One of my goals this year was to blog more often. I didn't exactly specify what that meant. I wanted to blog everyday, but I knew that would never happen; however, I did want to blog more this year than I have in previous years. I wanted to focus on the little things, the things that meant so much in the moment but wouldn't be remembered unless I wrote them down.
Like the way Ellie puts dirty clothes in the washing machine and says what each item is and who it belongs to as it's going in . . . she calls her little undies "tiny whinies." I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be tighty whities!
But anyway. It seems that not only have I blogged less this year, but blogging has been pretty much nonexistent since I started homeschooling. So one of my goals for 2016 is to remedy that. I don't know how yet, but I'm going to make my goal more specific, for sure.
In the meantime, I went through my phone and found some of my favorite moments of the past three weeks. So here you go.
This past Monday we celebrated "no more Mondays." Yes, there is such a thing. We'd (mainly ME) been counting down for the past three weeks until we got to no more Mondays before Thanksgiving break. Because we NEED Thanksgiving break. RIGHT NOW. So Monday was an exciting day. I even gave in when they asked for a cake pop.
Every year the dance studio celebrates Dolly Dingkle week. The ballerinas get to dress however they want to, and the instructors present the recital theme, music and costumes. It's always the girls' favorite dance day.
Seriously. How cute is this?!?
I absolutely LOVE this smile! Ellie actually has a cross-bite that we will eventually have to get "fixed." But to me that's what "makes" her smile, and I almost dread fixing it! So I'm enjoying it as much as I can!
This is Ellie's little class with Miss Jade and Miss Victoria. They are the cutest, spunkiest little class. After Miss Jade showed them what their recital costumes look like, she asked if they liked them. No one answered. Except Ellie.
"I like the blue one. But I like Abbie's costume!"
Ellie's and Hannah Kate's personalities as SO DIFFERENT. Hannah Kate would NEVER say a word!
And here are all three of my Dolly Dingkles.
It's fall, and it almost feels like fall now. Finally! So I've been cooking fallish foods. My very favorite dish has been Ina Garten's butternut squash and pancetta risotto. SO. GOOD!
A couple of Friday nights ago we took the kids to an LSU basketball game. Mason is really into basketball and is actually a pretty good player in the driveway. But we'd never been to a game. This one was actually an exhibition, and it was free AND they were giving away Ben Simmons and Leonard Fournette posters AND you could sit wherever you wanted to.
Ellie's favorite part was watching the cheerleaders and Tiger Girls. She was mesmerized.
We stayed the entire game, but the girls were pretty much done after the first five minutes of play. At least they had each other!
Speaking of dance, last week was parent observation week. So I got to watch both of my ballerinas dance. I can't wait to watch this little one on the big stage at the recital! I'm fairly certain she'll get out there and dance. Seth doesn't think she will. We'll see!
Hannah Kate is pretty serious about 1st position. I'm so excited about watching her 5-year solo this year on the big stage!
Last Friday we had a Thanksgiving Celebration with our homeschool group. There were six stations that we rotated through. The kids learned about the history of Thanksgiving, the foods they ate and how they were prepared. They made headbands and shot bow and arrows. They played stool ball. They had a GREAT time and really learned so much.
After our Thanksgiving celebration, we stopped at Chic-fil-A for lunch. I have such a love hate relationship with Chic-fil-A. It's the only fast food restaurant I'll eat at with the kids. They don't like Subway, and I refuse to do any of the others. So we eat at CFA a lot. But when the manager sends a half dozen of their delicious chocolate chunk cookies to your table FOR FREE, you can't help but LOVE Chic-fil-A!
That night we took a little mission trip with our kids' ministry to a sister church to help them sort items and prepare for their Operation Christmas Child party. It was a super busy Friday!
And yesterday we finished up homeschool until after Thanksgiving. Mason was already finished so he and Ellie were making clay animals. Hannah Kate was almost done. Our homeschool stuff took over my dining room, but just last week I finally bought some shelving and storage containers and got everything cleaned up and organized. I also got my dining room back, which makes me really happy. But when we pull everything out, this is pretty much what it looks like.
And this morning we went shopping for our shoeboxes! The Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes are my absolute favorite missions project to do with my kids. It took several stops and several hours, but we found some really good stuff for our boxes this year.
We had a great time packing our boxes tonight. But more about that later!
