Through November, early December

So it's now December so I'll back up a bit and try to remember everything...

Avi did karate. She did well and it was mostly about safety and listening skills - they called the program "safe side kids" so parents are safe side adults, the instructors were "kinda knows" and strangers are "don't knows". The concept was still a bit over her head but she had fun with the skills they would do like averting someone coming after them or listening for our commands in a noisy crowd - like hearing me say "get on the ground, crawl forward, stand up, turn around, etc". We'll probably try it again in another year.

She's now doing dance class at school once a week and like that a lot. She has a recital for the Holiday program at her school this week which should be interesting. She's also doing swim lessons - she has made such progress and is now starting to do strokes with a kick to get where she wants to go and does really well with her floating. She'll do swimming through the winter and will be a great swimmer by the summer so I can focus on Z when we go to the pool.

We started Avi at school an extra day last week. She now goes M-Th. It'll be good for her since she'll still be 4 when she starts kindergarten next year. It helps her to have another day of structure and since all of her friends on our street are already in school she has someone to play with besides me and Z. It also gives me some 1:1 time with Zach now that he loves to play and is so mobile.

I'm signing Zach up for tumbling to start in January on Mondays when Avi is at school. It'll be nice to have him do tumbling since he's a boy and Avi loved it so much.

I had to work on Thanksgiving but got out early enough to rest a bit and then get ready to head to Susie and Bruce's for dinner. Leslie picked Avi up at noon so she could play with Aubrie before Aubrie had to head to Cory's for the night. We had a great dinner and were home around 8. We spent Friday putting up our Christmas decorations. Avi has rearranged our tree ornaments multiple times but it keeps her busy and makes her feel like a big girl so we let her.

I took Avi to Disney on Ice last weekend as a surprise. She had a blast...loved every minute of it. It started with Mickey and Minnie then Cars, then Little Mermaid and Lion King and after the break it was Tinkerbell. It was a great day out.

This weekend we had Z's birthday party. It was a fun party and thoroughly enjoyed his cupcake plus another piece of cake since most of his cupcake ended up on him. :) His face was a mess but he was so adorable. We cannot believe he's one already! This year has gone by so quickly it's amazing. He's using his signs for milk and more consistently. He'll also walk to his chair with his booster seat when we ask him where his chair is and he'll walk to the fridge if we ask him where his milk is. He's now blowing kisses when he goes off to bed which is too cute! If he picks up a brush he'll brush his own hair or pretend to. He also puts his hand up to his ear when B or I are talking on the phone. It's amazing to me how much more he's doing now at 12 months vs last month. It's a great reminder of how fast they pick things up.

We went to see Santa today. Zach sat really well on his lap and Brandon got a great picture of him looking up at Santa - it was too cute. Avi told him she wanted "Spike the dinosaur" which is this huge, red, automated dinosaur. We'll see what Santa brings her. We're going to do Christmas next weekend for the kids since we'll be in ME for Christmas Day. I think Santa will bring things for her stocking to Hillary's but we'll do the big presents next weekend.

I'll write more after our trip back east - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!