Hippopotamus for Christmas?

We'll see if that's what Santa brings in the morning! :)

winter dancer girl

Grace's first dance recital of this school year was so nice! Miss Lindsey picked the perfect location and kept the show the perfect length with a variety of ages to watch – my preschooler was in awe of the older competitive dance team :)

Sam was pretty pumped that he got to see a 12-yr-old boy that he sees at the studio each week while Grace is dancing hop up on the stage and do a hip hop number during the show. Maybe I should look into that boys' hip hop class that Lindsey is starting up!

Grace danced to a Taylor Swift song and did really great...I'm seeing much improvement over the past year and she really seems to be enjoying herself at class each week. I'm so happy I didn't question her like I almost did when she said she wanted to dance again this year! Enjoy the show!

cookie baking!

Baking and decorating with a group = more fun :)

I'm still amazed at home much my kids LOVE to do this...especially Grace...I need to bust out the cookie cutters more often!

CKS Christmas Program

Okay, I really don't have much to say about the Christmas program that was a couple of weeks ago. Does that make me a bad mom? I'd have to argue no. I mean the music teacher at school did an awesome job teaching every grade the song they would perform, the 8th grade choir sounded great and the bands performed so we had a variety of music to watch. But, well...we're the parents of a preschooler and kindergartener who were first and second to perform. And we were standing in a jam-packed church where we could barely see our own kids perform. Plus, I was worried about getting my kids home to bed since they were up WAY past their bedtime and Sam was battling a cold. So, the Christmas program was a Christmas program...there will be many more to come...and next year I'll remember to arrive WAY early to try and grab a seat up front. I was able to sneak around the church and grab these cute shots of my kids in the pews in between acts, though:

And the kids were THRILLED that they received non-uniform passes for staying for the whole program, so it did have it's perks. :)

Merry Christmas!!!

We've been busy around here, but good busy...decorating, baking, school Christmas program, winter dance recital, snow days, Christmas shopping, wrapping gifts and celebrating with friends! We're still all passing around a cold and I am once again nursing a sinus infection, but we're not letting that damper our holiday spirit! While we're waiting for Santa tonight, I might just have some time to catch up the blog on some of those events. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Kentucky snow!!!

We got a little treat last weekend as we decorated the house for Christmas...SNOW!!!!! We had declared it Christmas pj day: a day that would not include changing into real clothes and leaving the house but would include Christmas decorating, hot chocolate and Christmas movies. Our bonus was the snow, though. The kids suckered me into going out with them...how could I not when Grace was sitting on a sled in the middle of the yard crying because she couldn't get it to move by herself? While I was out there, we ended up building a little friend in the yard:

Don't mind my awful outfit and lack of makeup...it WAS Christmas pj day, afterall!

Molly was not fond of our snowman. After getting annoyed with being pelted with snowball after snowball by her boy, she had already gone inside when we started building the snowman. First she barked uncontrollably at our snow friend from the living room window. Then, when she finally worked up the courage to go outside, she ran around in giant circles barking at him for several minutes, before crouching low to the ground, sneaking over to him, then jumping up in an attempt to steal his carrot nose! No one ever accused her of being the smartest dog in the neighborhood. :)

Little Lu doesn't think she's so little anymore...

Makeup and "Taylor Swift" guitar projects...

...along with a VERY sassy attitude. Is it possible to become a teenager at age 4? :)

party with S. Claus!

I didn't feel right posting this until we were a little closer to Christmas, but, before Thanksgiving we went to our annual company Christmas party where Santa was gracious enough to appear before his schedule got too full. Grace actually had the pleasure of rounding the corner coming out of the bathroom and running right into him as he waited to be announced to the rest of the crowd in attendance...I wasn't sure if she was excited or scared out of her mind! She has really grasped the whole concept of Santa needing her to be good and she absolutely knew that her behavior had not been up to par leading up to the party. Santa greeted her with open arms, though, so she was eager to get in line with Sam to go talk to him. Once their turn came up, neither kid wanted to sit on Santa's lap, but they both (nervously as seen by Sam's stance and grin below!) had a nice little talk with him and walked away smiling. Good way to kick off the holiday season...even it did happen before Thanksgiving!

nothing like a good book (or 5 or 6!)

the power of the iPad

Capable of drawing a crowd and keeping kids quiet...

good for the soul

Come next week, we will have lived in Kentucky for three years. I can hardly believe it! I was skeptical when we first moved and thought, by this time, we would for sure be back in Ohio. While we don't know if or when that will happen, at this point, I can honestly say that we are content in this city right now. We and the kids are happy with our church/school. The climate down here is amazing. We enjoy all that Lexington has to offer including restaurants, shopping, culture and special events. And we've made friends here.

I guess the only big drawback that still gets to me from time to time is the distance to family and friends back "home" ("home" meaning MI and OH). So, when we began making plans to attend the wedding of two friends I worked with in Cleveland at the end of October and I began making plans to get together with my college roomies for a girls' shopping weekend the very next weekend, I couldn't have been more excited.

First up was Jeanine and Kevin's wedding. Katie was available to spend the night with the kids that weekend, so we hit the road childless for the 5-hour trip to Cleveland. We were in town for less than 24 hours, but made sure to make the best of our short trip. The ceremony and reception was beautiful. The company, that I hadn't known I was missing so much, was amazingly fun. And the memories made might just be enough to tide me over until the next reunion.

The following weekend, I roadtripped by myself to Detroit to meet up with my roommates from my senior year in college. We all shared a house off campus and that year, we sealed friendships that had been building during our underclassman years and I realized that I had found lifelong friends. We try to get together once a year and additional meetups are bonuses with all of our busy job and family schedules. This shopping weekend north of Detroit was a first get-together in years where no one was pregnant or nursing! We enjoyed catching up, reliving college days, shopped till we dropped then enjoyed good food and wine. Love these girls so much and wish these we were able to do these weekends more often!

Two friend weekends in a row is rare but more than welcome, even if it did mean SEVERAL tanks of gas! Miss these people so much!

Horse Mania 2010

This fall, in honor of the World Equestrian Games being hosted in Lexington, LexArts held HorseMania 2010. The auction was then held this past Friday at Keeneland with proceeds topping $375,000 to numerous charities. We did not attend the auction or purchase a horse (a bit over our Christmas shopping budgets!), but we did take advantage of these horses being on display around town back in October and spent a day checking them out then. Thought I'd post a few of our favorite horses/pics of the day since the auction this weekend reminded me that I neglected to do so back in October!

the kids downtown

This Alice in Wonderland horse was one of my favorites.

Everything was hand drawn on it and I got some great detail shots of it

that I'm thinking of enlarging and framing to hang in the house somewhere.

It brought in $7,500 at auction!

our very own Squanto

The Monday before Thanksgiving, we had the privilege of joining the kindergarten classes at school for a Thanksgiving program and feast. Sam was thrilled to get all decked out in his costume and he was only slightly disappointed that he wasn't "a little bit naked" in it. I think he thought I was just going to make him a loin cloth! I completed the costume night before the program (close one this time!) and we were all impressed with his performance singing Thanksgiving songs on a stage full of pilgrims and Native Americans. I loved that all his classmate were so into their roles. I also loved that Sam's best friend's 4-yr-old brother showed up in a Spiderman costume. I asked his mom if Spiderman was on the Mayflower and she laughed as she explained that she couldn't get him out the door without a costume on since his big brother was dressed up as a Native American so the little man was convinced they were heading to a costume party. :)

It was a fun night with just one snag. We were assigned a dessert to pass and I let Sam pick what we would take, knowing that pot lucks are iffy for a kid with food allergies. He picked chocolate cake and I knew that it would be the only dessert that we could safely give him there. As I helped him fill his plate with turkey and veggies, I forgot about the dessert table on the other side of the room. By the time I headed over to get him and Grace both a slice of cake, I was devastated to see that the cake was GONE :( Of course it was...it was the most basic dessert there and what kindergartner would choose pecan pie over chocolate cake? Poor guy...he was upset for a few minutes since we couldn't safely choose another dessert off the table without knowing ingredients. But a hug, a promise of a cookie when we got home and his other Native American and Pilgrim friends urging him to head to the gym to watch the eight-graders play basketball seemed to smooth over the situation quickly. And he had enough safe desserts at Grandma and Papa's over the following few days to more than make up for the event.

So proud of our little Squanto!

unexpected family togetherness

Due to my grandpa's passing, we ended up spending Thanksgiving in Michigan...since we were already there! We weren't originally planning to make the trip this year, but the extended family time was nice.

We had cousin time:

Read stories:

Played games:

And even took in a (freaking freezing!!!) Christmas parade:

Kris drove us the whole way home on Sunday...he had three very tired passengers who napped much of the way!

his Heaven

We used to have this dog named Shadow when I was kid. Claire received her as a birthday present when she was 8 or 9, but I'm pretty sure I was more attached to the mutt than my little sister was. It actually worked out quite well, since I got to love the dog and, since Shadow "officially" belonged to Claire, she had to pick up the poop. (And Claire has never forgotten that fact...)

Shadow was a pretty good dog. Sure she had her faults. She was a little timid with strangers and a few family friends and wasn't so comfortable with little kids, since we weren't exactly little when we got her, so she wasn't accustomed to having little beings pulling on her or chasing her. But I still loved her. My grandpa did, too. But, then again, my grandpa loved any animal.

I guess you could say he was the St. Francis of our family (I know you Catholics out there get it...patron saint of animals). The man would go out in the yard to work and have garter snakes that he had tamed follow him around as he completed his chores. He thought it was great, but when the snakes tried to make friends with Grandma when she was hanging laundry on the line, she wasn't too thrilled! He talked to the deer and rabbits who wandered into the yard and fed the stray dogs passing through over the years. Yes, he loved all animals, and somehow got all of them to love him back. I mean, Shadow would almost pee on the floor from excitement every time I asked her if she wanted to "go see Grandpa?"

As my cousins, my sister, my dad and my uncle got up to speak about my grandpa last week at his prayer service the night before his funeral, I listened to heartwarming words and funny stories pertaining to his work ethic, his parenting skills, his love for his family, and his faith. I wanted to stand up and tell the fondest memory of my Grandpa, but was a little worried about possibly being judged for the event I wanted to share and also erupting into either tears or a coughing fit, as I was battling a cold and sinus infection, so instead I stayed seated. I've been thinking about it ever since, though, so...here goes:

Three weeks after our wedding, Kris and I drove up to Harbor Beach to spend Labor Day weekend with my family. At this point, Shadow was about 9 years old. She had been barking and growling at pedestrians on my parents' road, so they had decided to board her for the annual Labor Day bbq that weekend, so she wouldn't be overwhelmed by the crowd and cause any issues. The day before THE party, an impromptu pre-bbq happened to form at my parents' with my grandparents and several of the seasonal neighbors' kids and grandkids who were camping down the road for the weekend.

Shadow was still home, at that point. One of the little girls who was over had just lost her old black lab and was so excited to see Shadow, who looked like a mini black lab sitting there. Before we knew it, she had hugged the dog from behind and Shadow turned around and bit the little girl on the cheek.

Everything happened very quickly ...the little girl was rushed to the ER for two stitches on her face and my parents decided it was time to put the dog down and dropped her off at the vet's office to be boarded until she could be put down on Tuesday. And I cried...off and on for the rest of the afternoon/evening.

Everyone kept reassuring me that the little girl would be okay. That it was only two stitches and the doctor said you would hardly be able to notice the scar at all. And I did feel so bad for her and her parents and did realize how traumatizing the whole event must have been for all three of them. I did hope that she wouldn't fear dogs from that point on, as she had been such a dog-loving little girl. But, at that moment, even though I couldn't tell any of the pre-bbq attendees, the tears were for the dog I loved and knew I would miss terribly, even though I no longer lived in the same house or the same state as her. Ashamed of my selfish tears, I was hiding in the bathroom when my grandpa knocked on the door, came in, closed the door and, with tears in his eyes, said, "I'll miss her, too." He gave me a hug, dried my tears and I headed back outside feeling the relief of knowing that he understood.

And that was my grandpa...tough-as-nails with a booming voice known to tell a dirty joke or two in his day, but a quiet, sensitive, intuitive, God-loving soul on the inside. As my relatives take comfort in the belief that he is reunited with so many other loved ones who went before him, I believe he is also scratching a few furry loved ones behind the ears and enjoying every minute of it.

I'll miss you Grandpa.