A Field Trip, Birthday, Recital...and More!

I feel like a blogging failure!  I really intend to keep more current on this, but then the end of the day rolls around and I'm out of steam and I put it off "one more day" and it's been a week!  Oh well! 

We've been busy around here.  Typically, we could go a few days without even leaving our house.  We're home-bodies and really like it that way.  We don't schedule a whole lot and try to keep life simple.  But with the Christmas season upon us, a bunch of stuff fell on the calendar at the same time.  Here's what we've been up to.

Todd was in Seattle and caught the red eye flight to meet us at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis.  (As a side note, finding a parking spot to accommodate a 15 passenger van is not the easiest thing to do!)  The grandmas were visiting and they came along too and snapped this photo.

After the performance, we found a place in the sky way to eat a picnic lunch that I packed.  It was fun to watch everyone watching us!

When our tummies were full, we cleaned up and navigated our way to Macy's to see their 8th floor display - A Day in the Life of an Elf.  We had seen it before with the older kids, but decided to go again for the grandmas and the younger children.  It was fun!

Grandma Pam gave Lillian a camera to use and she was in shutterbug heaven!

We came home and finished up our baking preparations for the Craft and Bake Sale that our home school co-op was sponsoring the next morning.  We made carmel corn and puppy chow.  The children also knit hats, decorated socks, and made some bracelets for sale.  They did quite well and now have some spending money for an upcoming family vacation.

Bagging the puppy chow.

Double batch of carmel corn baking in the oven.

And, did I mention, that it was also Eleanor's 3rd birthday?!  I can't believe that little munch-kin is 3 already.  We've been talking about going potty and getting rid of her diapers.  She looked at me and said, "No, mommy, we'll do that later!"  She's got it all figured out!

Eleanor with her super cool dinosaur cake that Grandma Pam brought.

All set up and ready for business at the Craft and Bake Sale the next day.

On Friday evening, Madeline and Joseph had a piano recital at a local retirement home.  Joseph is in his 2nd year of piano and he's really made some huge progress this year.  He played a really jazzy piece and got great applause.  I, of course, stood at the back with the baby with tears of pride in my eyes.  Then Madeline played her piece from memory and did absolutely amazing!  Haley quit piano this year and took up guitar, so she was not yet ready to play in the recital.

Whew - there's still so much more that happened...but again, I'm out of steam and needing to go to bed.   Quickly - 8 inches of snow, cut-out cookies with grandma, bingo at church, and another round of the stomach flu....yuck!

God Bless!

Heather :-)