Decorating our tree

We finally got around to decorating our Christmas tree this past weekend. The tree had been up and sitting unadorned in the front living room for a week before we set aside time to decorate it - so sad.

Amelia, John and I had a great time putting the ornaments on our tree. I had forgotten how much I love seeing all of the cute, crafty ornaments the kids made in preschool each year, and it was neat to see the kids remember each one as they pulled them out of the box.
It was warm this weekend, with temperatures in the low 70s, hence muscle man John's beefy look below. I love watching John integrate his sense of style into the way he dresses, but man I am not a fan of sleeveless shirts on boys. Big boys, little boys, doesn't matter. I just don't like the thuggish and sloppy appearance. But boy, doesn't John look proud of himself below? I like that part! And of course, the lacrosse shorts. John wears those no matter the temperature, so they are a given.

And Amelia wanted to pose for her photo. "Mom, make sure you get one with me smiling AND putting an ornament on the tree". Mission accomplished.

Feeling of accomplishment

It has been a few weeks since my last long run and I needed to fit one in this week to keep on track with my training plan. Problem was that I had a crazy work week last week that included some time-consuming travel, which made it close to impossible for me to take a long run Saturday morning. The solution I came up with as I was feeling loads of work stress last week was to reward myself with a day off in the following week. Between feeling overwhelmed with holiday preparation plans, work obligations, and the neglected long run, I knew I could use 8 hours to knock things off my to-do list and try to restore a feeling of control and peace to my mind.

I completed the long run yesterday, which gave me an unexpected gift of the feeling of accomplishment. I ran 16 miles in about 2:28. I don't know precise times as my goal of buying a cheap stopwatch still hasn't been fulfilled, but this was a good time for me and all went well. Though it was definitely tiring on my body I felt really good throughout the run, both energy-wise and with my attitude. I guess I am still trying to get redemption from the not-so-great race I had in early November. I really think so much of the training is mental for me because when my attitude is good then I tend to do much better.

When "sexy as I know it" came on around mile 14 I couldn't help but laugh and speed up a little. How ridiculous is that song? It always makes me laugh and I love running to it!

The Princeless Princess

The third graders at Amelia and John's elementary school stage a musical each year. This is the first year I have been aware of this large production given that my oldest is just now a third grader, and I have to say that I was amazed by the quality and sophistication of their performance. The kids are assigned parts in the musical as a component of their regular twice-a-week music class, and all of the show rehearsals take place during music class every week. The children were assigned their parts by the music teacher about six weeks ago, and the kids performed the show four times over two days last week - twice one day for their peers at the school and twice another evening for their parents and invited guests.

The cover of the program...presenting "The Princeless Princess"!

Guess who played the princess in the play? Amelia!
More on this later, but for know please understand that there are 144 third graders in the elementary school. And each and every one had at least one part in the musical! Can you even imagine?!? It was crazy and amazing at the same time to see that many children rotate on and off the stage during a 30 minute show! There were ribbon dancers, sword dancers, frogs, various members of the royal court, jesters, etc.. And most of the kids played different percussion instuments to accompany the singing as well. I tell you, it was amazing.

Below are Amelia and two of her friends before one of the evening performances, Isabella the "Fair E. Godmother", and William, Prince #2.

These are the opening rappers who set the stage for the story.

The premise of the play is that it is the princess' birthday and she is expected to select a prince.

First the princess engages the help of a bookseller, who sells her a guide about "How to Find a Prince in Three Easy Steps". The princess must select a few qualities that she thinks would be important for a prince, and settles that he must be "Tall, Dark, and Handsome!"

After examining two princes (including Amelia's good friend William, below), the princess decides that neither lives up the "tall" and "dark" qualities. Although she does exclaim that both are "kinda' cute" with respect to handsome aspect.

The ribbon dancers perform dances to entertain the princess..

...and later the frogs make an appearance so that the princess can kiss a frog with the hopes of capturing the best prince possible.

But in the end nothing works and the princess winds up without a prince. The lesson is that declaring traits that are based on external appearance alone - such as "dark, tall, and handsome" - leads you down the wrong path. It's character that matters when you judge someone - the characteristics that are inside each and every one of us, such as friendliness and honesty.

At the end of the show, the princess declares that she was "looking for the wrong things all along! It's character that matters! From now on, I will remind myself and others that what is important for each person is what is on the inside that counts, not what you see on the outside!"

I have to say that the musical was really well done and I had so much fun watching Amelia and her peers perform for their friends and family. What an amazing experience for all of these 8 and 9 year-old kids to have!

Kid's Day

Last year the Wilsons started a tradition that the Friday after Thanksgiving was designated "Kid's Day", meaning that the children in the family would get to select the activities that we all did together that day. Guess where stop #1 was on Kid's Day 2011?
Samurai! A Japanese restaurant where the food is prepared tableside by a chef trained in Japanese-style cooking. Abby and George had been to Samurai before but my Wilson kids had not. Needless to say, Amelia and John were amazed that this talented chef was preparing the food in front of us, and they were quite impressed with the entertainment of the cooking aspect of our lunch out. Amelia even said, "Wow, this is fun! They have to have Samurai in Dallas! They just have to because it's the best!"

Below are Abby and Amelia enjoyying their meal and entertainment.

And grandmommy with John and George.

All four kids with their Samurai hats after the meal. I love this one!

After a hearty and delicious lunch at Samurai was stop #2 - bowling! Below John is stepping up for his turn. Notice the lacrosse shorts - we couldn't escape them, even while traveling.

Abby and her dad Shawn (Scott's next younger brother) relaxing between turns to bowl. Shawn was the big winner of our bowling tournament, as he earned first place amongst the eight bowlers.

Abby and John below. We had to pinch John in his side to get him to smile for the photo even though he was having a good time that day.

And Amelia and George, giving a big "Thumbs up!" to all the fun that is Kid's Day in Miami.

Our happy Thanksgiving

It is our family's tradition to spend Thanksgiving in Miami with Scott's family. We were very thankful that Amelia and John's cousins, George (8 years old) and Abby (almost 11 years old), were also in Miami for the holiday so that the four Wilson grandkids could spend time together again this year. Most of my Thanksgiving pictures feature all four kids or some combination thereof because they were always together during our time in Florida.

The day before Thanksgiving all four kids enjoyed spending time outside riding scooters and skateboards. Below are George and John enjoying being together.
The kids thought it was especially fun to push each other down the slope of the driveway on the extended skateboard. This skateboard is longer than a normal-sized board, which allows for balancing the body in all sorts of combinations. They tried the skateboard all different ways - sitting on their bottoms, lying on their tummies, with hands to balance, without hands for balance...you name it. Below John is pushing George down the driveway. The kids had a blast, but we are probably pretty lucky that no one fell off and got scraped because it would have been bad.Below is the more serious pose of all four kids after playing outside. I tried to snap as many photos of the foursome during the holiday as I could.

And with lots of laughter from the same position.

The children and I enjoyed spending time making a food-related craft on Thanksgiving day before our big feast. Below John is stealing some candy corn from the supply bowl while Abby dutifully prepares a candy turkey.

A sampling of the finished product! I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it was cute as can be. I definitely don't have creative inclinations naturally, but I thought I might be able to supervise the kids in using icing to adhere different candies and cookies together to make these cute table decorations.Amelia and Abby seemed to enjoy making turkeys with me, and all four kids definitely enjoyed eating them! I was happy with the way they turned out.

Later in the day Amelia and Abby spent some time on the back porch supervising the men while they fried turkeys and smoked a pork shoulder.Scott and his youngest brother Chris are chopping the smoked pork below. One of the Wilson's four dogs is waiting in the wings for any scaps that could potentially fall.

One of the two fried turkeys...one was injected with Cajun spices and the other was naturally fried. Both were delicious.

Mrs. Wilson prepared a fabulous holiday meal as always. The side dishes to the aforementioned meats were amazing: cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese, green beans, collard greens, and Hazel's copycat Red Lobster cheese buscuits (new this year, and completely delicious!). The desserts were equally lovely: Key Lime Pie and Sour Cream Poundcake with fresh berries and whipped cream. I fell into a food coma later that evening for sure, thankful for the lovely day and evening with friends and family.

One last shot of the kids from Thanksgiving. Hope you all enjoyed your holiday as much as we did!

John's obsession

John is absolutely obsessed with his lacrosse shorts.

I know, I know. They are some of the ugliest shorts on the planet. Yes, those are neon green shorts with monkeys and bananas on them. He also has an army man camoflauge pair and a neon orange pair with surfers and palm trees. The shorts go clear past his knees and sag like crazy on his skinny body. But John is a fashion-minded kid these days and he has so proud of himself for having gotten on board with the fashion trend among sporty boys at his elementary school.

Many of the boys wear these shorts, and last year when I observed Amelia's classmates wearing them I swore to myself that I would never let John do the same. What a difference six months and having your kid BEGGING for lacrosse shorts in the middle of the sports store makes. I was swayed because John said he JUST HAD TO HAVE THEM. And now he wears lacrosse shorts each and every day. Tonight I caught him putting the dirty pair from today back in his drawer so that he would have lacrosse shorts ready to wear tomorrow. Geez. And when John sees people he hasn't seen in awhile (for example, his former preschool teacher who came by the house last week), he likes to stand up straight and ask, "Do you notice anything different about me lately?", later answering that the new thing are his cool lacrosse shorts. It's crazy.

Below is some evidence of the collective clothing style of kindergarten boys. John is on the far left with three of his classmates on the school playground. The boys are all wearing lacrosse shorts with under armour shirts. Don't they look like a little posse of boys all dressed up alike like that?
John with a larger group of more of his classmates below. The two young boys added in this photo (wearing jeans and khakis) are proof that some moms stand their ground when it comes to looking respectable for school. I completely failed in this regard.

Clemson!

Last Saturday I got my first lesson in extreme tailgating, Clemson style. Robin and Skippy are major Clemson fans and they have a tradition of tailgating with a group of their close friends for each home football game. I purposefully selected a home football weekend for my visit to South Carolina because I wanted to experience this with them.

The scene: the first three tents in the photo is their group's set up.
We left Greenville just before 7 a.m. for the one hour drive to Clemson. Once we got to town we met up with some of their friends, reshuffled parking passes and tailgating supplies, and drove onto the tailgating field on campus. This photo was taken around 9 a.m. before the field had filled up completely.Skippy's group has an elaborate entertainment system, complete with Direct TV.Watching ESPN Gameday and eating breakfast before the game. Their group includes about 25 adults and five children under age 5, plus other friends who stopped by periodically before or after the game. The space heater came in handy since it was about 40 degrees that morning. It was a beautiful fall day with the sun shining and clear skies. It eventually warmed up to the low-60's that afternoon. A photo of Robin and me tailgating before the game. We are all bundled up because it was still chilly under the tents.The game: this was very exciting! Clemson played Wake Forest. I haven't been to a festive college football game in years and it was so much fun to experience the Clemson atmosphere with Robin. We used to cheer for FSU together when were were in college, so we are two Florida girls who know quite a bit about college football. Below is the band on the field before the game.

"The most exciting 25 seconds in college football" is a Clemson tradition that Robin explained as follows: after the team warms up on the field about 10 minutes remain until kickoff, the players exit one side of the stadium and board busses that transport them around the stadium to the opposite end zone. Below you can see the busses on the street outside the end zone. Then the players run in underneath the sign and touch the rock (some of them kissed the rock). You can see an image of a Clemson player touching the rock on the large TV below. After the players touch the rock they run down the end zone and enter the field, running below the balloons and out towards the band.The band plays the fight song, the fans go crazy, and all the players get out on the field all in 25 seconds.A field of orange and purple surrounded us all day.

The view towards campus from our seats.

The game was a close one for a while. But when Clemson was down 14 points early in the third quarter, we decided to leave and return to the tailgate to watch the rest of the game on television with the group that didn't have game tickets. It was interesting to watch the game from outside the stadium because you could hear the shouts of the fans inside the stadium at the tailgate. With the few seconds delay to the television broadcast, it was exciting to know from the screming fans that something was about to happen and then watch it unfold on the screen. Clemson won the game with a last second field goal. Despite the sloppy playing for a decent portion of the game, the win made the Clemson fans very happy, which made for a fun post-game party.

The food: Robin and Skippy's friends had a great spread of food! The pre-game breakfast included breakfast casseroles, fresh fruit, homemade cheese danish, Chik-Fil-A chicken biscuits, and more.

The post-game meal was a lowcountry boil. Robin and Skippy were in charge of this part, so on Friday Robin and I prepped the meats and vegetables and then Skippy cooked the meal onsite after the game. Below is the set up of two turkey fryers, each filled to the brim with lowcountry boil.

The end result below. Delicious! Boiled shrimp, sausage, chicken, potatoes, and corn, all seasoned with garlic, lemon, and Old Bay. Yum.

What a fun day! Thank you Robin and Skippy for welcoming me so warmly into your Clemson family! I had a great time.