Sara's blog

Our birthday girl had a wonderful fourth birthday that was a long time in coming if you asked her. The countdown took forever. Now that she has reached this big milestone, she gets to dictate her own blog entries. Since it is past her bedtime, I posted a few photos of her birthday. My latest artistic endeavor was the princess cake. It was a lot of fun to make and big hit with the birthday girl!

After the birthday girl was instructed not to play with the doll while she was still in the cake (notice the inspirational drawing)

The Year of the Dragon

William informed me that 2012 is the year of the dragon. I unintentionally had the perfect picture in the photo album already. And so far this year is shaping up to be a dragon of a year. Life shows no sign of slowing. We've enjoyed two wedding celebrations already in 2012 and are preparing to get back into a typical busy week followed by a fourth birthday! It should be fun! I doubt there will be any more sketching in my near future.

This year for my birthday Scholastic brought its warehouse sale to my town for the first time! What an amazing birthday gift. They even gave me a coupon for an additional discount off their already low prices. So guess who went on a shopping spree for her birthday? That's right! I had the best time loading up on homeschool materials, Christmas gifts, and award winning young adult novels especially for me. I found some read-alouds that I absolutely adore. It's no wonder that my kids love books! Eliana is already getting to be quite a reader. She is able to use context clues, illustrations, and the letters she knows to figure out a lot of words! I'm so proud of her!

My family gave me a lot of other wonderful gifts today. I got to sleep in! When I finally rolled out of bed, William had already written a book for me for my birthday! And Eliana had made me a lovely card. They did all of this before breakfast! Then I was able to go get some shopping done while Darren hung out with the kids. He had the day off. I got home to a delicious lunch of turkey/bacon lettuce wraps with avocado. YUM!

Soon we are heading out to dinner. What a happy birthday it has been!

My birthday book

A grown-up flap book :)

Part of my bday haul

... and one new one for all my Facebook friends who have already read these stories.

Tonight: Eliana came out of her room after bedtime excited to tell me that she turned on "princess music!" Sure enough, she had found MPR on the radio dial and was listening to classical. I'm sure she fell asleep dreaming of beautiful princesses in fancy ball gowns.

Yesterday: Apparently Max cut Eliana's hair using doggie scissors he hides in his fur. At least it was only one snip and barely noticeable.

Friday night: Took the kids out to dinner at Olive Garden. Eliana asked me, "Is it your birthday?"

Thursday evening: As I stand at the stove frying hamburger, I feel a ninja sword in my backside. Then a soft voice says, "She's making us dinner. She's on our side." Later the small ninja, taking me under her wing, assigns me an attribute saying, "I am fi-ya and you ah ass." What?!?! "Ass." You mean Earth? "Yeah."

Thanksgiving morning: This morning Eliana is having the same breakfast as her daddy. I said that I bet his wasn't in a princess bowl. "No, he has a Dora bowl actually." (Not really. She sure is quick!)

Until someone gets nipped in the butt :)

Max thinks our platform swing is the ultimate rope toy!

Look out Blue Man Group! Here's Lava Boy and Poison Girl!

Yesterday one of the moms in our local homeschool group organized a field trip to the grocery store. I am so thankful for her. Despite the fact that it's our neighborhood store, we had never been on a field trip there. I would definitely go again. They did a great job! First we got a group picture taken by the photo center. They we meandered through the store, checking out the video department, bank, pharmacy, and natural food section. By the time we got back to the bakery, our photo was developed and we were able to watch the cake decorator decorate a cake with our group's picture on it! We got to keep the cake, of course. Then they brought the group back into the walk-in cooler to see how the milk gets in the racks and where the truck pulls up to the loading dock. The boys' favorite part was the box crusher demonstration! After the cooler, we visited the meat department for an up-close and personal visit with a lobster. (We had done our KWL chart before the trip to see what we already knew about the grocery store and what we wanted to know. The only thing William wanted to know was what they feed the lobster.) He did a great job asking his question. (They feed them a block of slow-release fish food each day, just like you'd put in a fish tank.) Then it was on to produce with some Q&A about fruits and veggies. At the end of the tour, we left with a bag of goodies, including a group photo. Since we were all going off in different directions instead of back to a common classroom, we were able to use their deli seating to enjoy our cake.

All in all, it was a fabulous trip. The tour guide was great with the kids and they were all well behaved. She complimented everyone on what a great job they did. Of course, there were children from toddlers on up to 10 or 12 and everyone was very polite. My child was ready to talk the tour guide's ear off in the beginning, but we had a little word about letting other kids have a turn and only asking questions for the rest of the trip and that helped. He definitely had fun. He learned more than he thought he would. He even asked a question at the end that he hadn't planned on. He asked if anyone ever rides on the grocery conveyor belt. The answer was, "No, it's not safe and not fun." I think they had a hard time believing the "not fun" part :)

Hopefully our next trip will be that great. This weekend we are going to make a return trip to the alpaca ranch with some friends who school-school. They are having an open house. Either way, both trips are free, fun, and educational.

Our last great adventure of spring break week (for William) was a trip to the Children's Museum! We went with our friends Michelle and Katie. The kids had a blast! I was a bad mom and didn't remember the camera. It's a good thing my phone takes decent pictures because there were so many great memories to capture, like this video of the YMCA:

William was also able to have a sleepover and go sledding with Uncle Michael earlier in the week. And Monday all the cousins on my side got to meet at the zoo! Even a couple of the second cousins joined us. I did remember to bring my camera on that trip.

Proof that the cousins were all in one place

Next week it's back to school for William and back to normal for the rest of us!

That it was a merry Christmas. And the tired little ones are only more evidence of all the merriment!

(for lots more photos, see the December and January albums)

What a wonderful week it's been! We have received so many great gifts, it feels like it's already Christmas. Friday was definitely the highlight of the week. It was everyone's last day of school before break so we went out to lunch to celebrate. Then we came home to build gingerbread houses. But the very best part of the day was that Lillian Kathleen was born!

My brother Joe and his wife Kathy had a baby girl at 12:37am. She was 6lbs 12oz and 21 in. She is called Lily and is as beautiful as her name! Eliana and I went to visit today. Ellie was so sweet with her. She played peek-a-boo with Lily and sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in a soft, soothing voice, which brought a few tears to the grown-ups' eyes.

The happy family

Lily decided to be born just two days before my birthday! I enjoyed an early birthday dinner with my parents and Michael on Thursday night before William's school Christmas program. The presents were perfect and the program was great fun (have you ever seen the three kings represented as the kings of rock&roll, soul and country before?). I'm looking forward to a fun birthday date with my husband. We're finally going to see the latest Harry Potter movie!

I have to go back just one more day to Wednesday. It was such a fun day! In the morning, William played We Three Kings on the piano in front of the whole school at chapel. He did a marvelous job and everyone (parents, grandparents, teachers, classmates, his sister and of course William) was very proud. Scroll down for the video. But that was only the beginning of a great day. Eliana and I went to the radio station to sign up our trivia team. We got lots of pictures to work on for the next couple months! Then during naptime I went and picked up our first ever 1/4 of a cow. It was quite an experience to go into the back of the butcher shop where the crew could be seen cutting up fresh meat. The back door of the market had hay coming out of it where they bring the cows in. The farm that our cow came from is less than a half hour away. It lived a happy life and you can totally taste it! The steaks we had tonight were amazing. Thank you, Cow! You were one of the many things this week that really made it feel like Christmas. We've had so many reminders of how blessed we are! We wish everyone a very blessed Christmas!

Merry Christmas :)

*Warning* the cheering is much louder than his playing!