Happy Thanksgiving! Counting our blessings each and everyday.

This Thanksgiving I am so, so grateful for my people.

We were able to celebrate in TC with Mom and Dad again this year and it feels like our new tradition is really going to stick! 

We love you Mom and Dad so much!

After dinner, we played lots of Scrabble and ate lots of dessert!

Mom and Dad watched the kids so we could have date night.

My 2 guys.

Covid shots, round 2, happened that Monday after Thanksgiving break.

1-2-3, they were done! Fully vaccinated and so thankful.

I'm not sure when I'll take the time to reflect on the next day, Tuesday, November 30th 2021. For now I will leave these pics as a place holder.

Staff meeting before school with Tim.

Time to get out all of the things to decorate for Christmas!

Drew LOVES dressing up as Santa. It cracks us all up. Last year he asked for a full Santa suit for Christmas. We got him a hat and beard instead but he does love to wear it!

Elle and Luke telling Santa (Drew calls himself Father Christmas) what they want for Christmas.

Going for a hike in the woods at the park.

Ben and Luke's annual basketball game! 

The Michigan football game when they wore Oxford badges, had Sheri and Buck flip the coin toss, and dedicate the game ball to Tate. The game ended with U of M scoring 42 points, Tate's football number. 

With the sadness and grief we hold the joy and love too. Even though we didn't make a day of it to a tree farm this year, we did still get our tree from Lowe's!

I love how Drew is looking straight up at the tree. It must seem so tall from his perspective! The magic of childhood 💗

Bob Thomas (our elf) has arrived!

Ellie was our only taker to go see Santa this year?! 

Drew's turn to put the angel on our tree this year!

I came home from school and found that someone had put a snow globe in front of Bob Thomas. When I inquired about it, Drew said, "Mom, so Bob Thomas has something happy to look at all day." I wish everyone had a Drew in their life to make sure they had something happy to look at each day. 

Go, be a Drew. 😊

Our Christmas cookie making...My three favorite helpers.

Ornaments on the tree! 

Now we are ready to welcome the Christmas season!

Ben is 40! Basketball Evals, COVID Vaccines, Soccer, STEM, Descendants Musical, Pistons Game

 

Basketball season is starting up and this year all 3 kiddos want to play! 

First up we took Elle and Drew to their evals...

After evals and Luke's baseball practice waiting for dinner, they were all quietly reading at the counter. I never try to make a big fuss of it and ruin it so, I snap a quick pic and just go about it while my heart is bursting inside. These quiet and gentle moments are my fav. 

I emailed this pic to our elementary principal and Drew and Elle's teacher. The love they have for reading and their engagement is no accident. In this pic, we see hours of carefully planned reading lessons, conferring sessions, fun book choices, an intentional exciting culture of reading... All of it, is seen here. We are so grateful 💜

Speaking of grateful...All 3 kids got their 1st covid vaccine!

Luke's black team won their division championship!! WAHOO!!! Their team will be playing in the State Cup in the Spring. Luke played center D and left D in the 1st half and played goalie the entire 2nd half. The final score was 4-0! 

McG hosted a STEM night. Of course, with Ben's job, we were all about this! Together they learned about lunar landers and then they built their own model of one.

Happy Veteran's Day, Papa!

This pic is from Drew's teacher...We love our therapy dogs!

This guy right here is 4-0!!!! Heyyyy, midlife! Love you so, so much Ben. Happy birthday! Harlow and Gavin stayed the night with us and we loved the morning cuddles.

Birthday pancakes!

That night Ben and I went out to dinner and a movie! A real movie in a movie theatre. It was our first one since covid and here's the deal...Our reclining seats now come with seat HEAT! 

As part of Ben's job, he facilitates the Oakland Schools' STEMi to the districts he work with. The STEMi is an actual semi that opens up and is stocked with all of these different STEM experiences and equipment for students to use and try and make career connections with. The STEMi was in Rochester Schools this week and Luke is in one of the STEM classes. Ben worked on the STEMi for all of Luke's Middle School classes and Luke had no idea Ben would be there. When Luke walked onto the STEMi with his class, he was so surprised to see his Dad! They both loved it and Ben got to see Luke in his element during school with all of his buds and Luke got to see Ben in action at his job! It was so cute to hear about it all from Luke. He was like, "Dad, everyone thought you were so cool." I mean, that's the best, right.

Here Luke is at the mixed reality center. I did the STEMi each time it was in Oxford and this was my favorite! You can see the objects in front of you, grab them, and move them with your hands.

All of us at the tree lighting at The Village!

Ben was so great and kept the kiddos bopping so I could finish my IB report for school. One of Luke's baseball coaches daughter was in a local musical so, over the weekend he took the kids and Riley to see The Descendants. All of them loved it! It is now Elle's favorite and she would be happy to sing you any of the songs!

The girls with Addi (Who played Mal!) and the rest of the cast.

Ellie loves to play teacher and is always asking me questions. She was super curious about the reading tests they take at school to determine their reading level. I asked if she would want to learn, and she was so excited! I keep my reading calculator at home and so I modeled to her how to do an informal reading record. Then we tried a few together and then she wanted to try it out on Drew. :) 

We made it to Thanksgiving break! So much to be grateful for. The kids and Ben launched the break with a night at LCA for a Piston's game!

I stayed back to get 'er done. And on that Wed. am I hit the submit button to my first school IB reauthorization eval. Woot! Let's go to Traverse City, babyyyyy!