New Belt

It's been a bit of a tough month for Allison with the excitement of Thanksgiving, followed by a birthday party, a snow day, a birthday, and then more parties plus the countdown until Christmas. But today was a pretty good day for her. She sat through the holiday concert at school, and told me she enjoyed watching her 6th grade buddy sing. Then she got a new belt in karate tonight. They earn a new one at the end of each session by collecting stripes on their old belts. At the end of class, though, her teacher commented on how much better she's gotten since she started and asked if she was coming for the next session (in a way that suggesed they wanted her back, not the "please say no" kindof way). I think, too, now her periodic (and much less frequent) antics amuse her instructors more than annoy them.

Birthdays and Holiday Parties

Here are some back notes....

Allison turned 6 last Thursday. Her birthday party was the Sunday before. I believe the kids had fun, but Brian and I were pretty exhausted. First we cut out cookies and while the cookies were baking, the kids played a pin-the-bow-on-the-cat game (just like at my 6th birthday party) and then hit a pinata in the basement. Allison really wanted a pinata. Then we had cake, opened presents, and finally decorated the cookies. We then sent 8 kids hoped up on sugar home to their parents for dinner.





Also that weekend, Brian had his company holiday party, which was followed by a terrible morning of standing in line for Wicked tickets at the PAC. After 3 hours, including one with Jacob after Brian and Allison had to go to their holiday party, I ended up getting tickets by calling Dad and having him order them when they went online at ticketmaster at 10am.

Then Jacob had his daycare holiday party. Here is a picture of him singing with his friends on stage. It was equally cute to see the kids on stage singing as it was to look out to a sea of cameras and camcorders in the audience.

Snow Day!

We've shoveled three times today. No school all around.




(Note - the shovel is for scale - it's upright. The kids are sitting on top of the snowbank along the driveway.)


New rule in the Douglas household - "No snowangels in the street"

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.