Merry Christmas!

We've had a wonderful Christmas in Missouri!  The whole Koelling family was here--all 13 of us!  It was a full house--full of laughter, games, and family fun.  Hannah and Eli got some great gifts from Santa, and Hannah even heard Santa's reindeer in the night!  At first, Eli thought the presents were great to stand ON and had trouble "getting" that you had to take off the paper to get to what was on the inside, but he eventually got the hang of it.  His favorite present, I think, was Duplos that Santa left.  Ever since Christmas he's been playing with them--stacking them up and knocking them down.  Hannah loves the pink, "girly" Legos she got from Santa, and she also loves the Nintendo DS and all its games--she's been very busy with them!  Actually, I must admit that I love it, too--she and I have been unable to stop playing "Cooking Mama"--a very addictive and fun game!  And my favorite and most used gift is my new camera!  It's an amazing camera--my favorite feature is all the different color features--you can take pictures in sepia and black/white, plus (this is my VERY favorite)--you can actually take a picture by pulling out one color while the rest of the picture is in black/white.  Grammie gave Gabah a great gift--she is taking him to Houston for the Missouri bowl game! We've ALL had fun "playing" with our new "toys!"  I hope you have all had a great Christmas, too!!! 
P.S. to see many more great pictures from our Christmas, click on this link:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2662183&id=8621722&l=654a1bb610

The Tree, The Pageant, and The Recital

There's been so much going on I can hardly keep up on here!  Well, in this post, I'll tell you about three things, and then when I have more time (hmmm...when will that be?...) I'll tell about a couple other recent events such as Hannah's ballet recital).  Last weekend, we decorated the new artificial tree Mom and Dad got for upstairs.  It's HUGE!  12 feet tall!  So obviously it held lots of ornaments!  The only problem was that the top wasn't strong enough to hold a star or angel, so Mom created a beautiful bow to go on top--the hard part was getting it up there!  Dad stood on a ladder and used one of those pincher-things with the long handle to get it up there--and it worked!  Eli climbed onto a box and rather sneakily got into some ornaments.  Funny little guy.  ;)  On the next day--Sunday--we had our Christmas pageant at church, and Hannah played an angel--she was adorable, and the kids all sang some really cute songs together.  After that, we had lunch downtown and then went to her piano recital!  She played two songs:  "Cuckoo Bird Concert" and "Jingle Bells!"  "Jingle Bells" was a duet with her teacher, and it was my favorite.  There's a link here to the video of her playing in her recital.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9BmIqthipM  She did such a great job, and she had worked really hard!  Well, enjoy these pictures and the video, and there will be more to come!  Merry Christmas, everyone!

A Concert, Santa, and Gingerbread Cookies

This morning, we went to Hilldale Mall to see Grammie sing!  She's in the "Angel Choir," which is made up of a group of women who volunteer at Attic Angels (a huge retirement community in Madison).  It was a wonderful concert--they sang Christmas songs for about 45 minutes, and EVERYONE enjoyed it--even Eli sat through it without squirming!  :)  After watching the concert, we walked to the other end of the mall to see Santa!  Hannah visited with him first, and then Eli got up with him.  And then, Hannah departed giving us a chance to get a picture with Eli by himself.  I was so pleased because Eli didn't cry at all--he even smiled!  I don't know many 17-month-olds who are more than happy to sit on Santa's lap!  After we visited with Santa, we went to a place where they were letting people decorated gingerbread cookies for $3 each for charity.  So, Hannah and I decided to give it a try--and they turned out pretty good!  Tasty!  :) 

The Winter Tea and Art Show

Today was the Winter Tea and Art Show at Hannah's school.  It was such a wonderful event where everyone got dressed up and had tea (well, punch) and cookies!  We went in with her class, and the entrance to the gym had an adorable snowman with a sign for the Tea.  Then, we went to a table that was FILLED with different kinds of cookies (yes, even I sent in some!), and we got some punch.  We sat at a table to eat, and we also got to see Hannah's friends and their families and Hannah's teacher, Mrs. Johnson, who we got a nice picture of Hannah with.  Then, we walked around the gym to see the art work all the kids in the school had done--in particular some big mittens the kindergarteners had painted!  Of course we loved Hannah's the most!  After that, we got to go to Hannah's classroom for about 20 minutes of songs sung by the class!  It was just wonderful!  We had a great  morning with her, and we were so proud of her! 

Snow Day!!!

Today was the first snow day of this school year!  We got 18 inches of snow and had a blizzard warning (which was later just changed to a wind chill warning).  All schools were closed...the mall closed...even the University closed for the day, which hasn't happened since at least 1965!!!  The dogs were not happy at all about having to trapse all over the snow to get to the yard, but they'll just have to get used to it because winter is here!  I didn't take Eli out into the snow (because it'd be up past his waist!), but Hannah did go out with Gabah to bring in the trash can, so she got to experience a bit of the snow and the cold.  Tomorrow should be back to normal, although life will be snowy for the foreseeable future!

A Ballerina Birthday Party

  Yesterday was Hannah's 6th Birthday party!  We had it at Storybook Ballet (where she takes ballet).  She had 10 friends there, and I think everyone had lots of fun!  The story the acted out in ballet was "Sleeping Beauty" and it was just wonderful.  Hannah got some great presents and had lots of fun being with her friends, both old and new!  :)

Decorating for Christmas

We have spent a lot of time during the past week decorating for Christmas!  It's looking really great and festive in our little area downstairs!  We've got my Department 56 Christmas Village, stockings, books, advent calendars, stuffed animals, and tons of other things.  This past weekend, Beth came to visit, and she helped us pick out our Christmas tree and get it set up and decorated!  So, now we are totally decorated!  We're all set for our predicted foot of snow for tomorrow!!  "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..." 

A Great Thanksgiving and a Happy Birthday!

  We went to Missouri--to Nannie and Paw Paw's house--for Thanksgiving this year, and had a wonderful time!  We had a great Thanksgiving dinner together--even the kids tried the "big people" food.  We had a joint birthday celebration for, as Paw Paw calls it, "Hannah-kah."  For those of you who don't already know, Paw Paw and Hannah share the same birthday--December 1--so we celebrated their birthdays while we were there--complete with cake and gifts.  Hannah's favorite gift was her Missouri Tigers cheerleader uniform and "real" pom poms from Grammie and Gabah.  She also (as I think we all did) liked the Disney version of Apples to Apples that she got.  It was really fun, and she caught onto it very quickly.  On Saturday, Mizzou had their big football game against their biggest rival, Kansas.  The Tigers won in the last couple seconds, so it was a VERY exciting game! 

  Then, Tuesday of this week (the 1st) was Hannah's 6th birthday!  Unbelievable, isn't it???  Gabah had to go out of town, so he gave her his big gift early, which was an iPod Nano!  She's pretty excited about having all her music in her own place!  (yes, she has a lot of it!)  On her birthday, she got to open a few presents before school, and then after school she finished.  Grammie, Hannah, Eli, and I went to dinner at her choice, Denny's, and then she had an ice cream sandwich with a candle in it for her dessert (since we'd had a big cake in MO and cupcakes are to come for her party this weekend!)  She had a great birthday with some great gifts, and she sure does feel "big."  She now points out everything that's a six and gets excited about it because it's the same as her age.  LOL 

 

The Holly Jolly Light Parade

Last night, Grammie and I took the kids up to Baraboo (about 45 minutes north of here for the "Holly Jolly Light Parade!"  We actually started out by going to the Wisconsin Dells, which is about 10 minutes from Baraboo and has a big outlet mall.  We had some coupons for Osh Kosh and Carters, so we got some clothes for the kids, and Grammie and I even managed to sneak around and get a couple Christmas/Bday gifts for Hannah!  (we don't even think she noticed!)  After that, we headed to Baraboo and found our parking place for the parade which started at 6:00.  It was a wonderful parade!!!  It lasted for about 45 minutes, and it was actually CHRISTMAS oriented!  There were floats covered with Christmas lights...all sponsored by local businesses, churches, and organizations.  Many of them had great manger scenes!  There were a couple high school marching bands who played Christmas music (even religious Christmas music!) and the UW marching band sousaphone section was there, too!  One of the most unique sections of the parade, in my opinion, was from the library.  They were all pushing book cards covered in Christmas lights.  It was very cool.  There were also multiple unicycles and other similar contraptions covered in lights, which Eli thought were great--every time he saw them he started laughing!  Actually, he was laughing for much of the parade--he would see things with lights or people or clowns and would laugh, whenever people would clap for a performance, he'd clap right along!  Hannah loved the parade, too--she stood right out there with all the kids watching the parade go by, waving, and collecting candy (can't miss that part!).  Afterwards, Santa was visiting with kids above the drug store!  We waited in line for a LONG time, but Hannah was insistent that she needed to see Santa, so we did.  :)  It was SUCH a fun night!  Everyone came home exhausted and happy.

Thanksgiving at School

Today was the Thanksgiving Luncheon at Hannah's school. Gabah was in New York working, but Grammie, Elijah, and I went to have lunch with Hannah. There were MANY people there having lunch with kids--it was a zoo! The food was...hmmm...I guess I'd say average. There were little turkey cubes in gravy poured over mashed potatoes, something claiming to be "traditional" green bean casserole that was more like green beans smothered in glue (no french fried onions there...), pretty good rolls, and great cake! But of course the best part was being with Hannah and enjoying the special lunch with her. We're now looking forward to going to Missouri next week for our real Thanksgiving celebration!

Yay, Team!!!

Hannah got to go to a cheerleading clinic this morning at Middleton High School. I didn't realize how many girls would be there! They had it divided up by grade level, and there were 27 kindergarteners! The numbers got lower as grades got higher (26 1st grader, 25 2nd graders...only 2 5th graders!) The girls had a great time learning dances and cheers! Hannah was very happy to find out that she knew 5 girls from her school, two of which are in her class at school! They did a performance at the end for parents which was wonderful! And Hannah has been doing cheerleading at home ever since! (FYI, the Middleton mascot is the cardinal, so that's what you hear in the cheers. (Cardinals/Cards/Big Red/etc.) :) Here's the link to the video on YouTube!
http://www.youtube.com/user/teachermom29#p/a/u/0/0k2PRvYGgTQ