Christmas Time is Here

Our turkey was barely digested before our Christmas setup began on Friday. The kids put up their tree in our foyer (though they won't leave the ornaments on it). Jack assembled the Christmas train (and after the first 24 hours, the boys are mostly leaving it intact when they play with it). Jack and Carter picked out our very first real Christmas tree. It came to our house on Friday, but still isn't decorated. We're waiting for branches to settle into place, and for the kids to leave the other tree's ornaments alone. We may end up with just lights on it - haha.

Our old 12' tree made its debut in our church sanctuary this week. It looks great there. Far more people can appreciate it at our church, than ever saw it at our house.

Happy Thanksgiving

... from our little turkeys!

I am glad to see Carter's shirt from his first race (four years ago) finally fits. Haha.

Thanksgiving Week Park Trip

The kids at the park on our 75-degree Thanksgiving break day, Monday. It was all fun and games until someone had to go potty ...

Side note, I can see an end in sight. Our playground trips are riddled with logistics of keeping many small children from falling (or jumping) off a ledge and getting hurt. But Grant and Graham are getting better about it. I think in another year, I won't have to worry so much about the specs of a playground. (How many levels up? Are there openings kids could jump through? Are there multiple points of entry? Is it likely the twins will run in opposite directions, forcing me to choose which one I grab first? Is there a bathroom/parking lot/road alongside the playground? ... These are all factors I consider before taking my kids - without an extra adult - to a playground. And so, I happily watch as Graham recognizes dangerous ledges, and Grant ... well ... he still yells for me to catch him about half a second before giving a sneaky look and jumping, so ... )

Preschool Thanksgiving Feast

Tuesday was our preschool Thanksgiving program and feast. The kids sang some Thanksgiving songs, and my three were semi-participatory.
I did finish Ellyson's dress in time, and it looked so much better than the "shortcut" trainwrecks I tried via Pinterest. It was my first time making sleeves (all our other shirts and dresses to date have been tank tops), and creating a button hole. She looked so cute, I almost didn't feel guilty about the fact that she was supposed to be wearing a solid-color shirt. ;)

Wordless Wednesday

Carter's Thanksgiving Feast

Wednesday was Carter's Thanksgiving feast at school. With the little three at preschool, I was able to go without a stroller. And Nana met us there, too, to Carter's surprise. Two of us didn't finish our meals (though it's actually pretty good), but one of us (Carter) ate all of his turkey and dressing plus half of mine. That kid does love Thanksgiving food!

There's Always Another First

We've all been a little congested lately. Grant and Graham did some breathing treatments, but nothing major. No fevers or anything. Yesterday, I saw Graham tug on his ear a little. Today, his preschool teacher said he was very reserved and whimpered a little during lunch. Remembering his ear tug yesterday, I pulled out our otoscope and looked in his ear. I felt pretty accomplished when I saw the foggy whiteness of an infection.

We loaded back into the van to see the pediatrician. First ear - really infected, with ear drum looking like it might rupture. Second ear (the one I saw into) - already ruptured and draining. So the white stuff I saw was in his ear canal, not behind the ear drum. I feel less accomplished now.

In Carter's three/two (three in one ear and two in the other) sets of tubes, he has never had an ear drum rupture. This was a first for us. But Graham must have an amazing pain threshold, having let out little more than a whimper with all that was going on in his poor ear.

Hopefully he'll be on the mend, now that we have oral antibiotics, antibiotic drops (a staple in our medicine box, thanks to Carter), and ibuprofen without the fear of masking fevers (he hadn't had one, so I waited to give him any, afraid of masking symptoms that might indicate something more serious).

Wordless Wednesday

When Pinterest Fails

How Pinterest says it will look versus how it looks at home ...

I've been working on a Thanksgiving dress for Ellyson. After failing tremendously (two attempts) at converting a t-shirt into a ruffled dress, I scrapped the project. I am working on a Thanksgiving dress, but I'm using a pattern instead of a "shortcut". Hopefully I'll have good-looking pictures to post soon.

Apples

You don't really love apples unless you eat them two at a time.

For the record, Grant and Graham each ate a whole apple to the core this morning.

Sort-Of Wordless Wednesday

Saturday morning, we had a family portrait session. Not just our family - Jack's whole family - his parents and brother's family, too. For his parents' 40th wedding anniversary this month, we had whole-family pictures taken. It was freezing. Literally. The wind was the worst ... and the wind chill hovered around 30 degrees. Ellyson and Carter were troopers (especially Ellyson), teeth chattering through smiles. When the cameras weren't on the kids, we were wrapping them up to warm them. I love this one, of Jack warming Ellyson between shots.

Testing

So, this kid made the list to be tested for the gifted program at his school. I mean, is anyone surprised? I bit my tongue last year as friends posted announcements that their precious kindergarteners had been marked as gifted. Our elementary school doesn't look at anyone until after the first standardized test, which is the CogAT, given in September of first grade. Carter scored well above average in math, and scored a 97th percentile in verbal. If you've been out of the standardized testing world for a while, that means he did better than 97% of kids his age. This doesn't seem to be a fluke, as he's been reading circles around his classes since they introduced phonics in pre-k.

He still has to pass another standardized test as the "entrance" exam for gifted, but hopefully those scores will support the CogAT, and what we all knew already.

Trick or Treat!

Friday was the first time we've trick-or-treated in our own neighborhood. Our old neighborhood didn't really participate, so we'd always gone to my dad's neighborhood.

This year, my sister who lives near us came over (she usually comes along at Dad's). The kids coerced her into reading Pete the Cat, and then we all trick-or-treated in our neighborhood. After that (it only took about 20 minutes), Jack brought the little two back to our house (where they watched movies), and my sister and I took the big two ... along with the parents and four elementary-aged boys from our neighborhood, and walked to the neighborhood next to ours.

The boys had lots of fun and were pretty well behaved. Both of our kids ran into kids they know from school. And we were treated to fog machines, animatronic spiders, glow bracelets, more candy than Ellyson could carry ... and even a magic show. With all that action, I still had them back home by 8:15. Which was good, because we had a family portrait session scheduled bright and early the next morning.