Old Sacramento Festival of Lights

As part of the activity advent calendar, I took the kids to Old Sacramento for dinner, lights and a carriage ride. We might have snuck in a beignet or two - but hey, that's what happens when I'm running solo with the kids and also have no self-restraint.

 

This is basically how June was the whole time...she wanted to be able to watch the horse!

I hadn't planned on staying for the lights show since it was a little long last year and I didn't think the kids had been that into it. But it was starting right as our carriage ride was done, so we stuck around. At first I thought the kids wouldn't like it because they couldn't see through the crowds and I could only lift one on my shoulders. But a kindly gent next to me suggested I ask if my kids could go up in the VIP wagon that had an elevated view. I took his advice and the people manning the wagon let us in! So we got a wonderful view and a spot where the kids could sit and watch.

Definitely one of my favorite nights of the activity advent calendar so far!

School Holiday Festival

June's school had a little holiday festival that we went to the other day. It was cute and small, a little chaotic but fun. There was a petting zoo:

June LOVES horses but also has a healthy fear of most animals with minds of their own. I love how this picture captures how desperately she wants to pet the pony but her simultaneous fear:

A little train:

A boutique and face painting:

Gingerbread house making:

And Santa:

Girl Scouting

June has loved being in her new Daisy Scout troop. A dear friend created her own troop and invited friends to join, so June already knew most of the girls. She loves wearing her vest and getting new patches and doing fun activities with them. 

One fun activity we did was visit a fire station! The girls loved it.

 

June is sad to be leaving her troop. I hope we'll be able to go to a few more meetings with this troop, and maybe we'll even be able to find a new troop in Seattle!

Garden Volunteering

I didn't originally sign up to be the garden volunteer for June's class. But June's teacher is very good at asking for telling parents when they need to step up, and I'm highly susceptible to guilt trips. So when I saw the email that we didn't have a docent yet, and all the other classes had one, and if we didn't get one our kids wouldn't get to have that outdoor time, I signed up. And I do happen to love to garden, even if I'm a bit of a novice.

At first I had a co-volunteer. The class mom also came out with me. But she got a promotion at work so she had to stop coming out. That means that every Tuesday morning you'll find me taking time off work to take 12 kindergarters out into the yard to do ...something? (Then I take the other 12 kids out the next week) I'm given a topic I'm supposed to cover, but I don't find that this fills the time AT ALL considering how wiggly my kids get. (Sample topics: the parts of a plant, hybrid plants [??])

So I normally think of some other activity that's either creative or gets them moving around. So far it's gone pretty well! I've had a few really tough days and many good ones. I always leave the garden exhausted but satisfied. And telling June's teacher that we're moving and I'm abandoning my garden position was truly one of the hardest parts of the move so far.

Here are some of the activities we have done so far:

- Planting grass seeds in egg shells we decorated with faces, so the grass looks like hair

- Talking about our pet, the caterpillar (that they got to pet), the pupa and moth (they got to hold the pupa shell)

- Going on a leaf hunt for all the different types of leaves on campus

- Learning about garden tools and how to use them safely

-  Raking leaves 

- Feeding slugs from my garden to the chickens

- Making lemonade with lemons from my garden

Christmas Activity Advent - 2016 Part 1

Here are a few of the advent activities that we've done - more to follow as their own posts!

Christmas books:

Setting up the village:

Hot cocoa with marshmallows:

 Eating reindeer poop for breakfast (chocolate doughnut holes):

 Christmas Fort night (with friends over):

Polar Express Night - the book, then the movie plus hot chocolate:

Christmas Memories - drawing and talking about our favorite memories:

Gingerbread house night:

Not pictured:

Candle lit, Christmas music bubble bath

Buying toys for Toys for Tots

Not an activity, but one of my favorite sights at Christmastime:

I'm going to miss that fireplace!

Around Here Lately

In my last post I mentioned all the stuff we have going on... Now some pictures to show it!

Ending the soccer season:

Starting Daisy Scouts:

The kids being super cute together:

My solo parenting style: get the kids out of the house as much as is physically possible. So farmer's markets and parks!

 June's first jog-a-thon at school:

Class ... including studying sperm under a microscope!

This adorable school photo:

Big News: Seattle Bound!

Hi All!

As you can see by my lack of posts, it has been busy around these parts lately. Part of that is the typical ... working full time, taking classes at night, volunteering as June's class garden docent, finishing up June's soccer season, girl scouts, daily activities for the Christmas Activity Advent calendar.

And then there is the huge news! We are moving to Seattle!

Michael was offered a wonderful job opportunity, and after a lot of consideration and late-night discussion, we decided to accept it!

It's definitely bittersweet because we really loved Sacramento. We loved just about everything about the town and have a great group of friends that we are really going to miss.

But man, am I excited to be going back to Seattle. I LOVED living in Seattle as a kid, and though being there as an adult will be a different experience (playing soccer in the rain might be slightly more fun that watching soccer cold and in the rain!), I am so thrilled. Michael and I have some friends who live there and can't wait to get to spend time with them.

We told June soon after making the decision. She had some tears thinking about leaving her friends and school. We pulled up a tourism video about Seattle and she perked up pretty quickly. Since that day, she had periodically mentioned that she's still sad we're moving because of her friends, but we haven't had any more tears. I know that this is far from over, but I've been pleasantly surprised with how flexible she is.

Michael is actually already up there! He started at his new job, so he's been up there for several weeks. This, of course, means that I've been home with the kids on my own, carrying on with everything else we have going on. No matter the challenges that come with this, it's really the best way. Michael can really dig in at his new job, working late (and traveling to a championship game!). And I can keep the kids in their routine until we get a house up in Seattle. The one thing we knew was that we didn't want to move June into a new kindergarten if it was not the one she would be at permanently.

Speaking of, we bought a house! Sight unseen, for me (!!). The market in Seattle is uber competitive, especially in the parts of town we're looking at, with houses selling within days of going on the market. So we knew we'd have to make a quick decision on anything we fell in love with. We did fall in love with a little blue house in an adorable neighborhood - a block away from the elementary school and with a gorgeous backyard. I did get one FaceTime tour so I did have some input - haha.

So that's that! We're moving - likely in early-to-mid February. There is so much still to do - talk to the school about enrolling, look for daycares, figure out moving dates, pack... My dear, dear mother-in-love came to help for a particularly busy week and I will be forever grateful for that. And we can get through anything, especially when we have the powerful motivation of ending up together in Seattle.

(I made Michael promise he won't ride a ferry without me...we'll see if he can resist the temptation.)