Happy St. Patrick's Day

We had a traditional Irish breakfast for St. Patrick's Day:

Lucky Charms!

Glasses

I got an email from Sophia's teacher yesterday:

Hi Sarah,
Can you tell me a little about Sophia's glasses? Is she supposed to wear them all of the time, including lunch, recess and P.E.? One day she thought perhaps not, but today she said she was supposed to wear them all of the time.
Thanks,
Sharon

Hmmmmm...this was interesting because Sophia has perfect vision and does not wear glasses. I quickly realized that she was wearing a pair of glasses I got her for their career day today for which she was assigned the role of librarian. When I spoke with her teacher she said that Sophia had come in from recess wearing glasses for the first time and said "Mrs Murray, the other kids were making fun of me because of my glasses!" She was milking the glasses for all they were worth.

I'm not sure how Sophia was going to eventually stop wearing the glasses and explain to her classmates that her vision was miraculously restored. She has the best first grade teacher in the world, Mrs Murray, who was quite concerned when I told her Sophia was in trouble for lying. She said "Sophia is the sweetest, kindest girl. It was more deception and not so much lying. Please don't punish her." She talked me out of telling Sophia she can't go to Ryan's bowling party on Saturday.

Sophia is such an awesome girl full of sweetness and fun.

Here she is in her librarian outfit and her new glasses. You can see why Mrs Murray thought they might be a bit "severe" for a seven year old's daily glasses when Sophia informed her she had to wear them all the time.

Happy Birthday Sophia!

Happy 7th birthday Sophia! This has been another big year for Sophia. A new school and new friends. She has done so awesome and made the transition seamlessly. Her teacher described her as a very kind and sweet girl. She is so fun to hang out with. She has not only excelled at school but also in athletics as one of the stars of her soccer team. Watching her head up the quad lift skiing in Santa Fe after only two days on skis I couldn't believe how well she was doing.

She had two parties. One family celebration with the Vanheukelums and a dinner at Ron of Japan with her BFFs Grace and Jenna.

Here are some photos from the pizza party we had at home:



Ron of Japan was a blast. It felt like we were entering Japan circa 1970. The big girls kept disappearing and I realized they were staring at a small tv looping sumu wrestling matches.

I love all the missing teeth:

Ella was the only one not appropriately scared by the fire. In fact she found it quite entertaining. I made a note to myself that night that we're going to have to keep her away from matches. You can see in this picture that she is really enjoying it.The girls loved the dinner. At one point Sophia told the chef that he is the BEST COOK she has ever seen!

Frosty

We've had a lot of snow and built a snowman in the front yard with some help from the Sullivans and Hoepers. I did the heavy lifting but the girls did a great job rolling the snow to make the parts.

Makeovers

Look who got into the new makeup kit Sophia got for her birthday....

I came downstairs in the morning and saw the makeup kit all over the basement floor. My head started snapping around trying to find who had gotten into it when Kate and Ceci popped out from behind the couch with huge grins. It was hard to get mad at them. I did have to promise Sophia that I'd buy her a new one though.

Gym time

Entering the gym locker room with Ceci and Katie feels like walking through a minefield. All the naked women of various shapes and sizes is too much for them to ignore. They have not mastered the "no eye contact" walk down the aisle and aren't afraid to stare and point as we make our way to the row closest to the pool entrance.

Yesterday after swim class Katie pointed at a large woman changing next to us and said:

"She has BIG underpants!"

I looked over and she did indeed have large underpants on. I just said: "Yes, she is wearing underpants. We all wear underpants."

Katie: "No mom. I said she has BIG UNDERPANTS!"

Ceci looks over now: "Those are BIG WHITE underpants!"

Now the whole row is snorting trying not make eye contact with the big white underpants or anyone else because we'll all lose it.

No more damage control can be done at this point. I just give the smile and shoulder shrug I've done many times.

Christmas parties

There were lots of festivites before Christmas. I'm going to try to condense it all here.

I signed the girls up for a gingerbread house decorating session at the park district. I should have known that having candy covered houses in our living room would be a nightmare. The girls kept grabbing pieces and when the low hanging fruit was gone they'd do everything they could to detach pieces of stale gumdrops from the frosting front yards. Here are some pictures from the workshop. We definitely got our money worth. I think they consumed more candy than actually went onto the houses.

Another highlight was the University Club party to see the real Santa. They stepped up the danger factor with the animals this year. They had an assortment of reptiles including a LARGE alligator roaming around. Initially I was worried it would use it's tail to smack a child. When I took a closer look I realized he had a full set of teeth and no restraints. Rick asked the handler, since that didn't seem possible, but he confirmed that the gator didn't have his jaw wired and "reassured" Rick that he had never bitten anyone.

Here it is eyeing Ceci's candy cane. I'm not sure it was a wise idea to have the animals stationed right where the kids exited from seeing Santa candy canes in hand.

Here are the girls in their dresses in front of our tree which was kind of puny this year.

Shopping for that tree. It looked bigger on the lot.

The St Joseph Preschool Christmas show was the last of our pre-Christmas events. Ella did a great job with her partner...who else...Sean. I'll post video at the end that Rick took.
Katie and Ceci looked cute in the skirts Kelly and John gave them for their birthday.
Who's having more fun? The little girl next to them kept trying to get in the picture while her mom was yelling for her to move. I was just happy Katie and Ceci were standing still for ten seconds.
Just takes a hug from Ceci to get a smile:
The hug got a little crazy and they pulled down the sign. It was after the performance though so I don't think anyone noticed.
And here is Ella with her bff: