Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty average. The only two things above average that happened were that on Wednesday night we went out to the zoo to see it all decked out for Christmas (they call it “Zoo Lights”) and then last night we went to the park in our subdivision for a “Holiday in the Park” where they had food and a movie playing. Both were pretty fun events.
The Weekly Weather: It’s been cool for the most part with a few warm days and a few cold days thrown into the mix. Typical Texas uncertainty. 😉
What Paul’s Been Up To: He finished up the finals for the two courses he’s been working on and also went around and judged the different houses that were competing for best holiday decorations.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve finished up with my students for the most part (I have one more tomorrow, but most are taking the holiday time off, so I won’t have any students until January). I also pulled off the choir Christmas program. It was a LOT of work, but it was so much fun! I love the people that I get to work with!
Oh no! A masked villain!I was informed that it was a “sticky up” (he likes to watch Sheriff Callie on Disney Channel where the bandits tape the good guys to the wall before robbing them). He was pretending his gun shot out strips of sticky tape, lol.Zoo Lights!He liked the projected images on the ground.He REALLY liked seeing his two favorite nocturnal animals: armadillos……and BATS!He really liked this picture frame they had set up.He was being quite the ham…He liked sitting on the elephant statue because it was not hot like it normally is.He found that the hippo statue was also quite cool at night. One treat we got was to actually hear the hippos bellowing at one another. It took us a minute to identify the sound (since we had never heard it before), but once we did, we found it rather interesting.They had “snow machines” that Joseph also found interesting.The lion statues at the very front of the zoo were quite the picture spot.Getting ready to see the movie at the park (they were showing “Elf” which didn’t interest Joseph much, but he liked sitting in his camping chair).Joseph and I had Subway for dinner at the park (Paul went for the food truck’s Cajun food which I thought would be too spicy, but I did enjoy the beignets) and apparently they’re putting little light sabers in their kids’ meals (and putting the meals in bags with the Millennium Falcon on it). Joseph really liked it…can you tell?!
Weekly Happenings: A bit of explanation about the title of this week’s blog. Our tiny dinosaur of a server finally gave up the ghost a little over a week ago, so until the parts that Paul ordered to build a new one came, the blog site was down. Now that he’s had a chance to build a new server and update everything, we’re back in business. Luckily, it’s been a pretty slow two weeks. That fact kind of amazes me, considering the fact that the Christmas holidays are swiftly approaching. Some highlights from the past couple of weeks are as follows: taking Joseph to see Santa at Bass Pro Shops, playing at the park with friends, going to Story Time at the library, playing at home, and attending our ward’s Christmas party.
The Weekly Weather: It’s been rather flip-floppy, to say the least. Some days were cool, others warm enough to wear shorts and T-shirts, and others were cold and rainy. Last night we had a wind/rain storm come through during the wee sma’s of the morning. As we were talking about it today, Paul pointed out that because of where our house is (there’s a street that goes straight out from the front of our house), when the wind blows, it creates a sort of wind-tunnel affect, making it sound a lot worse than it actually is. While I was laying awake, listening to the wind, I worried about our plants, decorations, outside stuff, etc. being blown away. When I took a peek outside this morning, nothing was harmed (or even moved around). I’m very grateful!
What Paul’s Been Up To: Aside from building our new server, he’s been kept rather busy. He volunteered to be in charge of the beautification committee for our neighborhood and found out (kind of after the fact) that he would be in charge of putting up the Christmas decorations at the major entrances to the neighborhood. Consequently, he spent quite a bit of time using the provided budget to build up the sparse decorations as well as decorating the entrances. It was quite the undertaking! On top of that, he is getting ready to do finals for his classes. His plate has been more than full, but he’s handled it like a champ!
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve mainly been getting ready for the ward Christmas musical program, which is next week (the choir is singing several numbers and I am also playing my flute for another number). I also hosted book club at our house, kept Joseph happy and entertained, and even managed to squeeze in visiting teaching stuff, piano students, and housework. 🙂
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been doing quite a bit of imaginative play as of late. It’s really great seeing how his imagination is growing. He also enjoyed snuggling up with us in the glow of the Christmas tree (he says that the tree is his favorite part of Christmas), eating popcorn, and watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. A couple of funny things have happened during the past couple of weeks. First, he insisted that I buy Gogurt (the yogurt in a tube) instead of regular kid yogurt (it’s actually cheaper, so I don’t mind too much) but then refused to eat it out of the tube. He wants it in a bowl so that he can eat it with a spoon. Refined little guy, ha! Second, I watched him take a screen shot of what he thought was a cool move while playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl and then save it to the SD card on the Wii. Not only do I NOT know how to do that, but I didn’t even realize it was possible. I guess he did, though! Smarty pants…
This Week in Pictures:
Pretending to be Oscar the Grouch in his trash can.Pretending to be Ganondorf from Legend of Zelda.Climbing the giant spiderweb at a nearby park.He was just a smidge excited to get to see Santa at Bass Pro Shops. 😉Developing his LEGO building skills.He wanted an Iron Man mask, so I did my best to provide one for him. Luckily his expectations and my artistic skills are pretty equal. 😉The ward Christmas party was Polar Express themed.The kids were encouraged to wear pajamas. I folded and got Joseph a cute pair to wear to the party. He really liked the monkeys. 🙂Paul took Joseph around to the various activity stations that they had set up for the kids.Joseph was excited to give me the jingle bell necklace that he made.Family selfie!!We decided to go a fun route for our Christmas card photos, so we picked this one and the one above to put on our cards.
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:
Our little turkey. 😉Or is he a tree hugger? 😀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.It was an “everyone needs to wear a hat” type of day.Decorating his tree.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).I love our tree!I also love the set up on top of our piano.We actually had to use the heat option on this sucker yesterday. I’m so grateful we got it last year!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!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!
