Basketball

Emma wanted to sign up for basketball before Thanksgiving. I looked into getting her signed up and made it a part of her Christmas presents. She was thrilled when she found out that she "made" a team. (She was a little concerned that she would need to "try out" for the team.)
It was a long and tedious waiting period between Christmas and her first practice. Three weeks of; "How many more days?!"

She had one practice and then she had a game. You know, a real game with a ref and whistles. The team lost, but they had a lot of fun.

Breakfast

The nice thing about the mornings that Michael drives the kids to school is having a little extra time. You know, time for that "most important" meal of the day. I try to give my kids a hot meal...a few times a week. I am not above cold cereal, but my kids LOVE such culinary delights as french toast, pancakes, Dutch Babies,...sensing a theme? My kids like warm stuff.
So far, I think I've managed to make all of their favorites this week. (In hopes that it leads to better attitudes at school) My kids are fairly forgiving if their pancakes don't come out exactly as they plan. In fact, I usually make some random shapes and then ask them what it is. Sometimes all they get are full moons. Depends on the morning.

Belated Christmas

Michael ordered something from Amazon that was "supposed" to arrive Christmas Eve. I didn't know what it was, just that it was a "family gift". It took until yesterday to get here and it came in the nick of time. Just yesterday afternoon, I was cursing our lack of usable pencil sharpeners. I made a promise to myself to go find a pencil sharpener this week. Michael must have been listening REALLY good even before Christmas to order one. I no longer need to go shopping (never fun when you have to).

Back to School

I was ELATED when Michael drove off to school with
Jack and Emma this morning. I got my groove going and had two loads of laundry done by noon. I redoubled my Christmas take down efforts (no comments on how long it took). Lily agreed to go grocery shopping with me, she held the list.

At 1:30 I heard the doorbell ring. A little odd in the middle of the day, but not totally unexpected. I opened the door to find a couple neighborhood boys. One of them goes to the same school as Jack. I had a moment of panic, thinking I sent my kids to school and there was no school. Since I knew that wasn't the case, I had to gently tell the truant boy that he was missing school. He had a look of panic/embarrassment on his face. I only laughed a bit, and then I laughed a little harder when I remembered that his mom is a teacher in the school district. We (the charter school) went back today, the rest of the district returns on Thursday.

A New Year

We managed to get our cold weather gear together and head up to the local ski area on New Year's Day. That was no small feat equipping everyone with all the must haves. Jack and Emma were in desperate need of new coats. Jack almost got three years out of his coat, yes, I bought big. Emma's old coat was a fancy pink and brown coat with a shell and liner. Well, she lost the shell and the pink liner had turned grayish pink. I promised myself that I wouldn't let her go pink again. Note to self, pink is hard to steer away from in her age bracket.

After a long and arduous day of gear shopping and then renting skis, I was nearly too tired to go skiing. But skiing we went.

I mentally put myself in a "happy" place and didn't let myself get stressed out when the lines got long and my feet got cold. It was a pretty good day (no tears!), although I still hate the rope tow.
Luckily I only had to use it three times. This was Lily's first time on the slopes, she had a blast, but can't stop to save her life!