Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: The week started out with Veterans’ Day. Paul didn’t have work, so we attended the Veterans’ Day assembly at Joseph’s school. I think it’s really neat how much patriotism is present here. The middle of the week was rather average, so we made up for it by popping over to the zoo this morning. The kids loved it as usual. Abigail was a bit miffed that I put her in the stroller. The last few times, we’ve let her walk, but today I didn’t feel like trying to keep up with her. We made it up to her (and as a special treat for Joseph as well) by riding the train after we were done at the zoo. The train was all decked out for Christmas (as was the zoo). Tonight kicks off Zoo Lights. Members get to go see it a week before it opens to the general public. We went early last year, but felt that this year we could wait until later. We didn’t really feel like dealing with the crowds that tend to occur at the beginning of events like this. We’ll probably wait until December to actually go. The fun part about the train ride today was that since it was already transformed into the “Polar Express”, the kids got jingle bell bracelets. They loved that part!

The Weekly Weather: The beginning of the week was downright cold. We had below-freezing temperatures overnight a couple of nights and the mornings were even too cold for us to walk to school. The end of the week (and today especially) were closer to what I’m used to for fall in South Texas: sunny and temps in the 50s-60s.

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been working on sprucing up the neighborhood holiday decorations since he’ll be putting them up next week. He’s also been busy at work, of course.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Not too much on my part other than my normal things.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He had a fun week at school. He did a cool project for GT, had fun in his class, and is really looking forward to this next week since he has it off, haha. I think it’s nice that the kids get the entire week off for Thanksgiving. It makes it easier for those who are traveling.

What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been her regular happy-go-lucky self. She has also gone back to napping on a daily basis after a couple of rough days (she didn’t want to nap but she really needed to…but she refused to…yeah, one of those things).

This Week in Pictures:

 

Weekly Happenings: This past week was a pretty average one. Joseph participated in the annual “bike rodeo” at his school. They had certain tasks they were supposed to do (ride in a straight line, go in-between cones, ride in a circle, etc.) and whoever had the most points won (points were also awarded for items on the bike like reflectors, a bell, and things like that). Since Joseph still has his training wheels on his bike, he wasn’t able to compete, per se, but he still got to ride in it and got a spirit stick (a small piece of embroidered fabric that the kids at his school collect…he likes to get the ones from the library whenever he turns in a reading log, so a bike rodeo one was icing on the cake), which he was pretty happy about. Also this week, I’ve been trying better to actually do something with Abigail’s hair every day. It’s still rather short , so she’ll still get mistaken for a boy rather often. I’ve been practicing with what I call a “whale spout” ponytail. Funny enough, as soon as I started to do that, no more mistakes have been made, haha.

The Weekly Weather: It was rather warm at the beginning of the week, but has since cooled down nicely. We’ve also had a bit of rain, which is always appreciated.

What Paul’s Been Up To: Work, working on the little free library, and getting the neighborhood Christmas decorations out of storage so that he can have them spruced up enough to install in two weeks (they usually decorate the entrances the Saturday after Thanksgiving). He has to take advantage of sunny days between rain storms.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve pretty much been just pluggin’ along, doin’ the mom thing. 🙂

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He thoroughly enjoyed the bike rodeo (this was the first year he was able to participate). He also enjoyed riding his bike around the neighborhood on one of the clear days we had this past week. Other than that, his days have been full of school, reading fun books, playing games, and entertaining his sister.

What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been her regular happy self, for the most part. There has been a slight increase in “demanding-ness”, but I figure that comes with the territory. She will be two in just over a month, after all. Both yesterday and today she refused to go in for a nap. Yesterday she seemed fine without it (and so far today seems okay), so we’ll see how it goes, but she might be stopping naps (enter big sigh here from Momma, but I’ll deal, haha). Joseph stopped about this time, so I can’t say that I’m awfully surprised, but I was hoping to stretch it out a little bit longer.

This Week in Pictures:

 

Weekly Happenings: This past week held Halloween, which Joseph had been looking forward to for weeks. I watched the weather forecast with bated breath because rain kept popping on and off the radar. It ended up pouring buckets right before we planned to go out, but luckily it was a quick storm that passed and we were able to go out and trick-or-treat in freshly-cleansed air that contained just the slightest nip. It was a pretty great night. We had gone to the church trunk-or-treat a few days prior (and the school one before that), so it wasn’t as if Joseph was hurting for sweets…but it is fun to get to actually walk around the neighborhood. Especially our neighborhood. People decorate, dress up, and sit outside to hand out the candy. It’s a really fun atmosphere. I took the kids out and Paul stayed home to pass out candy. After Halloween came to a close, I packed up the spiders, jack-o’-lanterns, and witches hats and tidied up the rest of the fall decorations that will stay out for a few more weeks before the Christmas magic takes over. Some other fun things that happened were that we had some friends come over for dinner last night and then this morning we decided to take advantage of this gorgeous weather and scoot over to the zoo.

The Weekly Weather: It’s been a mix, really. Rainy days, warm days, cool and crisp days. Typical South Texas fall weather, I suppose, haha.

What Paul’s Been Up To: Mainly just work and staying on top of his calling at church. He did take advantage of the clear weather and did more work on the Little Free Library that he’s building for our neighborhood. His plan is to put it in the park, stock it with donated books, and let people take and leave books as they so choose.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve been busy keeping the kids healthy, happy, and uninjured (Abigail tests this last one on a daily basis, it seems).

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He had a great week at school (fun Halloween-themed projects seemed to make it even better than usual).

What Abigail’s Been Up To: She really knows how to get into mischief at the drop of the hat. As soon as my back was turned she’d be climbing onto the bench in our living room (to stand up on, of course) or on the coffee table…or anywhere else she could get a leg up on. On Halloween, about five minutes before I had dinner all pulled together, she face-planted on the living room floor and bit her bottom lip pretty badly. She did NOT like it that I was holding a paper towel on it to try to get the bleeding to stop, but as soon as I let her back down, she returned to her happy-go-lucky self. We went trick-or-treating as planned and everything. It’s healing nicely and hasn’t seemed to bother her much.

This Week in Pictures: