and she received several rousing renditions of Happy Birthday!

After dinner we opened a few presents. Nora's favorite was a large stuffed Elsa doll from Abby. Nora has barely let it out of her sight since, Abby knows her sister.

On Saturday we had Nora's party, she requested a rainbow themed party. There were rainbow necklaces, pin-the-cloud on the rainbow, a musical rainbow walk, rainbow favors, and one awesome rainbow cake.

Nora had an awesome day, best birthday yet she said.

Thanksgiving 2014

It seems like we haven't posted much recently for Thanksgiving. I don't have a lot to add this year, but there were a few things I'd like to remember. For the second or third year running we made a thankfulness tree at home. Each night we wrote something we're thankful for on a leaf and added it to the tree. Personally, I'm very thankful for the time and effort Kristin puts into cultivating grateful hearts in our girls.

It's always interesting to see what sort of things the girls are thankful for. We get a few high-brow leaves like: laughter, being 4, my sister, etc. Several more funny ones like: having a lot of tickets, tv, and puns. The majority of our thankfulness involves food though: chocolate, chocolate frosting, candy corn, chocolate frosted candy corn ... I suppose it's obvious we did this after dessert.

We also visited Dr. Howard at lunch for the first grade lunch feast. The girls loved it.

After the feast we drove to Grandpa and Grandma VanDuyne's and had Thanksgiving with Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Oxenrider. I don't have any pictures of that but I know others do.

Per tradition when we got home we all put up the tree. Saturday was unseasonably warm so we all worked together on the outside decorations. The Christmas season is officially on us now.

Halloween 2014

We added another great Halloween to the books this past weekend. Since we really never get trick-or-treaters we all went out together. Abby was a pirate, the first non-princess costume she's ever chosen. Nora was a fairy, which she assures me is in some material way different than a princess.

We also managed to continue most of our fall family traditions.

First we had to decorate the house.

And make cookies



and eat cookies.

We made our annual trek to the pumpkin patch.

First grade is a little too uptight to wear costumes at school, but Nora got one more year in at the preschool parade.

It's already November so the holiday season is upon us, so far so good.

Back to School

We've been a little too preoccupied with life lately to update the blog like we should. Another long post is thus in order, better late then never and what not.

First the girls have both started back in their school routines. Abby's writing is really progressing. She wakes up early every morning and eagerly waits for when I come into her room and tell her she can read until it's time to get up. Nora knows her letters and I often overhear Abby telling her how to spell words so they can write each other notes. Nora is back at pre-school and we're continuing our occasional lunch date tradition. It's one of my favorite things.

Abby put her good writing skills to use the other day when she lost her freshly lost tooth. We were all walking over to the doughnut store one cold fall morning. Abby and Nora were walking on the retaining wall and Abby was informing me that she was such an expert at walking on walls that she didn't even need to take her hands out of her pockets to balance. When we got to the very last stone, where the cap is maybe 1/2 an inch higher than the grass she tripped. Without her hands to catch herself she lost one tooth right away and I think another 2-3 might be forthcoming. Nevertheless she made the most of it.

Kristin and I went to a wedding in Chicago last weekend. On the way we stopped at Chuck-e-Cheese's. It was much nicer than I remember, and the girls really enjoyed it. They even thanked us for taking them when we left.

This was a close as they were getting to the animatronics.

That's about all the interesting news we have. I did manage to drag some giant oil tanks out of the basement. I'm going to throw some weights down there. I didn't feel that old when I turned 30, but I think once you start putting seldom used athletic equipment in the basement you've crossed some sort of line into old age.

Summer Fun

As our summer is starting to wind down it occurs to me that we haven't been keeping up with our family blog lately. It's been a good summer full of fun activities worth remembering though. We've even had the occasional restful weekend.

I'm sure I'll miss some important ones, but in no particular order there were days at the pool, birthday parties, and swim lessons. If you look closely you might see that several times the girls got their heads close enough to the water for their hair to get wet, sometimes this was even on purpose.

The girls spent a great deal of time playing together, so there were many tea parties, pirate adventures, and play-dough baking extravaganzas.

We went to a pool party, and simultaneously got to ride in a fire truck. They had a week of gymnastic camp as well. The last day Kristin and I got to see them work up the courage to walk the high beam, it was impressive.

Once you add in two grandparent camps it comes out to a great summer, sometimes so much fun just wears you out.