Christmas fun and singing

Monday was the last day of school till January 5th! (just shoot me now) Danny had speech then I drove him to school. They were having a feast. His teacher was making potato latkes and I made the mistake of asking if she needed any help :)
I spent 3 hours flipping them on griddles! My back hurt so bad, not to mention how much my clothes, hair and skin smelled from the hot oil. I stayed with Danny's class for lunch and then headed home.

Danny's teacher, Ms Suzy, and the accursed griddles:


A bunch of the kids playing Draedel for pennies:

They had a bunch of crafts for the kids too. They made reindeers out of bells and pipe cleaners, snowmen out of marshmallows, and each class made a wreath with their handprints for their teachers.

Of course the boys ended up playing in the dirt :)


Tuesday night was Danny's school christmas presentation. The kids have all been practicing so hard. It was so darn cute!!

The kids waiting their turn to go up:


The PreK kids singing - so cute :) (3 and 4 yr olds)


The two kindergarten classes singing their songs:


We all just loved this song:

Holiday Party and The Symphony

Thursday was a holiday party at Danny's class. Several parents showed up to help and the kids had a great time!!

The kids all decorating their gift bags.


Snack time between projects and as you can see Ms V is right in there with them :)


The dads cutting up graham crackers for the gingerbread house project


The kids making cards and a mess :)


Victoria was on clean up duty


Several parents getting everything set up for the big project


Danny's table hard at work, of course he is sitting with two girls :) :)


This was the big project, I think they ate as much candy as they decorated with :)

Today we headed to see the symphony for a family day concert. These were some of the tickets I won at the Silent Auction.

Getting ready to go the the Jax Symphony Youth Orchestra's Sounds of the Season concert. Danny is not in the pic because he had a major meltdown :(


I tried to get a good picture of them both, but this is the best I could do.

They had a bunch of the instruments in the lobby so the kids could see them, touch them and play them!


How cute is this?


Both kids thought the harp was so cool


Playing on the stairs till it was time to sit


Danny took this picture of us


The youth orchestra warming up


They were just fascinated!!






The concert lasted about 1 hour, just long enough to hear great music, but not too long that all the kiddos would get stir crazy. I had brought goldfish for them to snack on so they were very happy. The concert ended on a sing along and Ms V was singing her little heart out - not that she knew any of the words and Danny mumbled his way through :)

Princess Portia the Storyteller

When I picked Danny up from school today we headed to the library to kill some time.
(since Victoria was home napping) While there I saw a sign that said Princess Portia the storyteller/magician was going to be there!! So we killed time with Danny playing computer games and me reading.

Here is Princess Portia waiting for all the kids to settle down so she could start:
(sorry the pics are blurry - I was using my cell phone)


She told this really great story where all the kids got to make noises and they all had so much fun. She then told a story of a little girl that always dreamed of being a princess. The little girl woke up in a magic land with a magic wand and dressed up as a princess! Portia called up Danny to help her with a magic spell. She asked him to hold her magic wand and as she walked away he was holding one piece and she had another! Portia walked over to Danny and told him to hold it and as he held it she walked away and another one came out. She did this several times, till Danny had magic wands in his hands, his armpits, his neck and she still held one!! The kids were almost hysterical laughing! And Danny was just amazed! It was so cool to see them all fall for it :) Here is a blurry shot of Danny with all the magic wands:


The princess story continued with the Princess collecting shiny rocks and using her magic wand to change them into candy. So Portia had a little girl named Sarah come up to help her and Danny turn some shiny rocks into candy. Danny held the bucket and little Sarah waved the magic wand and all the kids said the magic words. The first time nothing happened and the second time when she lifted the cover this is what was there:

Danny did not even realize it was a real bird! The kids were all so focused on candy that they took a couple of beats before they realized it was a bird!! Luckily Danny did not drop the bucket! I was so impressed by how well he did!
The next wave of the magic wand turned the bird into candy canes!!
The story continued with a great piece about Rudolph and his shiny nose. She turned a small Rudolph flag into a bunny rabbit and it totally brought the house down!!!!
It was so much fun and Danny was so impressed by the whole thing!

When we got home Dan and Victoria were hanging out on the front porch just chillin.
Dan told us that when he went upstairs to get Victoria up from her nap she was laying there completely naked! Her diaper and underwear thrown over the side of her bed. She was flat on her back, on top of her covers, spread eagle and sound asleep!! She woke up when she heard him laughing :)
Potty training is going so well! She even wakes up dry in the morning most of the time!! We bought some new Dora and Princess panties and she loves them!

This am we all went with Danny to school and walked the track together. Danny and his little friend Kristen walk together most mornings and today they had Victoria between them! All the kids thought it was so cool that Danny's mom and dad were walking with them :) Victoria walked 6 laps with them, which is almost a mile!!

Tomorrow we are all heading to Danny's school for a classroom party. We are going to make graham cracker gingerbread houses. It should be so much fun :)

Tiger Belt :) And lesson learned

Yesterday Danny tested for his Tiger Belt. He was the only one from his class there and there were probably 20 kids getting tested all at the same time:

I had just mentioned to Dan that I was so happy he was able to do this with all the kids around when he melted down. Too many kids, no one he knew and they were doing things that he had not done before. He just could not get it together so they brought him out to us. Dan had to do a walkabout to catch his breath. I just kept trying to calm Danny down and tell him that he could do it. Victoria patted him on the back and told him it was ok :)
Master Nathan came over to us and said that Danny could go in with the makeup class next which was a very small group and all white belts like him. I told him we would not leave him and went into the room with him.

Here is Danny breaking a board (with a little help from Master Nathan) and then doing a double kick:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here are the kids being told they passed their test!!


Master Nathan was so nice to Danny. After they finished the test and we were getting our shoes on he came over and told Danny that he was very proud of him for getting in there and doing it. He said sometimes we get scared and it is very hard to do new things, but it was so cool of him to get in there and face his fears and do it!
Danny was so proud of himself, it was so amazing to see him face his fear and do it.

Here is the wood that Danny broke, he wants to bring it to school tomorrow :)


We had lunch at the restaurant next door and had this done for Danny while we ate:


We got a call last night that the kids won the Publix kids cookie give away!! What a great way to celebrate Danny's victory! (Each time I go to the store the kids get a free cookie and their card gets a stamp. Once the card is full they get entered into the months give away) They said to come in today to pick it up.
Here is the sign at the store announcing Victoria and Danny as the winners for the month!!


This is what the kids won!! They are going crazy waiting for dessert tonight. If you look closely at the pic you will Ms V's finger zeroing in on the frosting :)


They thouroughly enjoyed the cookie:

Wordless Wednesday

Farm, Ranch and a Sad Goodbye!

This is how we found Victoria Friday morning, red or white with bagels???

We headed over to the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine to spend the day Friday.

Really cool albino alligator


Big one walking right towards us :)


Victoria liked the birds much better than the gators. She kept dragging poor Grammy to see the same birds over and over.


Family photo with an extra kid :)


Komodo Dragon


One of the large alligator pens, Danny liked feeding them.


These two turtles were being "friendly" :) We told Danny they were just going for a ride :)


Trying to get the gator to jump up for a rat, but he would have nothing to do with it :) The kids thought this was so cool!


Down the hatch goes the big fat rat


This poor gator had two turtles sitting on him


Grampy Hold Me!


Having fun with grampy at the Kidzone

On our ride home from the Alligator Farm this happened:

Luckily Dan was driving when a car coming towards us lost its front tire and it came careening down the road right at us! Dan almost had to drive completely into the ditch and the tire slammed into the sliding door right next to me. We got her information and headed home thankful that it was not any worse.
Turns out her insurance was lapsed :( but luckily Dan bought some stuff at the auto store that took out 98% of it!!

On Saturday we ventured over to a ranch fundraiser. It was listed in the paper as a holiday celebration. When we got there we found out the ranch is specifically for aged/mistreated equines. They save/rescue them and take care of them. Both kids were all about the horses big time. We also had bbq for lunch, just something about a burger cooked on a grill :) The entry fee was only $5 per carload and anything spent there went 100% to the care of the horses.


Mommy - there are horses here!!!


Just so precious!!


My favorite picture of all of us taken at the horse ranch :)


Danny was loving on the horses! It is so amazing to see how his confidence is building from school that allows him to enjoy things like this.

We had been going to go to the zoo, but decided to do the ranch instead and we are so glad. We found out on Sunday that the zoo had a lockdown on Saturday because two animals got out!!

Sunday was a sit around and relax day. Dan and Danny took Grammy and Grampy to the airport and Danny was very sad. they got to the airport 1 1/2 hours before their flight only to find it was delayed 2 hours :(