Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Scenes from Christmas

Christmas morning this year went much like christmas mornings of the past: with David and I pondering how long we're going to let the kids sleep!  I thought this might be the year Hannah woke us up, but it wasn't.  
They eventually wandered out just before 8.    


Grandpa Davis, Grandma Moon and Papa Tom were all here to share christmas morning with girls.  


Santa brought Riley a train set.  


Santa brought Hannah a bath robe and slippers. The bath robe is a huge hit, Hannah has worn it everyday since receiving it.  


Santa also brought Riley that lion, because she loves lions so much.  


David and I got her Pitch Perfect and a Where's Waldo book.  She sat down to do her Where's Waldo last night and found him 4 different times with relative ease!  


Grandpa Davis gave Riley a Sofia the First Doll.  She came with animals and they talk to each other.  


Here's Grandpa putting together Hannah's Fluttershy doll.  It flies, which amuses both girls.  


After opening, the kids just explored all their new toys.  Both girls enjoyed the train.  


Riley received some finger paints, along with finger paint paper.  So she spent some time finger painting while Hannah put together her new lego's.  


It was a lego Christmas for Hannah.  She received a bunch from her Great Grandma Davis, Aunt Marilyn and Aunt Brandy.  
Santa also brought her the police station.  


Joshua received a couple of ball caps from Santa and some Monsters University slippers.  He was so excited he couldn't get his eyes open.  And neither could Grandma Moon.  


Riley, with a travel art thing.  


Hannah also received Scrabble Flash, which is a great game.  All of us adults enjoyed playing a few round while the kids were occupied with other toys.  


We ended our evening with a fantastic meal cooked entirely by David: prime rib, sauteed green beans and oven crisp potatoes.  He cooked everything perfectly and it was a great meal!  
















Monday, December 30, 2013

Scenes from Christmas Eve

Disclaimer: Many of these pictures are blurry, because the kids were moving so much!  

On Christmas Eve we went to my moms house to spend the evening with my mom, Art, Ethan, Bryan and Jaime (Ethan's dad and step mom).  Ethan's only here for a couple weeks, over his christmas break so it was great to be able to open gifts with him and let the kids play together.  


We decided to open gifts first, and let the kids play together while we socialized and snacked after presents.  


As you can see from these two photo's, once the gifts were open, the kids were wide open.  


You can see David holding Joshua in the background.  He slept almost the entire, with the only exception being a 15 or 20 minute snack.  




David got a copy of Jurassic Park on Blu Ray, I got a very nice necklace and earring set.  The kids got all kinds of goodies.  Riley got a band in a box, which I'm sure you can imagine how much she loves.  Hannah received some very nice roller skates.  The whole family ventured out to the skating rink this past Saturday.  I'll talk about that in another post.    


A pretty good family photo.  Only missing 3 Bergers in California.  

Both girls were asleep within minutes of leaving Grandma's house.  






Monday, December 9, 2013

A new adventure in reading

I've been trying to get Hannah to latch on to a good chapter book series for some time now.  It's time for her to make that transition, and stop reading nothing but 10 pages with pictures on every page.  She'll sit down with me and let me read to her, and read some to me as well, with just about any chapter book.  But I still want her to find something she enjoys on her own.  


So we had a talk about it the other day, on our way to the library to see the high school orchestra.  And she brought up the boxcar children.  The boxcar children books have been in her life for almost two years now.  The problem is that they are slightly outdated and a tad sexiest.  


Hannah and I talked about it and she agreed that she would read it, and not ask me to read it to her.  Because I just don't want to read the boxcar children!  Essentially, that was my goal anyways.  


I told Hannah at the end of chapter, I wanted her to draw me a picture about what she had read.  


As you can see, she's already started.  I got two pictures from the first chapter.  She's currently in the middle of the second chapter.  







Saturday, December 7, 2013

Another Awesome Library Event

Since our Homeschool co-op is on holiday break, I've been looking for other stuff to keep us out and about.  This last week, our library hosted a local high school orchestra.  Reid Ross Classical School entertained us with many holiday tunes, along with a few others.  


A person came forward to talk to the kids about each instrument for a few minutes.  We learned that the violin can get really high.  
We heard music from the polar express, a little mermaid medley, the pink panther song along with many more.  



When individuals stepped forward to present their particular instrument, they also played a small section of a preschool song, like Mary Had a Little Lamb.  Sorry folks, I'm having a brain delay and can not think of the word I'm looking for here.  It's not lullaby, it's something else.  Oh well, I think you know what I mean.  
The cello also played a small piece of classical music for us.  


Doing the Pink Panther dance.  



The girls had a great time, and so did it.  Joshua also loved the music.  He was was bouncing around like he normally only does after I eat.  Our personal concert lasted for an hour.  After the school played for us, they offered up their instruments for the kids to touch and strum.  Pretty brave, if you ask me.  Hannah and Riley strummed them all.  
So we saw four instruments showcased; the violin, the viola, the cello and the bass.  
Hannah's favorite was the violin.  

Coming up this week: story time with Santa.









Friday, December 6, 2013

A Proud Dad Moment

Here's some pictures from our Thanksgiving Day target practice.  


After a little rearranging, Grandpa and Daddy were able to figure out the right set up for Hannah.  



And she hit the target, over and over.  
Possibly more importantly, she had fun.  And wanted to continue doing it.  Which is what makes this a proud dad moment. 


Among all the dresses, high heels, make up and barbie dolls, Hannah has qualities that are the opposite of all that.  Like target shooting, apparently.  



Riley, never one to be overlooked, even just a little, expressed her desire to try as well.  


She looks so tiny, it's pretty cute.  













Thursday, December 5, 2013

Hubbs Corn Maze


I've had these pictures for quite some time.  However, I was waiting for the pictures at the end of this post, before I completed the post.  
So this was about two weeks before Halloween.  We took the girls out to Hubbs Corn Maze.  
That's Hannah, mid jump, over the red stripe.  


You may remember that we took the girls to a corn maze last year, Konow Farms in Illinois.  The girls loved it.  Hannah had a blast navigating the maze with David.  
There's Riley and David.  Riley wanted to jump, of course but she she's so small she had to have help.  Hannah's off to the left.  


Grandma and Grandpa Fox joined us for the maze.  There's Hannah in front, taking the lead.  





Riley wanted to participate, naturally.  The ground was pretty bumpy, which made for lots of stumbling.  





Having a mid maze snack.  


The maze was split into two sections.  After the first section, I took Riley out to let her play on some of the stuff set up for kids, like this dirt and tire mound.  


After Hannah successfully got David and Grandma Fox through the second part of the maze, Hannah and Riley went for a ride together.  



After having a picnic in the parking lot, we decided to go back through the maze.  We didn't make it very far, though, because we had one tired girl.  And two girls that we had to get home.  





These are the pictures I had to wait for.  It's because I had to brag on myself and Becca.  ; )


We went back through the corn maze at night, like a week later.  David and Ryan decided that Becca and I should navigate, while they follow along, only offering advice when necessary.  


We decided that Rebecca would lead while I used the map and told Becca the way to go.  I did use a pen to help me keep track of where I was.  I think Ryan and David offered assistance 3 times, maybe 4.  


At the end of the event, David and Ryan complimented Rebecca and I on how well we navigated the maze.  And I must admit, I was proud of myself!
And now you understand why I had to have these pictures before I completed this post!