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Christmas

coming soon :o)

Ellie's Christmas Piano Recital

Ellie played in her Christmas piano recital on the afternoon of December 11th.  This is the recital that her piano teacher hosts just for her students, no parents invited, as a Christmas present for them.  Ellie played her two songs, Chord Etude and Jingle Bells Boogie, wonderfully so I am told.  She certainly looked beautiful!

PBMS Band Concert

On December 6th   , Pacetti Bay Middle School had their first Beginning Band concert of the year.  We were very impressed with their director, Mr. Rankin, and with all that his students had learned in just a little over three months.  They actually sounded like a real band!

Emory made us especially proud that he volunteered to perform a solo at the concert.  He stood up in front of hundreds of people and played his saxophone.....all after having been playing in a PBMS soccer game less than an hour before!

 

Thanksgiving

Where has this year gone?  Just a few hours left in 2011, so I'm going to quickly add a couple of pictures of things that we've done this year so that we don't forget....and I'll promise to try to keep up better with all of this next year!

This year we went to Richmond again for Thanksgiving.  It's becoming a tradition to make this trip each year now that the kids are older and so much easier to travel with and it's one that we really love and look forward to.  It's wonderful to see everyone again, have a great Thanksgiving dinner and it serves as our official kick off to all of the fun of the Christmas season!

Our first night in Richmond, Kenny and Leigh-Emma came over with Jack and Max.  It's always so much fun to see how much the boys have grown since our last visit.  They are growing way too fast but it's always great to watch the kids together.  Jack has a special fondness for Emory and wants to be with him every minute, doing anything that Emory is doing.  Max has grown from a baby into a little boy now and it is fun to see him running around and actually able to take part in the playing with Emory, Ellie and Jack this time. We brought a special surprise with us this time...dinosaur tails!  They were soft like a stuffed animal and attached at the waist.  One was for Jack and the other for Max, but Emory and Jack had the most fun chasing each other I think!

Max had lots of fun playing the Sesame Street saxophone for us that Emory and Ellie used to both play.  It's funny how the saxophone is the instrument that Emory chose to play in band this year!

We were also finally able to pass along a pair of lion pjs that I have been saving since Emory was three and he wore them.  Jack fit right into them and looked just as cute and I remember Emory being when he wore them eight years ago!  Maybe we'll see them on Max in a couple of years too.

...and here is a look back at Emory wearing the same pjs back in December 2003.  Such a cutie!

This year we headed to the Hanover Tavern for Thanksgiving dinner. The food was yummy and afterwards we all spent the rest of the day together at Tammy and Dante's.

Ellie and Dan after driving the four wheeler through a big puddle and getting soaking wet!

The annual tickle-wrestling match between the kids and Uncle Dante.  This IS a Thanksgiving tradition for sure!

The morning after Thanksgiving,  Leigh-Emma planned a really fun scavenger hunt for the kids and adults.  It was great to get outside and moving early in the day and lots of fun looking for all of the items too.   Afterwards we had lunch together and then the kids got some more time to run around together outside.

 

Dan and I decided that we wanted to start showing Emory and Ellie some of our favorite parts of Richmond and this trip we took them to Joe's Inn.  Mmmmm!  It's always been a favorite although it really is just a little hole in the wall.  Tammy, David, Amrah and Rylan joined us and it was a fun evening.  Emory and Ellie LOVED it too and are already asking when we can go back again!

Our last night in Richmond, Jack had a sleepover with Emory at Ga's house.  Emory was so wonderful with Jack and even got up with him in the middle of the night and didn't wake anyone else up!

 





First Quarter Report Cards

First quarter report cards came home on Halloween...and it was all treats for us!  Both Emory and Ellie are off to such a fabulous school year.  They are both doing well which is great but equally as important they are loving going to school every day.  Ellie wasn't feeling so well one day last week and I offered to let her stay home and rest and she actually cried because she wanted to go to school and be with her teacher...so off she went.  After a not so grand year last year, this is such a blessing.

Emory has made a seamless transition from elementary to middle school.  In fact, he loves everything about middle school so much more than elementary.  It doesn't hurt that his school is awesome in every way and he has really great teachers who give it their all every day and really seem to make learning fun from what I see at home.  Emory got straight As again and some of those As were in the upper 90s!  Way to go Emory!!!

Ellie is also loving her teacher this year and learning a lot every day.  She is so excited to go to school and doesn't mind the additional homework and projects that come with third grade.  This is the first year that she has received actual letter grades on her report card.  She too got honor roll and we are so proud of her accomplishments.  She received three As and one B.  Her B came in social studies and it was a high B at 87.  Such a great way to start off third grade!  Awesome job EllieBean!!!

Halloween Fun

We had another fun halloween this year!  The weather cooled down a little bit...not cold, but cool enough for us to know that summer is finally over.  Halloween did kind of sneak up on us though.  One day it seemed like it was the beginning of October and then the next it was the end.

We did not make it to the pumpkin patch this year but picked up a couple of nice pumpkins from Publix.  Ellie decided that hers would not have a face this year but rather her monogram.  We went with just a curly e and it turned out really cute.  She was a huge help punching all of the holes for the pattern and cleaning out her entire pumpkin all by herself!

Emory did not do quite as well helping out.  He chose his face for his jack-o-lantern to be a face with a mustache.  A really cute idea I thought!  He was good and getting the pattern on the pumpkin but from there he quit because his pumpkin was a little mushy inside.  (That's all part of getting pumpkins here in FL because they have to be shipped in and are picked earlier than they otherwise would be I think.)  After he saw what was inside, he was done...and I got to finish it.

The end result was pretty cute though and they were just perfect on the porch on Halloween night!

On the Saturday evening before Halloween, we took the kids to a corn maze.  The corn was so tall this year compared to years past!  All was well until Dan decided to jump out and scare Ellie half to death.  Then she was ready to get out of there, but she was really brave and went back in before we left.

The kids had a great time going through the maze pathways and also making their own paths through the corn.  Emory was going so fast and it was so dark that at times it was tough to keep up with him!

They also have farm animals to see and Ellie and I just loved these two goats who were all cuddled up together in the chilly evening air.

On Halloween day, Ellie's class had a big Halloween party.  We made crafts, had pizza for lunch and yummy cupcakes.

 Finally the big night got here and the Solms family joined us for dinner before heading out to trick-or-treat.  The kids were all dressed up and ready to go.  From left to right, Sydney was Lady GaGa, Ellie was a cave girl, Emory was a scary guy in a black cape (without the face mask here) and Mack was a Georgia Tech fan.

Here is Emory in full (first) costume.  Can't see a bit of him other than his feet!  This proved to be a challenge with running and seeing anything at all in the dark through the fabric of the face mask...maybe I might have mentioned something like that to him at the time that he picked this one out?!?!  So it was a problem and Emory went off to make up another costume....

 Another neighbor showed up to trick-or-treat with us and the girls were happy to continue to pose.

 ...and act silly!

We managed to remember to get a picture of all of the kids together this year before they headed off to trick-or-treat.  As you can see they started pretty early as it wasn't even dusk yet, but it was a school night and they were dying to go!

Emory ended up following Mack's lead and going with the sports fan costume.  He was a jaguars fan and actually did look pretty cute with face paint under his eyes and his big jaguar claw that he carried all night.  I'll have to remind him of this next year when he wants to go out and buy another costume!

At the end of the evening we came home and checked out all of the candy.  Waaaayyyyyy too much as usual.  The kids had a fun time running around collecting it though so it was a successful Halloween!

Fall Soccer

Fall soccer is in full swing as it started back in September...and ends in about three more weeks!  Emory and Ellie are both playing for Creeks soccer again this season.  Emory is on a Premier team, which is a select travel team and Ellie is playing on a rec team with a great new group of girls. 

Ellie's team decided that their name should be the Gator Girls and they have the cutest mascot.  He's a bulldog and was just about 3 months old at the beginning of the season.

Ellie has been playing really well this season and came soooo close to scoring a goal in one of her games.  This is their first year playing on a much larger grass field and having a goalie so it's a little different from what she was used to.

Emory's team is off to a slow start with the wins this season but he's having fun and  we're hopeful that it'll all come together in their second season together that starts in January.   

Emory does have some really exciting soccer news to share...he tried out and made the soccer team at his middle school, Pacetti Bay.  Yea Emory!!!  The team is made up of 22 6th through 8th grade boys and the season starts in mid-November.  We're looking forward to cheering Emory and the entire Wildcat soccer team on to victory this year!