Feeling Thankful

I can't remember the last time that I expressed my thanks on this blog for being able to stay home with Anna and Kate. It's an amazing gift to be able to be a part of their lives every day, all day. Matt and I are both thankful that our lives have taken this path.

In the past few weeks we've finally made the successful transition to being inside most of the time. I rediscovered the art of rotating toys and both girls rediscovered the art of playing with inside toys for extended periods of time. Anna and I have been doing different crafty projects together and we've also been making the most of our different activities. For example, we are now in a weekly check-out routine at the library. Each week at story time, I return last weeks books and find another stack.


We're also taking advantage of some of the McFarland School's early learning opportunities. Not only do they offer weekly playgroups at the elementary school, but they also offer Destination Discovery on Fridays during the schoolyear. Last week was our first one ... Off To The Zoo. The kids play, listen to some stories, sing some songs, and do a craft. We extended the zoo theme by visiting the zoo in the afternoon. Late afternoon in fall is a great time to go! It wasn't too cold and we were practically the only ones at the zoo. The animals all seemed very pleased to have some visitors :)

The day before Thanksgiving this week, we drove over to Milwaukee to see Gretchen, Josh, and baby Alex. We had a nice time, but Josh and Anna needed a lot of direction in how to play together ...


And finally, we stayed home for Thanksgiving this year. Matt has been working a lot lately and so it was a much enjoyed blessing for us to have the entire day with him. We went to church in the morning (where Anna got to help Pastor out during the children's message; our pastor has such a special place in Anna's life right now) and then spent the afternoon preparing our Thanksgiving dinner. No turkey for us this year, but stuffed pork loin, sweet potatoes, twice baked potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberries, and pumpkin cake ... yum!

Kate sings Amazing Grace

Here's a video of Kate singing Amazing Grace :)



Do you notice her bangs? Life with this kid has been a LOT easier in past 24 hours since she got her hair cut. No dealing with barretts being pulled out ... no snot in the hair ...

Daddy's Day Off

Last week Matt got Veteran's Day off, so we decided to make it a special day. We went as a family to the Madison Children's Museum in the morning since Anna had been wanting to bring Matt along ever since it opened.


The girls had a blast, but lost their energy pretty fast; they still can't handle much more than an hour or two at a place as stimulating as the children's museum.


After lunch at the cafe there, we drove to Milwaukee to visit with Miriam, Chris, and the boys. Before Mark got home from school (it's so hard to believe he's in 1st grade now!), Matt, Nate, Anna, and Kate "played guns" outside.


I think that it's a good thing we have only daughters, but plenty of nephews. Whenever we see any of the nephews, Matt inevitably turns something into a gun within about 5 minutes of our arrival and plays with the boys until they are all called inside for dinner :)


Anyway, it was a nice day spent with family.

Random side story ... here's what happens after the girls and I get new books from the library. They plop themselves down just inside the back door and look through all of the books. We often don't make it any farther than the floor before we read a few that they've chosen. I love how much our girls love books, libraries, and story time!

Sing, sing a song

We hear a lot of singing in our house right now. Maybe this story will give you an idea of how much Anna likes music.

Yesterday we brought home the CD from church that has music for the kids' Christmas program. Now that Anna is 3, she'll be participating in our church's Christmas "pageant". It's not a huge production, but the kids get to act out the Christmas story and sing a bunch of Christmas songs during church one morning. Anyway, I explained the basic concept to Anna yesterday and after listening to the CD last night and on the way to the grocery store, she was humming "Go, Tell It on the Mountain" the whole time we were in the store. She didn't want Matt or I to talk when she was listening because then she couldn't "hear the music!" I set the (my) limit at listening to the CD twice through before we switch to another one in the car. When we got home Anna wanted to know the words to the song, so we sang "Go, Tell It on the Mountain" all during lunch. When we called Matt to say hi after lunch, Anna sang him the refrain by herself. Not bad considering that she hadn't heard the song before about 5 o'clock yesterday. Also, we have to tell her that she's not allowed to make up her own words to these songs; she keeps asking to do just that.

We also hear a lot of Kindermusik music. Not only does Anna do most of the class by herself this year, but we also have assignments each week! Actually, it's kind of fun. We've made boxes with different things on each side that we sing about and we've also made shakers. My favorite project so far has been the rain hat that we got to design, make, and decorate. Fun stuff.

Kate is also a singer, or at least she tries her best. Several months ago she started singing our family's "Daddy, Come Home" song. (If you're wondering what this is, ask Anna or Kate to sing it for you sometime.) Then she was trying to sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Ring Around the Rosie". Last week I was singing Amazing Grace to her during her diaper change (to try to keep her from wiggling!) and she started singing right along with me. She can also sing Jesus Loves Me and a few other songs she hears a lot. Mostly her singing is saying the words that she knows and filling in some sounds in the other spaces, but we can usually recognize what she's trying to say/sing. She's a pretty amazing kid.

Besides the singing, we've be dealing a lot with the fall transition. Last week I got into an organziging mood since most of our outdoor chores are done and I cleaned out our storage room. I was also in a throwing out mood and got rid of a bunch of stuff ... it felt good :) My next task is the girls' closets; the space needs to be better utilized.

We're also soaking up whatever sunny, "warm" daylight hours we can manage. Last week we did a couple of quick walks after dinner since we knew that those things would be impossible after the time change over the weekend. We also visited a park as a family yesterday afternoon since we won't have the opportunity to do that for awhile either. The girls and I did another hike at the state park, too, last week. Anna really loves those now. We stop a lot and eat some of the snacks that Anna has packed for us, and we all enjoy the fresh air. Last Friday afternoon we also explored the field behind our house. The farmer harvested the soybeans a while back and it's been fun to just tromp around out there and see what we can find.

We've got a couple of nice days predicted this week. Hopefully we'll get the chance to make the most of them. We're painfully aware right now that any day we have above 60 degrees might be our last one for months!

Halloween and other stories

I think the time around Halloween will just end up getting busier and busier as the years go by. Maybe this year there were more activities because Halloween was on a Sunday, but according to friends who have older children, there are just more opportunities for candy as the kids grow. We will probably need to pick and choose what our family attends in the future.

Anyway, we participated in a Trunk or Treat event at our church on Friday and then witnessed (purely by accident) the McFarland costume parade on Saturday afternoon, all before the actual trick-or-treating and potluck dinner at a neighbor's on Sunday. All were fun, but mostly because of the people we were with, not necessarily the events themselves. Kate's the ladybug and Anna is the butterfly in the picture below; the rest are neighbors.


About a week ago, the weather changed. Actually, we had a two day wind storm and then it's been pretty cool since then. For us, this means that our outdoor time is now mainly the time between naps and dinner; the mornings are simply too cold for much outside playing. Thus begins the long season of indoor activities in the Mischnick household. Right now it's all still pretty exciting since we've spent the last 6 months or so without most of the indoor toys, but I'm sure by February we'll be ready for spring :) This morning the piano was the toy of choice.


I realized last week that I haven't included many silly stories in this blog lately, so here's a few that may show how goofy our girls can be.

Anna was very interested in the wind storm last week; she especially enjoyed running around outside and pretending to be blown over. Of course, after the storm was over we had to explain that it's not really a "wind storm" every time the wind blows.

In preparation for the Trunk or Treat last week, we were blowing up some latex gloves (we didn't have any balloons at the time) to put into garbage bags and use as the heads of ghosts to decorate our ghost-themed truck. Long introduction, I know. Anyway, Anna thought the blown-up gloves were great, so I drew a face on one, we named it Galloon (glove + balloon), and she has been taking care of Galloon for four days now. Taking "care of" Galloon means putting him to sleep, feeding him, taking him around, etc. Galloon hasn't quite gotten the same treatment as Anna's baby, but it's pretty close.

I thought this might be the year we would have to explain the difference between ghosts and the Holy Ghost, but I think we dodged that bullet.

Anna has gotten into "knock, knock" jokes recently, although she tells the same three or four over and over and over again.

We've started a chore chart with Anna to, hopefully, get her motivated to help out around the house a little more. She can earn stickers for each task she does and one of the tasks is to help unload the dishwasher. One morning last week she was teaching Kate how to properly put away the dishes. It took them more than a half hour, but was very, very sweet to watch :)

Kate gives the best hugs right now. She puts her arms around your neck, squeezes, and says "hug" or simply "mmmm". Very cool.

When Kate is really hungry, she will climb into her chair and say "Dinner? Right here!" and point in front of her :)

Kate somehow got trapped in one of our kitchen stools the other day. We're not quite sure how it happened, but when we found her, the stool was lying on the ground and she was in the middle of all four legs. She must be going through a clumsy phase ... again!

Kate woke up from her nap before Anna yesterday and said "Anna? Anna sweeping? Anna? Wake up!" I think Kate likes being entertained by Anna :)

I can only imagine what the next week will bring!