Thanks, Grandma!

Open House at The Classical Studies Center

Valentines Day

On the evening of Valentines we played a little scavenger hunt with clues to lead the kiddos to some small gifts.

Even Nate had to solve a clue to find his gifts--see if you can figure it out:

"Your gift is both high and low--

It's somewhere you're afraid to go."

Momma's gift was all set up and ready for a tea party out on the back patio.

Sunday Morning

Jacob dresses himself on Sunday mornings, and I am constantly amazed at how old he looks when he's done! He loves this jacket, and this past Sunday morning asked for help to put on a tie so that he could look just like Daddy.

Bethany was proud of her dress too--especially getting to wear pretty shoes (not snow boots).

Ballet Clinic

Last Friday, I hosted a little ballet clinic at the Fairyland Elementary School gym. Girls ages 3-7 participated. We used the "Kingdom Dance" from Tangled for our main music and had a lot of fun jumping and clapping and dancing to the music. We also made flower crowns and feet position charts.

My niece Jorja came up from Alabama to participate. It was so cool to get to have her in my class!

Thank you to everyone who participated! We had a great time!

The Pacifier

So last Saturday (January 29) was D-day, get rid of the pacifier day. We talked a lot about our romantic method of separating girl from pacifier before the day. We were going to let it go with balloons. We spent all day getting said little girl very tired--we went swimming at the Y, out to lunch, to Sams, and to BiLo. We came home from BiLo with three lovely helium balloons. We readied a prepared, celebratory cake and then attached the pacifier to the balloons and went outside to do the deed.

Bethany seemed remarkably unaffected by the whole affair.

She released the balloons with very little emotion.

And we all oohed and ahed as they floated away...

And immediately got stuck in a tree!

What a way to end a moment! Nate had to pop the balloons with a little fancy gun-work, but the pacifier will hang there as long as the tree shall live.

We went inside for the cake and celebrated Bethany being such a big girl. The first two nights Bethany did great! Then a certain boy found an old infant paci hidden in a drawer and gave it to her. The momma had to take it away and that caused a lot more consternation than the original balloon ordeal! The next two nights were a little harder, but I'm happy to announce that everyone (to my knowledge) slept well last night.

Oh, and by the way, when Bethany tells the story, she usually says something like, "Balloons popped and I'm a big girl and daddy had a gun and my pacifier is in the tree for the baby birds." I hope I'm always there to interpret!

New Family Pics

Thanks to Mom's Christmas present, I now have a tripod. It has already been put to good use for pics on Of Such is the Kingdom, but here you see some tripod family pics...

These were taken this past Sunday morning with a few stolen minutes between getting ready and heading off to church.