Thanksgiving 2011

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving last Thursday. We had a nice long weekend. The kids were over the moon to get 5 days off from school! (Wait until I tell them they get 17 days off at Christmas!!) We spent Thursday with the Niebuhrs, eating around noon, then we hung out in the afternoon playing and watching movies. We went home around 5 then the kids and I put up the Christmas tree while Brian took a nap! We ate a small dinner and then to bed. Everyone was exhausted! Friday was the Husker football game, which we watched part with the Niebuhrs, and part with the Hoefs. We also put up Christmas decorations and watched a couple of Christmas shows on TV (we're getting into the spirit a little early around here!) Saturday, the kids baked pie with my mom, while Brian, Kara and I did some shopping. I actually got about halfway through my list. Santa has his presents purchased already, and I got some things for family members and Brian. I don't think I've ever been this far into my shopping so early!!!! Sunday was Thanksgiving with the Hoefs. We hung out there from after church until around 7. The kids fell into bed right at 7:30 that night, but got up and went to school on Monday pretty well!! It was a busy but nice weekend. As I said, the kids enjoyed their days off, although they didn't sleep in much!! Now starts 4 weeks of super-busy time in our house. Grace has a dance recital this weekend, plus we have many parties to attend in the next few weeks. I think it will all be fun, though! I'm sure I'll bombard you with pictures of all our holiday festivities all month.

In other news, things are going well for the kids at school. We got their mid-term assessment checklists sent home last week, they're all doing great and have very few areas of concern we need to work on. They're always good as gold at school, which we like. I am still volunteering in each room once every two weeks. It's fun to see them in action, making friends and acting so grown up! Their teachers give me lots of work to do, whether it's something around the classroom, or giving some students extra help. I enjoy it, it's a lot different being in a regular classroom compared to a music room. It's a nice change.

Speaking of music classrooms, I've been doing some subbing lately. Not a ton, but once or twice a week I'll go to an elementary school and fill in for a music teacher. It's definitely hard and I would prefer a regular job, but the pay is good and I have the time, so it'll do for now! Jessica, the babysitter we hired, is turning out to be great. She's flexible and can come and pick the kids up or not depending on what kind of jobs I get. The kids like her, although Xander has figured out how to get lots of attention from her by being naughty. She's a sweet girl, though. A keeper!

All in all, we've still been chugging away in our normal routine. Xander has been a bit of a handful lately. He has to be the most stubborn child on the planet, if we haven't mentioned it before (I'm sure we have!!). I think we're finally starting to figure out how to handle him, I think.....The last few weeks seem to be slightly better (knock on wood) so I'll let you know how we keep going. Piano practicing has been rough. All three of them are very tired and burned out after school, so we've not been having very productive practicing sessions. More often than not, practicing ends in tears or yelling, which I hate! They just don't have any attention span left and would rather be running around outside or watching TV. When we have time, I've been trying to get them to practice before school, but that doesn't happen very often when I don't have to leave the house early and they're ready in enough time. We've also been trying to practice on the weekends, too. That is also hard when we're busy!

Grace and I suffered through the stomach flu last week, even though none of the boys did. Will has a cold and his asthma is acting up again, so it's back to late night nebulizer treatments for him. Hopefully this won't last too long, getting up at night is starting to get old!! So are trips to the asthma doctor! I'm really glad we've been relatively healthy this fall. Only Will has missed one day of school for a cold, the others have only missed a few hours for a dentist appointment. That's great!!

Well, that's about all of our news. As I was looking back at the last few posts, I noticed I haven't posted many details about our days. I guess that's because all we do is school! Maybe December will bring more interesting news! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving - no turkey here!

Kindergarten at Cavett loves to parade. They have had 3 or 4 parades this year for various occasions. They had a turkey parade around the school on Tuesday, the last day of school before vacation. They sang a turkey song and held signs while wearing a turkey hat. Click on the picture to see the signs they held up. Xander's says "don't eat turkey", Will's says "happy thanksgiving" and Grace's says "no turkey here". Apparently they were supposed to be the turkeys and convince people not to eat them. It was so funny I had to take a picture! Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

First Communion

Once or twice a year, our church offers a class for kids to learn about taking communion, then they do a little blessing during the church service and the kids get to take their first communion. We went ahead and did that class with the kids on October 30th, so they had their first communion last Sunday, the 6th! We talked about it several times during the week, so I think they understood what was happening as best as they could. They got a little olivewood chalice that they got to use for their first time and a little commemorative box to decorate to remind them of their first communion. Xander drew pictures all over it of him taking communion. Grace wrote "Jesus and God together" on hers and Will drew a chalice and loaf of bread. They seem very grown up now, the time is flying by (less than 2 months until they turn six!!!) I'm very proud of them!!  

Fall fun

Now that our trees are bigger, there are more leaves to fall off! Brian and the kids did some raking last Saturday and then, of course, had to play in the pile! I think they had a lot of fun and Brian said they were actually some help with the raking. We also cleaned out the garage last weekend, and they actually did help with that, too. It's nice to have more sets of hands to help with chores! Happy Fall!

Halloween!

Halloween finally came. After 2 months of trunk or treating, pumpkin painting, pumpkin patches and get togethers, it was finally Halloween! It had been a busy weekend, prior to Halloween Monday. Most notably on Saturday, we ate dinner with the Niebuhrs and did a little trick or treating in their neighborhood. But, since actual Halloween was a Monday, only my early piano lessons came and the kids stayed home (instead of going to my mom's like they normally do). Brian took the afternoon off and he and the kids went outside and carved pumpkins while I taught my few lessons. I can hardly believe it was nice enough to carve pumpkins outside, but it was!! Uncle Wes, Aunt Kara and Sebastian came over and ate a quick dinner with us then Brian took all 4 kids trick or treating in the neighborhood. I stayed home and answered the door for trick-or-treaters. When they got home, we hopped in the car and went to my mom and dad's house. We were supposed to have gone over there Sunday night for dinner and trick or treating their neighborhood, but my mom came down with the stomach flu, so we didn't go. So, we had to go show off our costumes to them and their neighborhood friends. We got home and the kids went to bed, and it was surprisingly not too late (around 8 or so!). Not too bad, we fit in all our Halloween festivities and still got to bed on time. And, they were surprisingly not tired or grumpy the next day!

Family pictures

If you have a little bit and want to do some browsing, our family pictures we had taken in October are up. Click here and you will be taken to the Life's A Story gallery. The password is Niebuhr.I think they turned out great (the brick wall was my idea!) I can't wait to put some up in the house!!

1st trip to the Lied Center

In front of the Lied Center, getting ready to go in!!

From the lobby.

Our seats. They were in the 4th row of the balcony. Great seats! We could see everything well.

Brian and I go to the Lied Center many times a year, and have for as long as we've lived in Lincoln. I can remember going there as a kid when it opened and I've seen lots of great shows there, and even performed there before!! So, when Beauty and the Beast was coming, we decided to take the kids. We knew they've love it and we thought they were old enough to go there and behave. We got tickets for the Friday night performance, and it was great because it started at 6. They knew there would be a lot of kids there! As it was, we didn't get home until 9:30. I can't imagine how late the kids would have been up if it had started as their normal 7:30 showtime!!

The kids really did enjoy it. They've seen the movie a bazillion times and know all the songs. I watched Grace alternate between sitting up excitedly with her hands on her face and covering her eyes on the scary parts. It was a fun night!

Funnies

Here's a page of work Grace brought home from school the other day. It is of their sight words, they had to stamp them, then write each one with a pencil, marker and a pen. That's not the funny part. Take a look at the directions on the bottom (click on the pic to make it bigger if you can't read it). It says "write my on the back of the paper as many times as you can."

Scroll down. Here is what the back of that paper looks like.

Yep. She definitely wrote it as many times as she could, and in nice, neat columns. 108 times, to be exact. Have you ever seen a 5 year old so type-A?!?!

A funny conversation:

Will: I'm smart.

Grace: Yep.

Will: I'm K-mart smart!

Grace: No, Will. You're not K-mart smart. You're W-mart smart.

Xander: I'm X-mart smart.

Grace: And I'm G-mart smart. We're all mart smart.

Oh wow. They watch too much TV. Or there are too many K-mart commercials on!