Second half of December 2020

With the kids being on remote school after Thanksgiving, it was quickly apparent that we needed to get Thomas in another day of school. His preschool wasn't taking mid-year enrollment but they ddid have a Child Day Out program on Thursdays. This worked out perfectly for us. I got him signed up and on Thursdays he'd attend from 9:30am til 1:30pm for the remainder of the school year. This is known as his Thursday class and we get to pack him a lunch. Drop off looks a little different, I have to walk him inside, but it's in the same building, just a different teacher for this day. He loves it. 

I posted about the kids piano recital, but I forgot to share about our drive through lights experience we did after the recital. It was really fun and lots of lights! 

Had to take a photo of the Cargill sponsored display: 

Made cookies with the kids one Saturday, with our neighbor friend Talas. We made stained glass short bread cookies. 

The following week we made LOTS of cookies on Monday and Tuesday and made up some tins to take to our neighbors. Last minute idea, but super fun. 

Christmas Eve came. We got all dressed up and went to our church's Christmas Eve candle light service. With covid it had been so long since we'd been to church. Felt so good to be back. 

After church we carried on with our tradition of Christmas Eve Sushi! 

 

Isaac's 9th Birthday

 

Isaac turned NINE! Last year of single digits. It was a Friday, he had remote school. I had attended a 5:30am barre class that morning so picked up donuts on my way home for his breakfast. 

Since he had school all day, we did presents that morning. 

 

He was pretty excited about this from Grandma Cindy, we got it. set up later that day for his afternoon recess play. 

Dinner was Isaac's choice and he wanted sushi. The kids hadn't had sushi since moving to Wichita, not like our big city sushi but it'll do. 

Stop at a NEW neighborhood bakery on the way home. They are just around the street from us and this night happened to be their grand opening. So far the oatmeal creme cookies are our favorite! The kids enjoyed ice cream. 

Couldn't let the night end without the traditional block age photos, lol. He's a goofball. 

The next morning I made him a special breakfast again, French toast with whipped cream. This breakfast has quite the story with it being one of the first meals he took to lunch one day at school. 

Early December Recap

Kids got switched to remote school after Thanksgiving break... so here we are, ugh. Everyone home. Kids on their computers from 9am to 4pm, Thomas still gets to go to preschool three days a week and after the first week of remote I found a Thursday program for him as well. It's hard having him home AND try to help everyone in their learning. 

Emma has been drawing a lot, she's watching YouTube videos and free hand drawing from those. 

We had a nice snowfall the start of December. Great way to welcome the month :-) We all miss snow and we've only been here a year. Mary is sad that it typically melts by midday. 

I picked up this wreath at a thrift show we passed. Hopefully it was previous stolen. It was a BEAST to get up there, but fits perfectly. 

We got matching family Christmas jammies. I'll share a pic of the whole family when I get to the Christmas post. Continued to decorate the house for Christmas. 

Had a bonfire for s'mores. 

Lots of baking in December. Donuts, cookies, treats for the neighbors. 

Oh and mid December we got our FIRST egg from Bernadette. I discovered it at night when I went out to close up the coop. She lays a dark red egg. Little blurry here since the light is low. 

That brings us to about mid-December. I'll post the rest when I can. 

Piano Lessons

 Isaac has been playing piano for about a year and a half. We started him the summer before 2nd grade. WOW he has made so much progress. We found a teacher that would come to our house here, and he picked back up with lessons last spring. Once corona hit and all the kids were home we added in lessons for the girls. So they started about April or so. 

They had a piano recital on December 18th. Here's the video of them playing: 

Virtual lessons last April 2020:

Isaac playing in July 2020:

Short clips from August 2020

September 2020

 

Thomas even taking his turn, October 2020

November 2020

Girls teaching each other their Christmas songs a couple days ago:

Basketball

 Both Isaac and Mary started playing basketball in November. They had practice once a week and then they'd have a game on Saturday. It was great for them to get out and get some physical activity in... and I think progress was made overall throughout the two months :-) 

Here are two videos of them playing, haha. I just pieced together the clips I had, nothing fancy. 

Isaac's video:

Mary's Video: