97 months

Christmas morning we were awakened by the pitter pattering of feet into our room telling us that something crazy had happened. After they told us and we asked them how they got out they said "we just went under"! Oh that Santa didn't put it far enough down to keep them in! The did want to bust through the paper and did that before they tore open their gifts! J was excited about her new Lego sets, this kid can't have enough Legos and got to building them as soon as all of the presents were opened. She was also super excited for her new blue dress Aurora puzzle, 750 pieces that she says she is going to do all by herself! We stayed in our jammies until almost 2pm eating, cooking, figuring out toys (that was daddy's job), playing with the toys and games, and talking/opening more present with family via Facetime. Our house look like it exploded and these kids got way more than they needed! G&G came over in the afternoon to hang out and have dinner. J was very much into the flying owls and teaching them to fly, she would get upset when they ran out of battery and she had to go and charge them for a while. By the end of the night she finally got them somewhat flying, maybe once the tree comes down and they can fly on that side they won't crash as much! It was another nice day, next year I'm going to get us all matching jammies so we can stay in them ALL day!

The week after Christmas we spent quite a bit of time with our friends. We went to Mote and of course J couldn't wait to show everyone the otters, they all enjoyed watching they play and seeing them be fed/trained. Last time we were there they were cleaning the turtle rehabilitation area, this time there were five turtles ad we learned about the different ones and why they were there, some had come from as far as New England and had gotten frost bite.We had pizza dinner one night and the kids had a sleepover with two of the three kids. The year and decade ended with a quiet but fun New Year's Eve at home with friends. The girls got dressed in their new fancy Frozen dresses, we ate some good food, played some family games with the kids and surprisingly the kids stayed up until midnight to watch the ball drop! I had promised them they could bang pots and pans at midnight if they stayed up and had to make good on my promise, I'm sure the neighbors loved me!

New Years Day we de-Christmased the house and daddy was back to work on the second. The girls and I spent the afternoon riding bikes and playing between the two parks we can ride too, it was nice to get some fresh air, it was really the first down day all break that we had with nothing to do or make! We took a day trip to Orlando to check out the Crayola Experience there, we had bought an annual pass for not much more money this summer when we were in Dallas and J kept bugging me to take them so we went. If you've been once you've seen enough, after an hour or so we were bored, went and cashed in our tokens for personalized crayons and went on our way. We had some lunch and then spent the rest of the time in the American Girl Doll store which was more up their alley. We got brushes for their dolls so we (as in mommy) can style and fix their hair and they got to see the new doll of the year, and every other doll that they want and keep adding to their list. They did let me and the associate know how small the store was and that they have been to the Dallas and Chicago stores, both of which we learned are the flagship stores! Sometime the first week of the year tooth #7 came out, daddy is becoming the expert tooth puller and I keep telling her that they need to stay in, or fall out by them self if daddy is traveling!

No one was ready for school to start back up after Winter Break and get up in the mornings. The first week back kicked off with reports cards and awards assemblies from the second quarter. J got all 3's, 4's and E's and is still above grade level in reading and math. She enjoys checking out books when they go the library (and driving us crazy still with her out loud reading at night from her room) and has been learning about money and time in math. She is quickly discovering that mostly everything you do in your daily life has some type of math associated with it, even baking Christmas cookies called for doing math! She had a little melt down over the awards ceremony when she came home and burst into tears the first day back to school. When I asked what was wrong, thinking maybe another kid had done/said something to her, she could barely get the words out to tell me that she was only getting one award and not two. She was very disappointed in herself that she was not one of the Top Gators from her class so we had to have a little talk about not always having to be perfect and get the highest achievement for everything. She did get the Leadership Award, an award her teacher got to decide on, so we did some talking about that and what it meant to be picked out by your teacher to be recognized. She was recognized for "Putting First Things First", meaning that she spends her time on the things that are most important and that she doesn't do things she shouldn't, this about sums her up! I could still tell though the morning of the awards she was disappointed she wasn't up on the stage with the other Top Gators, I know she is going to try hard to earn her Gator Baits third quarter, and if she doesn't she will probably be in tears again (it didn't help little sister got two awards).

Soccer started back up this month. The girls are back to playing on the same team, they ended up combining K-2 because there wasn't enough registration, nice for us that we only have to be out there for two hours and not three! They quickly reminded us that they need Dunkin on the way to the fields so we are back in our tradition of a donut and egg wrap to fuel them! Daddy is sitting out coaching this season and getting to enjoy the sidelines and yelling at them from there! While J was on the younger side of her team last season, this season she is one of the oldest and tallest on the field, by the end of the first day she was a leader of her team too earning one of the first sportsmanship medals for her work on the field that day. They didn't win but she gave it her all out there and had some nice dribbles and a shot that was too weak to make it into the net. Going home after the first day she complained about not being on a good team again but said this was going to be her season and that she was going to score! The second game was just like the first, but this time when she took a shot she made her first goal! I don't think she realized what she did at first, from the looks of it it looked like it didn't go in, well it did and then rolled out of the hole in a net! Mom had to watch the replay on my phone a few times to see that she actually did score and show her once the game was over! She was so proud of herself, she had been waiting for this for a while and her time had finally come!

Here are the pictures from the month and Christmas.