Ups and Downs

What a roller coaster ride this week has been! Elle had her last session of tumbling and her dance class called "Boogie Woogie." Elle's favorite part of her dance class was the animal dance where the kids did movements similar to a monkey, elephant, and tiger. When Elle started tumbling she wouldn't walk across the balance beam without holding the teacher's hand and walking sideways on it. Now she walks forward all by herself! The next session of classes through the Parks & Rec Dept. doesn't start until next year so we have some time to decide what classes she'll take. She really enjoys the tumbling and dance classes, so we'll probably continue them. There's also a Spanish class for 3-5 year olds which we've considered enrolling her in. Any suggestions as to if a Spanish class would be a good idea or not?

Last weekend we attended the Old Fashioned Horse and Buggy parade. It was really, really cold out, so we only stayed for about half of the parade. Also, Jay tried to eat gum off of the ground twice, so Sarah's hands were a bit full. Elle and Sarah also made two batches of cookies. One batch had a plethora of chips- chocolate, peanut butter, and butterscotch. We used Christmas cookie cutters on the other batch and covered them in icing and sprinkles. Sarah bought one of the sprinkle containers that has 6 type of sprinkles and Elle pretty much depleted the whole thing! We enjoyed just a few of the cookies before Guinness got a hold of them and ate every single one of them. What are we going to do with that dog?

On Friday we attended some festivities at Elle's school. It was open to members of the Arts Center and to families who have their children at school there. On Saturday it was open to the general public. The flier said the had some small gifts for children to purchase. It was really neat how they had it arranged- Sarah had to fill out a list of who Elle should buy gifts for and then hand over some money. Then, Elle went back through a miniature door with a helper and she picked out gifts for everyone on the list. Sarah met up with Elle downstairs where she came out with a bag full of wrapped gifts. So, she truly went Christmas shopping without any of us and what is under the tree will be a surprise! I think it's such a cute idea and it allows the kids some independence. We also supported the preschool by buying some cookies (which was good since ours were already eaten by Guinness) and we entered some raffles.

Patrick spent last weekend in Newton for a swim meet and is currently in Wichita for a 3 day meet. Elle woke up around 6:30 yesterday morning, crying. Sarah thought maybe she had a bad dream, but when she went to Elle's room Elle said, "I throwed up." Poor little thing. So, we put her sheets in the washing machine, brushed her teeth, and she laid in bed with Sarah (although she never went back to sleep). Meanwhile, Sarah's stomach started to feel a biz queazy and it just grew worse from there. Sarah grew much sicker whereas the kids were okay most of the day. That is until Elle threw up right before bed time. She's still feeling pretty pathetic today :( Hopefully we'll all be better by Monday.

Winter was here in full effect this week. We had very cold temperatures (one day the high was 13) and some snow. Schools in many nearby areas were cancelled, but Lawrence still had school. The roads were quite icy and unfortunately Sarah's car, Lyle, was in a little fender bender. Later Elle said, "Mommy, watch out for cars 'cause you bumped into one."

Thanksgiving in Indiana

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone. Things have been quite busy for us. Sarah finished up her semester today, although she'll still be going to her practicum without a true holiday break. Patrick has been bogged down with coaching, swim meets, and lots of design work projects. It's been challenging for us to stay on top of things lately (like our blog), but we're trying.

For Elle's last preschool class prior to the Thanksgiving break all of the kids had to bring in a piece of fruit. During class the kids made fruit salad together. Then, parents came early to pick up the kids and everyone shared some fruit salad. Isn't that quite festive for Thanksgiving? A nice way to show teamwork and sharing.

For Thanksgiving we went to Indiana and had a lovely meal with Patrick's family. Everyone worked really hard on making the meal. Meanwhile, Sarah ended up clogging the garbage disposal and it took Patrick's dad about an hour to fix the problem. Thank goodness he was able to fix it and a plumber wasn't required. Sarah may go back to just using the trash can instead of the garbage disposal.... Elle played Bingo on Thanksgiving with one of the little girls of Patrick's cousin. She was so sad to leave Elle and nearly started crying when she found out that Elle was lying down and wasn't available for a goodbye hug.

While in Indiana we spent some time shopping in the quaint town in Nashville and were able to find some good Christmas presents for the kids! One of the days Santa rode into town on a fire truck and met the kids at the "North Pole." As usual, Elle gets really excited to see Santa, but then won't actually get near him. She didn't mind getting close to Mrs. Claus, though. Patrick, Grant (Patrick's brother), and Sarah also visited a brewery in Bloomington.

Another reason we went to Indiana was for Patrick's high school reunion. We saw a number of his friends, many of whom we hadn't seen since our wedding! It was really good to catch up with them and take some photos. It was also quite exciting to learn that some of Patrick's high school classmates read our blog (thanks!). Our drive home from Indiana was not very fun. Everyone else was on the road so we were in stop-go traffic and were much delayed in our return. Here is Patrick with some of his high school friends: