First Time Roller Skating

 We took Peter roller skating today for the first time.  He handled it better than any of the others - no tears, no tantrum.  He was a trooper and just kept trying despite innumerable falls.  Each of us took turns skating with him and trying to teach him.  After about 45 minutes, though, he'd had enough.  "Can we go home now?" he pleaded for the next hour while Kelly and Christian got their fill of skating.  In the end, though, I asked, "Did you have fun skating?"' "Yes," was his reply, "I had fun, but not too much.  The problem is I get bored."  "Would you like to try again sometime?" "Yes."  So, we'll definitely be coming again.

Dog for a Day

 A friend of mine went out of town and asked us to watch her chihuahua for the day.  So we had the cutie for 24 hours.  He's 14 years old and very feeble.  He is happiest snoozing on a lap and doesn't do much else.  Between the kids, I don't think that dog's feet touched the ground much.  Such a sweet, docile thing. The most cat-like dog I've ever been around.  Slept on a pillow next to my bed all night.  He's welcome any time.

The big question I wanted this experience to answer was, could the kids take care of a dog?  The answer is a clear NO!  I asked Christian one time to take the dog out because it had been a while since it had gone.  He was too busy on his video game to do it and the dog pooped on the floor.  Later I asked again and Benjamin took it out but as quickly as possible and came back in before it had fully finished its business and the dog pooped on the floor again.  His owner assures me he's 100% house trained a never does this, so if these kids can't take that dog out regularly for 24 hours, we are definitely not committing to one for good.  Test failed.  But still a sweet, fun visit.

Merry Christmas

 It was a wonderful Christmas this year.  My mom and our friend Thea were able to join us for Christmas eve.  We had invited others but they had to cancel last minute.  We still had a wonderful time - ham dinner, gifts, games, and of course, the nativity play.  Christmas morning brought more presents croissant sandwiches, and lots of nerf gun battles with the new guns.

Before and after Christmas, we've done other fun things - cookie/gingerbread house decorating, sledding, and "skating" on the frozen lake at Belle Isle.

It started snowing Christmas eve for the first time this season.  Perfect timing.  We were able to go sledding the day after Christmas.  Not a ton of snow, but enough to make a great day.  Peter felt confident enough to sled independently the whole time and the little snow made it possible for him to walk himself back up the hill each time too.  It was amazing.  How far we've come in such a few short years.  Of course, the nerf guns had to come to the sledding hill too.  He was so wiped out by the time we came home, that he fell asleep on Christian's bed within minutes. 

I had heard that large parts of the detroit river are frozen over so we had to make a trip out to Belle Isle to see for ourselves.  Although it was true, the kids were a bit hesitant to venture on the river itself.  So we settled for the lake in the middle of the island and had a blast "skating" around on it.  Peter fell about a thousand times but thanks to a puffy diaper and a puffy coat, he just kept right on going.  Only I got wet as I lifted Peter off the ice onto the shore, my left foot found a soft spot along the edge and that entire leg went under.  I spent the rest of the day on the island with a soaking wet shoe and left pant leg. We visited the nature center for a while though, and by the time we left, it was 1/2 dry.

The highlight of the nature center was the model of an underground bug area which the kids had to crawl through and dig out rocks (all styrofoam) and gather nuts and seeds for winter.  They had to be placed into shoots in various places in the walls which lit up more and more until you'd completed the task.  Peter loved it and even Christian had fun.

More Christmas Fun

Christmas is nearly here and we've been doing all we can in the few minutes we have between everyone's busy schedules. 6 more days!!

Bella, my mom, and I attended the Detroit Symphony's "Home for the Holidays" annual Christmas concert.  It was even better than last year, if that's even possible. Every time I attend a symphony concert, I feel so blessed to be able to listen to such incredible music live, played by people who have put so much time and work into crafting their talent into something so extraordinary.  It moves me to tears every time.  Plus, we got to take a picture with Santa and Mrs. Claus.  Doesn't get better than that.

Against my better judgement, we put up all our Christmas decorations several weeks before Christmas.  Peter immediately started breaking and losing multiple ornaments every day, but alas, it will stay up.  I really do love having it up a little longer than the two days I allowed when the others were his age.

Peter wanted to put the star on top, so I tried to let him, but it fell again and again. Finally he agreed to just supervise Christian doing it.

We also started a new tradition this year.  The 25 days of Christ.  We decorate our smaller tree with a new ornament every day representing an event from Christ's life.  We read that section of scripture together as Peter puts on the ornament and we talk about Christ.  It's been a great way to include Peter in scripture study and teach him about Jesus and the real meaning of Christmas.  I  put the Fisher Price nativity set under that tree so any time he's tempted to mess with the ornaments which Bella so carefully crafted and painted, he'll see the toys and play with them instead.  So far it's worked.  Hopefully this set will last for many years to come.

Peter's preschool had their annual Christmas party/Fundraiser.  The kids made shirts in class and then wore them while they sang jingle bells on stage.  This picture pretty accurately captures the chaos that it involved.  This was 1/3 of the kids and the rest were no different, but they were blocked from my view by the large reindeer antlers the director decided to don just as she stepped in front of the kids. (Really lady!?!?)  Luckily I could still see Peter.  He stood like a bell ringing robot, never changing facial expression or singing a single note, mechanically moving his arm up and down to shake the bell.  I still think he's adorable.

We also took our annual drive down Hines Drive to see the lights.  Peter thought sitting in front while driving was the best part and he's the perfect age to be absolutely charmed by all the amazing light displays.  It's always such a fun evening to pile into the car with hot chocolate and Christmas music and drive down the multiple mile stretch of beautiful lights.  

Nutcracker Ballet and Christmas Parades

School goes until the 24th, so it's been an extra challenge to fit in all the fun Christmas traditions.  We've checked off a few already, though.  A yearly tradition is the Nutcracker Ballet.  We took a few years off for Covid and it was so good to be back.  We love the music the best.  The dancing was fantastic too.

The older kids were in the city's Christmas parade with their marching bands.  The weather was sooo much better than last year!  Sunny, clear skies and only in the 30s.  We bundled up and had a great time cheering everyone on.

Peter's picture face w/Christian photobombing in the back.

My mom and Kelly joined us too, but forgot to take a picture once Kelly arrived.

Benjamin can always be identified in the crowd by his drum and curly hair and Bella by her sunglasses.

The highlight of the parade (besides my kids) was the Ghostbusters who sprayed us all over with soapy foam.  For Peter, though, I think it was the suckers everyone was throwing at him and Santa on top of the firetruck (forgot to take a picture).  Next year all three older kids will be in the parade!  Thank goodness I have Peter to sit with me.

In addition to Christmas stuff, we've been bowling and exploring and, in Peter's case, growing like crazy.  He's zonked out several days in a row, likely due to a growth spurt.   Yesterday I found him like this on Christian's bed.  He'd piled all the stuffed animals together and collapsed.  So cozy and adorable!

We visited a park while we waited for Christian's indoor soccer practice.  Here's Peter before he realizes he'd being photographed.

As soon as he realizes it:

He noticed immediately this time:

                                                    

Happy Thanksgiving

 I am notoriously late at planning Thanksgiving.  I'm always secretly hoping that I won't have to do it; that someone will invite us and get me off the hook.  Unfortunately, that's only happened twice in the 17 years we've lived here, so I really should know better.  However, as usual, 2 weeks before Thanksgiving, we still had no plans.  So I asked Kelly to text his best friend Tim and see if he had plans, and if not, if we could do it together.  Of course, he did.  Luckily he's also really nice, and so he invited us to join him.  So, we spent Thanksgiving at Tim and Ann Cartwright's house along with another ward family, and the missionaries.  It was a wonderful evening and the food was fantastic.  Here is the only picture I thought to take:

Classic Michelle.  I feel bad that the missionaries didn't even get a photo of their last Thanksgiving on the mission!  Good memories were made, though.

On black Friday we didn't feel like shopping, so we wanted to go see The Festival of Trees in Dearborn, but turns out that thing is lame and costs money, so after driving 20 minutes to get there and deciding against it, Christian suggested we do a little shopping after all - for Detroit merch.  He was interested in buying a hoodie from Detroit and I knew of a fun little Detroit merch shop in the Fisher Building, so we headed downtown.  That was a great idea.  So fun to see a bit of Detroit on a beautiful sunny day and the store had fun, cute things.  Also, the Fisher building is always such a great, historic icon to visit.  We made sure to get a photograph with a tree in there.

The only tree we photographed at the Festival of Trees:

The much better one at the Fisher Building:

Note Peter's face? That's his new picture face which he thinks is absolutely hilarious.  Thank goodness everything is a phase at that age!

Peter got tired in that big building, so Christian gave him a piggy back ride on the way back.

To round off the day, we got pizza at MOD and took it to a park. It made me so happy to spend the day with my kids hanging out together.  Beautiful weather, good food, fun at the park.  I have so much for which to be thankful.  

Now we're ready to get Christmas going!  Bella has already begun with multiple Christmas crafts and decorations.  Even Christian has joined in.  It's all Christmas music here all the time now too.  It's going to be a great season!

Bella's First High School Play

 

Bella has always loved theatre and has been in several community plays over the years.  When she started high school she was excited to be in the high school's plays too.  Her first opportunity was "All The King's Women."  It is a series of monologues and short scenes documenting the life of Elvis through the eyes of the women who knew and interacted with him - from the woman who sold him his first guitar at 11 to the woman who runs the gift shop in Graceland 20 years after his death.  Bella played numerous non-speaking roles in the play and she did a fabulous job.  I loved seeing her up there on stage, so confident in front of that giant audience.  Sadly, she didn't like the experience as much as she hoped she would.  The director with whom she'd worked extensively in the past ran the shows very differently with lots of fun acting games and technique improvement activities for those who were not actively working on their parts at any given time.  This director, however, did nothing but run the practice for the play.  Probably totally normal, but just not what Bella was expecting or hoping for.  Thus, unless she was in the scene they were working on, she spent hours sitting around back stage feeling useless and bored.  It frustrated her and made her not want to participate in the production in the spring.  It's too bad, because she would be great.  I'm proud of her for sticking it out with this one and doing her best.  Maybe she'll try again down the road.

Benjamin and I went to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and forgot to take a single picture.  I need Bella with me to always remember to take a selfie!  We saw them perform a dozen or more sci-fi songs - from Star Wars, Star Trek, and a multitude of other scores from sci-fi movies.  It was fantastic and we both loved it.  It was fun to go out with Benjamin and have time to talk.  He's such a fun guy to hang out with if you can get him away from his phone for a while.

In the meantime, Peter and I have been keeping ourselves entertained.  Our favorite thing is library story time.  We hop around to different libraries picking the best ones.  I love all the fun activities they prepare for the kids to do in addition to just reading books.   Here he had to use an eye dropper with warm water and tweezers to remove pompoms from ice.  He loved it.  Definitely doing this one at home.

Despite the cold, we try to be outside as much as possible.  We visited a new playground and found giant slabs of ice had formed on the bottom of each slide.  Peter and I devised a game where we shot the ice down the slide and attempted to hit targets we'd set up on the ground below.  So much fun!!  We had all the kids joining in once they saw what we were doing.

I tried to photograph the ice shooting off the slide, but it went too fast.  

When it gets too cold, these two can always come up with fun games inside too.

Or we head to the museum and play there.  Peter is always a lot of fun to hang out with.