2013_12_12 Thursday

Elise was invited to come to school today, even though it's not her typical day to attend, so we jumped on that:

Thank you for making our fruit salad a success! Today was very busy. First we got to work on our chef hats X colored his chef hat before Ms. Tiffany helped him to finish the hat.  We wore then during out cooking lesson. We also worked on the letter M today.  X and X traced their M's and listened to the letter M song.  In music, X sang along to jingle bells and sang us songs he listens to at home. We also learned about picking out something different from a group.  Elise circle everything that was different in each group on her worksheet. X pointed to each item that was different on the worksheet. X and X helped make the salad by pouring and mixing the ingredients together.

David and I went to his company holiday party tonight. It was nice to get out and be with other grown-ups. It was also really nice to see some familiar faces from the NYC office. I was home by 10pm; Dave sure was not (5am!?!)!

I also finished "I Am Malala." What an amazing, strong, young woman. She should have won the Nobel. Truly inspiring (or shaming, maybe?!).

2013_12_10 Tuesday

Gov't was closed due to weather, so I had a day off, more or less. Still working but far less to do that normal.

From Elise's school:

We had a wonderful day today Today we talked about the circus. In Art, we made elephant masks.  X colored his mask very well.  X and X stomped around like circus elephants.  We also made tangrams of animals. X really enjoyed coloring her tangram animals.  We also talked about the letter M today.  X said that man starts with M. X and Elise traced their M's.  We also practiced for the winter pageant. X got on stage with the rest of his friends and had a snowball fight!

2013_12_09 Monday

From Elise's school:

We had a quiet day. We learned about pretending today. In Art, we made stick puppets.  X colored her stick puppet a beautiful shade of red. We practiced saying hello and goodbye in other languages with our puppets.  In Music, we practiced our winter pageant song on stage. X sang loudly with her friends and is ready for her performance. Our letter of the week is M.  X traced his M's in the air while listening to the M song. X and Elise colored all of their M words.  X told us that her name and the word Momma start with the letter M.  We listened to the bonjopur song as well. During Mandarin, we learned about the rabbit in the moon and all of our friends enjoyed the lesson very much. 

2013_12_06 Friday

St. Nicholas came over night!

Jonathan got ein geld beutel, a chocolate Santa, and a Hex bug;
Elise got ein geld beutel, a chocolate Santa, and a purple detangler brush;
Dave got a gift certificate to a movie; and
I got a 2014 dayplanner.

I guess we were all good: no coal or switches for Familie Hardwick!

from Elise's school:

We had a fun day! Today we talked about the story, The Fisherman and his Wife and why its important not to be selfish. X and X listened intently to the story.  In Art, we colored a fish mural. X and X carefully painted their fish mural with watercolors.  We also worked on our letter L's X and Elise traced all of their L's.  We also practiced our winter pageant song. X was a good singer and sang along with his friends.  Today was show and tell. X brought in something cold, a penguin! 

2013_12_03 Tuesday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today we talked about size. We discussed that the small something is, the more of it can fit in to a space. We used, sand, pom poms, and bow tie pasta as examples. X said that more sand can fit into the bowl than pom poms because the pom poms are bigger. X said that less pasta can fit into the bowl than sand because it is bigger. We also used colorful sand to make rockin' snowflakes. X helped to pour the sand onto his snowflakes and X chose every color that she wanted her snowflake to be.  We also talked about letter L words today. X said that leaf and lion starts with L. She then roared like a lion.  During music, we practiced for the winter pageant X sang along with the song. Elise sang along with our 18 wheels song and counted all the wheels on the big rig.  X practiced her cutting skills today in the cutting center.

2013_12_02 Monday

What a welcome I got for my first full time working day at home: a near-revolution in the Ukraine. what joy. I've felt really good all day, though, balancing different requests and taskings. It's good.

From Elise's school:

We had a great day! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Today we talked about Native Americans and dream catchers. We then made our very own dream catchers. X picked out which beads he wanted to go on his dream catcher and X colored hers with crayons. Our letter of the week is L.  X told us that her dogs, L and L both start with the letter L. X colored her letter L words.  During music, we practiced our song for the Winter pageant.  Elise participated in the song and had lots of fun.  We also sang rainbow of colors. X danced with the black scarf and X danced with the green scarf.

2013_12_01 Sunday

What a phenomenal two weeks!!! First, I flew to DC for work, and the highlight was giving a briefing to 1,400 of my closest work friends. I felt like I did a good job, but even just the opportunity and exposure was truly wonderful. I am now working full time, temporarily while a woman is on maternity leave. I really enjoyed spending time with the staff and networking/schmooooozing. I also got to see a bunch of dear friends, including having a ladies' night out. I don't feel like I slept much, but it sure was nice to have a quiet hotel room. Great time, all around!!
Once the week ended, Dave flew up with the kids and picked me up. We spent four excellent days with PopPop and Grandma and that whole family. Then, we drove to Nanna and Grandpa for three days, including Thanksgiving. What a feast! Then, we spent one night at Uncle Steve/Aunt Vicky and family. We got to see Cat play basketball too. Then, we drove back to our old town to visit three great friends (two with kids in Jonathan's grade). I wish we could have stayed longer to see a few more folks, but we just didn't plan very well. Next year we may stay a night to see everybody. Finally, we flew out of Newark very late at night and got home close to midnight (not a wink of shuteye on the flight either). The kids were amazing through 99.9% of the entire trip, and I'm sure much of it was jarring, sleeping somewhere else every other night, etc. But, I really enjoyed all the time we had with such good friends and family.
Today has been all about recovery and getting back into our normal groove. I've done a ton of laundry, groceries, etc. Preparing to be a full time employee going forward.