Rock N Roll!

Hank got this awesome Phineas and Ferb guitar from Dude and Jaimee this Christmas. He noticed that it has the real knobs to attach a strap and he requested one with FLAMES. After a trip to Hobby Lobby yesterday, we were in business. With his and Maggie's "help" I whipped one up for him this morning. Check out those awesome rock n roll faces!

Big thanks to Alan Fraser for the genius idea for how to attach the strap -- no buttonholes! Hooray!

Hank's class Christmas party

His whole class sang and gave their parents gifts from the dollar tree then we all ate lunch in the cafeteria together. I got a coffee mug for my "tall caramel macchiatos" and James got those awesome googly glasses. Excellent choices Hank!

Dance open house

My goodness at all the cuteness! Maggie really did well at open house last week. The teacher used REAL dance terms and I was impressed at how much they knew. Then the whole family and Grandmama went out to eat for supper. Fun night!

Deck the halls

Finally got the tree up last week. The kids had a blast then the cats destroyed it. Oh well. No one seems to care too much so I'm just going with it :)

Back in glasses

Maggie had a followup appointment a couple of weeks ago and her lazy eye was pulling just slightly so he gave her a new prescription. Now she has to wear glasses full time again. She's adjusting well but that afternoon of the doctors appointment she was so tired she fell asleep at the dinner table despite our best efforts to keep her awake. She had to skip her nap for the appt then had about 4 suckers for being good during eye drops and such. She was a mess! But snored so sweetly at the table :) She actually slept about 12 hours straight. Poor boogar.

Score board

Hank made this at Granna's at thanksgiving to keep track of some loop-de-loop cars game he and Avery were playing. I was attempting to occupy him and said why don't you use the drawing board to keep score? I had no idea he would actually follow through so well!

Thanksgiving weekend

Philip and Olivia's 3rd birthday party weekend

Makers fair weekend

Playing catch up on posting photos. This is from early November when Miss Noelle came to visit.

Stroller fun

Hank and Maggie just asked me to put Maggie in the stroller. Hank said "I'm pretending this is my coffee" pointing to his milk in the cup holder. See Archie along for the ride in the basket underneath?

Girls Weekend

The boys went camping Friday night and stayed in Ruston today for the Tech game. Maggie and I have just had the BEST time. I don't think I've ever spent this much time with just Maggie before.

We went out to eat Friday and when I asked her where she wanted to eat she replied "Outside!" The weather was beautiful so we enjoyed a nice, early supper at Fairfield Grocery.



Then we walked to a neighboring jewelry & accessory store and she absolutely LOVED it. She kept saying "Wow!" and "Cute!" and stopped to look and touch and pick up everything at her eye level (which was a lot). It was nice to actually have time to browse for a while with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.












We also squeezed in a quick trip to Kohl's and then watched Dancing with the Stars together when we got home.

Today we got ready and shared a frappuccino, picked up my new glasses at Sam's, shopped there, then shopped and ate lunch at the boardwalk.



After nap we put away the Halloween decorations, and worked on cleaning up the house a little.

James and Hank have decided to stay another night camping in Ruston after the game this evening. I hope they're having as much fun as we are.

Halloween 2012

Spiderman and butterfly ballerina...

Maggie the Ballerina

Maggie went to her very first dance class yesterday. She was SO excited about it, and I really think she enjoyed it and really "got" the whole concept. There were only three little girls there yesterday for her class (including Maggie) so it was a nice small group. Shame on me for not fully investigating all the options with various dance schools around Shreveport. I had asked around and thought she had to be 3 to start. Turns out our backyard neighbor, Mary Rose, takes dance and she's also two-and-a-half. So I called and they were happy to let her start in the middle of the year. And we hadn't missed the recital cutoff just yet.

This place was FANCY. See the tv screens? There were several classes all going at once, and they had 3 tv monitors out in the lobby so parents can watch.

Luckily, we have all of Avery's hand-me-downs and we didn't have to purchase a single item for her uniform. Hooray for a dancer older cousin!

Maggie really didn't want to leave yesterday. The class was only 30 minutes, but I have a feeling she would have stayed there all night if I would have let her.

Archie the School Kitty...

This was posted to facebook last week, but I thought I'd also record it here for fun:
For the third day in a row, a staff member from AC Steere has brought Archie back to our house. This morning it was the PRINCIPAL. He was apparently hanging out in a 4th grade classroom. I love that we have such an awesome and caring school, but come on Archie! School is not for cats, buddy.

He's just so friendly and social, it's hard to keep him here. I've been trying to let them indoors during carpool times but he didn't come when I called him this morning. Now I know it's because he was trying to pass as a 4th grader. Lol!

Then James found out from the neighbors yesterday that he followed them to the park and took one step too many and slid down the curvy slide.  What an adventurous kitty!