Christmas 2011

Well before we headed to Ohio, Belle started complaining about her ear. Great, another ear infection. Since Ethan was on ear drops for his ear infection I just gave them to Belle as well, to get through the weekend. Then guess what, I woke up Saturday with an ear infection myself. I was too much a baby to try and make it through Christmas so I went to urgent care. I have much more sympathy for what the kids go through with all their ear infections.

We added a new member to the family this Christmas (not our immediate family). Miss Gemma joined the Hoke family. Could she be any cuter? She is a Goldendoodle. I told Nic I want our next dog to be a "doodle" because I love that she does not shed. Nic refuses to pay that much money for one. We'll see though.

Friday night we had our gift exchange with Brody and Cooper. Look at the face Belle give us now when we ask for a smile. I don't know what she thinks she's doing. =) The kids loved all their gifts and we learned that Cooper LOVES John Deere. If the video works, watch Cooper as he watches Brody open his gift. Immediately following the video he had a meltdown.

Saturday we hung around the house and made food and then later made our way to another family get together. And once again the kids were spoiled with presents before we made our way home for Christmas.

Children's museum and some puke

Before we left for Ohio to celebrate Christmas we ran to the children's museum with the Killingbecks. The kids had a great time.

Then after we ate lunch (and Ethan hardly ate), Ethan started complaining about his stomach. We took him to the bathroom a couple times and nothing helped. Finally he was starting to cry and I made one last trip to the bathroom with him. I could tell the stomach cramps were coming on pretty strong. I know that feeling and it just sucks. So I texted Nic and said we had to leave. We left the bathroom and made our way to the elevator where Ethan promptly puked right in front of the elevator buttons. Moments later the elevator doors opened and everyone was horrified. Ha ha.

I just kept thinking that he was going to have the stomach flu and we'd have to stay home for Christmas. But he puked, felt immensely better and never complained about his stomach again. Whew, some sort of crazy fluke.

Ethan wants to be just like sissy.

The other day Ethan wanted to be just like sissy and do a little handwriting homework. I handed him one of this letter pages and he wasn't having it. He wanted to do the same thing Belle was doing. So I tore out another page from Belle's workbook and put it in front of him. And he did it too. He traced everything that was on the page. He certainly didn't write anything on his own, but I was impressed that he tried to trace it all.

This sort of thing rarely happens, which is why I had to document it when it did. =) School has been hard lately. No one is motivated. Today Belle said she wanted to go to school in a "building". Come to find out she thinks school is just like the preschool she went to. She wants to play all day. If she only knew that she probably gets to play twice as much as those kids in the "building". =)

Sugar Cookies

Nic was a brave soul and made sugar cookies with the kids one night when I was gone. Nic said he'd never do it again, but I'm sure the kids had fun.

Early Christmas with the Freshours

We went to the Freshours last weekend for our Christmas with that side of the family. The kids loved playing with AJ, Savannah and Waren.

Sunday Ethan had awful ear pain. We couldn't settle him down until we put some sweet oil in his ear. Come to find out he's got a big hole in his ear. It's probably been there for a long time since I never took him for a follow up apt with his other ear infection. But to my defense, they did tell me it was optional. =) So now I've got a follow up appt. scheduled. If his ear doesn't heal, then he'll probably need the hole in his ear patched.

The weather hasn't been very Christmas-like. It was pretty warm today. Belle wanted to try out her unicorn helmet, so the kids got a little bike riding in.

The first four pictures were taken with my Nikon and the others were taken with my new camera. Nic and his parents got me a Cannon Powershot. It'll be nice having a little camera when I don't want to lug around the Nikon monster.

Yay Belle!

Belle had her own little achievement this week. She did her first legitimate cartwheel at cheer class!!



I always chuckle when they practice their backwards roll.

Yay Ethan!!

Getting Ethan to sit still for any length of time is a bit like nailing Jello to the wall. But every once in a while he'll surprise me. Today he did a few things before he was off and running again. One of which was writing his name. I went step by step on the white board and he followed below. And it was the first time he ever wrote his name and didn't trace it. Yay Ethan!!

And one night the kids asked me to take their picture and this is what I got.

What's fall without some leaf piles?

We only have one smaller tree in our front yard so we can't make too much of a leaf pile, but the kids had fun. I think it was the next day when they were playing with the neighbor girl and started stealing leaves from another neighbor. Who I'm sure was all too willing to see them go. 

This picture just cracks me up for some reason. They got some decent air on this one.

Thanksgiving

Two pretty girls. I always thought there was a strong resemblance between Savannah and Belle.

Co-op field tirp to the Honey Farm

Our last meeting of the co-op for 2011 was to a honey farm. It was so interesting to see the honey being spun. Everyone had a great time learning about honey and then just spending time hanging out. Belle loved talking about how she liked the light honey better than the dark honey. Which we learned had to do with the bees diet and the season.

Playing Catch Up

Just trying to play catch up a little on the blog.

Camping at Whitewater State Park with the Freshour side.

 

I took these on the last day of co-op for the semester. I just thought they were cute portraits of the kids. The bottom picture is Ethan playing with the older boys. Ethan thought it was so cool that they included him in their game.

Wave your hands like you just don't mind!

I'm way behind in blogging. I've got several things I need to get up here. In the mean time here are some videos for you.

One I took today. Belle has gotten to skip counting with her math. We are in love with our math program (Math U See), but the skip counting has been giving Belle a hard time. Counting by 10s was the only one that came easy. MUS has a song cd that helps with skip counting but man it was a drag. Snore!!! I did a little youtube search and found this super fun song that has really helped Belle with her counting by 5s. It started clicking a little today!! I even found a cool School House Rocks video, although it was a little over her head. Please ignore the boy with his finger in his nose the whole time.



This video was just something I found when I was downloading my videos. It's from August. It's Ethan going through his letter sounds. He knows most of them thanks to Leapfrog Letter Factory. It's pretty cute even though I get kicked and jumped on.