This is one of my very favorite days of the year!  Even though it is the craziest time of year with all of the responsibilities the holidays bring, we take a short break to enjoy some ‘girl time.’  My girls and I started this tradition years ago to honor the extraordinary women in our family…the grandmothers!Reece always puts on a fancy dress and grabs one of her American Girl dolls to join the party and we rotate each year on the hosting duties.  This year my sister got the honors because, well,  Aunt Jenn is slightly injured!  Look at these two…Shauna’s house is very ‘scooter friendly,’ but come on girls, we need to pull it together!

Admittedly, Shauna is not a fan of cooking, but she really treated us well…I always create a little photo memory from the past years’ tea party…hoping they make it out for display or at least in a memory box.We have so much fun just chatting & drinking tea – Morgan keeps trying to like tea but it’s still not working!  So, it’s lemonade for them.  Then we always do a craft together.  This years was awesome…we made these adorable candle holders!Morgan helped Shauna pull the craft together – let’s be honest here, she runs the show for everybody, including my sister!

I LOVE these ladies to pieces and I hope my girls always have a strong woman to look up to, to learn from, and to have fun with.  Girl Power!

It’s gymnastics meet season again!  These little gymnasts work so hard all year for this (level 3’s train 7.5 hours a week and it just goes up from there).  EEK – that’s a lot of pressure!  But for some reason, they love it and I’m just going along for the ride.Reece takes her gymnastics very seriously so I’ve learned that when I get her into the venue, just walk away and do not talk to her again until we’re home.  I’m not making this up – she is intense!

I’m happy to report that she had one of her best meets yet! Her personal best on floor (9.2) and bars (9.4) and all-around (36.7).  Way to rock it Reecie!

Her first event was beam.  She bobbled and fell which I’ve never seen her do.  It happens though, more than you think.She worked so hard and scored high on the rest of her events.  We could not be more proud of her for not letting it impact the rest of her meet.  That’s grit.

 

Reece, you’re a rock star.  This is a great start to the season and we are so excited to watch you!Congratulations KGDC Twisters on a 1st place finish!

I really shouldn’t say this, but I didn’t have high hopes for Drew playing the clarinet.  When he came home and said he thought he had made a mistake choosing to play the clarinet because he didn’t “have enough breath” that was my first clue!  You can see what I mean right here in this video clip I took of him at home practicing…

They had their first concert at school and played again in the evening for parents and guests.His breath must be flowing a little better because he’s actually pretty good!  Way to persevere Drewy!Check out his face…he looks like he’s going to combust at any moment.  His face was so red!Are there exercises for strengthening your breath?  I think you’ve got this Drew…keep up the great work!

It’s a tradition at Manchester Park Elementary for the 5th grade class to construct gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.  Moms haul in their 5 million pound Kitchen Aid mixers, a ton of eggs and powdered sugar, and get right to work making royal icing for 100+ 5th graders on their last day of school before winter break.  This is my 3rd go around with this so I’m prepared for the madness.  All of this is masterminded by Mrs. Frahm and I’m not so sure this will continue after she retires…this could mean Reece is out of luck AGAIN.  First it was the bug project that went away and now possibly the gingerbread houses….I’m just going to keep that little secret to myself for a moment.

My hands will never be the same after being caked with egg whites and icing that truly is more sticky than school glue.  My sidekick Stacey really ramped it up a notch with her Christmas sweater dress!  She can pull this off because she teaches Kindergarten.  No one…I repeat…no one…should actually wear this unless you are a kindergarten teacher or you’re going to an ugly sweater party.  Stacey is rockin’ it!Most of the girls make pretty little designs and the boys’ start out nice and by the end, they are falling apart into a pile of $20 worth of candy and dumping them in the trash can on the way out.

Brian, the custodian, probably has nightmares about this day for weeks.  We do our best to help him clean up but I think he really wants to egg our houses later or maybe teepee our trees.

One of the teachers said it best…we ask a lot out of these kids every single day, so having an hour of fun with friends, candy (and messes…I’m adding that one in) is totally worth it and they deserve it.  I couldn’t agree more.  Ok – so she’s a very young teacher.  She could be eating her words a few years down the line, but for now I’m letting this warm my heart.Awesome job Drew Boo, I loved spending time with you and your friends this morning!Ta da…look at Drew’s masterpiece!!I don’t have the heart to tell him that the roof caved in on my way out of the school!

Please enjoy my flashbacks from Morgan and Jake…

Now excuse me while I pack up for afternoon winter parties and panic that these little cuties are home for 2 1/2 weeks making messes and eating everything in sight.  I’m kidding, I actually love winter break.

Reece is winter party ready!

Morgan put the finishing touches on all of our presents we picked out for a local family in need in the midst of final exams.  We hope this helps make their Christmas a little brighter!  We hear this all the time…that’s what the season really is about.  But it definitely hits home when you actually do it!  Great job kiddos.

 

 

Oh shoot, Christmas is flying in here quick and I’m starting to panic.  I like to have everything buttoned up well in advance.  I’m a planner, an analyzer, and a list maker.  But for some reason this year I’m just off pace!

A blizzard blew through here last week so of course I took a day off doing Christmas prep to hang with my kids. Snow days are the best!  Unless you have a billion things to do.  But this time we decorated gingerbread houses!  I loved every minute of it!  I’ve had these houses in storage at my sister’s since last year!  Ok that probably sounds really weird, but when you find these kits super cheap after Christmas, you snatch them up!  No one actually eats the house, so who cares how old it is!  Morgan made hers perfectly perfect in Christmas colors.  Jake’s was totally weird with gummy octopus, sour patch kids, and swedish fish! and Reece and Drew’s were super fun and bright.

I could’ve decorated all day and night but kids lose interest in arts and crafts after awhile and really just want to go sledding!

In the meantime, we also got all of our Christmas decorations up and it’s a Christmas wonderland around here now!  We added some lighted garland to our stairs this year and Brian (aka Clark Griswald) put up lights on the house.  We are in the Christmas spirit!The kids got their tree decorated downstairs, Morgan added lot’s of cute decorations to her room, and of course Reece has gotten a hold of the tape and added some Christmas stuff in her room too.  Santa, please bring me some tape.  Reece keeps using all of mine!We mailed our letters to the North Pole, made cute little bags, and left Bass Pro Shop with a new pair of PJ pants that are now permanently glued to Jake’s body, and an expensive pair of sunglasses. How did that happen!?  We just went in there to talk to Santa and mail our letters!!

Sparkles (our Elf), Snowflake (our reindeer pet), and Besler (our St. Bernard elf pet), have come to visit us again and Reece has been treating them so well!  She has made an entire habitat for them, given them gifts, and written them multiple notes!  All of this and they’ve only been here for 3 days!  There’s no way this girl is going to be on the naughty list…she is covering all of her bases!She read all of our elf books to us and made a promise (with her girl scout hand signal) to love and take care of our pets! 😉  Reece, you are rockin’ it this Christmas season!All the while, Morgan and I are learning how to be cookie decorators in our spare time!  It’s surprisingly fun and stress relieving and Morgan is a natural!  We’ve spent about our entire Christmas budget on supplies to try to whip some up ourselves from start to finish.  Yikes, we have a lot invested here, I hope we can pull this off!We also had the amazing opportunity to volunteer at the Children’s Mercy Leukemia & Lymphoma Holiday Party at Sporting Park.  Morgan worked for “Faces of Hope” to paint fun holiday designs on kids currently battling disease or within 3 years of remission.  Shauna and I worked at the ring toss and had so much fun!  These sweet kids and their families got to enjoy a fun-filled day with gifts, games, food, and so much more.  We left there with such happy hearts…this is what the season is truly about!

and bonus…Blue the SKC dog proposed to me at the ring toss 😉 and we got a tour of the locker room.  It’s such an awesome facility right here in KC!

 

 

This is only my 3rd time cooking a turkey so I figured I might as well go big.  24 lbs isn’t easy to handle when you’re 5’2″!  I had to get on a stool to get that big bird in the brining bag.  With a little help with my sidekick, Drew, who is also not tall (yet!).  I’m certain I looked absolutely hilarious prepping our turkey for roasting.  A couple of early mornings, lots of notes to myself, and 7+ hours in the oven, and our Thanksgiving lunch was ready, and delicious, I might add!  We had 19 on the roster, so I had to get creative with seating.  And look at me using those pine cones I picked up at Morgan’s golf tournament again!   I’ve used that bag of pine cones 3 times now!  I’m so proud!

We had a giant spread of food and the weather was perfect for family basketball and flag football.  The kids had been looking forward to this since last Thanksgiving.  We moved the game to the neighbors back yard for some flat ground.  And the most exciting news is we incurred no injuries this year!  Yay!They were serious about this, eye black and everything!  As we worked on cleanup and scouring the black friday ads, these guys were having a blast!  We did make it out to snap a few pics…And our all time fave, thanks to Dawn…this catch made by Morgan and Eli’s expression of devastation….Way to go team Conley!

Aunt Jenn and Bob sat with the kids and I have a feeling they were having a great time making fun of me having a turkey maze activity page 😉 Finally, I want to share Reece’s 3rd grade Thankful Tree!  She said, “I am thankful for books because I can get smarter by the second and it inspires me to be a reading teacher when I grow up.”  I love it, Reecie Cups, you will be amazing at whatever you do!

I am so thankful I got to enjoy this Thanksgiving week with minimal practices and games and lots of fun family time!  It’s the best!