Noah's Ark

I now have a teeny tiny more of an understanding of what it was like on the ark. Animals, animals and more animals. This past week, Emily gave her brothers an early Christmas present. Let me introduce you to Rocky, Speedy and Hermes. Rocky hides most of the day, Speedy is fast and Hermes loves to explore. Yes, even hermit crabs seem to have personalities. That puts our pet numbers to six. But, this weekend we have a guest staying with us. Rodeo is spending his Thanksgiving with us while Erin is out of town. We couldn't be happier. Rodeo is a calm loving little guest. But this is not all...This is not a picture of our Thanksgiving dinner. Becky's family, who happens to be our wonderful neighbors, have chickens in their back yard. This morning Emily and I got to go over and check on them. We fed them, watered them and generally made sure the chickens were having a happy holiday. Ashley, Nutmeg and Marlin's reactions range from mouth-watering interest, to oblivion, to a dignified ignore.

Headed to Broadway

This year, our elementary school choir is putting on a play. They were expecting around 30 children to show interest in it, but they got around 90 students. Hooray for school enthusiasm! Emily tried out for a speaking part, and got one! She gets to play the part of Yellow Beard.
Yellow Beard has some funny lines and she even gets to lead all the pirates in a cheer. "Hip, Hip," they say, "hooray!" The play is about a Stowaway who wants to become a pirate. The music is catchy..."What do you do with a Stowaway?" (my favorite song from the show). Fear not, I won't give away the ending..but if you come the show you will learn what to do with a Stowaway.

Over the past weeks, Emily has been going to school early every morning to rehearse. She has also been working hard to design and sew her costume-with help from grandma. Hooray for Grandma! She looked fabulous up on stage.
This morning was the dress rehearsal. It went really well. The kids looked like they really were having fun. I think they are ready for Broadway.

*****UPDATE*****

The kiddos have finished both of their performances and they were fabulous-way better than the dress rehearsal. I think it is so great that Emily had this experience. I asked her if she is going to do the school play next year...and she quickly answered, "Of course!"

I shouldn't have laughed!

A few days ago, I was talking to my cute and fun friend Cynthia who lives in California. She asked me how much snow we had up here. I laughed. She said, "Well, it is Minnesota." Wanting to fight all MN stereo-types, I assured her that it was 60 degrees outside and my kids were wearing shorts. Let's just say I shouldn't have laughed.
Yes, it is Minnesota. Yes, it is November and yes, we were hit by a beautiful snowstorm yesterday. We are embracing the snow. We are loving the snow. The kids are building snowmen, building forts, sledding and sipping cocoa. We had a fire going all day and we are listening to Christmas music.

Grandpa comes to town

We were lucky this month to have a family visitor. Erik's dad, Grandpa Dan came to visit for an extended weekend. It is always fun when family comes around! Grandpa was nice enough to get our yard work done, chop the last of our wood, and he was even known to wash a few dishes.
Fear not, his visit was not all work. We had a yummy brunch at the Original Pancake house (the most delicious breakfast place this side of the Mississippi), and watched movies. They (I was at school) played Blacklight Putt Putt at the Mall, played tons of ping-pong, and went to the driving range. The kids loved simply playing around with him. He had to be on his toes, because Grandpa Dan was Andrew's favorite person to practice his latest wrestling moves on. Thank you Grandpa Dan for the great time! Can't wait to see you again soon.

Happy Halloween

This year our Halloween was filled with family and candy. We got to start celebrating on Saturday night at the Truck-or-Treat. Our ward combined with two other wards.This meant there were lots of cars ready to give out candy and lots of costumed kiddos.We parked our car right between Mom and Cousin Beqi's car. Mom was running the bean bag toss game that Emily and Andrew helped make. The next night was Halloween. Grandpa Bill, Grandma Ginger, Louise and Adele stayed back to pass out candy. (Sadly Adele was not feeling good enough to be out in the cold air-next year will be her year!) This was Fiona's first time out trick-or-treating and she was adorable. Louise says they practiced all day, and she racked in the treats! Here are Andrew (ninja), Fiona (Thomas), Emily (Cleopatra), Adele (Ladybug-which I will add is the same costume Em wore for her first Halloween-sigh) and Ryan the Dementor (From Harry Potter). Erik, Grandpa Dan, Ben and I walked the kiddos around the neighborhood. It was hard to keep up with Andrew...that kid can move, especially when there is candy involved.It is so much fun to get to spend holidays with cousins and friends, I can't think of a better way to spend the day.

Wax Museum and a party

Today Emily and Andrew's school celebrated Halloween. The fifth graders put together a wax museum for the rest of the school. It is really a creative process. These guys came up with some really cool ideas. This year there was a lemonade stand, various sports, a roller coaster, band concert, a flight, beauty pageant, a spa, hunters, roller parks, and other cool vignettes. Emily's group decided to put together a camp-out scene with boys attacking them. I just have to let you all in on the organization behind this scene. My daughter made up different lists for each person of things that they were responsible to bring. On top of the list it said, "please tape on the cover of your binder." So unlike her mother :). The fifth graders stood perfectly still. It was great to walk through the museum. After spending the morning setting up the wax museum, and watching the Halloween parade run by, I got to spend the afternoon in Andrew's classroom. Somehow, I was in charge of the whole class party. We had a pumpkin bean-bag toss (made by Andrew, Emily and Grandma Ginger-thank you very much), a bat craft, Halloween bingo and a "wrap the mummy" game. Of course, there were snacks too. I did not get as many pictures as I had hoped today, because I was busy running the craft table and other various things.
Then it was off to my class at the U-sadly no fun Halloween party for me, just a powerpoint lecture-boo.
Over all, it was a REALLY fun day and now I am REALLY exhausted.

Promises

Today was a fun day. Actually, it started with me in the dentist chair and that is NEVER a fun day. So I am going to focus on the fun part of the day. I decided it was time to make good on a promise that I made to Emily I would do years ago. It was simple really. I told Em that I would eat lunch with her at school. I don't know what took me so long to show up. I am glad I finally did though. Today we enjoyed a yummy Subway sandwich, chips, pop and a cookie. It was fun to be back in the elementary school cafeteria. Not much has changed. Still the long lunch tables, and the yucky garbage cans. I do think the company has gotten better. These girls are hilarious.

Of course the girls could not help but pose for some fun pictures. These were taken in the name of the yearbook.

I am grateful that Em has so many wonderful friends at school.

Of course we could not resist stopping by Andrew's first grade class. First graders are some of my favorite people on this planet. Somehow Andrew does not look amused that his mom is taking pictures in the middle of his school day. He'll get used to it : )