Holly Jolly Poetry

Marian entered a poetry contest at school, and her poem was chosen as one of the winners! The local bookstore hosted a night where the kids read their poems, the choir sang, and a portion of sales from that night went to the school. Marian said she was nervous as soon as she found out she was a winner, but the whole reason she entered was because she wanted to read a poem in front everyone. She did great, despite feeling a little under the weather. We are so proud!

Christmas is coming,

Christmas is near.

Time to spread good joy and cheer.

Santa is coming driving his reindeer.

His time is coming, it is sooooo near.

I can't wait for Christmas,

Neither can you.

It's a time for family,

fun and giving, too!

Christmas is coming,

Christmas is near.

It's time to spread

good joy and cheer.

Happy Turkey Day

Marian and Aidan made special desserts for us to enjoy after our turkey dinner.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Feast

Aidan's class performed at the preschool's annual Thanksgiving Feast. The 5-year-old class told the story of Thanksgiving. They all did a great job remembering their lines! We did a lot of practicing at home with a play microphone and reading "Berenstein Bears Get Stage Fright". Aidan continues to do well at school--we are so proud of him!

His hands were in his pockets the whole time


The 5's

Aidan's line: "We were glad to see land again."

Daddy finally made it to his first Thanksgiving Feast

The 4's "shaking their tailfeathers"

Marian's Book of the Month Club

Marian decided that starting in January, the Smith family would vote on a "book of the month." There would be a secret written ballot and a ballot box. Each month there would be two books to choose between, one of them being the "book-ublican" and the other one the "story-crat." If the adults and the two oldest kids had a tie vote, then the tie breaker would be which ever book Brennan grabbed.

Maybe we have all had a little too much politics in our lives the last few weeks. (And rumor has it that while the "story-crat" has a nice looking outside cover and dust jacket, if you open it up the pages are completely blank inside...)

Thomas

Happy Halloween!

This year was another "Star Wars" year, with Princess Leia trying to rescue Han Solo from Boba Fett (the bounty hunter).

Aidan wanted his pumpkin to be scary. He just kept saying "awesome" while we were "decorating" the pumpkin.

The kids had loads of fun trick-or-treating with their friends last night.

Brennan was getting the idea of going up to all the houses, but you could tell he really wasn't sure WHY we were doing this. He didn't mind the candy in his bucket, though.

Brennan found our candy bowl before we left. He was licking his lips just before this. And then he helped himself to some M&M's.

"Chee!"

As soon as Brennan sees a camera, he says, "Chee!" especially if he wants to be the one taking the pictures. He ends up with a cheesy smile, but he loves to do it, so I can't help taking a picture!

I considered just having Brennan be R2-D2 for Halloween. The kids thought it would be funny to call him R2-Boo-boo!

I finally got it on video, although he does have a mouthful of food, and the video is sideways--sorry!

A Boo-Boo for Boo-Boo

Brennan is going to keep me on my toes. I feel like he's about 2 steps from danger, and I'm one step behind him.

See the cut and bruise next to his eye? He managed to slip while trying to climb into his booster seat yesterday and hit the kitchen table. After a few minutes, the bleeding wasn't stopping, so I began to think I was going to need to take him to the ER, b/c it was a nice little gouge. While I'm sitting there holding a cold compress on his head (or trying to!) I felt all the blood rush out of my head. It was the opposite of an adrenalin rush. It was a very strange feeling, and I thought, "That's weird", then I started to feel woozy. So I ended up lying on the floor for an hour or so, until I could get something to eat and stop thinking about stitches.

Somewhere along the line in the last year, the kids (and Thomas) have been calling Brennan, 'Boo-boo' which will have to stop so he can learn his real name. But for now, it's cute.

Halloween at gymnastics!

He loves running on the trampoline, but one of these days he's going to get too close to the far side and bounce himself off before I can reach him.