Christmas 2011

We got up Christmas morning and opened presents. Jess was very excited to get the Jessie and Bullseye dolls she wanted as well as Buzz Lightyear. Jason was very happy with his dragon incense burner. Jess found a couple articles that Santa lost - a button and a piece of cloth - maybe from his sleeve?

We went to Ruth and Chuck's for an early dinner and then the other relatives joined us for dessert. It was nice seeing everyone. We stayed at a local hotel rather than drive back home. Jason was hungry later that night so we went looking for McDonalds. Margaret had said earlier that night that she'd heard several commercials on the radio about them being open Christmas night.

Jack playing with his new catnip toy.

How did Santa not notice he was missing these?!?

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care




















Jess with her new doll, Alicia

For the boy who has everything - his own popcorn cup. His main gift was Calumet

Christmas Eve 2011

It was a busy day today. I'm on vacation time so I went to bed around 1:30 last night. Up at 8:30 today so not too bad. I let Jess stay up late last night (not as late as me!) and she also slept in until 8:30. When Mike got home from his parents this morning, I ran some last minute errands. Some people may be lamenting the lack of snow this year but I was loving running around on Christmas Eve in a sweater. I hate wearing a coat. I made brownies for the nursing home staff, wrapped some things, and got Jess ready. At 3:30 we were on our way to the nursing home to pick my mom up. By 4:30 we were at church. We were early but we wanted to make sure we were sitting up front so my mom could see. It was a beautiful service. The Sunday School kids sang Away in the Manger. I loved when we lit our candles and the lights were dimmed for Silent Night. After church, we went to eat at the Longhorn Steakhouse. Dinner was good but it was late for my mom and it showed. After dinner, we dropped her off and then went home so the kids could open one present. Jason opened a package of magnet balls and Jess opened a bizarre plant kit. Afterward Jess put on her new Christmas nightgown (Kanani got a matching one) and put out the reindeer food she'd made in school. Then she got Santa's snack ready. We just checked to NORAD.org to see where Santa is. He's in Greenland so it's time for her to get to bed before he starts heading down the east coast.

Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, Plymouth, MA














Sprinkling reindeer food














Modeling new pj's



















Jess and her Nana

Getting the manger ready.

Ready for church Adding carrots to the snack for Dancer

Beautiful Day
Today was beautiful - in the 60's and a little breezy. Our tree in the front year lost all of its leaves and Jess loves to throw them in the air and try to catch them.


































October

Try as I might, I just can't keep this updated as quickly as I'd like. Life gets in the way, you know? So, as usual, I'm playing catchup.

We celebrated Jess's birthday as a family in September. We had her friend's party in October because I wasn't quick enough to plan it to get it in the right month. We are limited to Sundays because of dance and we're limited to after 12 because of church. We had her party at Big East Gymnastics where she takes lessons. It was a blast. We invited several of her friends from the neighborhood and church as well as all the girls in her class. They swung on the rings, jumped on the trampoline, climbed the rock wall, jumped into the foam pit and cartwheeled. Jess gives me a heart attack every time she does a flip in the air.
















I laugh when people tell me their kids can't make up their minds what they want to be for Halloween until a couple days before. Jessica makes her choice in February when my friend goes to visit her mom who works at WDW. So far, Jess has been Tinkerbell, Cinderella, and Belle. We got 2 years out of Cinderella but I think it might be only one year for Belle because this year's costume was a tiny bit tight (it doesn't help that she needs to layer underneath it to go trick or treating unless she wants to go out in a winter jacket over her costume).

Halloween took over much of the month of October this year. We went to a magical munchkins party at Liz's house on 10/1, trick or treating at Jess's school on 10/21, Halloween party at Plimoth Plantation on 10/28, and trick or treating around the neighborhood on 10/31.

At the magical munchkins party, Jess and the older kids had an egg hunt by flashlight. Jess won at pin the tail on the cat as well as getting the most eggs in the hunt.




















Jason went to his friend's house on Halloween and I took Jess out. We were out for around 2 hours. We'd planned on going to the mall first but decided to meet up with the neighbors instead. We outlasted everyone. At the very end, we started getting really cold and Jess's feet hurt so we headed home around 8:30.















A couple days after Halloween, we watched a squirrel take Jess's little pumpkin out of the big pumpkin's mouth and carry it over the fence in his mouth. That was one determined squirrel! He dropped it a couple of times and would look at us in the window watching him and then at the pumpkin as if he was trying to decide whether it was worth it or not. Apparently it was because he went back each time and picked it up again. Finally, he did make it over the fence with it. Jess was upset at first that he took her pumpkin but I told her that the pumpkin would rot anyway so at least this way she was feeding the squirrel.

Jessica turns 6!!!!

Jess had a great day today. Last night I decorated cupcakes to put together to look like a spotted puppy for Jess's kindergarten class to enjoy. I was a little worried about how they'd look in the morning because our kitchen felt so hot but I think they looked fine. She wore her "My Birthday Rocks! shirt to school. I wasn't sure she'd want to because its long sleeved and today was 75 and humid but she wanted to so I let her. She chose to go to Bertuccis for her birthday dinner. We've always gone to Bugaboo Creek but unfortunately they have closed. Bertuccis was very good. She was not too impressed with the card I found that had happy birthday sung by Altered Images. She was like "WHO are THEY?!?!" Oh well. She was much more impressed with her present - the Kanani American Girl doll. The doll's current name is Sarah but with Jess, that could change by the moment. Bertuccis gave Jess a free dessert and sang happy birthday to her which she loved. Happy Birthday, my darling girl!!!!!

10 Years

It's been 10 years since planes crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and one crashed into the ground in Shanksville, PA. All over facebook, people are asking "Where were you when...." I know where I was. I was standing in front of the cloak closet in my kindergarten helping a child get his snack. Calendar time had just finished. My para came in and told me what happened; she'd been in the office and had heard the secretaries talking. The office staff set up a tv and staff took turns going to the office to get updates.

I wanted to go to the dedication and consecration of a steel beam from the WTC that was given to the town memorial by NY but Jason was alcolyting so we weren't able to make that. We did go down later to see the memorial (I'll get pics up a little later). At 1:30, I took the kids to Plymouth Remembers. It was a very well done program with singing, prayers, and speeches. There are a lot of things going on in our town today since it is the 10th anniversary; the program we went to was very well attended.

First Day of School Outfit

Over the past month, Jess and I have gone shopping several times for fall clothes. She has 2 outfits that are now contenders for the first day of school outfit. She modeled both tonight and had me take pictures so she could see how she looked (no full mirror here) and make her choice. Can't post the pics here because something's wrong with the sd drive on my desktop and I can't get the internet to run on my laptop tonight so I'm just posting pics I found online of the separate pieces; you'll have to use your imagination to put them together. The purple shirt I got in the 2nd outfit is darker than the picture I have here but I couldn't find the exact shirt online. Being in New England, it's impossible to know yet what the weather will be like next Tuesday which is the first day of kindergarten. So....Jess decided that if it is warm, she will wear the panda outfit (she can take the sweater vest off if she's hot) and she has knee socks to wear with it (she's never worn knee socks before and didn't know what to make of them). If it's colder out, she'll wear the purple outfit which is long sleeved and has purple tights (couldn't find purple knee socks to save my life). Mike took Jess to meet her teacher on Wednesday. I was sad I couldn't go but it was my students' first day so I had to be at work. On Thursday, she went for her developmental assessment which she said was easy. She is SO excited about going to school. She has a new backpack (purple of course with puppies), requested supplies in backpack (pocket folder, glue sticks, tissues, lysol wipes, and ziplock baggies), new black shoes, and a new thermos (ICarly). She's using her Hello Kitty lunchbox that she had from preschool. I need to make barrettes this weekend to go with the two outfits so she'll be all set regardless of which she wears.

American Girl Dolls
I took Jess to the American Girl store in Natick today. We spent an hour looking at all the dolls and discussed the pros and cons of each. I'm getting her one for her birthday and I think it'll be Kanani, the girl of the year. I'd planned before on getting her a historical one but she loves to do hair and wants me to show her how to do different things with it. With the exception of Julie who she didn't seem much interested in, a lot of them have short hair or curly hair which will be more difficult for her to style. Josefina seems to have textured hair which is long but I'm not sure if the texture will make it harder for her to style. Kanani's is pretty smooth. I'm a little torn between the two but am leaning toward Kanani. Jess wants one with long hair to play with and was happy when I told her that if she gets one doll, she can still get accessories from the other's collections. She really loved the horse set. We had tea at the Bistro there. It was really cute and the food was really good. They have a selection of "My American Girl" dolls that children who didn't bring a doll with them can bring to their table to have lunch with. Several kids had birthdays while we were there and Jess loved the staff singing to them. I told her after her birthday I'll take her for lunch there again. She wants them to sing to her when we go.

Jess lost her first tooth!!!

Jess has been playing with a loose tooth for at least a month now. Wiggle...wiggle...wiggle... but it wouldn't come out. Until yesterday. Finally, she pushed it with her tongue and out it popped. She had one coming in behind it (called shark teeth) and now that one will hopefully move into place. Jess wrote a letter to the tooth fairy asking to keep her tooth. We looked up online what the toothfairy does with the teeth and read some FAQs. Apparently Jess isn't the first to ask to keep her tooth. I told her that the toothfairy said in her answer to someone else who asked that she can keep the first one but that she'll need the others when they fall out to help build things in toothfairy land.

My Birthday

I've been 44 for a month today. I had a great birthday and got exactly what I wanted.

My gift to myself was doing the Team Beachbody nutrition challenge. It was the first 10 days of August and it was run by a friend who's a Team Beachbody coach. For 10 days, I committed to having no caffeine, no sugar, keeping my calories below a certain number, exercising, drinking at least 8 cups of water, and really trying to make better choices. I lost some inches and some pounds and feel a ton better. I'm working on continuing to make better choices and portion control which is a weak spot for me. I drink a shakeology shake every day and that has had one benefit I hadn't counted on. My mother, my siblings, and I all have stomach issues related to eating animal fat. I have not had any problems since starting to drink this shake. During the first 10 days of August, I didn't eat a ton of fat but since then I have had a couple celebrations (birthday dinner at Melting Pot and my mom's birthday dinner at Daniel Webster Inn where I tried raw beef for the first (and last) time) where I've eaten things that would have caused a problem before and I've been fine. So, my ongoing gift to myself is to take better care of myself.

My MIL and SIL took me to the Melting Pot after my challenge was over. For anyone who hasn't tried that place, GO!!!! It's not a quick dinner, that's for sure, but it's so worth it! I think I might take Jess there; they have a children's menu for the entree and I'd just share my cheese and chocolate fondues (no Baileys when she comes though).

People chipped in so Mike, the kids and I can go to the dog show this coming weekend. I can't wait! It's at Coco Keys in Fitchburg and really should be a good time. My friend is leaving Plymouth at 6 and asked if I wanted to follow her. Since I don't have dogs to unload or anything to set up for, I think I'll pass at leaving home at the break of dawn.