what a lovely weekend

We have had a great long weekend!
Well, it started Tuesday night with our neighbors James and Michele coming over for a little pre-Thanksgiving hang out time. We played a new game they got and drank some wine and had cheese ball. The year I was pregnant (2005) with Mollie and couldn't travel...maybe couldn't fit in the car...we had T-giving dinner with them. It was so much fun. They went to CO this year to visit some friends. We are definitely thankful for them as friends !
Oh, and around midnight Mollie woke up with a fever. She had started with a little cough that afternoon. She was fine by the next day, but I guess it was just the kick-off of a cold.

Wednesday Phil took the day off work. Mollie was still sniffly, but no fever. I had a dentist appt. We all had a great day hanging out at home. And Q-doba for lunch. Kim, the chicken nachos were in honor of you.

Thursday: difficult to explain, but my parents decided to cancel our T-giving dinner at Nancy's house. We hung out at home until about 2 then left for Dobson, NC to Phil's Aunt Brenda's house for his mom's side of the family's T-giving dinner. He has gone every year for like 30 years. Minus 2005! We had a great dinner and lots of fun. He is really close with all of his cousins and aunt and uncle and there are now 11 kids among he, his brother, and all his cousins ranging from 3-12 I think. We went to spend the night at Phil's mom's house. The girls love it there. Short trips are great ;)
We did learn some disturbing news about Phil's mom's health. She had some pretty in-depth surgery in May where lymph nodes in her leg were removed because of some Melanoma. She didn't have to have any further treatment because they were confident that they "got it all". Last week she had a mole removed that came back as Melanoma as well. They said they got it all, but are concerned because apparently it is metastatic (spreads). So we're definitely praying about that situation and ask for yours as well. His Dad has also had Cancer 3 times and is getting ready to have another surgery for some tumors on his skin that they believe to be benign, but yet keep growing.

Friday we left around lunch time and headed to Mocksville. We had borrowed my brother in law Travis's trailer and loaded up some stuff for my mom to move to her apartment in Apex. She was in Mocksville for the weekend. We brought lots of boxes back and the twin beds that the girls always slept in at their house! They were very excited. So now Mom's 2nd bedroom is turning into the girls' room! Mom followed us back home.

Saturday we had the last home NCSU football game. Mollie still had the sniffles and we convinced Gramma to let her play over there for the day. She took a nap in her Dora bed and had a great time! It was so cold and a little rainy at the game, but we won! Sydney had a lot of fun playing with her cousins Olivia and Emma. During the 3rd quarter my sister in law Angela took the girls all back to their car because of the yucky weather and they played and Phil, his brother and I enjoyed watching the rest of the great game. I usually do not watch that much of the game because I usually have someone climbing on me!

Today I took just Sydney to church so that Mollie could get all the way better for school tomorrow and her birthday on Tuesday!! We pretty much laid around all day, cleaned, made playdoh for Sydney's class this week, did lesson plans, went to Bear Rock for dinner and went to Home Depot and Lowes.
And...I got my new tree tonight. The one I wanted at Lowes. It just looked the most real! And I've had a real tree all my life. I realize that the burden lies on Phil, who doesn't care about a real tree, to put it in the darn stand and take it down as it explodes needles all over our home...
But still, I said, if we get an artificial tree, it has to look real! Phil finally gave in to my wishes. And to repay him...when we checked out it rang up for $60 less!! Then we had a $10 off coupon so we only paid $228 instead of $298 for my real looking fake tree. He was very happy and I was very happy.
We're very happy people in the Greenehouse tonight after our lovely weekend as a family. And the tree will go up on Wednesday after my beautiful girl celebrates her 3rd birthday on Tuesday!

rudolph the red nosed reindeer

I am very tired and will blog more later about our lovely Thanksgiving.
But going down the road the girls wanted to listen to their Christmas CD and were singing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.
Here are the lyrics I think you probably missed:
"then one foggy trick or treat Santa came to say..."

in case you didn't know....

nerdy

I hope the girls get our nerdy genes.
Sunday at MacGregor for lunch they bring out Sydney's plate and she says, "I really don't like these octagon plates they use." We haven't talked about shapes in a long time. Maybe they are at school.
Mollie tonight at the gym looking up at the key rack: "Daddy, those keys over there are very similar to yours." It was an Acura key. She recognized the symbol on it.
Mollie also said tonight during dinner that Cinderella was a mommy, "just like you mommy". I said, "she is? to who", and she said "she is like a mommy to the mice!" Duh.

Speaking of nerdy, Phil is really an electronics guy if you didn't know. He loves to look through the weekly ads on Sunday morning and see what's out there. I think he memorizes them. If you need something call him at like 10am on Sunday and he'll tell you where it is the cheapest without looking. I guess along with this comes his interest in money. Saving money, earning money, saving money, me not spending money, etc. I won't call him cheap. We'll say frugal. We got a new tv for the living room a few weeks ago. My only problem is that a new tv was still "necessary", but he doesn't want to pay $300 for the new Christmas tree I want after finally conceeding to the artificial when I've had real all my life. But I digress.

Anyway, we bought the tv from Best Buy and it was an open box. At the time it was $300 less than the current sale price. Well this week it went on sale for $100 less than we paid for it for a brand new one. We were out Christmas shopping yesterday evening so we went into Best Buy. Phil had his receipt and wanted to see if he could get $100 back for a price adjustment since technically he could return ours and get a new one cheaper. Which would be a huge hassle and we wouldn't really do. The girl was very nice (maybe not very smart) and said that we could return it if we wanted to, but to save the work that that would be she would just give us 10% back because that's what they would mark the return down for as an open box item on the floor. Yeah, I guess just crediting us $100 was not an option. So instead she credited us $330, haha.
And then I still did not get my Christmas tree! I WILL have it by next weekend...stay tuned;)

Annie

We had such a great night last night. It was so much fun, our girls night out. I hope to have many more. It was so neat for my mom and sister to be able to go with us. And Phil was oh so thankful that he didn't have to go! It does make me so happy that I have 2 girls.

We met for dinner first at Mellow Mushroom downtown. It was the best ever! Super fresh crust. Yum. I want to go back soon. I can still taste the yumminess! We then went to Memorial Auditorium and got there just in time. They were so mesmerized when the lights went down and the curtain opened. Mollie was singing right along to all the songs and danced in the aisles. Sydney loved it too, but is just does not get quite as openly excited as Mollie does about things like that. Mollie's pretty dramatic. I see performances in her future. They both loved Mrs. Hannigan and thought she was hilarious and loved that Sandy was a real dog! That really surprised them for some reason. It was a long play. Intermission (half time as Sydney called it) was more like 3/4 way through. Oh and there were some kids we saw there in pajamas! I thought that was a great idea. Because we didn't get home until almost 10:30!

We saw that the Wizard of Oz is coming in May and we're definitely going to try to go to that.

I love to do fun things like this with the girls. Economically speaking it's not reasonable to do very often. We had the $27 tickets and you know they add like $6.50 for handling fees per freakin' ticket! And really, I guess it wouldn't really be SO special if you did it all the time....but when we have such a good time and when I tear up at their every little morsel of excitement it makes me want to do it every day!

flurries

We had lots of flurries this afternoon. It was cool!
Sydney was at gymnastics and Mollie ran over by the door and noticed the snow out the glass door/windows.
She exclaimed so beautifully, "it's winter!!!"
A little while later she and her little friend ran back over by the window. Mollie said, "it's not winter anymore!"
It was so cute. I really hope we have a good snow this year for them to play in! Too bad they won't have any good snow gear since it's such a gamble around here about whether we'll have any or not.

first day with the kids

Today was my first official day back at work that I got paid for:) Friday I took Mollie with me and got my class lists, a rough schedule set up and an idea of what to do this week. I had to get copies of all the literacy assessments to see what letters they know/don't know, print concept check lists, and phonics assessments. Mollie was really good, the secretary gave her 2 pieces of candy, and we said hello to all the new people I didn't know.

This morning I went to HR to get a new badge made. I have no idea what I did with my old one. Probably burned it b/c it was a horrible picture that I used to cover up with a sticker of a frog.

I have 4 groups on M&W, 5 on Fridays.

I have 3-4 kids in 3 of the Kindergarten groups. My fourth Kindergarten group is about 6 kids who only need help with rhyme. That will change based on phonics assessments. The teachers will decide what the next critical area is based on ongoing assessment and the group and focus will change.
On Fridays I'm there a little longer so I'll have a high first grade group to do a book study/literature circle with. There are 6 kids in that group right now all on the same level, about end of first grade level. We're doing Frog and Toad first. One of my favorites:)
So I'm working 9:30-12 on M&W and 9:30-12:30 on Fridays. Phil is dropping off the girls most M&W's so I can get in a little earlier and gather materials, plan ahead, etc. Then I pick up at 12:15. Actually my friend Jennifer is going to go ahead and get Mollie most days for me and go ahead and start lunch with Mollie and her little one Lindsay outside.
Krystina, our babysitter, will be dropping Sydney off and picking her up on Fridays and hanging out with Mollie so I won't be rushing to or from.

It all seems to be working out nicely, for the first day, haha. It was fun! Sounds weird to say it was fun, but it is!

does anyone remember this Sydney?

What was I feeding that girl? I was showing these to Sydney the other day and she got a huge kick out of it!