Our Kids

Well I took the girls out of dance class. We had our recital photo shoot and after sitting through that “jon benetesque” morning I had a chat with the girls. Landis wanted to go back to her old class at the community center and the girls were okay with ditching dance all together. Lela wants to stick to pottery and horseback riding and Piper just wants to do whatever Lela wants to do, climb trees and jump on her pogo stick.

Sheesh, what a serious waste of a ton of money in such a short period of time. At least the girls have all the ballet dress up they can stand and cute dance bags too. Oh and tap shoes, ballet shoes, tights and even recital costumes. Lesson learned (I hope).

Well you won’t see many holiday pictures this year. I have noticed over the last year that I spend way to much time trying to capture things that I seem to miss things. I video taped Landis’ recital and barely got to watch it and the video was horrible so I feel like I missed the moment. I did the same the other night with the girls winter performance. So I decided that I would just watch the present opening this year so I could capture the moment in my mind, it was nice.

No, we did not rename the girls but these were my least favorite gifts from Christmas. And poo poo on the Grinch for sending them my way!

On the ulcers and canker sores I am pretty sure that Jason and I have our own little version of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease compliments of the 1st Grade. I am pretty sure that Lela had it the last day of school (for which I kept her home much to her dismay), Landis just had it and now Jason and I have it. He is at the dentist this morning and they noticed red spots on the roof of his mouth, um yeah that is the ticket buddy. Phoebe now has sores on her hands and feet so she has it.

Now that the holiday is over maybe we can take this week or so off from school to repair ourselves. I am off to Target for some canker sore relief medicine, it sure is hard to yell at your kids when you can’t open your mouth, lol!

Well Piper and Lela turned 7. And just as in previous years they were so “partied” out by their birthdays they didn’t eat their birthday dinner and only licked the whipped topping off their gingerbread cake, opened their gifts and went to bed. I am not sure how to make this work for them having their birthday so close to the holidays. With all the excitement at school and celebrating with family it is hard to keep the momentum up all the way through the holiday. I have some thoughts on how to handle it next year to see if we can make it smoother for them. Some have suggested a half birthday, like having a party in June but that doesn’t seem right to me.

Anyway, they turned 7 and in grand fashion. I made them these and was quite proud of myself for sewing AND doing a reverse applique! Anyway, we celebrated at school with their friends and some gluten free, dairy free, nut free chocolate pudding (too many allergies in that class). They were treated like royalty for the day and little Landis stayed along with them again to enjoy all the festivities. Then we partied at home with family.

I felt bad because every day that week seemed like just another day to check off. The week so was crammed with “to dos” that I don’t think I had time to enjoy all the things we had going on like the winter performance, girls birthday, hot cocoa day at school, gift wrapping, last minute shopping, santa bag stuffing etc. Just one big long check list. That wasn’t cool and I hope not to repeat that again next year.

Here are my ideas for the girls birthday (all of them) for next year:

Celebrate with family and friends on the weekend, open the gifts. For P and L it probably means celebrating early in December.
Then on their actual birthday have a quiet family celebration with a sugar cookie that is shaped like their year (for example 2 for Phoebe in Feb).
Then we will all sit around and talk about what they were like when they were little and do a slideshow on the TV of pictures and videos.

Maybe that will be better, a more low key evening at home cuddled on the couch with a cookie. Let’s give that a try:)