Milly's birthday

Milly's birthday was the day after Thanksgiving and we went to Mongolian grill for dinner. Greta and I both bought new cameras in the sale at Target and so she went around the table while I took pictures of her with everyone!!!!

Tree cutting 2012

We went back to Pea Ridge to cut our tree this year. Megan was home for Thanksgiving and so we went this weekend.  Since November 1st was on a Thursday, Thanksgiving was as early as it could be this year and so this has to be the earliest day we would ever cut a tree!!!!
Pea Ridge is now growing fir trees and I have been after one for years.  They don't usually grow well in MO so it's hard to find them, unless they are pre-cut. Of course, they were more expensive but worth it!!! 

We stopped and ate dinner with the Bosch family, as usual.  Can't break the yearly tradition!!!!

We got the tree up and all the decorations on.  It looks great

This is our "angel" on top of the tree, I think it has a "Nightmare Before Christmas" look about it!!!!

Thanksgiving 2012

We had 8 of us for dinner this year. Milly is with us for a few days. We are a host family for two students from China through a program at SLU and I picked them both up for dinner. Vivian brought us some sushi that she made. Sam and Greta ate it as an appetizer!!

Vivian took this picture while we were all getting our plates together.  Ben and Eulanda are the best of friends.  He absolutely loves her.

I made paleo and non-paleo dishes for dinner.  It made everyone happy.  we had apple pie and ice cream for dessert.  It was great.  I haven't had ice cream for ages!!!  Ben didn't eat too much because he said his stomach was hurting.  He came back and tried eating turkey again and he said he thought it was that.  He said his stomach felt all tingly.  I remember this happening last year.  I wonder if he has an allergy to it?

International Education Week (part 2)

Turkey Trot 2012

Sam and I ran the 5K Kirkwood/Webster turkey trot this morning (my bib number is 3067). I ran my fastest time ever, 5K in 30:43. I was surprised that I beat my time from last year.  The major difference was that I felt fine after the run, whereas I thought I was going to die last year!!!!

Sam is the best running partner EVER, he really keeps me going when I want to walk for a while.

Now to start cooking......

My evenings this week

Monday
Leave work at 1pm. Take Greta to do her presentation at Maggie's school
Work at the book fair 2:30 to 4:30
Go to Maggie's parent-teacher conference at 4:30
Crossfit at 6:00
Bens parent-teacher conference at 7:30

Tuesday
Leave work at 2 pm. Work book fair 2:30 to 3:30
Pick Greta up from school at 4:00. Drop Ben off at gymnastics at 5:30
Make dinner
Take Greta to Target
PTO meeting at 6:45

Wednesday
Go to work usual time.  Take Greta to Ben's school to do her presentation at 9:30. Go back to work
Get Maggie from school
Take Greta to get shoes for choir
Go to Billikens game at 7:00. Part of our SLU host family program

Thursday
Get Maggie from school. Get Ben from year book club at 3:30
Make dinner
Go to Greta's choir performance at 7:00

No wonder I am tired!!!!!

International Education Week (part 1)

As part of International Education Week, Greta has to do 3 presentations about her Country. She did her presentation for Maggie's class yesterday. The kids did really well listening to her presentation, but they didn't ask too many questions.

When she was done with her slide show, she played a couple of games with them.  This was definitely more up their alley!!!!

Now, she gets to do the whole thing again for Ben's class.....

An unexpected diversion

After weeks of waiting, they finally resurfaced our road this week. They just paved the part outside our house first thing yesterday morning. I was walking up to Tilles Park to get the kids and saw that the water main had burst AGAIN, this time further up the road. It was pouring out of the ground in our neighbour's yard.  The new grass was completely washed out 

Of course, as soon as they heard about it, the kids wanted to rush home so that they could see it.  They had great fun riding their bikes through it

They had to turn the water off again, second time we've been without water recently.  After they had fixed the break, they opened the fire hydrants at both ends of the street to clean everything. It was like Christmas for the kids (all 3 of them).

They ran around in the water for ages, even though it was freezing.  Greta said she couldn't feel her feet!!!  Who knew you could have so much fun with a little (OK, a lot) water.

A "what was he thinking" moment

Sam and Greta raked and bagged the leaves yesterday. Every year it seems like we have more than before!!! Greta was a great help and they were done in less than 2 hours. I told him that we finally had a child willing and happy to help!!!!

They lined all the bags up along the back of the house waiting until pick up on Wednesday

While Maggie and I were at the store, Ben decided the bags would make great target practice for his bow and arrow.  There were holes in all the bags and some were completely split open.  I'm he was still alive when  I got back home!!!!  I said to him "oh, I hear you put a bunch of holes in the leaf bags" to which he replied "yeah, it was fun".  My immediate wonder was that he had no idea that was NOT the thing to do.  He also never even thinks of apologizing.  I asked him why he just simply didn't say he was sorry and he said that sometimes people get mad when you say you're sorry.  I told him that once you've done something all you can do is apologize and help repair the damage.  Sometimes he has absolutely no insight at all.....

Ben continues to grow....

Took Ben to the endocrinologist yesterday.  I had completely forgotten to make an appointment for him so we were at 6 months rather than 4 this time.  One of the problems with their appointment system-they can't book so far out when we are there and then it goes out of my mind!!!  Anyway, he is now 4 ft 7 1/2 in tall (22 %) and 73 1/2 lbs (21%).  He's grown over an inch and put on 7 lbs in the last six months!!  His growth is going so well and he is definitely catching up with his peers.  He was showing me his muscles last night after he got back from gymnastics.  He is in amazing shape.  He still talks about giving up gymnastics next year and I am trying to keep him interested enough to keep doing it.  Who knows who will win this battle....

Ben's camping trip

Jan and Julie took Ben to Onandaga State Park for the weekend.  Jan had posted pictures and I copied some of them for the blog.  This is Ben reading about whittling!!!!

Napping on a rock in the middle of the river (typical Ben!!)

Tracking the storm on the radio

Looking for bats leaving the cave in the evening

I told Jan that I don't even recognize Ben when I see him in pictures like this.  He looks so relaxed and happy.  So different to the boy we see on a daily basis.  I guess every child needs individual attention and a break from "real life" to decompress.  What would we ever do without Jan and Julie?  Best friends EVER!!!!

Greta's first Halloween

This girl made up for lost time!!!!! Greta's friends were having a bonfire and so she texted me after school and said she wanted to look for a costume!!! We went to the Halloween store and one of the guys there suggested that she should get an Alice costume, cover herself in blood and get a big knife. Well she wasn't too sure about the Alice costume (probably the $50 price tag had something to do with it), but was interested in the blood and knife!! I told her we should go to Goodwill and see if she could find a cheap dress there. We found the perfect dress and it was only $4.50. She wanted to spray her hair black (I still have the black around my finger nails!!) and she made her face look scary

She covered her dress in fake blood and put a couple of cuts in it.  Oh, the blood across her neck was pretty realistic!!!

She had the best time trick or treating.  I think it was a little too easy for her to get into the role!!!!!

Trick or Treat

Great Halloween in the end. We did everything last minute (by our standards).  We went to the Halloween store and Maggie chose this Angry Birds costume.  It was designed to have two pillows under it to make it stand out, but they were bothering her so Sam ended up carrying them most of the way when they went trick-or-treating 

Ben wanted to be a vampire and so we painted his face.  It was a relatively cheap costume-just the make up and cape.  He sprayed his hair black, but it didn't look too different when it was done.  My flash of inspiration was that I tied one of my T shirts around his waist so it looked like a cummerbund!!!

This is the crew getting ready to go out and hit the streets.  I decided just to go with them this year rather than stay home and hand out candy.  We never get many kids on our street (only the ones that know us) as the street is so dark and we have no sidewalks.  This year, it was even worse because they still have the whole thing torn up.

Greta has decided "host dad" has to go!!!!

The kids got a crazy amount of candy this year.  We were out walking around for over 2 hours.  I can't believe they weren't freezing as it was pretty chilly.  On top of the candy the kids got, we still have all the stuff that we never handed out.  They have a bunch of KitKats that it is supremely difficult to resist!!!!