Sofia's first bank account

Sofia's school has a program with a bank in the center of town for kids to open up passbook savings accounts.  They sent the paperwork home a while ago and we went back and forth about whether or not do have Sofia participate in the program.  In the end we decided it would be good for her to learn about saving money and she would also be doing math without even realizing it.  We completed the form and sent it in to the school with Sofia's $6 that she had already saved.  On the first Tuesday of the month the passbooks and deposits get collected at school and brought to the bank.  They get brought back to the school on Thursday and the children can take them home.  Today was the first month the Sofia participated in the program and came home today with her very first passbook savings book.  It is so cute and she is very excited about it.  We will have to work with her every month to make sure she completes the deposits slips correctly.  It may be about the right time to start a chores list that she can earn an allowance for so that she can add money regularly to her account.

Mikuláš

Every year on December 5th Mikuláš comes with the Angel and Devil to visit Czech children.  The last two years the girls have taken part in this tradition and I did not want it to end.  I want them to keep their memories of the Czech Republic alive in them.  So on December 5th when the kids went to bed I set about making my first batch of roholicky from scratch.  I had the recipe from Mrs. Pekarkova, our landlord when we first moved to Prague, and decided to see if I could do it.  I'm quite happy with my first attempt!  Anyway, I wrapped the Czech cookies up and put them in decorative bags and left them next to the kids beds for them to find in the morning.  Of course the kids didn't even notice them so before they left for school I have a brilliant acting job....."on my gosh! What day is it?" Did Mikuláš come?  I don't know if he did or even if he comes to kids who live outside Czech but maybe he comes to kids no matter where they are as long as they lived in Czech at one time.  Where has he left things before because I don't know since Iva was with you when he came in Prague?"  .... and the kids were off with ..."on the window sill!!"  I started up the stairs after them and saw Ali run into her room and straight for the window when she saw the gift out of the corner of her eye.  They both bee-lined for their gift bags.  They were so excited.  Sofia yelled, "I can't believe he came!!"  It was well worth making the cookies the night before to see them so happy!

Santa

On Sunday we brought the kids to see Santa.  He is pretty magical and was available in a couple places nearby over the weekend.  After having the kids up late on Friday night and Saturday night we thought anything was crowds was out.  Fortunately, Harvey's Farm was one of the places that Santa was going to be making a stop.  We figured it would not be very busy there and it wasn't.  We walked in and there was Santa sitting in his sleigh.  The girls walked up to him and Sofia climbed up on the sleigh first.  She didn't have a completely amazed look in her eye but you could tell she was nervous since when Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas she froze and couldn't think of anything.  We gave her a couple ideas and she was able to add a couple things herself but overall her list at home is much longer than what she told Santa.  Ali cracked me up because before we left to see Santa she told me she was going to look her best...nice clothing, necklace, scarf, her hair brushed and down with a gigantic flower in it.  It was very cute.  When it was her turn to go into Santa's sleigh she was amazed.  She just kept staring at him in utter amazement.  She did come up with a few things that she wanted for Christmas but mainly she just looked at Santa with amazement.

Christmas Tree

 We went and got our Christmas Tree this past weekend.  I looked up places we could go to cut our own tree and found one about a ten minute drive away from us.  Not only was it close to us but it had any tree for $45 which seemed like a good deal compared with other places I had checked which had trees starting at $60.  I was excited to pick a big tree this year since in the past four years we have had fairly small trees.  This year we got an 8 1/2 foot tree.  Once we had it home we realized we could not get it through the sliding glass door even with the wrapping on it.  Fortunately the windows on the sun room are quite large and we brought it into the house that way.  We got the tree into the stand and took the wrapping off the tree and Jason put the lights on the tree.  We gathered up all the ornaments and started decorating the tree later in the afternoon when the tree had settled.  We have a LOT of ornaments.  Between all the ornaments we had stored in my parent's basement and all the ornaments we bought in Prague and at Christmas Markets in Europe as well as all of Jason's childhood ornaments we filled our tree. 

We ended up not putting a lot of the basic balls on that we had originally bought in Prague as filler (since we hadn't brought any ornaments with us) because there just wasn't any space left.

Happy Birthday Dad and Joe!!

Last week was my Dad's and my brother's birthdays.  This is the first birthday since 2005 that I have been able to celebrate their birthdays with them.  I picked up cards for both of them and made a custard pie for my dad since it is his favorite and once the kids were home from school on Friday we drove down to my parent's house.  The kids were so excited to wish them happy birthday and to play with their cousin, Michael.  It was an added bonus for us that my Aunt Carlene and Uncle Harry were there since I did not expect them.  The kids were excited to see them as well especially when they came in with all the Christmas presents to leave at my parents.  Ali wanted to open hers right then but I told her they had to stay there until Christmas Eve so now she is counting down the days!  Anyway, the kids had a blast playing together and they get along so well that as parents we don't have to worry about anything and can sit is chat.  We sat down for a Chinese food dinner followed by ice cream cake and then the kids were off and running again.  My Dad had put out the deer food so the kids spent sometime staring out the window watching the deer come into the yard to eat but otherwise they just ran around nonstop.  It was so nice to just be able to drive down for dinner and cake and spend time with my family that we ended up staying later than I had planned and didn't get home until close to ten o'clock.

Swimming/ New friends

The girls swimming is going well.  We realized that Ali's friend, Chloe, (from her bus) is in Sofia's group for swimming.  Now they all have a great time together before Sofia and Chloe start their practice.  I also met Chloe's mom, Erika, who is really nice.  I feel like we have a lot in common since she actually grew up in Berlin and her parents are German and French.  It makes me feel right at home to hang out with her.  I met her husband at swimming last week and he is also very nice.  They currently live down the road from us but will soon be moving across town.  We had them over for dinner on Saturday and you never know how it is going to go...will it be easy and fun or will it be awkward.  Well, I'm happy to say that we had a great time!  They are definitely a family that we will be spending more time with.  The kids get along fabulously and played until 11:15pm when they went home without a fight or any fuss happening.  It was a great night.

Thanksgiving

After getting the yard in order we were ready to head into Thanksgiving week.  The kids had a half day of school on Wednesday so we had planned to drive up to Maine after school.  I, fortunately, was organized and had almost everything packed for the girls and myself by Tuesday afternoon.  I did not want to feel rushed on Wednesday.  I'm glad I did that because when I got the girls to swim practice I got the call from Jason...."Matt says there is a big storm coming and it should hit Maine about 2am."  So as soon as the girls were done with swimming we went home and finished packing and loaded the car and headed for Maine.  We got there just ahead of the storm with about thirty minutes to spare before it started at 11:30pm.  I'm glad we left Tuesday night because it snowed most of the next day and accumulated over a foot of snow.  Jason's brother arrived about 2am so had to drive in some of it but at least most of his drive was not in a foot of snow.  We all relaxed on Wednesday and did not do much of anything except that the kids played together and Ali got her hand closed in a door. 

Thursday we went outside with the kids to enjoy the snow.  I'm glad I packed all the snow gear because we all had a blast in the snow.  We all wore our orange so as not to be shot by any crazy hunters and headed out into the woods where we had a great snowball fight.  Of course it ended how all snowball fights end...with a child inadvertently getting hit in the face by a snowball meant to go from one adult to another.  Oh well, a few tears and Sofia was ready to move on.  She was a trooper. 



We had a great Thanksgiving feast with all the trimmings and then we all relaxed again.

By Friday the swelling and pain had not gone down on one of Ali's fingers so I took her off to the emergency room.  Fortunately for us the emergency room was not busy at 8:30am the day after Thanksgiving so we got in fairly quickly.  They took x-rays of her hand and said it was fine.  If there was a hairline fracture it would not show on the x-ray yet though so the doctor just said to keep an eye on it and let the pain be her guide as to what she can do.  This was good advice for me since Ali had been doing non-stop hand stands and I would have told her to stop doing them but the doctor said if she can deal with the pain of doing them then she should be fine.  I'm not sure he knows my children though since Ali continued to do the handstands and after a while of them she would come ask for ice to put on her finger.  Maybe she is a natural gymnast....continuing on through the pain!  Anyway, after getting the all clear from the doctor we headed back to the house to meet up with everyone in order to head into North Conway to do some shopping.  We weren't planning on doing any major shopping as in years past as we have pretty much already finished our Christmas shopping but it is always fun to take a look in some shops.  While we weren't doing major shopping we did purchase a major item...new skis for me!  Since our skis were stolen lost Jason and I have been looking at skis.  I finally decided which ones I wanted and one of the shops in North Conway had them at a good price so we bought them.  We enjoyed lunch together at one of the restaurants in town and then continued our shopping. 

On the way back to the house we stopped at Walmart to pick up a game for us to play at night.  We decided on Apples to Apples.  The game is hilarious and with a few drinks is even funnier.  It took us late into the night and had us laughing a lot.  I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a new game.


Before leaving on Sunday we went and cut greens and made our holiday wreath.  To be honest, Jason's brother Matt and his daughter Keely did all the cutting of greens and the rest of us stood around or played in the snow.  Sofia ended up getting a stick just above the eye so I walked her back to the house and cleaned her up.  She was fine but I'm sure it did hurt.  Jason's mom prepped all the wreath making for us and then the girls and I prepared the pieces of greenery and handed them to Jason to tie onto the wreath.  It was a nice family project and out wreath turned out nice.