Thanksgiving 2013

untitled shoot-073

We went to A-Town for Thanksgiving this year and had a fantastic weekend with our extended family at my parent’s house. We didn’t count-off at dinner, but I suspect there were about 30 people there. I also didn’t take many pictures of the actual Thanksgiving feast (thanks, Mom!!), but it was an enjoyable time. We arrived shortly before everybody else and I got my brothers, sister-in-law and parents to step outside for a quick family picture. For whatever reason, we didn’t have our group taken a few weeks ago during the Elvrum family pictures. I think we’re a hodge-podge group, but I love it. It’d be weird if we were all matchy-matchy. 

The day after Thanksgiving, Barry and I took the girls to the beach and we spent some time outside before it started to rain. Aside from that, I feel like I hardly saw Little Miss Maggie Mae. She spent most of the weekend, it seemed, playing with one of my brothers or with my dad’s cousin’s wife. Izak and Mags have a sweet routine worked out where Izak plays the piano and Maggie dances around. If Izak stops playing, Maggie kindly convinces him to keep it up…she’ll dance forever and is very dramatic about it. Maggie also helped Phil carve the turkey and I happened to only catch the tail end of it, Maggie watching, and eating hunks of turkey, while Phil carved and talked at length about it. Gross. (There’s probably a reason that job has never been offered to me…) Audrey has discovered the wonders of climbing and putting things into her mouth. She was pretty content to eat tons of different foods and ‘work’ on climbing the stairs. She’s such a happy baby and content to observe everybody from the comfort of a familiar person’s embrace. 

Barry and I were lucky enough to go on a proper date in town….dinner and a movie. We decided that we probably hadn’t been to a movie in over a year, and it might be another year before we decided to do it again. Time to talk uninterrupted is way nicer than a movie, but I’m glad we went. (Umm, Team Gale over here, people!) Saturday morning, before we headed back home, our friends, Adam and Alyssa, came to visit us. We hadn’t seen them in nearly a year and decided that, unlike the movie, we’ll make more of an effort to see them. They live next to Barry’s parents, which makes it an easy place to miss. It seems like some of our A-Town people and Alger friends get lost when we visit our folks, so we appreciate it when the effort is made to make a connection. Thanks, guys! 

Tomorrow we’re back to reality, we’re in charge of snack this week at school, our windshield on our car needs to be replaced and I’d like to finish Christmas presents…..so much for our epic visiting sessions that we had this weekend. Back to business…..

untitled shoot-118 untitled shoot-234untitled shoot-239untitled shoot-238untitled shoot-254 untitled shoot-272 audrey bell-2-2 untitled shoot-240audrey bell-3_2 audrey bell audrey in a diaper_barry camp janet maggie mae orange phil and maggie rosario-2 sisters-2-2rosario-6rosario-4rosario-5audrey bell-2sisters-3sisters-2turkeyuntitled shoot-034untitled shoot-033untitled shoot-099 untitled shoot-127-2 untitled shoot-135-3 untitled shoot-141-2untitled shoot-140

untitled shoot-151-2

untitled shoot-171 untitled shoot-302

untitled shoot-037-2 untitled shoot-075

rosario

rosario-3audrey and barry

Pillow Pool

 

I saw a photo on Instagram a few days ago of a little boy jumping into a pile of pillows that had been smooshed into his kiddie pool. Our pool has been neglected since early August and I’ve avoided giving it the end-of-summer scrub down that it deserves. After I saw the picture of the little boy, I felt highly motivated to drag our pool indoors and create a perfect pillow pool to spend some time ‘swimming’ in. Best idea ever. Don’t wait until Fall to make your own Pillow Pool, do it today! We’ve all loved it for different reasons, some of which are shown in the following images. 
pillow pool maggie barry-2 pillow pool maggie barry-3 pillow pool maggie barry-4 pillow pool maggie barrypillow pool maggie barry-5pillow pool maggie barry-6pillow pool maggie barry-7pillow pool maggie barry-8pillow pool maggie barry-10 pillow pool maggie barry-11pillow pool maggie barry-13

School the Old School Way

Kara & Hannah
Kara and me at our first Montessori preschool. Probably 1983 ~ three years into our friendship!

I dug up this picture from my own Montessori days and I absolutely love everything about it. That’s me washing out the bucket, so focused. And right next to me? Well, that’s Kara. She’s probably waiting for me to finish up washing or maybe she’s ‘helping’ me.  Who knows. I love this picture because Kara and I grew up to be the best of friends, she was the maid of honor in my wedding and we itneract like sisters, touching base about the little and big things that happen in our lives. 

I doubt we’ll still be in this community when our girls are grown, but that doesn’t mean that Maggie isn’t making friends at preschool that will last her a lifetime.

I also doubt that Maggie has found the diswashing station at her school yet, because when she does, she’ll have focus just like her mama did!

(And for those of you wondering where Maggie gets her curls, apparently my hair wasn’t nearly as curly as I thought. Neither was this guy’s:)

barry