Two weeks ago we celebrated Emily’s fourth birthday party at Pump It Up. It’s a warehouse type place which is filled with blow-up bounce houses. We thought this was appropriate since when Abby turned four we rented a bounce house for the back yard. Anyway, Emily had a couple of their friends from school show up and a lot more neighbors and friends from church. They had fun bouncing around for and hour and then having cake. Jennifer made a special horse cake just for Emily’s birthday.
As I write this there is something trashing around in the ceiling. It all started on Christmas Eve and we though it might be Santa’s reindeer on the ceiling, but then we noticed the noise was coming from within the house. A critter has gotten into our attic once again. This morning we called a person to come out and set traps and seal any holes in the roof.
Today was a day of chores around the house. Jennifer took the tree down, which proceeded to drop the rest of the needles. It had been raining down needles for weeks. We learned our lesson: no more live trees. We like fake ones. Less up keep. I installed a soap dish in our shower and a rack for the brooms in the laundry room.
On a completely different note, we’ve been playing Fantasy Football up at work for the game I’m currently working on. Last night was the final game and my team had made it to the Championship against my boss, Jeremy Strauser. My team had finished with a 29 point lead and he had the Dolphins Special Teams/Defense. I finally had an excuse to watch a Monday Night Football game. It wasn’t looking good as the Jets-Dolphins entered half time tied 0-0, but the Jets came back and ended up winning and thus giving me the Championship in our league.
Today’s pictures were taken by Abby of their new playroom upstairs. They took over my office, which was upstairs so that Jennifer could set up her photography studio in their old playroom. My desk has been moved in our bed room.
I hope everyone is having a safe Christmas out there. This was the first time in two years we didn’t drive back to Texas for Christmas. Having visited twice in the last year, we were tired of making the long 16 hour drive and it’s just too expensive for five plane tickets.
The morning started out with Abby coming into our room to inform us that Santa had come and given them gifts. Abby received a Lite Bright Cube. She was very happy and was amazed that Santa had written “To: Abby; From: Santa” and had drawn a picture of himself on side of the cube. Emily received a toy train set, which she just loves controlling the train and rearranging the tracks. Finally, Isabelle received a little car she can ride around on and a grocery cart with fake bread and fruit to push around.
Most of the afternoon was spent cooking for our Christmas dinner. We invited our neighbor Jane and her two sons, Lucas and Connor, over for dinner. Jennifer cooked a spiral ham, mashed potatoes, and rolls. Jane brought over some corn, carrots, and a desert cake. We had dinner and then the kids ran around and had fun.
The past month has been pretty much a big preparation for Christmas. We’ve been shopping, going to the EA Holiday party, and shopping. This all lead up to Nana and Poppy flying in last Saturday. Allegiant Air now has a direct flight from Shreveport, LA to Orlando-Sanford, a smaller airport which is only about 15 minutes away from our house.
Abby was excited when Poppy said he was coming because she had a long list of movies for them to see. So, on Saturday, Poppy took Abby and Emily to see Flushed Away. They had a great time, even though there were no Nerds on a Rope at that movie theater. They came out of the movie singing “Roddie got flushed down the potty.”
On Sunday, we went out to eat at Peach Valley Cafe and took a tour of Baldwin Park, a nice neighborhood which is closer to downtown. We’ve been thinking about moving closer to downtown so that my commute times to work would be less. Also, Jennifer and I went to see the musical The Lion King, which was playing at the Bob Carr. It was okay, not stupendous. Jennifer said that she knew all the funny lines because she’s seen the movie a thousand times.
On Monday, we took Nana and Poppy to our new favorite pizza place, American Pie Pizza Company. We played video games and ate very good pizza. When we got home we decided to go ahead and open our Christmas presents so that we could share Christmas with Nana and Poppy. The girls got a whole lot of new toys and were running around playing with them the rest of the day.
On Tuesday, Abby, Emily, and Poppy went to see Happy Feet. While Jennifer and I escaped to go out and see The Holiday and then go out to eat with the kids in tow.
Early this morning it was time for Nana and Poppy to catch their flight home. We had to leave the house at 6:30 a.m. so that they could make their 8:30 a.m. flight. The girls enjoyed having them and Emily gave Poppy her ceramic hippo that she made at Abby’s birthday party. Poppy wrapped it tight so that it wouldn’t break and told her he would put it in his bike room.
It’s hard to believe I have a daughter who is six years old, but it happened today. It was also a long day. With Abby’s Sunday School class, we boxed up Thanksgiving dinners for the Greater Orlando Food Bank. It was mass chaos as around 100 kids kindergarten through fourth grade walked in a line with boxes and put canned goods, stuffing, and other non-perishable food into card board boxes. They were taped up and will be sent to the food bank for distribution to the needy.
After Sunday school we headed into church where Abby sang in a kindergarten and first grade choir. Her group blew away the second through fourth graders, who you could barely hear. Abby’s group knew their song well and you could actually understand what they were singing as opposed to the other group. Sorry, older group, but the younger kids out sang you.
After Church we headed to the Cheesecake Factory for a birthday lunch for Abby. Abby went for the French Toast and bacon, while Emily went for the grilled cheese which was bigger than her head. I wish I would have taken a picture of it, but we didn’t think of taking the camera into the restaurant.
Finally, we celebrated Abby’s birthday at All Fired Up, a pottery painting place in Winter Park. Abby invited some of her friends from school. Abby painted a mermaid statue and Emily painted a hippo. Emily’s statue started out multi-color, but ended up gray as she kept adding multiple colors one right on top of the other. It will be interesting to see what color it comes out as once it’s gone through the oven. Abby had fun with all of her friends as we had cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday.
She opened up her presents when she got home and Nana and Poppy gave her a digital camera. This last picture is one Abby took of Isabelle with her new camera.
I took Abby and Emily to Pizza Hut for lunch today. Apparently Pizza Hut is a big sponsor of my child’s education. They have a “Book It” program where if you read 200 hours to your child per month, they will get a free personal pan pizza. We accomplished that for October, so we had to go and redeem our free pizza.
Abby also received her first report card this week. I thought it was funny that it had a big Pizza Hut logo on the sleeve the report card came in. Apparently if you child has good grades, you can take the report card in and get a free personal pan pizza for that as well. I just thought is seemed kind of weird to have a Pizza Hut logo on a report card, but oh well.
On a whole different subject, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about what we (especially the girls) want for Christmas. I’ve setup a gift list at WishBin.com. I’ve put stuff in there for the girls which I think they will like and I’ve put their clothes and shoe sizes in there as well. You can mark things as bought in there as well, so that multiple people don’t by the same thing.
Today my Xbox died. The past couple of days it’s been locking up randomly and today it finally gave up and just flashed some red lights on the front when I tried to turn it on. I called customer support and they had me send it back in to get repaired. I heard a rumor on the Internet that some of the early Xbox 360 models were overheating because a heat sync on the graphics chip wasn’t installed properly. Oh well, it’s coming up on a year, so I was afraid that my warranty was going to expire soon. So, I made sure and called them today.
Today Abby went on a field trip with Jennifer for Jennifer’s photography class. They went to Rollins College to take some pictures of their unique architecture. Jennifer had been enjoying the class and has learned a lot. Her ultimate goal is to start her own business taking children’s photographs. Today’s picture is one of Abby posing for Jennifer while on their field trip.
The Longhorns rolled all over Oklahoma State tonight. Winning easily: 36-10. I was worried more about this game than I was against Texas Tech. Fortunately, Texas didn’t let OSU get ahead like they did Nebraska and Tech. They started out strong and kept it up the whole game.
The girls came up to work today for some trick-or-treating. On Halloween Tiburon allows everyone’s kids to come up and go from desk to desk and get candy. We traveled around the floor I work on and Madden’s floor and took away a truck load of candy. “The Three Princesses” we very cute running from cubicle to cubicle. Well, it was more like Abby and Emily running and Isabelle bringing up the rear.
After work we headed home for some trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Since we had such a haul at my work, Jennifer only took the girls to a few houses while I stayed at home and handed out candy. After they were done, Abby and Emily were excited to help me pass out the candy. There wasn’t a very big turn out in our neighborhood. We only had about a dozen people come to the door for candy.
Today Abby and Emily got up and sang in front of church. It’s funny how a year ago Abby used to have a lot of drama any time she was going to sing. Now, she just gets up there and sings. Emily on the other hand, could care less. She just goes along with what everyone else is doing.
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Today we went to a former neighbor’s birthday party. I say former neighbor because they used to live two houses down from us, but moved over into another neighborhood. They have a daughter who was turning four and she used to play with Abby and Emily. It was a “princess” party, so Abby and Emily got dressed up in their princess outfits and ran around with the other princesses around the kingdom. Activities included getting your fingers painted, as seen in today’s picture. Fun was had by all. I could tell because of the random high pitched squeals, which is typical of a princess party, I suppose.
It was an active week for birthdays. Abby had a classmate have a party on Wednesday and Emily had a classmate have a party last Sunday. This has left us wondering what we are going to do for Abby’s sixth birthday, which is coming up real quick.
Frenchville 