Our Everyday

Christmas was fun. Santa came and ate cookies and his reindeer ate the carrots Sadie threw around the drive way. She was so excited on Christmas Eve at bedtime, she went squealing up into her room and jumped into bed, asking to skip books so she could get right to sleep. She really did not want him to miss our house because she was awake.
In the morning, I heard her get up and open her door but I thought she went back into her room until I heard her VERY quiet footsteps ascending the stairs and then, "He came, he came!" It was very cute, even at seven in the morning after staying up until 2:30am putting together the wagon and arranging everything under the tree.

I still am in awe of my children. I am so very proud of them both every day. On Tuesday Sadie really stumped me for the first time when she asked, "Daddy, what does 'distinctly' mean?" The words I would have to use to explain the word in question would themsleves have to be explained, so I tried to pull together a 'Calvin's Dad' answer. I settled on 'exactly, it means exactly.' It doesn't exactly mean exactly, but she knows what exactly means, so the dad quiz was passed on a technicality.

Sadie's pre-school is at the local Lutheran Church. Monday night the pre-school had their annual Christmas concert for the 4's and 4+'s. Pastor Bob narrated, kids dressed up as either angels, wise men, or sheep. (You will have to watch the video clip below to know which category Sadie was in.) It was a very short and sweet performance. The joint was packed with parents and siblings. Dads lined the sidelines with video cameras.

See video clip below from Somerset Hills Lutheran Church pre-school Christmas show. Sadie is in the back row, partially obstructed by the girl in front of her, and partially obstructed by the bald head of the dad in the way of the shot.

Click here to see the video:
SadieChristmasShow2006.mov

click above to see evidence related to previous post.

There has been a current of weirdness running through our house as of late. Well, that is not to say that there ever is not, but things seem to have kicked up a notch. Such as:

using rugs in the bedrooms as blankets,

obsessions with Princesses (Snow White, Belle, Ariel) seem to be dominating songs, stories and make believe games,

the need to wear dresses, stockings and sparkley shoes every single day

the need for matching pajamas( any old thing just won't do)

using Emma's room as a "stage" to perform singing and dancing shows or story telling about previously mentioned Princessses

Emma kissing her own owies, independence at it best!

As well as many stories about Princes marrying Princesses. In fact I heard Sadie saying that she would be the princess and Daddy could be the Prince and" they could go wedding".


Emma has been expanding her vocabulary. Here are some recent additions:
do- can mean "do" or "Emma too"
apple
nana- banana
eees- cheese or mac'n'cheese
moo- milk
me
oos- shoes
baaa- bath
baa-sheep
die- tie my shoe
bobby- bottom
aah- off
i-per - diaper
noo-noo- noodle or thank you
olp- help
at- hat
on- on
dru-juice
omma- Emma



This week Sadie came down with a cold so she has been out of school except for the holiday activities. The class put on a Christmas production along with the other 4yr classes. Luckily a mother called to see how Sadie was doing because they wanted to set up a play date because I had not written down the date on the calendar and we would have missed it. Last year she was sick during the same time with a bad ear infection so we were not able to make any of the activities. Today I took her over to the gingerbread (aka graham cracker) house decorating party after school. She had a bunch of fun, and in less than an hour we headed home for some lunch. Half the school has some version of what Sadie has, so she could not be the only one spreading it around.


We have had no snow yet. The weather is warm today, well it is 48, too warm for snow. Last night it was in the twenties and the whole back lawn was grey with frost in the morning. We are expecting rain on Friday. Looks like Christmas will be cool but not white.

As promised, video of the "show." Gymnasium lighting was not great...

Click here to see video:
SadieDanceShow06.mov

Christmas changes when you have kids. Now that Sadie actually understands and can imagine what is going to happen any day now, it is really quite fun around here. The Christmas spirit has bloomed again. Today she wanted to write a note to Santa to tell him what she wanted. I helped her with some of the words and she decided that she wanted a barbie doll (ahh, I guess I should be happy we made it this long without any Barbie requests), a wagon (which I must admit I coached her into a bit after she asked for another new, small, pink bike like her old one that turned out to be a disappointing piece of junk, but she took to the idea right away and was very pleased with the addition), and a tiny baby doll that is "very strong and won't break easily"( unlike a couple I have found that are vintage and fragile). So that was all she needed to make her little heart content. But she really liked the idea of writing to Santa and it was fun to help her along. And we found out that Emma wants a wagon and a baby doll as well.


Last weekend, Sadie and I went to a birthday party for Sarah at Color Me Mine which was awfully cute and totally changed my idea of the place. Sadie picked out an elephant to paint, most likely because it was the biggest item available, and I am excited to see how it turns out. We are still waiting for it to be cooked. It should be really any day now.

Currently Emma has a bit of tummy-itis which makes for a lot of laundry but I think she is coming around and could be feeling better in a day or two.

PS. By the way for all of you elfy types out there reading this, we got Santa covered.

This past Sunday was the dance review for all of the classes including Sadie's. So we headed over to the chaos that can only be the product of a Y event. We checked Sadie into the "dressing" area where she was to meet up with her class. There was a person taking the girls back to their appropriate rooms and so off Sadie went. We made our way to the gym to grab some seats. Soon I see all the girls from Sadie's class parading in to start a practice before the performance but Sadie is missing. I flew out of the gym and over to the staging room, double and triple checking the rooms and asking which room she was supposed to be in. She was not there. So then I run back to the gym, she is not there, then run back to the rooms and start looking through each room until I spot her jacket, and little Sadie engrossed with a toy amoungst twenty other girls. I ran in and grabbed her and rushed her out to the stage so she could join the class. After the first "ahhhhhh" moment, the rest of the event went smoothly. She was very cute in her performance.