A Bit of December

December has been a whirlwind. We ended this past week with field trips and parties. I am beat and so ready to sit back and enjoy my family for a couple of weeks before we plow through the second half of the school year.

UIL

At the beginning of the month Ainsley and Kaylee participated in their UIL competitions. This year Ainsley competed in Music Memory while Kaylee revisited Storytelling. They both practiced hard, and they both took home first place medals. We were pretty proud of them!

Christmas Tree Farm

Landon went back to the pumpkin farm on a field trip, but there weren't any pumpkins this time. There were lots of Christmas trees! His class chopped down a tree and brought it back to school where they put it up in their classroom and decorated it. It was a weirdly hot December day (that's Texas), so he was running around in shorts and a t-shirt. He picked out his green and red Christmas colored clothes himself.

Christmas Photos

Gingerbread Houses

Today we decorated gingerbread houses. I was going to try to make the gingerbread for the houses, but then I found my sanity and bought a bunch of graham crackers instead. Even without the homemade gingerbread, they still turned out cute. It's crazy that Christmas is coming in just a few days. Here's to a relaxing Christmas break . . . I hope!   

Thanksgiving

My mom and dad came to Texas for Thanksgiving this year! Thanksgiving day was all about the food, and we were excited for Grandma and Grandpa to join us in our yearly day after Thanksgiving Christmas decorating.

Ainsley went through a bout of some strange virus that we think was the cause of her suffering from full body hives. It took two trips to the doctor and a couple of sleepless nights to finally put her on something that actually worked to relieve the hives. It was one of those things where I did everything possible to help her and then had to sit back and watch her suffer. It was awful. None of these pictures do the hives justice. You can barely see them, but she was covered from head to toe. Even the bottoms of her feet had hives. Poor kid! My mom took great care of her, and I know Ainsley was happy to have Grandma there to comfort her.

    

We played Lego. We read books. Landon got ahold of Grandpa's tablet - surprise surprise. We took a few informal family photos. And, we celebrated Grandpa's birthday with ice cream sundaes! 

    

Poor Landon was so sad when his grandparents left that he was having a hard time falling asleep in his own bed, so he fell asleep in ours. My dad said, and I quote, "Landon looks like some Santa Clause character sleeping in luxurious North Pole bedding after a long winter's night." I couldn't agree more!

And lastly, when my dad and I get together we like to be adventurous.  We peeled Landon away from yet another pajama day (he's been having as many pajama days as possible lately) and went Geocaching one afternoon. It was an ill fated trip. My dad ended up in a tree and then plastered on the ground from falling out of it. I almost fell in a river (well more like a stream), and we only ended up finding one cache. We created memories though! I just found out that my dad was at urgent care getting his elbow x-rayed yesterday (on his birthday) because they think he may have fractured it from the fall. I think my poor dad's tree climbing days are history.

Despite the sickness and broken bone, we had a fabulous time with Grandma and Grandpa. It always makes me sad that we live so far away when it's time to say goodbye.

November School Happenings

Inner Space Caverns Field Trip

Kaylee had a fun day exploring our local cave system with her class that ended with a picnic at a park.

Homecoming Week

Because my kids go to a K-12 school they have already been exposed to Homecoming. The high schoolers included K-8 in some of their Homecoming festivities this year, which thrilled Kaylee. She loves to dress up on themed days. Landon wasn't into it as much. They'd previously had quite a few themed days, and I think he was a little burnt out on the whole thing. Ainsley has always been hit or miss on dress up days. She picks and chooses the themes she likes best. A couple of the themed days included:

Nerd Day

This one was Kaylee's favorite day. I think Landon was a little offended by this one because we're all kind of a bunch of nerds around here. Kaylee, on the other hand, was all for it. The "Kick Me" sign was totally her idea, and yes, she did get kicked. 

Twin Day

Landon participated in this one. Most of his class wore red shirts, blue jeans and white socks. I didn't realize how tall he is until I saw him in this picture. I thought he must have been standing on something, but he says he wasn't. Sheesh!

Thanksgiving Feast

Gateway holds a Thanksgiving Feast for the kids and their families each year.  My mom and dad were here for it this time.  Fun!  Landon's class put on a Thanksgiving play before they ate.  It was super cute.

That's pretty much it for school activities in November. Now it's on to Thanksgiving!