Surprise for Mom and Dad

If there is one thing about Sara that we know, it's that she does not like crowds. She is not comfortable in groups of unfamiliar people. So when we heard about her Christmas Program for school we were instantly hesitant. Would she sing? Would she even go on stage? Yep, our little girl surprised us! Not only did she walk on stage but she walked out with a smile, waved to us and even sang all the songs! We're very proud of her!!

Our little thespian

After months of practices, learning lines, memorizing 15 songs with hand movements...the day finally came. Last weekend was Sean's Christmas play. He signed up back in October for a play through a local Musical Theater program. This is the first time he has shown interest in any type of theater and he loved it! (Oh' and so did we!!) He was a champ practicing day after day! He had two parts, a town kid and a shepherd. As a town kid (even the name is so cute) he had three lines, the shepherd was all pantomime, and the songs were all as part of the choir.

I could probably talk for hours about how much I loved it! All 5 of us would walk around the house singing all the songs. When you listen to songs daily for almost two months, it's impossible to not get them stuck in your head!!

Singing with the choir

In the spotlight...his lines...

Sign boy. You can see his full costume.

Dressed as a shepherd!

Acting out a song. They were "mad" that they had to wait 365 days for Christmas :-)

**There is another play in Spring.**

Sweetness

Missing this little face this morning.

Balloon Party...in the dark

We are all healthy now and I'm trying to get back to the blog. After a huge delay and three cases of Swine, I have a bit more time and energy!

Sara is loving her preschool. She has made friends and really enjoys art and circle time. Drop off continues to be a bit of a challenge though. Each day, no matter how much reassurance takes place, we get tears. I'm not talking about sweet quietly sliding down your face tears. I'm talking about loud, huge tears that fly horizontally in all directions when we say our morning good bye. Serious tears. On Friday, Iain told Sara if she could go to school without "huge, screaming tears" she could have 5 balloons when she got home. Well that was it! She ran into class all smiles. I picked her up at lunchtime and she was telling everyone about the Balloon Party she was going to have. As the day went on and we waited for Iain to get home from work, she kept talking about her Balloon Party...in the dark...that we were going to be having. She even invited the boys, which was funny since they were obviously going to be there anyway!

For those of you who haven't been to a Collins Balloon Party let me explain a bit. The evening consists of balloons. That's it. Nothing fancy. We blow up a few balloons and the kids run through the house, through the balloons and love it! It will keep them occupied for a solid hour! This time Sara added the in the dark spin to it all. We weren't sure how they would be able to see the balloons. She wanted pitch dark. Luckily for us, Iain found 3 glow sticks packed away in his Indian Guide bag.

10 balloons, 3 glow sticks and 3 crazy kiddos...

(The green blurs are spinning glow sticks. Remember, the room is pitch dark!)

Halloween

Are these not the cutest ever? Iain made them with the kids while I was out one day. They each made their own ghost faces.

With finished pumpkins

Ozzy Osbourne (aka Iain) all ready to rock!

The "Cryptic Rocker"

Here we are!

The next three are later in the night when we were back home. They were all going through their candy in pure delight!

Wig-less Ozzy

Wig-less Rocker

Very happy Supergirl. Yes, she was Supergirl again. She said she's going to wear this costume every year until she was 10. Hmmm...

All lit up. The order is Sara, Sean, Iain.

Game

Back in August, so, so late I know, we took Sean and three friends to an Angels game. Iain and I were laughing that we took on such a task, 6 kids yikes!!! It actually wasn't bad at all! After the game they all came back to sleep over. Here is some of the fun.

Sean with his best friend

They were cracking each other up!

He chose brownie sundaes instead of cake

The next day. He was T.I.R.E.D!!

Just girls

Yesterday Iain and the boys were off being Indian Guides for the day. So Sara and I had a fun day playing at home, just the girls. We played a few games, drew with sidewalk chalk and made Halloween cupcakes. It was nice just spending time at home without having drop off/pick up times!

Rockin' out with Sean's Halloween guitar. Notice the game is the background? Darn Yankees beat us!

When is a Peanut a Piggy?

We've had a very interesting week. Last Saturday Sara came down with what we quickly began to suspect was the Swine Flu. I've never been afraid of it, was definitely not going to give them the shots. Iain and I have always had the attitude that it's a flu and if they get it we'll deal with it. Well, here it was!

Sunday: she fell asleep at 11:00am with her purse and cup.

Monday: not looking much better

She was down Saturday and Sunday with a 103 fever that just would not budge and a cough that was terrible. Monday the fever broke but came back a few hours later. It disappeared again Tuesday but came back Wednesday night. The Dr. had swabbed her Monday so by Wednesday morning we knew she did test positive for H1N1. Thursday rolled around and the fever was still hanging around so we took a trip back to the dr. The fever was lower this time around and the cough was worse, she had Bronchitis. The blessing in this is that we could now go the antibiotics route and hopefully knock it out. The flu part of it did seem to end on Wednesday and the Bronchitis began. After one dose of the meds, the fever was gone and her cough much better. Today is the first day since Saturday (7 days) that she asked for food and ate more than a bite at each meal. She was 32 lbs when this began and now back to her sweet little 30lbs. Yep, that's why we call her Peanut!

Wednesday: Not such a happy camper

Thursday night: her eyes are still a bit sick but her sparkle is coming back

Today: almost back

Love

This silly little girl has been so fun lately. She is so filled with energy, wonder and sassiness! Her newest love is dancing and singing. She walks around the house twirling and singing at the top of her lungs into a microphone. This is also the same little girl who does NOT want to go to a dance class. For now, she'll just dance at home.

These pictures are from one night last week. She sang and danced down the sidewalk for an hour. They are a bit blurry but still too cute! Usually she is shy to do ANYTHING in front of others so this was a huge moment for her.

Matching Outfit

Iain has been getting a bit daring with his playing lately. He is all about skateboarding, going off jumps on his bike and basically anything that makes me cringe to watch. This week has been our most challenging yet though.

On Sunday he was going off jumps with his bike and missed the ramp. He is quite bruised but nothing serious happened. After a check by the Pediatrician she sent us to the hospital for a quick test. Everything turned out okay and he is back to his active little self. Then today I got a call from his school. He apparently was swinging and got caught in one of the chain links. He wasn't hurt but his shirt was ripped open. I had to bring him a new shirt. We of course found this pretty funny, especially since his shorts are all ripped up from the Sunday bike fall. Oh' Iain!!!

He's got a matching outfit now!!

**The shirt is ripped on the sleeve on the right. It's hard to see in the picture but the sleeve is ripped as well as down the side. We keep teasing him that the shorts look like they were in a fight with a tiger.**

Three and a half

** All of my babies at 3 1/2**

Hamboard

About a month ago, Sean was at a Junior Guards function with Nanny and Grandad. They were putting raffle tickets into baskets when the man taking tickets noticed Sean. He offered Sean a free ticket for "not having any front teeth". Sean put his name on it and placed it in the basket in front of the prize he wanted. Well guess what, he won! If you click on the link you'll see how amazing it is. It's a 6 foot 8 inch skate board! The picture just shows the board without trucks and wheels.

The kids have been having a great time playing with it. They actually all fit at the same time! Sara hops on and just kind of cruises while they do all the work!

Monday morning blues...

This morning was a bit rough. Slow moving morning lead to a not so happy preschool drop off. It was so hard to leave Sara there when she wasn't happy about it. She loves her school, talks about it all the time, but I know she hasn't been there long enough to make any deep bonds. Leaving her there without a "comfort person" is difficult. Of course I know that she will make those bonds but sigh...this morning was hard. I actually called an hour after drop off to make sure she shook off her Monday Blues. She did, and was having a great time. Hearing that allowed me to shake off my Monday Blues!! Funny how that works!

Saturday was Sean's first soccer game. It was great to be out there cheering for him, watching him run after the ball. He has a hustle in soccer that we don't often see in Sean. For the most part he likes things but nothing really makes him passionate. This is the closest we've gotten to seeing that in him. It's wonderful to watch!

He's the one on the right in blue. His teammate looks just like him!

My little boys wanting big boy facial hair!

Self taken family picture