thanksgiving vacation in pictures

The Slackers packed up and headed to Kentucky for the weekend. It was a fun-filled weekend in which we....

...tried to get a Christmas card picture picture...

 

...did a little reading with Uncle Dave...

...shopped til we dropped...

...hit up the Festival of Trees and told the Jolly one our Christmas Wishes...

 

...found a new playground...

 

...headed home with a relatively quick, uneventful (if not a little too sunny) drive home.

 

Not Pictured: running a Turkey Trot, stuffing ourselves silly, the "money shot" for the Slacker Christmas card, the boys heading to Lexington for a very exciting UT/UK football game, and the other fun we had including hours spent playing with 30 year old Matchbox cars!

Hope your holidays were happy as well!

problem solvers

"Do *not* throw the ball in the house!"

I yelled at my three children husband and daughters on Friday night. Then there was silence, followed by some muffled laughs and shrieks.

 

They were having so much fun, I decided to overlook the lack of shoes and tend to the black-footed tights come laundry day. Can't be a total killjoy, you know.

win-win

Sweet Baby A is one of the most prolific poopers ever. That kid is like clockwork...every single night at 7 o'clock, she retires to the powder room to poop. The other night she yelled,

"Moooooooooommmmmmmmmmmyyyyyyy! I need a book!"

So, I did her one better. She got her own personal reading of "We Make A Snowman" by the Slacker house's newest reader.


The best thing about E reading however (other than freeing me from having to entertain A while pooping, obviously) is that she's writing us love notes. Case in point...she made this for me the other night.

Translation: I love you Mommy. Mommy you're the best.

computation queen

Last week, John and I had our first-ever parent-teacher conference. And this week, E got her first-ever official report card (well, elementary school report card...day care report cards don't count). Basically, E is doing really well at school. She's loves to go, is learning tons, and has made the transition really smoothly. John and I couldn't be happier (or more proud!).

There was a little strip of paper that was sent along in her report card saying that E was going to receive an award at the school assembly on Thursday. I took advantage of the flexibility that my job affords me and went to see it. It was the best decision I've made in a long time. E was overjoyed when she spotted me in the crowd. She waved at me throughout the ceremony. I was able to steal a kiss from her before she headed back to class. I imagine she wouldn't have been devastated if I wasn't there...but the fact that I was really made her day.

But, before I feel too much like mom of the year, let it be noted that bringing a camera totally slipped my mind. And there were parents who were video taping the ceremony (that was a bit much). But, I did remember to take a picture when we got home.

 

Please note that the award she won was for Computation Queen. She let that go to her head a bit. We took her out for a celebratory dinner (for the report card and the award) and she told the waitress "I'm the Queen of my kindergarten class!" And then later she tried to say that she was Queen of the Slacker house. Uh. No. That's all me.

And here she is posing with the Queen of the Upside-down Sunglasses.

 

John was really bummed that he couldn't make it to the ceremony. He already called dibs on the next one. I noticed that they did have one for reading and writing. And, (NOTE: SHAMELESS BRAG FORTHCOMING) based on her cheat sheet of colors that she wrote for fun last night...I wouldn't be surprised if she got one of those.

 

hand me downs

Because AJ was born in a totally different season than E and A, there hasn't been much to pass down to her. But I totally remembered to send her the awesome Ladybug outfit. And Kiki and Uncle Steve sent out their monthly pictures of AJ (how on the ball is THAT?) and had one of my cutie patootie niece in it.

So, of course I had to find one of my kids in it. This was the best I could do. E is about 8 months in this picture. No shots of A wearing it, but we knew that would happen (cough!second child has no pictures!cough!).

 

They also had a picture of my parents with their three grandkids from their recent trip! Such a cute picture...if only my kids stuck to the "only one piece of patterned clothing" rule when dressing...

tgif

Since I'm working from home today and the girls were up and dressed by 7:15 (damn you, Daylight Savings!), we had a little extra time this morning to hang out around the house (just like old times). Both girls wanted ponytails, which I obliged even though it wasn't my best hairstyling effort. I actually think I french braid better than ponytail...who knew?

While I checked my e-mail, the girls played and put together a show for me. A sang a rousing rendition of "You Belong Wif Me" while E was a background foreground dancer. It's too bad "Solid Gold" was canceled because E would tear that show up.

also on the memory card

Since I went ahead and downloaded the Halloween pictures to my computer, I also got the rest of my October pictures, too. Which aren't many. But they crack me up. So here they are.

How A drinks her chocolate milk...she's got mad chugging skills

What happens when A dresses herself
(note the abundance of patterns)

E and John hanging with Baby AJ

We got Boo'd...we boo'd back
(we also think polka dot shirts and polka dot dresses "match")

A dressed up as Fancy Nancy for her Halloween Party at School
E channelled Miley with a little peace sign action

halloween recap

For Halloween, we headed up to Philadelphia to celebrate Maggie's 4th Birthday with Queen Mommy and the Four Princesses. It was a whirlwind trip -- we headed up on Saturday morning and were there for about 24 hours. But much fun was had by all -- a birthday party, Trick-or-Treating AND a sleepover all in one!

Trick-or-treating was cut short due to the rain, but the girls managed quite a haul, inlcuding the Holy Grail of T-or-T-ing: Full-Sized Candy Bars. Oddly enough, the highlight of the evening was handing out candy to everyone else. Maura and E set up stools in the front hall and watched for Trick-or-treaters for an hour. It was too cute!

 

So, the homemade kitty ears were a gigantic FAIL on my part. It was a felt and glue disaster, but I could not get the ears to attach to the curved headbands. My mother-in-law suggested a hot glue gun...but after looking at how much cold, non-scalding glue was all over my hands, I decided against that. So I went to Wal-mart (thanks for the tip, Pigtails to Pacifiers!) and bought some. In a small victory, they both wore the tails I had "made", and E did end up wearing my homemade collar (Cat name: Princess) while A (Cat name: Tinkerbell) opted for the cheesey bow-tie. Yes, I understand that I went from homemade to the retail devil...and how I failed to make quite possibly the world's easiest Halloween costume, but oh well. Better luck next year.