Live Nativity, Gingerbread houses, and the Lights

We just had another great weekend with the girls.

John brought them home on Friday night.

After they arrived, we headed over to the live nativity at St. Lukes.

This a a yearly tradition and we all enjoy it.

After watching the 20 minute play which is outside and includes live animals and wonderful Christmas carols, we headed into the school for hot chocolate, cookies and some fun kid activities.

Tiz really enjoyed playing dreidle so I ordered her one for Christmas.

We finished up with dinner at Culver's and then some TV watching.

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On Saturday, we stayed in our PJ's until 3:30 while we worked on graham cracker creations.

This year, I found a recipe on Pinterest for some cement frosting which really held the crackers together and eliminated a lot of frustration.

We also made ornaments.

By 4:00 we headed out to Candy Cane Lane to see the pretty lights, followed by pizza at Marty's, and then on to the lights at Country Springs which has become another annual event.

The highlight of these lights was that Soliana did the driving on John's lap and Tizita rode with her head out of our sunroof.

Lots of fun doing that.

After the drive through the lights, we go to watch the model trains and have hot chocolate and cookies.

We always sing to the CD, "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer,"  This year we sang it in parts which was so much fun.

Today it snowed for the first time.

After church, Soli and Gigi played school, Tiz and I played cards, and John watched the Packers win.

We took them home after the game.

We made many happy memories this weekend.

Here are a few photos from the fun:

Until next time.

Thanksgiving and Christmas prep

Another Thanksgiving is in the history books.

It was a good one.

Quiet, relaxing time spent in Bloomington at Alissa and Nathan's.

Darrel, Jen and Jason were there, too.

Lots of great food, and lots of beer tasting.

It was nice to just be able to sit back and let someone else prepare and clean up everything.

We only stayed one night and headed home on Friday.

Trees were decorated and up by Friday night.

Today (Saturday) John and I walked to St. Vinney's and Bethesda's Christmas shop.

It was in the high 50's, almost unreal for November 26.

I am contemplating jumping on the Lions band wagon since they are now in first place in the division.

The Packers are playing very poorly.

Tim Budreau invited me on board for the Lions.

We will see how the Pack does on Monday.

Time for bed after three lifetime movies.

Till next time.

Wow, how time flies whether you are having fun or not

Time is flying.

November is almost gone.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

We made Christmas trees in Preschool today.  I told the kids Thanksgiving was over for us and we had to start on Christmas decor for our room.

We had our family parties today at school.  The AM three year old party was a bit of a disaster.  The PM party was a huge success.

Oh, the difference a year makes in a child.

We go to Alissa's for Thanksgiving this year.

Courtney and family head to Iowa.

Alissa dislikes Thanksgiving very much.  She is actually in Nashville on business so Nathan will be doing the prep.  She says we may only have meat, beer, and the desserts that I bring.  That would be fine with me.

I had the girls here last Friday.  They had the day off and spent the day in my classroom.  I was exhausted and fully understand why people have their children when they are young.

We took them  home on Saturday and had fun at Courtney's Homemade for the Holidays show.

We took my mom and we all enjoyed a great lunch at Becket's.

I have almost all my Christmas shopping done.

Decided to buy Tiz a sewing machine, I think she is going to love it and I think she will create some great things.  

Christmas trees and decor go up this weekend.

I am excited to get that done.

We bought one of those star shower light shows for outside.

Jury is out as to how we will like it, so far the dancing red and green lights look pretty good on our house.

I tore the passenger side mirror off the rendezvous last week pulling into the garage.

It was long overdue.  I usually pull one off every few years and hadn't done that for quite awhile.

I have also driven through two garage doors, luckily I have not repeated that act in years!

Hope I did not just jinx myself.

I think that about brings you all up to date on my life.

One more day of school and I am off for five days.

Blessed Thanksgiving to all!

Celebrating my mom's 88th Birthday and Halloween

Another busy, fun filled,, memory making weekend is coming to a close.

On Friday, everyone arrived and we started the Birthday celebration with the goody box opening and dinner at the Midpoint.

On Saturday, the festivities continued.

The girls enjoyed trick or treating downtown and marching in the Halloween parade.

It was a great weekend to celebrate a great lady.

Here are some photos from the fun.

I was toying with the idea, again, to stop this blog, but I am going to continue, just not as often.

I really want to keep this as a memento for future generations just in case anyone ever wants to read it.

Olympic Gymnasts, Sky Zone, and Halloween PrepW

We just took the girls home after a wonderful weekend full of fun!

I was able to get tickets to see the Olympic Gymnasts Tour on Friday night in Milwaukee.

John flat out refused to go due to his dislike for gymnastics exceeded only by his dislike of figure skating.

Luckily, Mallory said she would drive and go with us.

It was a great night.

I didn't tell the girls until we got there what we were doing.

They were pretty awestruck about the whole thing.

It was a great show and they were thrilled to see Simone Biles and her teanmates performing.

On Saturday, John and I took the girls to Sky Zone.

After all the gymnastics from the night before, I figured they needed to brush up on their skills if they hope to be as good as Simone one day!

We had never been to Sky Zone before, what a fun place!  We will definitely return.

After a nice lunch at Sky Zone, we bought some pumpkins, carving tools, and wigs, yes wigs, at walmart.

We decorated cookies, carved Jack o Lanterns, did some artwork, and wore the wigs for the rest of the afternoon.

After pizza for dinner, we watched movies.

Church today and then some play time before taking them home.

I love these memory making weekends with these sweet girls

A Weekend Recap

We had another very nice, busy weekend.

On Saturday we took a drive up to Medford to visit Terri and Mark, our old friends from Elkhorn.

The color was beautiful on the way up.

There is nothing quite as beautiful as fall in Wisconsin.

We got up there about 1:00, went out to lunch with them, chatted for a few hours over our meal, then they took us out to their new home which sits on 40 acres of land.

It's a gorgeous spot to retire.

The time went by way to quickly and soon it was time to head to Oshkosh to watch the girls.

We stopped for pizza and beer at Cranky Pat's before going to their house.

Here are photos from our visit to Terri and Mark's:

 This is Chelsea's salon.  Terri gave us a tour.  It's very impressive and decorated beautifully.

 A hike on Terri and Mark's land

 Terri and Mark's present house.  They will be selling this one eventually.

 Mark and John looking over the land

 Their new house

The pond on their land which is located right out of their bedroom window.

On Sunday, we lazed around until after lunch with the girls, then we took a hike out to Terrel's Island.

It was another beautiful day for a hike.

Tiz and Soli manned my camera and here are some of the shots they captured as well as some that I took too.

John and I also got to enjoy a dance performance from the girls.

They showcased moves from their dance classes, gymnastics classes, and Tiz's competition cheer team.

It was quite the show.

Here are a few photos:

Visit again in a week and see the exciting place that Mallory and I are taking the girls on Friday night

We are looking forward to it.