Birthday

Its always strange for me to post about my birthday on the blog because really I do it mostly to keep these memories for the kiddos and because it falls in a spot right in between Thanksgiving and then Christmas posts starting...however I did look back at the blog recently to see what I had done over the last several birthdays and it was fun to remember, SO here it is. It wasn't the level of awesomeness of last year, but they can't all be that great right? Next year it is a Saturday so I'll have the day "off" rather than a home day, which will be nice. :)

Brad and I had a day-before-birthday date while the kids were at school Thursday. We had coffee, went to Half Price Books, lunch out and a few other fun shopping runs.

After a full homeschool day we headed to the lake for a bit. 

Thankful we can get our feet in the sand so close to home.

Supper was pasta followed by some yummy cheesecake we still had in the freezer. :)

Grandma and Grandpa's Visit

I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I should have during their visit but do love the ones we got. :)

We enjoyed having the Sr. Stahls for a visit and it was great having several days where no one had school and Brad was able to take off of work as well.

Wednesday started bright and early with a tour of the AT&T stadium, which is where the Dallas Cowboys play.

Where they Cowboys walk in for the game.

This was of the arches for the stadium.
These are the longest single span roof structure in the world.

One of my favorite things was how much photography was on the walls.

Then the boys headed to meet Brad's cousin for a round of golf that afternoon while I went home to bake pies and Lorelei and Grandma fit in a girly movie as well as a walk/bike ride.

Happy Golfers

These two fit in several trips to the trail near our house over the visit.

Friday was lots of game playing around the house as well as watching the Husker game. It was great having all those Husker fans in the house!


Saturday afternoon the boys headed to Top Golf while we girls headed to Disney On Ice.

Such a fun show!

Thanks for coming for a visit Grandma and Grandpa!

Thanksgiving 2018

Our Thankful Pumpkin
I loved this idea, but we meant to write on it
several times and didn't. Maybe next time!

We enjoyed a week off for Thanksgiving and had a couple of special visitors! I'll post about The Sr. Stahl visit next, but wanted to give Thanksgiving its own post.

Wanted to jot down a few things the kids said they were thankful for this year...

Lorelei:
hula, teachers, dogs, cats, animals, Kai, Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Nana and Papa, Makin, books, school, Winter, Hope and Nicholas, CMA

Makin:
Kai, Legos, Knex, Grandma and Grandpa, Nana and Papa, my hoverboard, family, Lorelei, Mom, Dad, books, candycorn, food, cats, dogs, animals, soccer, golf, drums, Huskers, football, Nerf guns, electricity, water, clothes, underwear, toilets




Our Thanksgiving day was fairly low-key, watching Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on T.V. and eating lunch. I didn't get many pictures but its probably safe to say the kiddos played a game with the Sr. Stahls as they fit in lots a game time this visit. The boys also watched the Dallas Cowboys game.

I found some fun English Crackers I couldn't resist.
Lorelei chose and made the napkin rings with pipe cleaners and beads.

You pulled upart the cracker with a friend and then there was a joke inside as well as a wind-up turkey to race.

These turkeys had a mind of their own but it was still fun!

Bits and Pieces

Tea Party Time
Our neighbors go all out with tea parties where a hat and scarf are required so you look fancy. We have fun joining them occasion. :)

Too Old
Not much else to say about that one... ;)

Encyclopedia Brown
Makin has really been enjoying this series lately. So thankful for the library!

Canton Trade Days
This is a craft/vendor fair they have once a month and is about an hour and a half away. It is soooo huge and amazing we didn't even see all of it before calling it a day. Lorelei was very excited we found a desk for her room during our shopping. They have almost everything you can think of fried, so Brad and Lor enjoyed some fried pickles. :) This has been on our bucket list for years so we were excited to finally get there!

Golf Club Crazy!

Sunshine
After such a rainy fall we really enjoyed basking in the sun when it came out. We girls went for a bike ride/walk while the boys golfed.

Perot Museum
This was another bucket list item we tried to check off this summer but ran out of time because we knew Brad would really enjoy going. We did get a pass for the year so hope to go back a few more times with friends and at least once more as a family!

One of her favorite things...you get to fly like an eagle!

If you look above there are various instruments,
she could set the keyboard to play the various instruments.

He could design something and then spin the wheel and the design would show up.
(This didn't show up in the pics!)

Some building fun for Brad.

Lorelei had to show her brother...they flew like this as long as they could!

Dance like a dinosaur.

You can get gravel to make music but putting it in the holes. Pure genius.
This should be on every gravel playground.

Loved having such a fun family day!

Hula, Soccer, Drums and DI

As school started back up so did our extracurriculars...I'm just a bit behind in getting them posted.

Hula
Lorelei is still loving hula. Ms. Celistine is teaching them many Hawaiin words along with their dances so that is always fun to hear about.

Caught his excitement from his first goal of the season.

Soccer
Makin played soccer at the YMCA this fall. He had three GCA classmates on his team, which was great. After his year off, I was nervous about a new coach and team, but was very thankful for Hunter (a dad of one of Makin's classmates) and we ended up with a good batch of kids. While this is not as competitive as we had in years previous, we enjoyed the season and will likely continue with this group in the future. Makin gave 100% during his games and made us proud.

Coach Hunter talking to the team.

Caption stolen from a friend:
 "When your moms won't let you play football so you watching longingly
 from the sidelines in between soccer games."

Night out to celebrate the season after the last game.

Drums
During the Illuminate recital rehersal last May Makin watched the drums class perform and immediately said, "I wanna do that!" This was, of course, after registration so the drums classes were already full. I kept meaning to put him on the waiting list and forgetting. A few weeks after hula began I was encouraged by another mom to go ahead and put him on the list there in person since I kept forgetting to sign him up on their website. Amazingly, they got him into the class that day! He was sooo excited and he is doing a great job. He has always had a natural rhythm so drums have been very enjoyable so far. He is taking this class with Ryker, Jaedynn's little brother, so its also fun seeing our GCA friends each Monday evening!

Hanging out between hula and drums on a rainy day.
When there is nice weather these guys enjoy the playground between classes.

DI
Where to begin with Destination Imagination. There has been a HUGE interest at school this year. I told Brad he is going to have to dial down his presentation tactics next year as he did too good of a job. ;) We have four groups 3rd-5th as well as a 1st and 2nd grade group of seventeen students. (We decided K was not ideal for a DI group as they are tired after school!) What does this look like for us? Well, it meant a lot of coordinating for Brad and me. Everybody wants their kids to participate but nobody wants to coach! After a few pleas out to parents we had three coaches step up (Brad is #4) and the 3rd-5th teams will compete February 16th.

Showing the team how this structure crushing thing works.

Lorelei's group is doing "Monster Affects" which is the structure challenge. Brad is so excited for her to work on some structures just like he did!

Building a bridge.

Makin's group has been fun for me. I know seventeen 1st and 2nd graders may not sound fun to some, but I really do enjoy this age. I also enjoy that we get to just have fun as we decided not to work on a presentation to compete this year. Our group does "Team Talk" where they take turns answering a question or two I ask the group while they eat snack. Then we do two instant challenge activities. For these I divide them into three groups for task-based challenges and two groups for performance-based challenges. My hope is that they are really working to learn how to work as a team (there is a lot to learn with that!) as well as lots of creative thinking. Hopefully this will lead to some awesome DI teams when they hit 3rd grade and start to compete! (I have way more pictures of this since I'm the one coaching this group.)

How tall can you make your spaghetti tower?

Rock Paper Scissors can help when we disagree.

Designing a catapult.