Goings-On

I know, I know, it's been a looooooooooong time since I last posted. So let me show you a few things we've been up to in the past several weeks.

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit last month and we had ourselves a really good time.

Learned how to self pony braid my hair.

Tons and tons of ice skating this winter. Lessons at Johnny's Ice House (where our beloved Blackhawks practice) has us skating all over the city....

... And the suburbs with my old buddy Jake.

And check out how good Mae is getting at spinning, after just a few weeks of lessons. Go on with your bad self, Mabel!

We've got some naked blow-drying going on.

And one more thing I'm doing these days... getting older.

Christmas Pageantry, 2015

First up was the Christmas program. Mae was dreading this all week, she's not one to want to be up front of a crowd. She made it through "Deck the Halls"...

And then things kind of fell apart. While her class was still up on stage singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Mae's day ended as such:

Shortly thereafter, my class took center stage and things went, well, pretty good. One of the reasons was I was smack dab in between my two homegirls - Shea and Nadia.

And then, of course, we rocked it.

And then, two days later was our piano recital. We'd been prepping for a couple months and the big day was here. And Mae's big day went, well, sideways a bit.

It started out with her receiving a pretty prestigious award. They give out two awards per class - one for Respect and one for Trustworthy. You may remember last year I received the Respect award for my first grade class. Well, Mae received the Trustworthy award, which is pretty cool because there are really only about 10-11 of them given out in the whole school.

There are no pictures because, well, Mom and Dad decided to hide so that Mae didn't know they were there, hoping that would keep her up on stage. She was up there for a few minutes and then, well, everything fell apart again and she started crying so Dad ran up and got her.

So on to the piano recitals... Mae bailed on the whole thing, decided she was not very amped to get up on stage in front of everyone, so that was kind of that.

Then my group later took the stage and here's how it went.

CLICK HERE to hear my song. It was too big to upload to the blog so this link will take you to the performance.

Then the big bow...

And then the after party!

 Laffy Taffys really make me giggle, and Shea does, too.

Lastly, here is a picture of my teacher, Miss Victoria, and me. She actually got her PHD in piano... I didn't even know that was possible..

World Cup Bound?

Started playing soccer a couple weeks ago and MAN do I love it. The running, learning the ball skills, the whole bit.

And check this out. I go on Saturday mornings with my bestie Shea and my friend Reese so it's like you're also able to just hang with your friends.

Here's Shea and I playing a little bit of one-on-one...

Not much different than back in July when we were on the hoops court getting after it.

I have a feeling this is going to be a sport that I enjoy for a long time.

Queen of the Coloring Castle

So there was a coloring contest that Mae's class participated in. It was not just the school, it was students and classes from all around the West Town hood (which is pretty expansive).

Well, Mae is holding this certificate and wearing this medal because she was one of the winners. And I have to say, it wasn't one of those things where "everyone's a winner." Dad probably would not have accepted that medal in our house.

When they went to pick up her medal and certificate, the gentleman said that the judges commented that "Mabel was the only one who also colored in the sky on her photo, and in great detail at that."

This is Mae's second coloring contest prize. The first one was a couple years ago when she competed against other 3-year-olds from Nana's neighborhood and won a gift certificate to the Plush Horse, which if you don't know what that is - it's the greatest milkshake in the U.S. of A.

Anyhoots, congrats Mae!!

O, Christmas Tree

Are you serious, Clark? Yep, we were. After an almost 9-hour drive back from Kansas City on Saturday we turned around first thing Sunday morning and headed to Woodstock to get our Christmas tree. Nope, not that Woodstock, but it might as well have been. Almost an hour and a half later we arrived at our destination - Oney's Tree Farm.

It was cold, but not too cold, and we were ready for it.

And so were the horses.

So after a trek through the tree farm, which was quite vast, and Pax fully equipped with his own saw...

We found her, and Pax got to work.

Wait, no, this is her, and Dad got to work.

After about ten minutes... wait, hold up. Dad, are those leg warmers? Who are you, Olivia Newton John?

Sorry, after about ten minutes and dad talking about a rotator cuff or something, we got her down and started the long walk back. I helped carry the light end of the tree until I couldn't carry it anymore.

Got her home and got her up, and then the real fun began. This was basically Paxton's first time decorating a Christmas tree.

And we found an old ornament of me. Those are my chubby cheeks on the left.

Here's the crew.

Here's the angel I made back in Kindergarten.

And here's a recap of the day, and what a wonderful day it was.

Thanksgiving, 2015

So it was that time of year again. Time to jump in the car and have ourselves a ROAD TRIP! to Kansas City to Aunt Erica's for Thanksgiving.

So let's get things started. This is what you call a road trip snooze.

Things got off to a rocky start when Mae thought she wasn't feeling good.

That didn't last long and we were off to ice skating. We had never gone ice skating before (well, once when I was really really little bit it didn't really count) and Mae has her ice skating lessons coming up in January, so we hit the frozen pond in the little town square by Aunt Erica's and did our thing.

Grandma got Pax out on his skates

And then Aunt Erica went and got us Christmas presents which were roller blades and skates, which we were able to roller around her gym in.

We hit the game room for a little shuffle and foos, too.

And then things got serious. We got down and dirty with a Christmas Village craft project. There were hot glue guns, houses to build, blow dryers going, the whole bit.

And after about five hours... (drumroll, please)

This craft did not come without serious injury, though. Mae got burned by the glue gun, and so did I. BUT, Aunt Erica doctored us up, but instead of gauze, she fixed us with tape and marshmallows, which naturally made everything SO much better.

Later, Mae took everyone to task with a game of Candy Land.

And along the way I made sure that Jesse's nails got painted (he just loves light blue, that Jesse).

We also settled in for a couple Christmas specials.

And had a Thanksgiving feast, complements of the chefs.

And what would Thanksgiving weekend be without Mom and Dad's birthday...

Mom's being a little more normal than Dad's...

And finally, on the way home, Pax showed us all how to just let nature call, when nature calls.