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Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Holiday Programs

These holiday programs really snuck up on me.  All of a sudden Christmas was days away and I found myself taking the day off of work instead of trying to sneak out of work for both a morning and afternoon program.  Claire had her first ever school program and Luke, an old hat at this now, was SUPER PSYCHED to perform his school program for us.

All smiles before his program

our little present under the tree - I love this picture

Claire's program was laughably chaotic





She spent a lot of the program sucking her thumb while rubbing a scab on he nose



Waiting for her snacks is so hard


Emil had a shoulder replacement surgery, that's why he's wearing the sling

Luke's program that afternoon.  There's a new tall kid in his class this year, so he's not the tallest anymore!

Coincidentally another boy is his class wore the same sweater as him, and they just happened to have been paired up  for reciting their lines

Enjoying the show - my favorite part was when they sang "Seasons of Love" from Rent.  We like to sing and dance to it at home now.



Twinsies Luke & Ethan



Helping Dad mail the Christmas cards later that day at the post office




Then they helped Mom make the cut out sugar cookies



Frosting the cookies was the funnest part for them

Setting up dominos with his big cardboard blocks

Claire and I made this house for her "little Percy"

After swimming lessons on Sat morning Claire came with me to pick out tile for the addition.  Not too riveting for her.

Weekend visit with G&G Mackus 

Story time with Grandma is always the best

Dinner out - can't believe we had a little photo bomber here from the kid who doesn't like having his picture taken.

Annual Gold Coast Multiplex swimmer reunion!  Valerie & Scott hosted.



dancing Matilda or Clairebee
Me, Madeline and Kathryn

pick up basketball  game




It was extra special because Luis and his 3 kids were all in town from Rio de Janeiro

The gang!

Here are a few videos to enjoy of Luke's performances and a couple others from home:







Thursday, December 17, 2015

Parent Teacher Conferences

We had Parent & Teacher conferences a few weeks ago and had two good reports!  Luke is in his third year at Kinderhaven Preschool Academy and Claire is in her first year.

Luke's teacher is the Director of the school, Dr. Robbins.  She had so many great things to say about our sweet boy, here are a few snippets that I wrote down:

- Luke is one of my favorite children in the class.
- He continues to be a leader in the classroom.
- He has such a good heart.
- He definitely knows right from wrong.
- He is very, very bright.  This could be a blessing and a curse for you, because you will need to keep him challenged.  He absorbs the information quickly, synthesizes it with other information he already has learned and wants to move on immediately to the next thing - while other children are still processing what is being taught.  Then what is amazing is that he is able to retain the information for a very long time.
- He loves to share information.
- He's just adorable.

In the opportunities arena, the big thing for Luke to work on is self-control (this makes me laugh a bit actually because I remember this always being on my report card to work on).  Anyway, it didn't come as too big of a surprise to us to learn that Luke acts impulsively and can provoke a negative reaction from his peers - for example, he'll knock over a block tower somebody built without asking.  We see this with him at home, and have been working on it.

Claire's teachers also gave a good report.  We heard all nice things about how she is meeting all of the development milestones they look for and they have no concerns.  They told us how caring she was and gave an example of how if they are doing a craft or having a snack she has to make sure that all of her classmates have what they need.  Her teacher Mrs. K. said that she finds it rare for a 2 year old to be so aware of and concerned over other children's needs or feelings.  They also said she is just starting to play with other kids vs the parallel play she has been doing.  A little different from what we hear about Luke, she seems to be a "take it all in and then participate" sort of student.  Finally, she still needs to work more on her sharing, which we heard in her first conferences earlier in the year:)

I'm just glad they both seem to like school and that there haven't been any red flags in the socialization or learning fronts so far.  Let's keep up these good reports!







Tuesday, December 15, 2015

GAM Holiday Sale

It was the Gurnee Antique Market's annual holiday sale, and I'm proud to say that we had the highest sales ever in the 20+ year history of the place!  Matt and our store manager George have been working so hard, and I'm hopeful our little ad campaign didn't hurt either.  I must say that I also did my part to bring up sales by spending hours there shopping it up for both myself and for the holidays.  We also hosted our GAM holiday party on Friday night.  It is fun spending time with all the employees and some of the dealers. 

Here are a couple quick pics from the week. 

The girl loves to dress up like a princess
and loves to show us her curtsies

Love my  picture fixes of Baby Jack!!
At the GAM - the kids love the cookies in every aisle (that is one of the special parts of the holiday sale)


The house is coming along!  Look at that front entryway.  It was so warm on Sunday, it felt like Spring!
Sweeping up the garage for us

What a little monkey

This tree climbing is a little nerve wracking for me


Then he made a floor of pillows in his room.


Isolene sent me this pic of the kids and their little friend at the mall.  It is so cute!

A big box of hand me downs from Isabelle came in the mail for Claire - she immediately wanted to put on the ballet outfit and shoes and ran around the house

Miss independent wants to dress herself these days
Doing the zipper gets tricky, but she can do it