December 2017

This Christmas had it's challenges, but we did our best to make it a memorable and fun Christmas for the kids.  I didn't take many pictures (and half the ones I did are blurry!) but here are some highlights from the last month:

 This year we were surprised by a 2nd elf to join our family.  We named her Ella Snowflake. 

 Our first snow of the winter!

 Mimi took us to see Charlie Brown's Christmas and Meredith and Kate joined us too.  It was the only thing that the snow didn't cancel that weekend for us!

Claire joined the Girl Scouts this year and had a Christmas party with several troops.  I stayed to help in the madness.

 She is so lucky to have found such a nice group of girls!

 (above) A couple favorite gifts from the Hulcher Christmas party - glasses and slime!  So many nice gifts!  Best of all though was meeting baby Wade.

I took Fielder to see Coco - his movie gift card was burning a hole in his pocket.  He did well and enjoyed the movie.

Huge box of gifts from Aunt ML - the peanuts and box were the favorite part!

Random weird green guy found on the playground - Fielder wanted a pic with him, but then chickened out

 We had to go to the Pfeiffers house, especially after they won the Great Light Fight on tv!  Claire with the trophy:

 Christmas Eve-Eve at Matt and Alison's house.  They made gingerbread houses, played outside, did a scavenger hunt, opened presents, and watched Polar Express.

Christmas Eve, I let them open gifts to each other

 and gift cards from Dr. Pittman!

 We had the Masons over for dinner and a tacky light tour (no pics) then gave Elfie and Ella hugs before leaving them in the tree for Santa.

 Christmas morning - not many pics, but kids were happy with what Santa brought.  Skateboard, chemistry set, and football for Fielder.  Hatchimal colleggtibles, Animal Jam book and watch, and footie pjs for Claire.

 Christmas Day at Mimi and Papas house

Turkey Trot

Turkey Trot 2017 (we did the 1-miler!)  Claire ran with her friend Nadja and Fielder and I made it to the finish - hopefully Fielder learned a little bit about "pacing" and not starting out too fast!!

The Big #6

Fielder is finally 6!  He's been telling people he was 6 for so long, I almost forgot myself that he wasn't turning 7.  He was so excited for his birthday and possibly even more excited that it was the day he was expecting to get his Cury shoes.  He wanted these shoes so bad (which I know is because of other kids at school that have them...ugh, this already??)  Rob took him out shopping last weekend, but no one had them.  So we ordered them online (thank goodness on sale) and told him they should get to the house by his birthday.  Luckily they arrived a few days before and I wrapped them up for him as a surprise.  

Look how excited Claire is :-)

Loved to see his cute little face when he realized what was inside the gift!

 Phew, thank goodness the shoes fit!  And Daddy picked out a UVA shirt.  Claire gave him Pokemon cards and a joke book.  After school, Rob took Fielder to his first UVA basketball game.  We really didn't know how it would go...and as they left, I reminded Rob to lower his expectations!  BUT...they had a great time!  I think he actually liked it.  It didn't hurt that he got to have ice cream, soda, and popcorn.  Claire and I enjoyed a quiet, lazy night and we were both already asleep before the boys got home.

On Saturday, we wanted to let Fielder pick out an activity to do for his birthday weekend.  He chose rollerskating.  I would say it was a little fun, but mostly frustrating.  He could skate better than I thought he would be able to, but he would get so frustrated with it and then just sit down to fuss with the laces on his skates.  At least Claire had a blast skating!  We got them snow cones and then after a little more skating mixed with whining and complaining, we called it a day.  He got to choose dinner that night (McDonalds, an easy request) and we had a movie night at home.  Then on Sunday we had the family party.  By request, we had burgers and ice cream cake.  The kids were wild, but seemed to have fun.  He was VERY excited about presents and got lots of cool things.  Remote control cars from Uncle Matt, Aunt Alison, Katie, and Jenna.  A bug collecting kit, remote control car, and juggling balls from Uncle Andy, Aunt Tara, and Samara.  And from Mimi and Papa, he got a scooter (Claire was the most excited to not have to share hers anymore!) and 2 books and a shirt.  I think he had a great time and we are very appreciative to the family for driving over to celebrate our boy.

Halloween, that's a wrap!

We had 3 opportunities to dress up this year.  (Surprisingly that's a couple less than the last few years!)  I love that they get some use out of the costumes and we had fun this year being creative.  Fielder wanted to be a warewolf and I was excited to make his costume.  I loved how the hat turned out, but as I predicted he only wore it a couple times.  At least I got it captured in a few pictures!  He looked cute (he painted his own face.)  And Claire was a "corpse bride" - she went by a few names, but that's the one that I'm going with.  I had found the dress last year in the clearance section and thought she might like it.  We got her some black gloves and I made her a veil. 

First up was the Pumpkin lighting at the kids school.

 Next up was Trunk or Treat at the Y.  This time I joined in the fun as the "mother-of-the-bride." 

 And of course, the big night!  I prepped the kids many times that we would eat dinner, take pictures, hand out candy and then when it was dark we'd head out.  But at the first sight of a trick-or-treater, Fielder could not control himself and literally bolted.  He didn't even have shoes on or his bucket he just ran.  We got him back, put on his shoes and forced the little warewolf to sit for a picture.  This one just sums it all up:

 There we go, got my picture!  Excited doesn't even begin to describe it.  It was a rocky start - he just could not contain himself and was running around like a lunatic.  Then he was crying because he thought he was "missing out."  We explained we'd go to every single house and finally got him back on track.  Luckily we joined up with another family from our street and having the other kids to walk around with seemed to help him.  I was really thankful to have friends to join up with and make it more fun!

 The 4 kids ready to hit the streets:

 It was a successful night - look at all the loot!  Now we'll be fighting about eating candy all the time for as long as it lasts..... 

Fall Fun

The Midlothian parade was a couple weekends ago.  Rob was headed to a UVA game so I met up with Meredith and kids.  It's a cute parade, but let's face it, they are there for the candy!  

Our neighborhood had a fall festival again this year.  It was fun, but hard for F to concentrate on anything besides Kona Ice.  They tried out the mechanical bull (technically F wasn't tall enough, but since they didn't have a ruler we somehow lucked out and they let him on.)  They did the selfie contest....no word yet on winners, but since we've gotten prizes a couple years now, I'm guessing we won't win again! **Edited to add, we WON 3rd place!  Woo hoo!  :-)

Claire's big 4th grade field trip to Jamestown was last week and I was so excited to be picked as a chaperone.  (I think I was duped....turns out any parent could go, but only chaperones rode on the bus.  Let's just say I would have preferred my car!)  I was really happy to spend the day with Claire and her class and since I hadn't been to Jamestown since my own 4th grade trip, I was looking forward to it!  The kids were great and we all stayed together on a tour for the whole morning.

 Claire and her buddy Madison.  It was so fun to meet Madison and see how much they enjoy each other!  They were attached at the hip almost all day.

 Riding the bus home...wow, what an experience that was.  It just got louder and crazier the whole way home!  The girls tried to find a comfy way to take a little nap, but that just didn't' work out :-)

And last, here's some pics of our pumpkin carving.  The perfect activity for a rainy Sunday!  (So glad I remembered we needed to do it and avoided a last minute school-night carving!)  They each helped design what they wanted for their pumpkin.  They actually helped with scooping out the guts, but with plenty of complaining about how gross it was.  They turned out great I thought!

What got them the most excited though was when one got the idea to plant the pumpkin seeds.  I loved hearing their creative ideas for starting a pumpkin patch called "Ganny's pumpkins."  They had so many ideas and were so excited!  (I hope not too excited because clearly our little yard is not cut out for a pumpkin patch with hayrides, an arcade, and Fielder's Field of Frights!)  I let them plant seeds up along the fence and by the woods and they thought it was the best thing ever.  If that doesn't tell us we made a mistake buying a house with no yard, I don't know what does.