Carriage Ride 2012

It was time for the free horse and carriage rides again. They like to change it up once in awhile with the tops down or tops up. Last year, there were 3 carriages and this year it was back to 2. (Well, at first anyway!) This year, it was myself and my kids, my sister and her kids, and our mom & dad who went. Before, we've split into 2 groups that went at the same time in different carriages. This time, there were already 2 groups waiting for carriage #1 and 1 group waiting for carriage #2, so we decided to wait together for carriage #2. Half of us would ride first, followed by the other half the next time around. My sister and her kids and our mom got on the carriage and carriage #2 had a problem with the wheel, so they pulled it out of rotation and continued with just carriage #2. The poor horse pulling carriage #2 did NOT like that and was crying for her friend!

 

 

Sarah's First Field Trip

In the beginning of November, Sarah brought home permission papers about their field trip coming up the next week.  They didn't say anything about needing chaperones, but the day before the field trip, Sarah came home and said that they needed "one more parent to go".  I e-mailed her teacher to say I would be willing to go, but I didn't want everyone to have asked their parent and for her to have too many!  She wrote back the next morning and said I was the first to respond, so I told her I'd come.  It turned out, I was the ONLY parent that came!  It was something to do with the Grand Rapids Symphony and was at a movie theater, so I thought they were having the whole symophony and introducing the sections/kinds of instruments.  It ended up be one guy who is a percussionist with the symphony.  He talked about different types of percussion instruments and really got the kids involved.  It was a fun time ☺

The lights on the side of the theater looked like eyes!

Santa Parade 2012

Our town's "Santa Parade" was the last day of November.  We missed it last year, but went 2 years ago. This year, they didn't have any crafts or activities beforehand, so we sat and waited for about 45 minutes!  It wasn't as cold as the first year we went, and the cousins had fun being together.  Most of the pictures aren't that great since it was dark out! 

Photo Book

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Our Black Friday Treasures

I usually check out the movies that are on sale for Black Friday, but this year we had no spare money at all, so I didn't even go.  Dan, of course, "got" to work again.  Walmart had early sales at 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm on Thanksgiving, so he had to be to work at 5:00 pm.  This year, he was watching the queue line for an HP 320 GB laptop.  He got off work at 5:20 am and he did come home with 4 treasures for the kids ☺

The kids LOVE the huge balloons.  William really liked the "Wii" one because it was similar to his name ♥

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Today being the Saturday following Thanksgiving makes it "Put up the Christmas Tree Day".  I am feeling ill, and didn't really feel like doing it.  But I figured the kids would really like to do it, so up the tree went.  It is the first year we are using this tree as we bought it after Christmas last year.  It is a "pre-lit" tree.  I assembled the tree and "fluffed" the branches, added the star and tinsel and the kids did the decorating.  This is also the first year that I let the kids decorate the tree all by themselves.  I did move a few ornaments as they had 2 or 3 hanging on the same branch in some places!  The kids kept being "monkeys" to put the breakable ornaments "up high".  The silly thing was, they were all doing it!  I'm not sure who they thought they were hanging them out of reach of!