I can't believe it's almost January 2013! These past couple months have just flown by. Here are a few highlights of what's been going on around here:
* We celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving at home in South Texas. We cooked a turkey and enjoyed the nice warm weather.
* Annabelle turned 6! I can't believe she is such a big girl now. We celebrated with a Chuck e. Cheese party and we also brought cupcakes for a school celebration.
* School is going well for Annabelle, she is working at 1st grade level in some of the subjects.
* We celebrated Christmas in South Texas this year, no traveling for me. Too pregnant.
* We got a real LIVE Christmas tree! First time ever, so pretty.
* We spent a lot of time decluttering our house. We hope to put it on the market soon & find a bigger place so baby boy can have a bedroom and I don't have to lose my home office.
* Annabelle insists her new brother's name will be "Ian"...her second choice is "Zeke"...crazy kid!
* I've spent a lot of time at the doctor's office...being older
& pregnant involves a lot of office visits, testing & monitoring!
* I'm married to the best mechanic/painter/handyman/electrician/jack of all trades EVER, don't know what we'd do if we had to pay folks to fix all the stuff that "breaks" around here!
* Baby boy continues to grow, scheduled c-section is Jan. 9. So excited to meet him!

Butterfly

Flower

Annabelle wanted me to post some photos of her most recent artwork. I think it's wonderful!

Things I Never Thought I'd Discuss with my 5 year old...

Kindergarten seems a lot more "involved" than I remember it being 35 years ago when I was 5. Annabelle is learning to read, do math equations, work on a Mac computer, write sentences and multiple other things that I don't think I even knew about until I was in second or third grade. But she's also learning a few other life lessons that I had no idea we would be dealing with at age 5.

We've been dealing with a bit of bullying from one girl in her class. At first I blew it off and told her to just stay away from the girl. Every day at school pick up Annabelle would hop in the car and start complaining about this same girl, how she cut in line, pushed her, told her mean things, told on her. I just kept up my usual advice of "stay away from this girl and she will leave you alone". But after over two weeks of constant complaining I decided it was time to take action, so I spoke to A's teacher. She assured me that she had no idea this was going on and she would take care of it. Needless to say, the situation has not gotten any better...actually, it has gotten a bit worse, the teacher decided to move Annabelle to the same table as the "bully" and now she has to sit next to her every day. I'm thinking about enrolling Annabelle in some martial arts classes to help build her self esteem.

Annabelle's teacher also pointed out that she and another little girl in the class are the only "white" kids. Of course Annabelle asked me about this immediately when I picked her up from school that day. She had no idea she was "white" or what race she is. Most Kindergarteners don't see color or difference. Now we've had many, many conversations about how "all people are just people no matter what color they are".

We've also been struggling with appearance. Annabelle insists that the other little girls wear a lot of jewelry to school. We've had many fights about how school is not a place where Kindergarteners need to wear jewelry, actually is there anywhere that a 5 year old needs to wear a lot of jewelry??? She has also been VERY concerned with the appearance of her hair. I was baffled with this one, for years she hasn't cared what her hair looked like, often times she would leave the house with five different color barrettes in her hair or a crazy headband or even unbrushed hair that was standing straight up! Suddenly she is concerned with her hair looking "perfect". As we were getting ready for school one day she was in tears about how "imperfect" her hair was, at this point I finally asked her to tell what was really going on with her hair and she finally told me that the "bully" at school had told her that her hair was messy....uggghhh, will it never end?

And so we just deal with the obstacles day by day...I can't imagine how much worse this is going to get when she's in middle school!

Some of the girls from Annabelle's Ballet Class

Sophie & Annabelle

Rapunzel and Flynn Rider

I'm a little late on posting Halloween photos. Things have been busy around here as they always are this time of year. Annabelle had a busy Halloween. She got to wear her costume to ballet class, school and out to trick or treat with her friend Sophie. Justin is always a great sport and this year he dressed up as Flynn Rider to take the girls out trick or treating. They came home with more candy than they should have and very tired feet.

"Stomp Out Drugs" Day at school, wearing her pink boots

It is "Red Ribbon" week at Annabelle's school. Today is "Stomp Out Drugs" day so the kids got to wear boots. Annabelle was really excited that she got to wear her pink boots to school - she had picked out a pair of polka dotted rain boots to wear and I talked her out of wearing them :)

I wear my sunglasses...

...and today is sunglasses day at school!

Silly Socks Day

Silly Socks!

Today is silly socks day at Annabelle's school. She's wearing a pair of socks that say "Girls Rule". She was VERY excited to wear them to school today.