Jophes

That's what Elena called the play we went to this weekend. Marshall High School put on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and we brought Elena and her friend, Ana to the show. There was a row right in front with just 2 seats so they were able to sit all on their own to watch the show. We sat 2 rows back, and watching them was almost as much fun as watching the show. The kids did a great job - as a bonus, our next door neighbor was the narrator and a friend who I used to babysit was Joseph. That actually made me feel a little old, but then I ran into my old babysitter and my kindergarden teacher, and them mentioned how I made them feel old, which made me feel a little younger :)
Here are the girls before the show:

And about 3 minutes after the show (we hadn't even gotten out of town when I took this picture):

Updates

We've had an eventful last month. Here are a few of the highlights:

First the kids both had the chicken pox. Elena had them first, and Sam came down with them 2 weeks later. We really only had one rough night with Sam; other than that they hardly complained and rarely itched. My most memorable moment was when Sam was up in the middle of the night because his pox were bothering him - especially all the spots on his bottom. At one point he, whimpered to me in the most pitiful voice imaginable, "Mommy, my booty-butt hurts." I couldn't help but laugh.

Here's a picture of Elena reading a book to Sam about chicken pox when he came down with them.



In other news, Sam potty trained himself in pretty much one day. We hadn't really been pushing him because that hadn't helped at all with Elena. I was planning to hit it hard once he hit 3, but he beat us to it. Ironically, he trained himself at exactly the same age I did (1 month shy of 3) and he did it the same way - just decided on his own he was done with diapers. Yay! This is the first time in 4 1/2 years I haven't had to bring a diaper and wipes with me everywhere I go.


Around the same time, Seth's dad had a triple bypass surgery. We were able to take the kids down to Sioux Falls to visit him while he was in the hospital. I'm happy to say the surgery went well and he is recovering nicely - although I know it's hard to him to suddenly go from a such a busy life to a full stop.


Lastly, we welcomed our new nephew, Noah Thomas, into the world on Nov 17th. Seth's brother Jason and his wife, Tina, had their 5th baby - we now have 10 cousins living within one block of our house! Sorry I don't have a picture of the wee one - you can click on Tina's link on the side bar of my blog to see him (her's is the Stay Salty blog).

Drummer Boy

As promised last month, here is a shot of Sam joining the band on the drums:

Halloween Fun

The kids had a great time on Halloween, including the weeks leading up to it. Elena was set on being a skunk, but Sam was undecided until the day of Halloween so they had a lot of fun going through all of our costumes in the meantime.

Here they are Halloween morning, sporting a few pirate accessories.

These were taken a few weeks before Halloween when they discovered a bag full of wigs and some old glasses:

Ready to go trick-or-treating with friends, Ana and Toby. We have a train, a fairy, a leopard and a skunk.

The girls were having so much fun, we decided not to seperate them, and they had their very first sleep-over. Ana changed her mind momentarily around 9:30, but then realized she could have Life cereal for breakfast if she stayed. I don't think Ana slept too much being in an unfamiliar bed, but they made it through the night and had a great time!

The things you learn at storytime

I love the way kids will surprise you with both the things they know and the things they don't know.

Something Elena didn't know:
Tonight while we were reading books, one of the stories had a character tell his sister to stand on her head. As she was listening, Elena started to stretch her leg up, trying to put her foot on her head. I didn't think much of it since she's always moving, but soon she asked, "Why did he tell her to stand on her head?......You can't stand on your head." I realized that what she had been doing with her feet before was her trying to literally "stand on her head."

And something she did know:
The next story was about Jonah, and Elena asked why the fish was rainbow colored. I told her that the guy who drew the pictures probably wanted to make the story look really pretty so he made the fish lots of colors. To which she replied: "The illustrator did that?" Yup. And thanks to my 4-year-old for the reminder that "illustrator" is so much easier to say that "the guy who drew the pictures."

1:39:09

That's how long it took Seth to run his 10-mile last weekend at the Twin Cities Marathon. He was hoping to run it in under a 1 hr 40 min, which would have been 10 minutes a mile, and he just made it. Being someone who only runs when being chased or when chasing others (I do a lot more of the latter), I was pretty impressed.

I was really impressed, however, when we were able to watch the 1st 8 marathon runners finish their race just 34 minutes later. Did I mention they started at the same time as the 10-mile runners? We watched 4 guys cross the finish line at 2 hours, 13 minutes. Unbelievable. Honestly though, I think the most impressive runners of the day are the people who can't run as fast, but kept going for 7-8 hours to finish the run. Ouch.

We had a great weekend in the cities, staying with Seth's brother, Craig. The kids loved having Uncle Craig come along with us to the children's museum and eating out at a couple of wonderful restaurants - that's one thing we're a little short of here in Minneota :)

Saturday night, we especially had fun visiting some of our more musically talented friends who had a get-together with several of their musician friends. In one living room, there were several guitars, a banjo, a bass, a fiddle, a mandolin, an autoharps, a piano, a harmonica, an accordian, tin whistles and a bongo drum. It was so great to be able to listen to such talented musicians. Sam even got a chance to play the drum for awhile - after that, he decided he wanted to be a drummer for halloween.


Above is a shot of Seth and Turtle Sam at the science museum. Below is Elena making a music video at the museum; stand back, Beyonce! (Whenever we watch this Elena asks me, "Why were you laughing, Mom?")



I'll put up a video of Sam playing the drums later - it's not working today.

Dragons

All children become more difficult when they are tired, and mine are no exception. But lately, Elena has been getting far beyond unreasonable when she's short of sleep. When she's well rested, she's an absolute delight. When she's short on sleep, she has the ability to turn herself into a fire-breathing dragon.

This morning she woke up at 7:00, so I was bracing myself for at least a few tantrums. The trigger? Seth asked Elena, "What do you want for breakfast? Do you want oatmeal?"

At this Elena flung herself onto the floor in tears. Completely mystified, we asked her what was wrong. She was finally able to get out between sobs, "Daddy stole my words!!!!"

That's a new one. Let's hope she gets more reasonable before she's a teenager.

Fortunately it only took a few minutes for her to turn back to being sweet.

There's no place like home

I finally took a picture of our new house. It is starting to feel more and more like "our home."

Here is a sample of the inside. The dining room is one of the few rooms that is mostly unpacked and was clean enough to take a picture. As you can see the house is full of beautiful woodwork, and we get lots of sunlight throughout the house.

In other news, this past weekend was Boxelder Bug Days in Minneota. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the kids had a great time. There were lots of friends and family in town so we gave about 8 tours of the house over the weekend.
Here are the kids in their costumes for the kiddie parade:

Brainstorming

Elena has been going through ideas of what she wants to be for Halloween this year since last Halloween. At the top of the list are: a skunk, and elephant and Dora (with Sam dressed as Swiper).

As we were driving in the car, I was trying to come up with ideas that we could easily make with what we already have on hand. We have a gray-haired wig so I asked her if she wanted to be an old lady for Halloween. She wasn't a big fan of that idea; she promptly rejected it and started to make new suggestions.

Pretty soon, Sam (who I had forgotten was listening) piped up from the back and said, "Mom, I want to be a lady for Halloween."

I guess we'll just wait and see....

Changes

We've been keeping busier than usual these past couple of weeks. During the week that we sold our old house, bought our new and moved everything over, we also went to my cousin's wedding in which Elena was the flower girl, Elena started her first day of preschool and our newest nephew, Reed Riley, was born.

The move went well. We had many, many helpers for which we are extremely grateful. Our parents were a huge help, and we even had a couple of high school boys that we know call up and volunteer to help out when they saw we were moving. It still kind of feels like we are living in someone else's house, though. I'm looking forward to when we're all settled and it will feel more like our home.
Elena has loved living in the new house - there are lots of kids in the neighborhood for her to play with. Sam has had a little harder time - he still tells me he "wants to go home" on a daily basis. He loves playing with all the neighborhood kids, but he's missing the comfort and security of the home he knows.

Ben (my cousin) and Becky's wedding was a blast and Elena absolutely loved being a flower girl. She's the perfect age for it - old enough to be aware of what's going on and really enjoy it but young enough not to be self-conscious about it. They had planned to have her come and sit by us for the ceremony after walking down the aisle, but Elena wanted to be a part of the whole thing so she stood up with the bridesmaids until the end.

Dancing with the bride...

...and with the groom.
Sam also put on a little show during the ceremony. He and his cousin, Alex (same age) made a dash for the center aisle right in the middle of the wedding just before the vows. I was able to catch the back of their shirts and yank them back, but not without almost everyone noticing. Fortunately they are cute enough to get away with that kind of thing without anyone getting annoyed :)

Elena, Sam and Alex.

Elena has started 1/2 days at preschool twice a week. She would like to go full days I'm sure, but she wouldn't see Seth much with his schedule. We'll also be starting a Montessori based preschool at our chuch called Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. I will be one of the catechists (teachers) and Elena will be in the class. Add to that dance classes for Elena and the high school religious ed classes I will teach in the evenings, and we are going to be pretty busy this school year!

First day of preschool (we have to be up a bit earlier than normal - thus the tired faces)

Anyway - that's what's going on in our neck of the woods. Pictures of the new house to come.