Joel's Hanukkah Present

Guess who else decided he wants to learn to play guitar??

 

Last Night of Hanukkah

And a quiet New Year's Eve at home this year!

 

Ice Skating

Abby and I took the kids ice skating this afternoon so Becca and Caroline could try out the ice skates they had gotten for Hanukkah. Everyone had fun! Caroline is so funny on the ice, she bends her knees and gets centered over her skates and then goes totally stiff so you can pull her across the ice pretty much as fast as you want. Becca skates slowly and carefully to try to avoid falling, and Amelia pretty much does the opposite:)

 

New Computer

Tonight's Hanukkah gift was a new computer for the whole family, since the 6 year old iMac has been dying a slow death lately. Caroline sat patiently next to me while I got the new computer up and running, so she could play some games on the PBS Kids web site when I was finished ;)

 

Hanukkah Night 5

We made it over to Papa and Mary's house last night for a yummy dinner of pasta with meatballs and latkes and to celebrate night 5 of Hanukkah!

 

 

 

 

Mid-Week Update

Ben got a desk and chair for his room for Hanukkah last night. I am trying to give him some things he NEEDS this year. It was actually really easy to put together, but weighs a ton.



In other news, we got a quarter stuck down the garbage disposal and had to have someone come out to tell us that and fish it out, and also look at our upstairs hall toilet. On Christmas morning at 2:15 a.m it started raining in the kitchen. No, not a Christmas miracle, an overflowing toilet. After the mess was cleaned up I turned off the water to that toilet and forbade anyone from using it until I could have someone come look at it. That someone couldn't find anything wrong with it and said it is OK to use and just to "keep an eye on it". The kitchen ceiling doesn't look TOO much worse for wear - though there are some water stains around two of the recessed lights where the water was pouring out of. and one or two of the boards in our kitchen floor, which are brand new mind you after last year's kitchen flood disaster, are showing some warping. Not TOO bad either, so I'm not sure if we're going to attempt to do anything about that or not.

My next order of business is to figure out how to get the hot pink Sharpie off my BRAND NEW TABLE. Yes, someone who shall remain nameless (Ok, Caroline) decided to color using a hot pink sharpie and it bled through the paper onto my new table. Apparently I need to sand it off and then apply some poly acrylic sealer to it. Wish me luck with that.

Crossing my fingers that nothing else breaks / gets ruined this week!!

Latkes

We were supposed to go over to Papa and Mary's for latkes tonight but they had to reschedule and Caroline announced she couldn't possibly go one more night without latkes! So we needed to make some of our own. The resulting latkes turned out great and were delicious, though shortly after giving them "double thumbs" Caroline announced she didn't like them after all and she was sure Papa and Mary's will be much better - gee thanks Caroline!

 

 

 

 

Clara's Christmas

A little Christmas humiliation for Clara, who spent the weekend at Sheba's :)

 

Santa's Helper

This year we sponsored a needy family of six  through Joel's work for Christmas. We shopped for and wrapped all the items on their holiday wish list. The kids all helped with shopping and wrapping. Caroline was my official bow and ribbon selector :)

 

Hanukkah / Christmas

The kids had a great first and second night of Hanukkah. Night 1, also Christmas Eve, they received their "big" presents courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa. Music lessons will be coming soon! We followed that by Chinese food and a movie, Christmas brunch with the cousins, and then headed to Great Wolf Lodge!

 

 

 

Perfecting Her Dreidel Spin

 

Class Parties

Caroline had her class Hanukkah party on Monday and Becca had her class holiday party yesterday. Hard to believe it's the last CJP Hanukkah party of my career as a mom!

 

Holiday Party

I have spent a lot of time the last couple weeks decorating and planning for Joel's annual work holiday party, which we volunteered to host this year. It was a ton of work but everything went great and everyone seemed to have fun! There were around 40-45 people there but since I lost my phone somewhere right around the time the first few guests arrived and didn't have a chance to go searching for it until after the last few left, I didn't actually get any pictures of actual people ;) But trust me, they were here. The kids spent most of the time at Abby and Mike's but came home around 9 or so to hang out for a bit and then go to bed. Well, the girls went to bed - Ben ended up staying up so we put him to work at 11:30 last night helping to clean up! Here are some pictures of the set-up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy 5th Birthday Caroline!

Caroline celebrated her official 5th birthday on Thursday with presents and ice cream sundaes and cupcakes from The Happy Mixer all the way from Philly courtesy of Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Mike!

 

Birthday Party

Caroline celebrated her birthday today at a joint birthday party for the five December birthdays in her pre-K class. She was very happy to get to see all her friends and share the birthday festivities with her friends RJ, Emery, Lorelei and Avery. Each birthday kid brought their own cake, and guests brought one present suitable for girl or boy, which we divided evenly among the birthday kids after the party. Everyone had a great time! Julie did a great job on a tiger-striped cake for Caroline!

 

 

 

 

First Football Game

Joel took Becca to her first football game this afternoon, and she had a great time! The Panthers even won for a change :)

 

Terrific Kid Letter

I wanted to share the letter Rebecca's teacher wrote to go along with her Terrific Kid certificate. Love!

 

Parent Teacher Conference

After leaving the Terrific Kid ceremony, I headed to Caroline's school for a GREAT parent teacher conference. Caroline's teacher said Caroline is a "rock star", is "so advanced in all areas", and that we should be so proud of her! She said Caroline is reading as well as many of the third graders she taught before coming to CJP (granted, I think she taught at a disadvantaged school but still...). She said Caroline is extremely coordinated and athletic, has great fine motor skills as well, and loves art and music. She called her "incredibly well rounded". She is having a little bit of a tough time right now with impulse control/keeping her hands to herself, but whenever she does something naughty she feels genuinely sorry about it and shows great empathy. So, all in all a great report. Way to to Caroline!

Terrific Kid

Proud Mama today! Becca was honored at school this morning for being a "terrific kid" for the first quarter of school. This year the school is teaching the "7 habits of highly successful kids", and Becca was chosen from her class for exhibiting the "be proactive" trait. Way to go Becca! Here she is showing off her terrific kid button. She also got a certificate and a bumper sticker for my car :)

What's New

1. New blog header. The old one was over a year old. The new one I made on my phone with PhotoGrid. Easier than the previous way (Picasa), but kinda big and clunky. Couldn't figure out how to make the font smaller. Oh well.

2. New table (see previous post). When the new bar stools arrive today, my living room / dining room redecorating spree will be officially done. Mostly. I still need to find some things to go on the walls.

3. Caroline was sick all weekend which means the holiday shopping we had planned to do for a needy family that Joel signed up to sponsor needs to be put off till next weekend. Now next weekend looks like this: Ben has religious school for half a day Saturday, we need to Christmas shop for a family of six, Caroline has a rescheduled birthday date with Papa and Mary, we have a joint birthday party for Caroline plus four of her classmates who all turn 5 within 2 weeks of each other, Joel and Becca are supposed to go to the Panthers game, though I am not sure how they are going to manage that with the aforementioned birthday party also being on Sunday... wish us luck with all that :)

New Table

The table we ordered from Farmhouse Chic was delivered today! And,Caroline has a stomach virus :(

 

Too Cool For School

Caroline was excited to show off a new pair of shoes at school this morning. 

 

Thankful For...

Mom and Dad didn't make the cut!

 

Arpeggio's!

We had one last family dinner Friday night at one of my favorite restaurants!

 

Hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's

Friday morning we had a yummy breakfast and a relaxing morning hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's new house!

 

 

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving at Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Mike's! Of course I forgot to take lots of pictures, but here are a few!

 

 

 

Sixers

Ben, Joel and Uncle Mike went to a Sixers game tonight, which is in double overtime as of this posting!

Go Sixers!