Winter Wonderland

The pictures say it all. Christmas at Grandma and Papa's has been the winter wonderland that Houstonian's do not get, even if it did snow at home this year. They got about a foot of snow a couple of days before we got here and it has lasted the whole time. Our van is parked safely down the mountain. The girls opened presents from us, grandma, papa and their aunt and uncle today. Of course, Santa is coming tonight and the cookies and milk are securely in their place. Poor Helen developed a pretty high fever today. She has had a stuffy nose for quite a while. Hopefully it will be short-lived. We have one more day and a half here and then we are off to visit Daron's side of the family.

Christmas tree

A quick photo of our tree before it comes down on Saturday. Got to get it out of the house before we leave. Daisy didn't pull it down this year, thanks goodness. My crazy week has just gotten a little crazier with a sick child (Daisy). Honey, mommy really needs you to go to preschool this week! Oh well, a few less things will get done, but Christmas will still come no matter how many times I try to hit the pause button. Oh, and that's a good thing.

Performances

Daisy's Christmas program at preschool was Tuesday. She wore an outfit that used to be Helen's and looked ever like the teeny tiny gal she is. I had videotaped practice earlier in the day in case she "froze up" but I needn't have worried. She performed and behaved perfectly up there. She was very enthusiastic and not one bit afraid.
See Mom- I can do it!

The next night found Mary (Helen's friend Skylar) and Joseph (Helen) in their Christmas program. They just had the kids set up in vignettes while an adult read and the kids sang in between. Unfortunately, Helen was extremely distracted by the straw in the manger. She kept poking her friend with it...

and trying to feed it to the baby Jesus (much to Skylar's chagrin).

By this point, Skylar has commandeered the baby altogether while we all get to listen to Helen holler about the injustice of that. It was not one of her finer moments. But, it was all just 4 and 5 year olds and God bless those teachers who volunteer to teach choir to 26 kindergarteners.

We have one more performance to go with Helen's Kindergarten class, two class Christmas parties (one of which I am in charge of), final Christmas shopping, one play, two social events, packing, Daron is out of town 3 of 5 days next week and we leave on Saturday for our two weeks in North Carolina/Tennessee.

Hanging of the Greens

Helen has been going to choir at another church with one of her friends. Actually, the mom and I are friends and we lucked out to both have two girls almost exactly the same ages who get along. Anyway, last night was the Hanging of the Greens service where the choirs sang and then afterward a mix and mingle, including Santa Claus.

Helen's hat was on the right way when she walked up there! She proceeded to walk up there, turn it inside out and put it back on.
Helen and Skylar

Are you the real Santa Claus?

Okay, so I want snow- oh yeah, already got that one!

Daisy always tells Santa "Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas" in that deep raspy voice of hers.

Holy Snowflakes Batman!

And it's still coming down for the next few hours they say. As I've told a few people today, I think a certain underground region has really frozen over this time!

Scenes

Over Thanksgiving break, Helen helped out in the kitchen. Here she is shredding carrots for carrot soup. Despite their reputations for being adventurous eaters, neither of my kids would touch it with a ten foot pole. Helen did say she wants to be a "harvester" when she grows up though.

Meanwhile, Daisy was cooking up Chinese food for Wolfie. (Go Pack- we stomped those Heels!)

Advent-ure

Tonight was "Advent-ure" at church with a few Advent activities for the kids and some caroling- Texas-style.

Helen coloring her craft bag
Helen with Santa

Covered wagon

Daron and the girls riding in the wagon. (This is where the Texas-style caroling comes in.) We rode it through the neighborhood looking at lights and singing.

Hand-me-downs

Let the parade of Helen's clothes on Daisy begin. I'm definitely going to document this!

From the bookshelf

Papa reads "The Three Bears"
Helen reads her school books

Grandma and Daisy naming pictures

So Grandma and Papa have landed in town and life is going to be good for mom (read: me) this week. Extra help with the dishes, the kids, etc. Hopefully we'll get a lot of the Christmas shopping knocked out and a little help with my sewing projects too. I think I may be getting a little too ambitious for a week that finds so many appointments, Turkey lunches and meetings on the calendar along with Daron being out of town a lot of the week. We'll see. But a few extra hands and laps and ears for reading are the part that really counts...

Cutie patootie

I'm not brave enough to take Daisy out of the house in her panties...
but isn't she cute (pun intended).

Also cute when they're cooperating (wish that could happen more).

And so sweetly making a card for her sister complete with not one, but two Winnie the Poohs- Daisy's favorite.

Halloween

My princess
Preschool party
Kindergarten party

Making a treat bag

Scared? Not me!

Trick or treat!

Come on Daisy!

Halloween turned out great this year. There was actually a chill in the air so it seemed just right to us East Coast natives. Daisy was a "princess" from the dress-up trunk because she really didn't care and Helen wanted to be a wooly worm again this year. It saved me having to buy or invent another costume, but no one in Texas knew what a wooly worm was this year any more than they did last year. True to form, Helen was mostly oblivious and otherwise thought everyone else had the problem- not her. She did mention that everyone thought she was a bee and her teacher told everyone she was a bug, but there was no peer-led fiasco of not-fitting in or conforming to the ubiquitous TinkerBell.

The preschool party I helped to put on although it was only 6 two year olds and I'm not sure they knew what was going on. Daisy and I attended Helen's class party of 23 five year olds who were wild with getting to wear their costumes to school and then finished off with cookies, cupcakes and a ridiculous amount of icing.

Trick or treating went well. There were actually a couple of scary houses where they were somewhat scared, but mostly just curious. Towards the end Daisy just wanted to go home and start eating her candy (of which I cannot describe how much there is). Even though we gave Daisy a tiny pumpkin to carry and Helen decided to carry her homemade paper sack from school, it did not prevent people from loading them down with 3 and 4 pieces at a time.

So another Halloween down and we are on to my favorite time of year- November, Thanksgiving and of course, my birthday. (I'm turning 26 in case anyone asks.)

Catch up

I can't find my camera.

Daisy is going strong on peeing in the potty.

Helen was very sick (for one and a half days) and now better.

Daron is traveling too much for work (in my opinion!)

But otherwise, we're putting one foot in front of the other just like everyone else!

Potty Training- Take 3

We are sitting squarely on the cusp of 2 1/2 years old with Daisy and she has yet to show the least interest in potty training. I have let her run around naked a couple of times in the past and she peed on the floor so that is the extent of my feeble attempts to potty train.

Today I am armed with her naked bottom, a torrential downpour outside (sounds of running water?) and a jar full of M&Ms. Before she even knew about the M&Ms, she just sat right down and pooped in the potty. I didn't even see her. She just came over and told me as matter of factly as you can imagine, "I poopooed in the potty Mama." She has since peed a little on the floor so we'll see what the weekend holds. Don't you wish you could come over?

Self-portrait

This is Helen's self-portrait. Did you reconize her? Ever since they started doing this sort of thing in preschool, she has made certain to point out that her hair is white- yellow will not do. Now why one eye is orange? I'm not sure about that... This portrait was made as Sunday morning entertainment a couple of weeks ago.

Bubble Still Life

Such a serious face- you wouldn't know from this that she applies bubbles to her face and shouts "HoHoHo Merry Christmas!"

Cousins

This past weekend, we enjoyed a visit from Don, Shana and Sarah. I think they had a good time despite the heat. Helen was off from school. The girls all played great together and life was good with an extra little blue-eyed blonde running around!

Future Engineers

Check out the concentration on those two! We visited the Children's Museum Sunday with Don, Shana, and Sarah who were in town from DC. My girls love it even though it is so crowded on the weekend. The weekdays are much nicer when all those pesky people are at work or in school!

Close encounters

Just decided to take this snapshot today of Helen playing computer games to watch just how closely she must be to the computer screen (or anything else) to see it. She is so bright that everyone, including her mom, often "forgets" that her accuity is really 20/200. Since my vision is 20/20, I can't really imagine. But if Daron takes his glasses off, he probably sees about as well as her, which is to say that he can see nothing but blobs. It is truly unfathomable how well the mind and body compensate for that which we do not have. But it does make a mama a little fearful now that big kid's school involves field trips! Kind of like when she first started going on playground equipment at full tilt and would just fall flat because she didn't see a step. I guess what I mean is that a mama never really stops worrying does she?

Idle hands

When it comes to my 2 year old, my secret weapon is beads. Whenever I need a few free minutes or if I need something to occupy her in the doctor's office, I break out the beads. I have a ziploc bag of them just for on the go. Daisy will sit and painstakingly put on those little beads until she reaches the end of her string. Something about this process mesmerizes her. Now, how many homemade bead necklaces can one mom wear at a time? That is another story.

Mommy School

Helen has always loved to do "mommy school." She was curious and a natural learner right from the start- learning English in the rapid-fire light bulb going off kind of way that conjures up Helen Keller in my mind. So it has naturally progressed to workbooks, computer games, etc. Well, now that she is in kindergarten, we are starting to begin school-assigned homework (which she is not as keen on doing), but we are still continuing with Mommy School. Her kindergarten teacher handed out a Math CD that we are going through. It has tests at the end of each chapter. We have been doing a few tests at a time to start with- no lesson since she already knows the information for these early chapters. It has been a great way to practice how to take a test but more importantly, how to use her Magnabrite magnifier.
She is also doing the kindergarten level Hooked on Phonics and for the fun part, yesterday we did "Art." I read about warm colors and cool colors and then we drew trees in each color set. Helen determined that cool colors were more appealing to her and I couldn't agree more!