Preparing for Christmas

Even though we had a long stretch of school between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, it feels crazy to think that Christmas is almost here already!  We started the season off with a trip to the theater to see a performance of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with Nancy, Betty, Jenny, and Grace in November.  The girls always love time with Grace!

Nancy has found the easiest gingerbread kits from Wal-mart that we have used the past couple of years--his parents came up again to decorate with the girls!

We stopped at the tree farm after Thanksgiving to pick out the perfect Christmas tree.  This year, it was mild and muddy--no snow!  It took us awhile to find the perfect tree, but we had fun!

The girls had their church Christmas program, and were fortunate to have both my parents, Dave's parents, and my sister attend.  I played the piano again this year.  Abby did a great job with her speaking part!

Abby's first band concert

Abby had her first band concert at school--the choir and band both performed in the gym, then each class separated to different parts of the school and performed a cute play called called "Sir Bookworm".  During the couple of days before the concert, the band director had send Remind messages to practice, and Abby had said things weren't sounding so good.  So we were pleasantly surprised when the 5th grade band sounded pretty good for their first time performing!  My parents and Dave's parents were both able to join us.

The play was really cute--Abby played Dorothy from Wizard of Oz.  There was a character who didn't like to read, and so he dreamt of different book characters.  Each had a little monologue.  Abby did great! 

Thanksgiving 2018

We headed down to Rochester for Thanksgiving--this year, on the Wednesday night before, as I had the day off for the first time ever!  I was able to enjoy a day shopping and having lunch with a good friend, since our kids were both in school.

We enjoyed lots of time relaxing, delicious food, time for Christmas shopping for just Dave and myself alone, and a birthday celebration for my sister (which included dinner out, bowling, and an escape room--we escaped just in time!).  We also celebrated Christmas a little bit, because we won't see Greg and Rose Mary over Christmas this year.  Lots of great family time!

Halloween 2018

My parents and sister joined us for Halloween this year--we enjoyed fairly nice weather, new neighbors down the road who went all out for Halloween with their decorated yard/garage, and of course the house down the road that serves hot chocolate, wine/beer, and juice boxes.  Our group theme this year revolved around the girls wanting to dress as cheerleaders.

Abby's school party was a 50s theme, so I recreated my 6th grade poodle skirt by cutting off the poodle my mom had sewn on my skirt onto new fabric for Abby.  For a "no-sew" project, it turned out pretty good!

We have been visiting my uncle's pumpkin patch in Iowa for the past couple of years, but his pumpkins weren't as plentiful this year, so we visited Barten's Pumpkins this year:

Grandma's 90th birthday!

We pulled off a surprise carnival-themed birthday party for my grandma's 90th birthday, down at Miriam's.  She had had an open house the weekend before at her favorite coffee shop (on her actual birthday), so wasn't expecting anything the next weekend.  Greg and Rose Mary were even able to fly in.  Everyone had fun surprising her and playing carnival games!  I typed up and put together her gift from all of us--"90 Things we Love About You" (a gift inspired by one a good friend had made for her mother-in-law).