Yep, we're still here

General apologies for the huge gaps between posts. This fall seems to be busier than most. Here are a few cute stories we missed sharing. Hopefully I can add some pictures tonight.

This morning in the car, Colleen was singing a song for her preschool Christmas show, over and over. Robert was annoyed and "asked" her to stop. I reminded him that just a couple weeks ago he was singing his Thanksgiving songs (pictured at performance) and how it annoyed Elizabeth at the time. I asked him if he remembered what I said to her. He said with a scowl, "That I was definitely allowed to practice singing. I hate it when you're right, Mom."

Colleen was complaining about the sun being in her eyes in the car. I said that we could bring her sunglasses next time. She said, "My sunglasses don't work. The sun is boiling my blood! Do something!" Evidently her old sunglasses didn't cover enough of her eyes and would let the sun through. So the next time we were at Target we found these huge bug-eye sunglasses. Now the sun doesn't boil her eyes anymore.

Besides working extremely hard at school and earning terrific grades to prove it, the past few weeks for Elizabeth have been about The Birthday. Twelve years old last Tuesday. Colleen told everyone at preschool - "yesterday she was eleven and today she is twelve." Her birth"day" was actually drawn out over a couple of weeks, starting with Nonna taking her and a friend, Jack, to a wonderful performance of The Wizard of Oz at Hopkins High School. She had a blast; there were actual flying monkeys. Then two books from Mom and Dad that she just couldn't wait 5 days until her birthday to read so she got them early. Then her actual birthday with a package from Nanny (beautiful Guardian Angel that now hangs over her bed) and cupcakes with the special-made cinnamon butter cream frosting. Then from the St. Paul Colemans she got "awesome" Smencils and cold hard cash to go toward her new desk chair (note to self: get E to Ikea!). I confess that I succumbed to the ease of using the Thanksgiving gathering for the official "Happy Birthday!" where she (and others I hope) enjoyed her favorite Pineapple Mallow Pie (thank you to Betty Crocker and to Nonna for the loan of Betty Crocker) and got the coveted Star Trek reboot DVD from Uncle Ryan. She and Robert watched it 3 times the next day. With all the extras and commentary, they watched it practically all day.

We took advantage of our Friday off to clear some more boxes from the living and dining room so more and more it looks like we live her permanently. It's a great feeling to get the number of boxes down to regular storage, not moving boxes. Our garage is ridiculously large and my next big project is to organize the storage in there.

On an unrelated note - hey, where's the snow? The weather is very un-Minnesota-like at the moment and we're getting nervous about Christmas. Robert asked me after Thanksgiving, "Is it possible that we won't have a white Christmas?!"