Winter...

Yes, I know we don't really have a winter out here. In fact, it has been warm all of January. But the cold bugs still hit us. Risa has been fighting with earaches and strep all year and now has some sort of something else going on! Brandon has been very healthy all winter but got hit with flu/earache/strep all in the same weekend. Maybe all of these symptoms are actually strep but who knows!

Other than that life has been continuing as normal with school, brownies, gymnastics and play dates. Brandon has been doing a lot of 1st grade math and loves it. He whips through his math facts so quickly. Risa is a writer and loves to create new dramas in her journals. She is very creative and puts together well thought out stories. It's a lot of fun to read all that she brings home.

Ho Ho Ho

and Merry Christmas. The kids are having a blast with Santa and all the Christmas trimmings this year. Brandon is full of wonder and belief in magic and all things Christmas. He's memorized the lyrics to numerous Christmas songs and has kept the entire Christmas season fun for all of us. Risa loves the anticipation and fun with all of the parties. It's a wonderful time of the year and a wonderful time in childhood! Can you spot the difference between the "real" Santa and the "helper" Santa??

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you all are having an enjoyable weekend. I'm taking the time to get caught up around here. So here's a quick run down... Brandon finished tee ball and lost another tooth somewhere along the way... and I love his grin! He's working on his other front top tooth and is hoping to sing "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth..." Seriously, he loves that song. Risa is still involved in acro-gymnastics. Her Christmas performance is in 2 weeks. Between Brownies and birthday parties Risa's social life is full for the next 2 weeks. Speaking of Brownies, Risa starts selling cookies once again in January. It doesn't seem possible that it's been a year since we passed out all of the boxes from our last sales season!

These photos are from some fun fall activities... Brandon at the pumpkin patch on his 1st field trip, with his tee ball friends, and in school. Risa and Kyra are dressed as their favorite fairies from a couple of their favorite books for Literature day and is playing in the "snow" with Kyra at Brownies. Fake snow is all the rage in Arizona!

I keep hoping to be a more active blogger! I try, Susan, I truly do!! Hopefully, it won't be a month before my next post. Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween

We have heard "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. I asked my teacher what to wear... poked dotted underwear" a million times this week! AND IT'S FINALLY HERE!!! HALLOWEEN!!! YEAH!!!

And here are the 2 cutie kids... they went from cute princess and superhero Spiderman to a witch and skeleton. I guess the Halloween gene inherited from Gram Shirley has kicked in! Brandon had a great reason for his...he wants to be a "bone" doctor so he thought a skeleton was a cool idea when he saw it in the store!

We're off to gather large amounts of candy! Happy Halloween!!

Risa plays with the dinosaurs!

Risa took a trip back in time to the land of the dinosaurs! Her class went on a field trip to see the"Walking with the Dinosaurs" show that is currently traveling the country. I was a lucky parent that got to tag along. It was a really cool experience! The dinosaurs were HUGE! The kids loved the show! Everyone loved watching the dinosaurs "fight" to save their babies and defend their territories and went wild when the T-Rex came roaring out! The narrator was walking around with the dinosaurs so it gave us an idea of how truly magnificent these creatures were.

Tee ball has begun!!

Brandon is on his way to baseball stardom. Our switch hitting dude has begun his baseball career at the sweet age of 5. He hits off a tee, makes it to first, as he's running to 2nd he may get distracted and stop half way there. On the way to 3rd Brandon has to avoid the cluster of kids from the other team but zig zags his way through! Finally, he rounds third and makes it to home plate. Which he promptly stands on wondering where to go next! When Brandon is playing in the field... literally, playing... kicking dirt, talking to the other kids ... there are moments of brilliance as he joins the herd running after the ball. Yes, all 13 kids run after the ball each time it is hit! At least they understand someone has to get the ball back to the tee. Unless it is just a quick game of tag that has broken out and we just pretend they know to go after the ball! We remind ourselves that even Chipper Jones, ARod, Manny Ramirez and all of those other baseball dudes started this way. Go Dragons!!

Special Kid

Brandon was selected to be "Special Kid"! This is a great thing for kindergartners. On their Special Kid Day they go to the front of the class and every learns neat things about them. The entire class learned to spell Brandon's name, they yelled his name, whispered it, chanted it, said it fast and slow! Then Brandon tells everyone how old he is (5), what his favorite food is (spaghetti), and what he likes to play with (cars). Then Brandon put together his name puzzle. After all of this the kids go to their tables and draw pictures of Brandon. The coolest thing is that everyone adds a compliment to their picture. Some of the compliments were that his friends like his shirt (dinosaur shirt), they like his hair, they think he's really good on the monkey bars. Some kids said they like the way he sits. Obviously, that's an important thing at this age!!

Brandon was so proud to walk to the front of the class and get all of this positive attention. He got to bring his book of portraits home and we love looking at all of the great pictures and reading the compliments!