Thanksgiving

I'm belated in posting the Thanksgiving pictures. Apologies - they're from the crappy camera.

Sometimes it just turns out that way.....

We woke up this morning to 2 inches of snow and the sudden realization that I hadn't bought Jacob any snow pants this year (last year's were gotten rid of last year because they were size 18 months and he's now 4T). Brian was off for the day, so he was going to take Allison to school and I was going to take Jacob and get in a little early. So we rushed out of the house with the plan of hitting Target before daycare. Unfortunately, Target didn't open until 8am and it was 7:40am. So I was heading to Walmart (which I hate) when I called Brian and he agreed to get the snowpants after taking Allison to school and then he could drop them off at daycare. This was followed by another call when I realized I'd left Jacob's sleeping bag at home and a third call when I realized I'd left Jacob's shoes at home (he'd worn boots).

Brian wasn't having much more luck because they got to school and realized that Allison had left her hats and mittens at home. So they went back to the house for those. Then Brian bought Jacob some snow pants, and all was pretty well for the rest of Monday.

Friday phrases

A few phrases heard at the Douglas house last night:

"Sorry Dad, I didn't mean to poke you in the eye with a fork."

"Look - bubbles came out of my penis!"

Weekend fun

We had a good and just-the-right-amount-of busy weekend.

Friday we baked cookies from Allison's cookbook. They said "butter cookies" and frankly had such a high butter to flour ratio that I wasn't sure they were going to turn out. But they did, and they were good.



Saturday morning, we had swimming lessons and it was parent watching day. Allison is working on "big arms," which is hard because she's just rather submarine her way across the pool. I don't know where she gets that from...... Jacob is liking this session a bit more, I think, but he is still working on going fully under water.



We had friends over for dinner on Saturday night and the kids enjoyed playing Rock Band. Brian still wishes they would include a keyboard.



And Sunday, Brian scored a last minute ticket to the Packers / Bears game, while the kids and I spent the day hanging out with friends and crafting in downtown Appleton and then playing at our house.

Mini Cones

Allison has had her snack cookbook out lately and asking to make all sorts of recipes (all desserts). One thing she wanted to make was "ice cream" cones which are actually cool whip and not ice cream. So the last time we were at the grocery store store I bought kids cones - which turned out to be approximately 2 inches high and one half inch in diameter. Apparently the regular sized cones are "jumbo." But that's ok, because the tiny cones are just the right size for a spoonful of cool whip.

Jacob got to go to the fire station today. He really liked that. Allison gets to go a week from Monday. I never remember taking a field trip to the fire station as a kid. I guess once you cross off the annual trek to Lincoln's home, Lincoln's tomb, and New Salem - there weren't any more field trip times.

Just like IDOT

I was laughing pretty hard this afternoon after talking with Allison's teacher at pick up this afternoon. Apparently, her mornings are improving a lot with our itinerant teacher blitz (she's working with Allison daily through Thanksgiving). But I guess afternoons this week were hard - possibly the time change is playing into it.

But what was funny were the activities that they were coming up with when she would get the "wiggles" during play time. One thing that they said has been working well is to give her a folder with a "note" in it for the front office. The "note" apparently says "Allison needed to take a little walk." The office secretary apparently takes the note, gives Allison a big thank you, writes something back on the note, and Allison returns it to her classroom. It reminded me of working summers at IDOT, where the mantra was "if you are carrying around a piece of paper, then you must be doing something important."

Happy Halloween!

It was a balmy 60 degrees yesterday for Halloween. The kids had fun trick-or-treating. Brian also had fun because apparently someone was providing trick-or-treating for the adults in the form of brats and beer. The leaf piles were fun too.