February Fun

The first few weeks of February have been jam-packed with fun!  The first week was Catholic Schools Week at school, which meant lots of special events and dress-up days.  The week ended with a family movie night at a local church, where we watched Gnomeo & Juliet with 100 of our closest friends.

Katie had 'Wacky Clothes' day at school, and Megan had pink day at school

All three girls had pajama day at school on the same day!!

Chris was in Turin, Italy the first week of the month, so when he returned we had lots of surprises for him.

We got him Texas Pete-flavored chips!  His favorite hot sauce!

Katie & Megan decorated this half of the driveway for him.

Jessica colored in Welcome Home Dad!

 He didn't have bad jet lag this time around.  I think it really helped that it was so sunny and warm when he got home, and we went on a long walks on both Saturday and Sunday.  We all enjoyed the sunlight and fresh air!  On Superbowl Sunday, we went to a fun little gathering at a friend's house.  We love friends with finished basements...we just throw the kids downstairs and close the door!  :)

A few days ago, Katie got her brand new glasses!  She is twins with Jessica now!  They have identical frames, but Katie's is adult-sized.  Katie is mildly far-sighted, and has bifocals to help her with reading.  She adjusted well to them right away.

Today we went to the DIA to see the Rembrandt "Faces of Jesus" exhibit.  It was spectacular (but very crowded).  I think the girls really got a lot out of it, since they are familiar with many of the bible scenes that we saw.  The exhibit showed how Rembrandt changed his painting style over time, from traditional European views of Jesus (blond hair, chiseled body, grand gestures) to more realistic views of Jesus (dark hair, Jewish features, gentle and contemplative gestures).  The exhibit was full of studies of two of his paintings/etchings of the same scene, side by side, one from early in his career and one from late in his career, and the differences were explained.  We all learned a lot!

We wandered around most of the museum, and the girls loved the eye-spy clues in each room.  Our favorites were the knights of armor, the Rivera mural room, the impressionist paintings, and the modern art rooms, but we enjoyed everything.

We posed outside the museum after enjoying lunch in the DIA Cafe - my favorite place for lunch!

 After the DIA, we walked across Woodward to the Detroit Historical Museum.  I got a family membership from Groupon - a real steal!  We enjoyed the miniature train exhibit and the streets of Detroit exhibit the most.

Girls driving a Model T.  They each got to crank the engine to start it up!

The dress-up clothes in the toy exhibit room were also a big hit!

Jessi the butterfly peace cheerleader!

Katie the jester!

We had a busy day, but two museums weren't all we did today.  We came home to have an afternoon of sledding in our backyard with our neighbors!  And we had movie night at home tonight, too.  The Smurfs movie was much better than I had expected!  (though I had low expectations)

January odds and ends

January was a whirlwind of a month!  Like usual, I suppose.  :)  School, preschool, choir, tutoring, library storytime, library volunteering, and ballet have been going strong all month.  Megan is in the school Math Club, so she stays after school on Thursdays to play math-oriented games with her classmates.  ("Mom, there's no math!  We just play games!")  Katie has tutoring at the same time, so she can't be in math club this year, unfortunately.

Medically, we've been keeping the doctors busy - and rich.  Katie still gets her allergy shots every other week, and she just had a new eye exam and picked out new glasses (bifocals again, in frames that are identical to Jessica's!).  Chris and I had our physicals, required by his insurance, and I had a new eye exam and have had lots of visits to find some contacts that are comfortable.  Jessica had her first cavity and first filling.  She goes back to the eye dr next week for a re-check, and might get a new, stronger prescription.  She is at +2.50 and needs to get to +4.0.  She needs her kindergarten shots and she needs a hearing screening before she can get into kindy.  Whew!

Socially, we've been party animals!!  :)  The girls had four birthday parties to attend over MLK Jr weekend alone.  Megan had another one this past Saturday, and Katie had a sleepover at a friend's house.  We hosted a chili cookoff with friends one night, and we went to Ottawa Lake for the Christensen Christmas.  We've taken the girls ice skating several times this month, including once to a friend's house on Lake Orion.  The girls loved skating on the canal where they went swimming this past summer!  Chris loved playing lake hockey with his friend and with the neighborhood pre-teen boys.  We also take the girls swimming about once a week.  All three are little fishies!  Jessi is a fantastic swimmer and loves diving for pennies.

Work has been a bear this month, esp for Chris.  He spent the first week of Jan prepping for an influx of Italian visitors.  The second week was when his Italian counterparts visited, and Chris organized all of their meetings/trips/meals/transportation.  The gang had a blast at the proving grounds (off-roading), at the auto show, and touring all of Chrysler's testing facilities.  Last week he was busy prepping for this week.  This week he is in Italy!!  February is shaping up to be just as busy for him, unfortunately.  My work is slow, mostly because I just don't have time.  :(

School has been wonderful this past month!  All three girls have really hit their stride.  Katie is doing well in every single subject.  She does her homework and studying independently, and is maintaining her good grades all on her own!  Megan is a confident reader, having just finished her first chapter book all by herself - she read Magic Tree House #1 out loud to us.  She is now reading book #2 to herself, a little bit each night.  She is doing great in math, too.  Jessica continues to amaze us with her "academics".  She knows so much math and is starting to read, plus she is soaking up everything her sisters do and talk about.  Little miss smarty pants!

The weather has been crazy warm this month.  I saw on the weather tonight that we've had four days of 50+ temps this month!  And many more in the 40's.  We have not had more than 3" of snow at a time yet!!  And when we get snow, it melts within a few days.  It makes me nervous for spring...will we get our snow in April and May????

OK, onto the pics....

Girls singing in the choir at a MLK Jr interfaith celebration

Megan and Katie with their treats from the Greektown bakery - peanut butter mud pie, and chocolate mice!

Jessi's face after a chocolate mouse!

Megan's tooth is hanging on by a thread!

And...it's gone!  Megan lost her 3rd tooth!  My adorable jack-o-lantern!

Jessica skating on Lake Orion

Megan chased me with snowballs on the lake

The girls cleared away more snow for their very own tiny ice rink

Jessi making a snow angel at home this morning.

Jessi rolling a snowball

Katie hanging out in her snow fort this morning.

 

Katie and Jessi sledding in our back yard.

Hope you enjoy the pics and stories!!  I'll try to do a better job of keeping up in February!!  :)

School fairs

Yesterday was the school's "Night of Art, Science, and Culture," aka art fair, science fair, and cultural fair crammed into one night!  Katie did three projects, and Megan did two.

Megan's science project.  She did a demonstration of this experiment for her first grade class earlier this year, when she was "star of the week."  It was neat to see her stand up in front of her class and talk!  So this poster was quick and easy for her, especially since Chris typed it all up for her!

Katie's science project.  Didn't it turn out nice?  She thought it up by herself, and Chris helped her do it, and helped her type it up.  She earned 10 extra credit points in science for doing this poster.

Katie's cultural fair poster.  The kids not only had to pick a country, but had to pick a certain aspect to research (from an approved list), and had to get the project approved by their social studies teacher.  Chris printed these pictures for her from his trips to Italy.  She LOVED doing this project,and now wants to visit these churches!  Katie earned 10 extra credit points in social studies for this poster.

Megan's art fair submission.  The theme this year was "Bless the present; gift of now."

Katie's art fair submission.  Katie created a beautiful 3D ribbon bow on top of her present, but it was lost at the art fair, unfortunately.  It really added a lot to the picture.  Katie won 2nd place in Visual Arts, and also won a Sister Helen award (Katie's religion teacher picks her favorite submissions from the art fair).

Sadly, we could not attend the fair last night.  Katie caught the family stomach bug, so for the third time in as many weeks, we were stuck at home with a barfing kid.  Katie started getting sick at school yesterday morning, just as I finished up the final details of the science fair (I am co-chairperson).  Chris is out of town, so I had to stay home last night with poor, sick Katie.  The girls and I were soooo bummed to miss the fair, especially since they had so many projects in it.  But I'm proud of them for their hard work!  (PS - Katie was just fine today, and she'll go back to school tomorrow.  It was a quick stomach virus, thankfully!)

Auto Show

Well, I blinked, and January came and went!!  Sorry I was a crummy blogger this past month!  I will try and get caught up tonight...

On Jan. 15th we went to the auto show.  Always a fun day!  We got there early to beat the crowds, and had a great time climbing in and out of cars, getting freebies, and posing for pics.

Neon green "matchbox" car

Meg and Katie in a Fiat 500.  Cute little Jessi thought all tiny cars at the auto show were all Fiats!  She walked around and commented, "look at the yellow Fiat!" (which was really a mini cooper or something similar)  It was cute!

Girls in a Jeep

Chris and a pretty girl.  We had to send this one to Dad C!

Girls and a basketball car.  The inside looked like a basketball court!  Wooden floors!

Girls with a hamster.

Girls and a disco ball. (I had to take this pic b/c Jessi always calls the mines in minesweeper "disco balls")

Not much room in the backseat of a Mini Cooper

We took a ride on the People Mover to Greektown for lunch.  The girls loved the ride!  My favorite part is when it goes by the Detroit River and you can practically reach out and touch Canada.  There was no ice in the river this year - so weird!

Here we are in Greektown, for an early lunch.  We beat all the crowds!  We had a spinach stuffed pizza at Pizza Papalis (what a surprise), and got loads of treats at Astoria Bakery.

We went back to the auto show for another hour or so after lunch.  The Michelin man was nice enough to pose with the girls.

3D glasses before our movie/commercial

After we were sick of seeing cars, we drove to Belle Isle to go to my favorite place - the conservatory!  The girls had the camera most of the time, and they took dozens of gorgeous flower pics.  This is the only one I have of people!

Auto show day is always a fun, exhausting day!

Christmas celebrations

We have had a whirlwind of Christmas celebrations for the past two weeks straight.  Two weeks ago were all of the school parties, and the all-school prayer service.  We were cookie-making machines, and were able to give a ziploc of homemade treats to each of the girls' many teachers, who are each so very special to us.  We also took the girls to a Santa brunch after Katie sang at church on the 18th.  And we went to a rollerblading party when school was out!

Last week, Mom & Dad C came here for an early Christmas.  We opened presents in the morning, and we all loved our gifts!  Then we went to a Polish restaurant for lunch, and then we visited a Polish market and a Polish bookstore, before going to an Italian market.  Our dinner was a hodgepodge of homemade gnocchi and takeout Italian subs, but it was good!  Then we walked around downtown Rochester to enjoy the lights.  The pictures don't do it justice - the lights are amazing!

We drove to Wheaton to celebrate "real" Christmas.  We had a leisurely time visiting with friends and family while we were there.  The girls didn't wake up too early on the 25th, which was nice.  We opened presents (again loved them all!), went to church, enjoyed a yummy brunch at Joe & Nancy's plus more presents, and drove to Racine for Christmas dinner.  An exhausting, but fun day!

On our drive home, we stopped in downtown Chicago to see the Blue Man Group.  The girls loved it!  But we got home very late at night, and had to push back "our" Christmas by another day.  Santa brought lots of presents to our house while we were gone, and they had to spend another night under the tree.

Yesterday was a very relaxing day of opening presents and playing with all the new toys.  The girls played outside in the snow (a rarity so far this winter), and we all went to the pool for fun.  The girls had a sleepover in Megan's room last night; all three were curled up in Megan's bed.  It was so cute!  They slept fine, and weren't up too early - as far as we know.

Today we attempted to tame the mess in our house, and filled our garbage and recycling bins to the brim!  We also did a little shopping with our gift cards, and cleaned up part of the basement.  The girls spent the day playing with their toys, and they're having another sleepover tonight, this time in Katie's room.  Jessi is on the bed, and Katie & Megan are on a "nest" of blankets on the floor.  They are all very worn out and are sleeping great.

Thank you to everyone for the generous gifts of presents, and for spending time with us if you were able.  We have had a wonderful Christmas this year, and we look forward to an even better 2012!

We had way too many pictures to add to this blog post, so I uploaded them to Snapfish to make it a little easier:
http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=8015521008/a=55285543_55285543/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Merry Christmas!!

December so far...

We've had a very busy month so far.  Are you surprised??  :)  The month started off with Chris on a trip to Italy for work.  He had an exciting flight home - on a private jet with the CEO!  The day after he got back was the Rochester Christmas Parade.  Chris helped to build the school float, and the girls walked in the parade.

Famous kids - they were on TV!!

Fan club at the parade

Jessi loves doing her own hair, and everyone else's! 
Most nights I have to spend 5+ minutes taking out dozens of
clips and other accessories out of someone's hair.

Jessi has really gotten into puzzles.  She loves to show off
her skillz and never allows a sister to help her.

Last night we decorated our tree.  It's so beautiful! 
(even if there are no ornaments up high)

 On Tuesday, we celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary.  Well, there wasn't a lot of celebrating.  We had to squeeze in Katie's tutoring and a dr appt before we went out for dinner.  And in the parking lot of the eye dr, Jessica got "tripped by my mama" (as she puts it) and fell HARD on her face.  Her hands were in her jacket pockets, so nothing broke her fall.  She was bleeding everywhere - she had two split lips, bloody nose on both sides, and a badly scratched up nose.  Her lips and nose swelled up quickly.  She spent most of the night with ice on her face!

That night we went out to dinner at a Japanese hibachi place, where they cook the food in front of you.  It was a big hit with the girls, except Jessi was afraid of all of the fire.  Not even the onion volcano could make her smile.

Today we took Jessi back to the eye doctor to pick out her frames.
Here she is!  Her new glasses are brown on the outside, and deep
purple on the inside.  It is subtle, but very cool.  Her lenses will
be in within a week, and then she will be sporting specs all day,
every day!  Poor farsighted baby!

Also today, we hung the rest of our outdoor lights, and we put up all of the decorations in the house, including 5 nativity scenes and dozens of snowmen.  We also baked peanut blossoms and watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.

Cookie monsters

Add in choir practice, ballet practice, and LOTS of homework and special projects, and we have had a whirlwind of a month so far!  This coming week will be full of end-of-the-year stuff at school etc, and then it will slow down.  The girls are in school til the 20th.

Kennedys visit

Right before Halloween, we had a special treat - a visit from Mom & Dad Kennedy!  They got to see a glimpse of our fun, action-packed life.

We listened to Jessica's preschool class sing us several Halloween songs

We got to pass out candy to her class during the "parade" in the gym

Jessica's 4yo preschool classmates

On Friday, we also went to mass at Megan's school, and toured Katie's school.  On Saturday, we saw Megan's last soccer game, where she scored a hat trick!  (what do you call it in soccer when you score three goals??)  And we saw Katie's last soccer game, where she NEARLY scored a goal.  We made cupcakes for Mom K's birthday, and made "finger" cookies just for fun.

Cupcake decorators

Finger cookies, complete with sliced almond fingernails on one end, and the other end dipped in raspberry jam to look like a bloody stump!  They were delish!

Grandma and Grandpa with the girls, before heading out to Kruse & Muer to celebrate Grandma's birthday

On Sunday we enjoyed breakfast donuts at Knapp's in downtown Rochester

 As you can tell, we all had a fun time, and Mom & Dad K needed a nap by the end of the weekend!  :)

Jessica

Big news - Jessica is blind as a bat!!  She flunked her vision screening at her 4yo checkup, so I made an appt for an optometrist visit today.  She is severely far-sighted and has very bad astigmatism.  Guess who's getting glasses??!!  She tried on a few pairs today and they were all ADORABLE on her cute little face. We will wait til next week when Chris is home to pick out "the" pair.  Be on the lookout for pics of Jessi's new look!