We had a fun visit from our friend Julie this weekend. On Saturday we braved the cold to hit the Prairie Christmas celebration at Living History Farms.
Chillin’ at Home
It’s cold out. The kids got out some this morning, but otherwise Susan and I have spent the day catching up on things that need to get done around the house and the kids have been playing all afternoon. I have offered a few times to take them to Home Depot, but the playdough, train, and space shuttle are too much fun!
They all slept until 8 this morning and have been playing well all day. I hope this continues!
Sorry!
We just completed the best game of Sorry! that I have played in my entire life! We just played a game that lasted an hour and 7 minutes. By the end we each had almost all of our pieces in Home, with Mar-Mar winning, Andrew waiting for a 1, me/Elliot waiting for a 3, and Mari/Susan waiting for a 5 and a 7.
Time Changes, They Are a Changin’
It is about this time of year that I usually write my annual I hate the time change post. This year, for the first time ever, our kids adjusted fairly seamlessly. We had a few nights where they went to bed early and woke up early, but after a couple of days they were back to normal – in bed around 8 and up at 7 or 7:30.
The Return of the Lunch
Mari was walking to lunch today and she saw something in the lost and found – Andrew’s missing lunch box. He lost it on September 8 and we had not seen it since – until today! It was all there, including a very moldy sandwich. We are glad to have it back.
2010 Lantern Walk
Tonight we had the Lantern Walk with the Bean Sprout families. It was a beautiful night and we had a great turn-out.
Thanks, Betsy and Scott, for the pictures.
2010 Beggars’ Night Costumes
Andrew was the Des Moines Menace mascot, Mari was a baby fairy, marking her third year in a row as some sort of fairy, and Elliot was some sort of witch, or something. We had a great time walking around the neighborhood.
2010 Beggars’ Night Jokes
Autumn Pictures
Mari Sings
Mari has never been much of a singer. She has never seemed to interested in it, until recently. Ever since this summer (maybe around Vacation Bible School?) Mari has been singing much more. She loves learning new songs, and the motions that go with them.
Andrew’s School Birthday
We just returned from another of Andrew’s school birthdays, and I was once again impressed. Moving up from kindergarten to first grade I thought they might scale back a little bit, but once again they had a nice ceremony, complete with a candle, globe, Andrew walking in circles and us sharing pictures and stories.
As part of the ceremony we sing Happy Birthday to Andrew, once for real and once replacing the first letter of each with with the first letter of his name. Mrs. Wolfe-Guess said that it does not work well with vowels, so we switched to ‘J’, creating another interesting version of the song.
After the singing all of the kids in the class wished Andrew a happy birthday, and gave him a hug.
Peter Mayer
Susan and I got out on Saturday night to see Peter Mayer play here in Des Moines. Susan became a fan while she was in college and I became a fan while riding in our car listening to him. He has some great, thoughtful music, and he does some nice work with the guitar. He played a fun show, intermingling serious songs, funny songs, and even funnier stories. I managed to record one of his ‘sing-a-long’ songs, Hot Pickles:
In other news, Sylvia, our babysitter, got our kids to sleep without a hitch. She just read to them, tucked them in, and then left the room. That is a first.