Christmas

Christmas season...one of the best times of year.  We had a busy holiday month with all of our favorite things.

We picked out our Christmas tree and the kids were big helpers this year with decorating.  

Graecyn and I marched in the Rochester Christmas parade.  It was really cold, but she had a great time cartwheeling down the street.

I got to join Cody at school for his Christmas "jammie" party.  He painted a tile and we enjoyed gingerbread cookies and hot cocoa.

Grandma and Papa came for a visit in mid-December and we got to celebrate Christmas with them a little early; we took in the Rochester downtown lights - my favorite!

Christmas eve day we decorated Christmas cookies and enjoyed the day at Chuck E Cheese.

You were both so excited about what Santa brought...Graecyn got a Barbie house with a slide, elevator, and pool.  Cody got a PJ Mask Seeker.

Fall Fun

Fall was busy and full of fun.

We celebrated Eric's 40th birthday with him flying a helicopter!

Graecyn ran in her schools "Eagle Dash" fundraiser.  She had a lot of fun with her friends and ran a lot of laps around the bus loop (each bracelet = 1 lap ran!).  She lost her 7th tooth and is becoming quite a leader at school.

Cody's enjoying pre-K and is learning to write his name.  His class mascot is the panda and each child gets a turn to bring the panda home for the night.  He was so excited when it was his turn to be "Panda of the day".  He dressed up the panda in his sister's doll clothes, read books to it, and gave it lots of hugs.

Both Cody and Graecyn performed in the GTC Fall Showcase.  Graecyn is in "Pre-Team" and Cody is in "Ninja".  This was Cody's first time performing in front of a crowd.  He was really nervous and scared at first and there were lots of tears, but once he got out on the floor, he had a blast!  We were so proud of both of them!

We crammed as much Halloween fun into the month of October as we could.  Graecyn dressed up as "JoJo Siwa" (a singer) and Cody was "Gecko" from PJ Masks (he picked Gecko because of Gecko's "super Gecko muscles".  Halloween turned out to be a cold, wet miserable night, but the kids had fun anyway (we only stayed out for about 30 minutes before they were both begging to go back home where it was warm).

We had a mild and wet fall, so the leaves hung onto the trees forever.  We finally had a chance to get outside and get the leaves up and everything put away for winter the day before an early snow storm (11" of snow on November 11!) (the pictures below were taken 24 hours apart!)

Graecyn's Brownie troop got to tour the Detroit Parade Company to learn how they make parade floats for the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade. It was amazing to see the artistic talent, engineering, and creativity that goes into making a parade float and costume.

Thanksgiving was spent in Michigan this year...our first Thanksgiving that we did not travel for.  With Graecyn and Cody in school now and Eric not having vacation days, it's hard to travel for Thanksgiving.   We missed being around family, but enjoyed our home time.

Back to School

Graecyn is so excited for school to start again.  She's in 2nd grade at University Hills with Miss Buller (the same teacher as her 1/2 split class last year); she started in a 2nd grade/3rd grade split class and was so excited about it.  Enrollment at her school was higher than expected and class sizes were larger than allowed and so a few weeks after the school year started another 3rd grade teacher was hired.  The 2nd and 3rd grade classes were shuffled around so that there could be 3 2nd grade classrooms with about 20 students per class.  Graecyn was happy she got to stay in Miss Buller's class, but was really sad to not be with her 3rd grade friends.  Fortunately she still sees several of them on the bus.

Toward the end of July we found out that a spot had opened for Cody in the University Hills full day pre-K program - for every day, but Wednesday.  We were able to arrange to have Miss Fefe (one of Graecyn's favorite former daycare teachers) come to our house on Wednesday's to be with Cody until Eric gets off work after lunch and so made the decision to finish daycare at the end of summer and transition Cody to the school based pre-K.  He was excited to be going to Graecyn's school, but a little nervous.  He and I went to an orientation day and he had no problems adjusting.  Transportation is not offered for pre-K, so Eric takes Cody and Graecyn to school every morning (but Wednesday).  Graecyn still gets to ride the bus home and then she and Eric go back to the school to pick up Cody once the car pool line has slowed down.  He is loving his new school and loves when he sees Graecyn walking in the hallway or outside at recess.  We love having them both at the same school and love his teachers.

Summer Happenings

We had a fun and busy summer.

Graecyn spent as much time as she could with her bestie, Callie.  Their favorite game to play was the "blindfold makeup challenge".  Her summer vacation ended with a broken wrist (her hand slipped when doing a roundoff at practice and she bent her wrist resulting in a closed fracture).  Fortunately, she didn't need a cast, but had to wear a brace for 5 weeks and no high impact activities (i.e., no gymnastics) for 8 weeks.

Cody finally got a big boy bed that he was so excited about! And...he learned how to ride a bike without training wheels!  Such a big boy!!!

Summer Vacations

We had 2 great family, summer vacations!

4th of July was spent in North Carolina; we got in some pool time, some trampoline time, and celebrated Cody's birthday.  A few weeks later, we enjoyed Wisconsin Dells with most of the Johnson family.  We spent most days at a water park or in the arcade (Graecyn won enough tickets to get a whoopee cushion and was so excited); we caught a free "Tommy Bartlett" show that everyone really enjoyed.  Graecyn decided to try the ropes course again this year and made it through the whole course with Eric.  We were so proud of her!  The kids loved getting to spend some time with their cousins and grandparents!