Hiatus is over. Time for a catch up.

So I have been kindly told by several family members that my blogging has stunk for the past month. I know. I intentionally planned to take a break over Christmas. Last year, I stressed out over blogging after every holiday event. This year I was trying to make Christmas more relaxing. This blog post will serve as a recap of this past month.

The Bear had her first ballet recital back in December. She was quite possibly the most adorable little angel ever! Her little class danced to the song " Angels We Have Heard on High". The girls did a wonderful job. The Bear really enjoyed her first experience with ballet. This winter The Bear and some of her little friends will be learning ballet from a girl named, Grace, who will come and conduct the class in one of our friend's basements. This will save us money and The Bear will be with her friends. Next fall we may go back to a ballet studio for classes. Curly has expressed interest in taking lessons as well. We'll have to have the discussion over the summer whether they want to take ballet or soccer next fall.

Video of the little angels rehearsing their performance

Angel Bear

All the angels waiting to go on stage

We celebrated Christmas with my parents the weekend before Christmas. They gave the girls their big present a few weeks prior while at their house for Thanksgiving, a mini 4 wheeler. The girls really enjoy riding that around the back yard. The week of Christmas was filled with Christmas parties, visiting the Pink Pig, and lots of cooking/baking. We went to Christmas Eve service at our church and then had a wonderful dinner with some great friends. Christmas morning was filled with a lot of joy and excitement. The girls each got American Girl dolls. Curly had given Santa very specific details as to how she wanted her doll to look. Santa succeeded in getting all the details correct. She named her doll, McKenzie. The Bear got one of the historical dolls, Kit. After we finished up at our house, we drove to Augusta for a few days. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas dinner with family friends. Pat's cousin, Tyler, spent Christmas with us. Both girls are crazy about Tyler. They love love love him and it doesn't hurt that he completely spoiled them rotten with lots of fun gifts for Christmas. Perhaps The Bear's favorite gift of all was a pair of purple pants. When she opened them she exclaimed " PURPLE PANTS! I'VE ALWAYS WANTED PURPLE PANTS". Who knew?

Hey Santa

Nothing says Merry Christmas in Atlanta like riding the Pink Pig

Sweet friends visit Santa and the Pink Pig at Lenox every year

Christmas in Augusta

About a week after the new year, Pat's Gran Tennyson, passed away. We all loaded up in the minivan with Pat's sister, Lauren and her husband, Luke and caravanned with the rest of his family out to Oklahoma. It was very sad to say good-bye to Gran, but it was wonderful to see our Oklahoma family.

The Bear and Aunt Jenna dressed warm for the freezing Oklahoma winds.

Curly and Tyler

Tomorrow Curly and The Bear return to school and a normal schedule. This winter both girls will continue with children's choir every Wednesday at church. Curly is still in her little tumbling class. She will also start taking a Spanish class on Mondays after school. She is muy muy excited to learn Spanish. Pat starts back to school this Thursday. I'm not looking forward to him being in class again but there is light at the end of this MBA tunnel. It will all be over in July. Woo Hoo!

Sing Sing

We've been busy with Christmas activities lately. Both girls had choir performances at church on two different nights. Curly's choir performed at our church's annual Christmas festival called Christmas Packages. She performed on stage in the gym with all the 4, 5 and 6 year old choir classes. Unfortunately she got placed on the top of the rafters and a taller girl was put in front of her so we could barely see her. But she popped her head out as much as she could and sang her heart out. Curly loves being on stage performing. After her choir performance, we enjoyed the rest of Christmas Packages by taking a hayride, watching a live nativity with real animals to pet, sitting in Santa's sleigh, face painting, and many other fun activities with friends.

Curly is back row center

All the 4, 5 and 6 year old choir classes. Curly is in the back row right below the lower right corner of the "Shine" sign.

Fun with some of their best buddies, Claire and Sam, at Christmas Packages.

The Bear's little 3 year old choir performed last Wednesday night for just their friends and family at a Happy Birthday Jesus party. They sang four songs total. This was her first performance of any kind. She stood on the front row center. I told her maybe 20 times to stop lifting her dress up. She was intent on flashing everybody in attendance. But when they finally got around to singing, she was shy and sang sometimes but not all the time. It was very cute.

The Bear's choir

Abby and The Bear after their choir performance

Happy Thanksgiving

Curly's school had a grandparents luncheon last Friday. Gran drove in from Augusta to be Curly's special guest. After the lunch we were all invited back to Curly's classroom to watch her class perform a little Thanksgiving play. For the first part of the performance, all the kids were wearing the Indian costumes they mad. For the second part of the performance, Curly was a little pilgrim girl. Here are the links to the videos of her performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1SWTCxhgSE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N13yNKdc4w

Lunch with Gran, Mrs Hutcherson, Curly, Me and Bear

"Mercy Me"

Halloween

Our Halloween was busy and fun. Pat took the day off from work. He had class that night and would not be home for Trick or Treating. He wanted to be able to spend some time with the girls and do a little studying for an exam he had that evening. I volunteered in Curly's class for their little Halloween party. The kids were allowed to bring their costumes to school and dress up for the party. Lots of fun was had by all. After Pat left for school the girls and I headed over to The Bear's preschool for a fall festival. The Bear dressed up like Ariel. Curly was Pocahontas. We enjoyed bounce houses, games, trunk or treating and playing with friends. We made it home right at sundown and went Trick or Treating around the neighborhood. The girls were wiped out and ready for bed.

Curly's paperbag scarecrow

Pocahontas, a monarch butterfly (you can't see her wings), and a karate kid

Curly's class all dressed up

Ariel and Pocahontas

We hung out with our friends Dalmatian and Fireman Jay

Country Weekend

This past weekend we were invited back to the Dorman Family farm by Lauren and Luke. Pat was off of school (WOO HOO) and the weather was going to be perfect. Pat had never been able to go to the farm before because of school. The girls were over the moon about going. They love spending time at the farm, especially The Bear. She's a country girl at heart. We picked Pat up from work on Friday afternoon and drove out to Hamilton, GA.

Friday evening was a lot of fun. Luke's cousin, Mallory, is in the Auburn University Singers. Have a look at them here http://youtu.be/c4xMuJ-H4cc. They were having their Halloween social that night. It was a scavenger hunt with the farm being the final destination. Mallory and the rest of the social committee arrived to set up the decor and food. Then groups of costumed show choir kids showed up. Each car load of people that arrived had themed costumes. There was a Jersey Shore crew, Smurfs, Little Bo Peep and her lost sheep, gangsters, Power Rangers, and a few more that I cannot remember. They ate, danced, and had a great time. We felt like chaperons. Luke told them that all they had to do for using the barn for their social was to perform one song for us. They totally did. I felt like I was in a real life episode of Glee. It was so fun; however, they were there very late. Which meant we all went to bed very late (except for the girls who went to bed at a decent hour and slept through all the noise in the barn).

Saturday was a bit windy and cold, but nothing that jackets, hats and gloves can't solve. We 4-wheeled, fished, and roasted hot dogs and smores over a fire. The Bear loves 4-wheeling more than anything. She will do anything for anybody as long as they promise to take her out on the 4-wheeler. Both girls were excited to go fishing. We even bought a little cheap Barbie fishing pole for them to share. Unfortunately the fish weren't biting when we went out on the pond. So we just enjoyed the beautiful day and all the fall foliage around. Pat enjoyed himself as well. Being in the great outdoors beats a stuffy classroom any day.

Feeding the horses

Part of a deer jaw bone

Fishing

Roasting hotdogs

The Bear's favorite thing ever

Curly likes 4-wheeling too. She doesn't like to go quite as fast as The Bear though.

Family pic

Sitting in the tractor wheel

It was sad to leave the farm on Sunday. Thankfully that evening we were invited to Jenna and Prem's for a cookout with cousin Sarah. She drove in from Oklahoma for the Georgia Tech vs Clemson game. It's always fun to see sweet Sarah. Lauren drove up from the farm for dinner too. Since this was the night before Halloween, Curly and The Bear received music lessons from their Aunt Lauren and Aunt Jenna to help them with the characters they were going to be the next day. Curly was going as Pocahontas for Halloween and The Bear as Ariel.

Fall Frenzie

The past two weeks have been filled with lots of fun fall activities. Pumpkin patches, pumpkin carving, fall parties, field trips, and finishing up soccer season just to name a few. I'm just going fill this post up with pictures to show what we've been up to the last few weeks. Now that soccer season has ended, I should have more time and energy to post most blogs. Enjoy the pictures...

We visited the pumpkin patch as a family to pick out our pumpkin

We picked out a big one. Curly was excited to get into the slime.

The Bear just wanted to watch it being carved. She had no interest in touching slime. She did play with a few pumpkin seeds.

The Bear's sweet little 3 yr old choir sang the Doxology to bless Wednesday night dinner at church. I need to upload the video I took. It was very sweet.

The Clash's soccer season came to an end. Each girl received a plaque with their name on it, a new soccer ball, and most importantly to them, a cookie cake.

I helped Curly's kindergarten class to make a scarecrow for their classroom.

I chaperoned Curly's class on a field trip to Yahoo Farms in Jasper, GA. Thankfully it was a gorgeous fall day filled with blue skies and colorful leaves. It was a really fun place to take the kids. There was a small butterfly garden, a bounce house, a hay maze for kids (the adults could do a corn maze), a hayride, pumpkins, animals, a pumpkin train ride, and lots of wide open spaces.

Leaving for a fun hayride

Hayride fun

My view out of the back of the hayride. At one point we drove through a muddy creek. The kids thought that was big stuff.

I helped out with The Bear's preschool class's fall party yesterday. Curly's party is on Monday and I'll be there too.

Sweet little class decorating cookies to eat for their party snack.

Back to the Farm

This past weekend, we were invited to the Dorman Family Farm once again for their annual Square Dance. Unfortunately it fell on a weekend Pat was in school again so he couldn't go with us. (Have I mentioned before how I am WAY past ready for school to be over ;0)). The girls have been looking forward to going back to the farm ever since last year. The Dorman's are so sweet to have us over to play at the farm, eat yummy food and dance.

The Bear went with her Gran and Aunt Katie on Friday to the farm. Curly had a soccer game Saturday morning so she and I drove over after the game. The girls enjoyed fishing, 4 wheeling and feeding horses during the day. Thankfully we were able to get them both to take a nap prior to the evening festivities. Sadly as soon as we were all ready to enjoy the square dance, The Bear hurt her arm pretty bad. She was pretty upset and just to rule out any possibility her arm was actually broken, we high tailed it to the nearest ER in Warm Springs, Georgia. Gran accompanied us to the ER, thankfully, so I was not alone with The Bear. When we arrived, it was pretty empty. I felt relieved. I mistakenly thought "Great no one is here. This should be fast". I was wrong. There had been a motorcycle accident with two young men. One arrived by ambulance just before we arrived. The other was okay enough to be driven in by a friend. He arrived just after us. He had open bleeding wounds sitting in the waiting room right by us. Not very pleasant to look at. We got called fairly quickly to triage. However, when we walked into the triage room, there was blood all over the counter top and floor. I suppose from the first motorcycle accident victim ahead of us. GROSS! They apologized and cleaned up the blood (kinda), and then assessed The Bear. Then we were asked to go sit back in the waiting room and wait for x-ray to call us back. At this point the waiting room was filling up with many family members and friends of the two motorcyclists. Lots of people, little seating options, and an bleeding man still sitting right next to me. The joys of the ER. Finally we were x-rayed and called back to a room to wait on the doctor. He determined she just had a bad sprang in her elbow. Lectured me about how not to hold my kid when swinging her. After taking what seemed like forever to get our paperwork done, they finally discharged us. This was my first and I pray my last experience with an ER. We arrived back at the farm in time to enjoy a nice hayride on a beautiful night.

Monday morning I took The Bear to the same orthopedist who helped with her broken leg last winter. He put a cast on her to help keep the elbow immobile for two weeks. She was so excited to get a purple cast this time. She is so proud of it and loves to show it off to people. This arm cast is SO much easier to deal with than the leg cast last winter. I am very thankful for that. The girls are already asking when we get to go back to the farm. Guess I have two country girls at heart ;0).

4 Wheeling with Ben

Pure Sweetness!

Hangin' with Clint

A little pre injury dancing with their Aunts

Curly and Aunt Jenna

Aunt Lauren and The Bear

After returning from the ER, I wanted to get a quick picture of the girls together since I didn't get one earlier. The ER put The Bear in a sling that was WAY too big for her but she wore it until we got the cast on. The Bear still managed a sweet smile after crying for a few hours and being up way past her bedtime.

Sunday morning, The Bear really wanted to go out and feed the horses before we left. Ben was so sweet to walk her out to them. It started raining pretty good on them but The Bear still wanted to go. Ben picked her some flowers on the way back.