School Pictures

Since we are admittedly terrible about sharing the kids' school pictures with our relatives, I at least wanted to give everyone a peek at them. Our expectations for these pictures are very low: #1 eyes open, and #2 smile with teeth.
Below is my second grade school picture to scare all of you who think we look alike. Maybe I shouldn't have smiled with teeth.

Skating

To celebrate the first day of Christmas vacation and the unusually warm weather we took in some skating downtown. If any of you go I want to warn you that the guy handing out skates is a grinch. If you have your own skates avoid him.

Emiline and Reid were happy with their skills. It's all fun and games until you fall down. Reid didn't seem to mind his falls, but after Emiline fell once she was ready to go. She thought it looked like she had "an accident." I told her if that is what was happening then we were in trouble because half the skaters down there had pants that had gotten wet. Maybe we really should avoid those puddles on the rink.

The kids want me to add that Emiline went really fast at the end, and it was Reid's first time on real skates. He wants you to know he went fast too.

Christmas Violin Recital

Emiline had her Christmas violin recital last Thursday. She played Allegro perfectly while her piano accompanist lacked in the skills department. Next time we will have to practice more. We'll just say that some chords didn't come out as they were intended to.


She finished off with a duet of Jingle Bells with again, another lousy accompanist. If anyone has a request for a personal recital we are taking calls at our leisure.

The Holiday Pressure

This week I caved on two things. Number one is a shelf elf. The kids kept looking around hoping an elf would magically appear on the bookcase. Sometimes they were looking a little too intently. It is my suspicion that this is a direct correlation to how much they were tormented at school that day because everyone else has a shelf elf. I didn't seem too optimistic.

Then on the way up the steps after karate the kids saw a package with their name on it from S.C. in North Pole Village. I guess when the head elf sends one of his little guys to your house for December you have to let him stay so I caved.


Now Zipper, which is the name the kids gave him, has come to live with us for a few weeks. The funny thing is they will sit and talk to him. Some of the things are whispered like a secret, but if he has taking his daily perch in a place out of reach they decide to yell at him. I have a feeling he will be finding some lower shelves to sit on.

The second thing I caved on was outdoor Christmas lights. I hadn't put them up because it's been extremely cold every day. The kids wanted them desperately and Emiline cried because our house wasn't in the spirit of Christmas. Even thought it was warm out today I still cut corners. Notice I stayed away from the high places.

Thursdays

Lately, Thursdays are crazy days. Reid has karate right after school and then we come home for a very early dinner. Emiline has ballet, then moves on to basketball and finally gets home right before bed. I don't think days like this are going to end anytime in my near future. I'm glad I've taken up needlepoint for the little bits of time I have between driving.

Suited up and ready to go.

Reid testing for his first fundamental yellow stripe in karate. He broke a block of wood for the first time. Now he thinks he has "hands of steel."

Emiline at the barre and attempting splits during ballet. According to her this is her good leg.

Pumpkin Pie

This year the kids wanted to make a pie from a real pumpkin, aka Martha Stewart style. This is the lucky fellow they picked from the front porch.

And this is the little fellow after he wasn't so lucky.

Voila! Homemade pumpkin pie. The kids were less impressed with the homemade whipped cream. "Where's the hydrogenized processed stuff from the frozen foods section at the store? C'mon Mom!"

Good eating and Happy Thanksgiving!

Family Pictures

Today was the lucky day that we took our Christmas card pictures. Robin especially looks forward to this event more than you could imagine. We were chasing the sunlight hours due to daylight savings and some clouds that rolled in unexpectedly. Here are a couple of pics that didn't make the cut.

Halloween

Here are my two little gobblins. Reid went as Luke Skywalker and Emiline went as the Ice Witch from Narnia. We were making costumes until the very last minute.

After all the effort with the "icy" makeup, it was no surprise that the eyelashes didn't even make it until our friends showed up.Every costume has to have the proper weapon.
Would someone please get this fool off our front porch?

Holy Cake & Ice Cream Batman!

It was almost a sad day for Reid's birthday party, as five hours before the party this is what his cake looked like. Very sad.

If you go to the bakery in the grocery store and look completely desperate, as I did, they may be kind enough to sell you a plain un-iced cake. It turned out perfect. Well maybe far from perfect but a huge improvement from the pile of crumbs I had, and a much better option than the breast cancer awareness cupcakes they were selling.
I started to sew capes and couldn't finish them, but Robin was a good sport and finished the deed. All 30 of them!



The kids took a break from bouncing for smoke bombs and a kryptonite hunt. One little boy was scared of the kryptonite and asked if it would be okay if he didn't touch any. The others doubted me and were questioning the authenticity of the stuff. Some ran from the smoke bombs and some wanted to deeply inhale the stuff. Being the good parents that we are we sent each child home with more smoke bombs to share with their family.
This is as close as Reid got to Superman making an appearance at his party. He still looks thrilled.

I love making the most of their birthdays. It's great to be five!

Cinco

Our little dude, Reid, turns five today. In honor of this I learned how to make a freezer paper stencil. No one else seems to have heard of this trick so I thought I'd share it.


You print out your design (for us it was a #5) on a sheet of paper and trace it onto freezer paper. I bought this paper at the grocery store. Then you cut out the spaces that you want painted. Iron the paper to the shirt. It will lightly stick since the back of the paper has a plastic coating. This stops the paint from going through. Then roll fabric paint from any art store onto the design and...

peel away to see if you like your work. The only downside is that these are one time use only. I guess you could consider that a bonus because 'no one will have another shirt like it'. Who cares. I wish I could reuse the stencil to give these to Reid's buddies.

Reid loved it. I was happy because the #5 version of the shirt he had last year is $30 and I wasn't going to make that an annual purchase. Plus this was more fun.
Happy birthday kiddo!

Homecoming

Tonight Reid got to show his presence as a ladies' man when he carried the crown at McGuinness homecoming. Wearing a tie was almost a deal-breaker for this little guy. We went to try on dress clothes and all he could say was, "Why are you putting this tie on me? Get this off of me! Do I really have to wear this?" over and over and over. I have to say the end result was pretty good. I decided he could play around with his look by adding tennis shoes with flames. I think it adds a nice touch.

He gave a bouquet of flowers with a large shamrock to the little girl who helped with the duties. See what I said... Ladies Man!

They read his bio as they went on the field: Reid Henderson is the son of Robin and Missy Henderson (BMHS alum), and the grandson of Dean and Mari Imel (BMHS alum). He is four years old and will be 5 on Sunday. He attends preschool at Little Red Schoolhouse. His hobbies include karate, t ball, and collecting hot wheels. His accomplishments include riding a bike with no training wheels, and a skee ball score of 220. His favorite movie is Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back.

It was hillarious. The crowd got into it and cheered like crazy when they read the bit about no training wheels. Reid felt like hot stuff.
Luckily, this queen has also been our babysitter and swim teacher. A true ladies man always ends the night with a kiss for a pretty girl. Way to go Reid!

Mad Hatter Birthday

So this is the first of our two birthday parties for the month of October. I knew Gigi would appreciate some photos. The girls posing "mad" in their paper bag hats.

Thanks to many helpers it ended up looking very festive. Emiline even had a few guests get into the theme.

If anyone wants to borrow a flamingo croquet court it's available. Baby Margo already has plans for an Alice party someday...