Book Buddies

Every night after Han and Griff have read to me, they ask if they can cuddle in Griff's bed and quietly read a little bit more.  Cuties :-)

Quick Kid Update & a Hannah Story

Forgot to post that report cards came home last week and all three of the chickens did a FANTASTIC job.  Hannah and Griff are doing super in 2nd grade. They love math and reading, and have recently started multiplication!  They have lots of friends and their teacher says they are very polite, friendly, and caring kids. She also commented that they are very watchful and caring caring towards each other, too. I'm happy to hear that they act that way at school, because at home, well, sometimes it's a different story!

Abby has had a rockstar start to 5th grade. In 5th grade, the students begin to get the traditional letter grades. Kindergarden through 4th it's all numbers.  Anyway....Miss Abby pulled STRAIGHT As this trimester!  Even gym and music :-)  She has worked really hard in all her classes and it shows.  The kids are responsible for a lot more this year as far as organization and prioritizing goes, and Abby has stepped up and has done a great job of keeping on top of things.  Mike and I are super proud of all of them.

Wanted to also post this cute little story Hannah typed up on the computer the other day, all by herself. I love it :-)

Weekend Wrap Up

What a fun-filled weekend!  We went to the Holidazzle Parade on Friday night, Monster Jam on Saturday night, breakfast with Santa on Sunday morning, the Girl Scout Boutique Sunday afternoon, and of course, figure skating and hockey were thrown in there, too.  All in all, a really fun weekend....but it was so FREAKING cold.  Hoping for a bit of a warm-up this week!  Enjoy the pictures.

Holidazzle Parade. It's a lights parade downtown. The floats were very cool to look at. Luckily, we were inside watching from one of the skyways....those poor souls watching outside must have been freezing!

Monster Jam. This is the last Monster Jam in the existing MetroDome, and it was packed...about 60,000 people. Griff LOVED it. We had to drag him out of there!

Breakfast with Santa. Hannah told him she wanted a real live Dalmatian puppy. Not happening :-)

 Admiring their reindeer noses and eyelashes!

Advent Program

Hannah and Griff had their school Advent Program this evening.  The program only goes up to the 4th grade, so Abby didn't participate....she sat in the audience with Mike and me.  The program was wonderful as always.....all the kids always sound so sweet singing their Christmas songs.

We have a busy weekend coming up...hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures and share our fun with you!

Quick Picture of Christmas

Just a little bit of Christmas that is going on at home.......

The Kiddos Did it Again.......

Abby, Hannah and Griff did another bang up job on the Christmas tree this year.  After I strung the lights....after sending Mike out to Home Depot to pick up lights that actually work.....the kids got busy and hung up all the decorations by themselves.  Mike and I were busy outside and left them to it. When we came in an hour later, the tree was done and the mess was picked up :-)  Not sure how they got ornaments all the way to the top -- I'm guessing standing on some chairs was involved.

Now they are camped out on the couch watching a movie, relaxing after a hard day of Christmas decorating!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from the Newman team.  We are celebrating at home after two of the three kiddos came down with awful colds.  The change of plans bummed everyone out, as we were supposed to go to IL to celebrate with the Newman family. We were looking forward to taking over Uncle Tim's house again :-)  We miss everyone, but trust me, you don't want to be around all the sneezing, coughing, nose blowing, eye watering and complaining that is going on!  I had a suspicion that we may be staying home on Tuesday when Abby came home early from school a complete mess, so I ran out to get groceries for a "planned at the last minute turkey dinner". It all came together and we had turkey with all the trimmings for lunch (although I did forget the pumpkin puree for the pie, so dessert was vanilla oreo truffles and cocoa kiss cookies -- still yummy!). We are planning on heading out later this afternoon to see the movie Frozen and having popcorn and twizzlers for dinner :-)

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and lots of yummy food!