Darr Family Blog – Page 152 – The place to follow the Darr Family

Giving Thanks and Getting Ready for Christmas

Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty fun. At the beginning of the week, we did our normal stuff, but towards the end of the week we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving (some friends of ours came over and we celebrated together) as well as get the Christmas stuff out. Paul had both Thursday and Friday off, so we’ve enjoyed having Daddy home for an extended amount of time. It was a fun family weekend.

The Weekly Weather: It’s finally starting to feel like fall. In fact, the past couple of days have even been cold and rainy. I kind of love it! Eh, who am I kidding?! I seriously love it!

What Paul’s Been Up To: Besides work and school, he spent quite a bit of time setting up our outside Christmas decorations. They look really great! I’m so grateful for his hard work!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I had a bit of extra time on my hands due to the fact that most of my students cancelled due to the holiday. It was kind of nice to have the free time, but I am looking forward to teaching them again this upcoming week.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: Joseph was really excited to be able to do Thanksgiving crafts while at story time this past week. He was also happy to get to go to the park a couple different times (before the rain came in). One of the times, he ran to find a stick, called it his sonic screwdriver (Dr. Who uses a sonic screwdriver), and ran off to vanquish imaginary foes (and yes he used the word “foes”). 🙂 Finally, he was BEYOND excited to pack up the fall decorations and get out the Christmas stuff. We have a mini tree that goes in his room that he gets to decorate all his own (with plastic ornaments). I love looking at the magical aspects of the holidays through his eyes. 🙂

This Week in Pictures:

IMG_20151124_104634661_HDR — Our little turkey. 😉

IMG_20151124_164103592 — Or is he a tree hugger? 😀

IMG_20151124_125738317 — A day of experiments: experiment one (not pictured) was an experiment on trapped sound. He had a plastic container pressed up to his face (over his mouth) and was yelling…probably at the top of his lungs. Luckily his voice was rather muted. Experiment number two (which is pictured) was dropping small plastic jewels into his tuba, and turning them around and around to make them fall out the other end.

IMG_20151125_120639637 — It was an “everyone needs to wear a hat” type of day.

IMG_20151127_144327630 — Decorating his tree.

IMG_20151127_144347712 — He made sure to tell me that he was being like Linus, wrapping a blanket around the bottom of his tree (as in A Charlie Brown Christmas)…but also made sure to let us know that it was not HIS Linus blanket (the blanket he drags around with him a lot of places, such as Linus does).

IMG_20151127_211612170 — I love our tree!

IMG_20151127_211633699 — I also love the set up on top of our piano.

IMG_20151128_153014686 — We actually had to use the heat option on this sucker yesterday. I’m so grateful we got it last year!

IMG_20151128_194044697 — No, this is NOT our house! It’s a house that is down the street from us and Joseph noticed the massive amount of lights as we were coming home last night (the picture only captures a portion of the house). We ended up taking a walk last night to go check it out closer. It was so much fun seeing how excited he was!

IMG_20151128_194343044 — THIS is our house. When we put up our lights last year (we had LED icicle ones), I looked at them and realized that Paul was right in that they had a bit too much of a blueish tint to them. At the time, we didn’t feel like spending the money to replace them (especially since they were already up on the house, lol). This year, we decided that we really wanted to get some that we liked better, so we went the more nostalgic route (though they still are LED which will be good for our electricity bill). It reminds me of Christmas growing up, and I love it! We also changed out the carriage lights and porch lights to colored bulbs to match. I’m so happy with how it turned out!

Imaginations Galore!

Weekly Happenings: Most of this past week was spent in imaginative play. Joseph pretended to be so many different things. It was really fun to see his brain working, incorporating things he has learned into something he wants to be or do. There were a few times we went to the park to play, and we also had friends over to play. Other than that, it was a pretty typical week. 🙂

The Weekly Weather: It’s been really nice, as of late. It’s been cooler (today has been downright cold…I think that we MAY be up to 60 degrees by now, but I’m not too sure). We’re supposed to get down to 34 degrees tonight. I must confess, I love it!

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been busy with school and work as usual. Joseph has figured out that Daddy is a great playmate, so often times, he will be rather persuasive when asking Paul to do something with him (usually of the video game or sword fighting variety).

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Not too much on my part, either. I did go to one of my book club meetings, which was a lot of fun, as usual. Two of my friends and I ended up staying after the meeting and talking for close to two hours. It was a well-needed brain break. Most of my piano students are taking this next week off (due to the Thanksgiving break), so I will need to come up with some things to keep the man cub busy.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s done some pretty funny things, actually. One day, he told me that his mouth was like a trash can for food (considering the fact that he’s been going through one of his I-want-to-eat-all-day-every-day phases, I have to agree). He also has started talking to the bad guys in his video games…telling them to watch out because he will get them with his lava (???), telling them to leave him alone, etc. It’s pretty funny to watch, actually. Another (interesting to him, gross to me) thing he did was to walk up to me, tell me he wanted to share his germs with me, and then proceed to lick my cheek. Gross. But then there’s the flip-side where he is super sweet. He insisted on saying good morning to every. single. person we encountered at the grocery store. I’d like to think that he brightened a few people’s days.

This Week in Pictures:

IMG_20151115_191828246 — Playing Wii boxing with Daddy.

IMG_20151118_134556168 — Pushing his friend on the swing.

IMG_20151118_134747524 — His friend pushing him on the swing. It was so cute how they were working together.

IMG_20151119_083624098 — Joseph wanted us to dress up as minions (those cute little yellow guys from the movie Despicable Me).

IMG_20151119_083638971 — So he gave me a pair of “minion goggles” and then put on his own pair.

IMG_20151119_083657462 — He loves seeing himself as we take pictures.

IMG_20151120_085534439 — The next day, he was a minion who was riding a horse (whose name is still definitely Catherine).

IMG_20151120_123317313 — He told me he was a fruit bat (the brown blanket is his wings) and that he was scavenging for fruit (fruit snacks, that is).

IMG_20151116_142321 — We don’t typically take a picture of Joseph throwing fits, but couldn’t resist. This is what he does: he lays face down on the floor…

IMG_20151116_142331 — …and then tells us, “No, no, no, no, no….I suppose it’s better than the alternative of screeching at the top of his lungs and pounding arms and legs.

IMG_20151121_101306 — Paul brought a giant box home from work, so Joseph decided to turn it into his ice cave (he was pretending to be Superman…it’s sort of hard to see his cape here, but it’s there).

Family Fun

Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty great. We did our normal stuff (story time, park play dates, etc.) but also had a couple of days where we got to do some fun stuff. One day was Wednesday. Because it was Veterans’ Day, Paul had the day off, so we went to the zoo as a family. We also ate at a couple of restaurants because they were having deals for veterans. The other super fun day was yesterday. We went out to eat lunch (one of the places we ate at on Veterans’ Day was not giving free food or a discount, but what they were doing was giving out vouchers for free future meals, so we cashed our vouchers in yesterday) and then went to go see the new Peanuts movie. It was really fun! We kept it a secret from Joseph and he was super excited to see it. He had been carrying his Snoopy around all day (simply because he was the animal of choice), so it was pretty great that he happened to have him for the movie.

The Weekly Weather: We’ve been having kind of flip-floppy weather. Most days have been cooler (and even rainy), but there have been a few here and there that were warm. ‘Tis how it is in South Texas in the fall…

What Paul’s Been Up To: Mainly just school and work…the fun life of an adult!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Mainly just church stuff, choir, and teaching piano (oh, and keeping Joseph alive and happy)…I did get to attend a craft night for Relief Society. It was fun to hang out with friends and make cute stuff. 🙂 Oh, and I attended one of the two book club meetings that I have this month. I was hesitant about joining another book club, but I have found that since I now have more books to read, I waste less time on frivolous stuff.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been doing normal preschooler stuff. He really enjoys story time and playing with friends. One funny thing that happened was when I went to re-cover him after he fell asleep (he tends to kick his covers off while sleeping) and realized that he had put his slippers back on before falling asleep. I guess he’s sticking with the theory he came up with: slippers are “night shoes” and therefore should be worn while sleeping.

This Week in Pictures:

IMG_20151110_141308027 — Joseph’s “J is for jellyfish” from story time.

IMG_20151112_182056291 — Building “cooties” with Daddy.

IMG_20151111_130519 — Climbing the lion statue at the zoo.

15 - 1 (55) — The spectacled bear was pretty entertaining (he was climbing all over his shade cover).

IMG_20151111_131004 — Joseph thought it was cool that he was so way high up.

IMG_20151111_131145 — This was the first time he noticed this statue.

IMG_20151111_131327 — Another statue he loves: the Komodo dragon.

IMG_20151113_104226781 — Playing at the park.

IMG_20151114_140430516 — He was so excited to go see the movie!

15 - 1 (56) — Taking “selfies” with Daddy’s phone.

15 - 2 (22) — Trying to get Snoopy into the frame.

IMG_20151114_163450683 — After we got home from the movies, he wanted to watch some of the classic Peanuts shows we have.