First Real Snow!

This week, was fairly low key. We played a bit of catch up from last week being sick. We went to Costco several days this week as a result. The big event from this week was Ryan's work bowling party. We also got a little bit of snow on Thursday, but a LOT of snow on Sunday.

On Monday, Keira went back to school, and Soren went to the gym. Things were normal again! We did some errands today. Here are a couple of shots of the kids playing at home.


Keira made this ornament at school today.

On Tuesday, I tried a new class at the gym. It was a tread/track workout where we did sprints on the treadmills mixed with lunges and other exercises on their sprint track. This was an excellent workout, and it currently fits very nicely with my daily/weekly training plan to have a low mileage speed workout on Tuesdays. I trained this way leading up to my first half marathon in 2005, and although I am honestly a ton faster now than I was then, I look back at that time and just remember feeling fast. I think it was just because I had made huge speed improvements in a short period of time. I will likely continue this class as long as they let me, since I am currently on the basic plan at the gym, taking classes only with the owner's permission. We had hoped to get together with Katie and Luke today, but could not because they were now sick. As a consolation, I took Keira and Soren to Laurel Park to play with the Thomas train set.


Soren also had fun with his fake phone this evening, after drinking a cup full of old cider required a complete clothing change.



Ryan had fun with the kids doing a choo choo!

On Wednesday, I tried another new class at the gym. This time it was not as beneficial for my training, but was still a fun class. It was a combination spin and treadmill class. It was only 30 minutes of spinning, followed by 30 minutes of tread/track. I usually do intervals in the pool on Wed, so I had to cut my swim short, and my run was also short today (per the Plan), so this class will only work if I end up short on my biking. I need to start biking at least 1 evening a week.
It was gingerbread day at school today, so Keira wore her gingerbread clothes. She also made a present for Ryan and I, and she could not wait for Christmas for us to open it.



Once Ryan got home from work, we were able go out and get hooks to hang our Annaberg Falstern (paper folding star from Annaberg, Germany). We ended up over engineering it, because we found some nice decorative hooks rated to 35lbs for our paper star. It is over our nativity. Hopefully in our next home, we will have a nice 2 story foyer or something to hang it to better display it.


Thursday was our busiest day. We started off the morning at free Kindermusik, and Keira was able to go! We ran into Lisa and Luke, and we hadn't seen them in a long time. It was nice to catch up.


After the music class, Valerie watched Keira and Soren for me so that I could go to Dearborn with Ryan for his BCE Christmas Bowling Party. Ryan and I are not bowlers, and last year, we were part of the last place team and won gift cards to Target. This year, we figured we would use the same game plan to try to win the last place prize again. We were easily successful, even though we were legitimately trying to bowl. That is just how bad we are compared to the other people Ryan works with.

My dessert was a hit:

I also received a Compex tee in the mail! I am done with racing for the year, but it will be nice for wearing to my new classes at the gym.

On Friday, I took Soren to the library storytime. Another thing against the gym Wed class is that it conflicts with the Wed Storytime. It was favorites week, so Soren really enjoyed doing the wheels on the bus and jump and count, which we haven't done in a while.



We also got a light dusting of snow. Keira and Soren were sad that we couldn't build a snowman.


We took a few pictures of decorations that I forgot to do the first time around:




We used our Chili's gift cards that we won yesterday from bowling for dinner tonight! We also watched the movie, Inception, which was very cool. I always have strange dreams, so it was very interesting to me.

Saturday was a very low key day. Ryan rode indoors with Kent after his church cleaning. Once he got back from that, I ran 11 miles outside with Valerie. I am really glad we waited until the afternoon, because the sun was out and the roads were not slippery at all. They were a bit slick last night. Keira and Soren had a good time pretending to be reindeer, and having reindeer races in the kitchen.


Sunday was very snowy. We made it to church just fine, but it was lightly attended. It was the Christmas program, so Keira went up with the Primary Choir. We
braved the snow and went down to Kris and Linda's for dinner tonight.




Here are some of Keira's projects from last week and this week:

Sick Week & 3 Cedars Country Christmas

This week was a tough week for us. We spent a lot of time inside this week. It was pretty cold, and both Keira and Soren were sick this week. We did manage to get out to Three Cedars on Saturday evening to see Santa, after missing him at the ward Christmas party.







On Monday, we did a lot of running around today. We finished up our Christmas decorations (for the most part) today. The highlight of Keira and Soren's day was that it was Greg's birthday at school, and his mom was nice enough to bring extra cupcakes for the siblings. This saved me from having to bake cupcakes this afternoon!




We also picked up Keira's school picture proofs. Her bangs were long overdue for a cut, and while I had them in a "swoop bang" across her forehead, they apparently got brushed entirely to the sides for the photos. We ordered the full body shot. She chose her own outfit, a Christmas one, despite my suggestions for a fall outfit to match the background. At least the brown was a good compromise, and it is a beautiful outfit.



On Tuesday, Keira felt her worst today. She spent a lot of time on the couch in front of the TV. Soren was in good spirits, and was very excited about all of the Christmas decorations. It will be a challenge to keep him away from them. We really didn't do much at all.




On Wednesday, Keira was well enough to go to school. I took Soren to storytime, as he was still feeling pretty well today.




That evening I went for a run and encountered a woman who had been locked out of her home by her children. She was very upset, and I did not have my phone. She lived down the street from Valerie, and I ran over there first, but no one was home. She was fortunate that her in-laws lived in the neighborhood; she gave me directions to their house, and I was able to run and get them to help her out. I am glad that I was able to help, and yet again, thankful for our lock box on our home. Her children were both younger than Keira and Soren, but Keira and Soren have done similar things to me. Once I got home, I went back out with the car and phone to make sure she was OK, and she was.

On Thursday, we didn't do much of anything. Soren had started to feel sick, and his nose just wouldn't stop running! We stayed in all day. In fact, I had the dealership come over to pick up my car for an oil change so we didn't have to leave the house. I walked to get it once Ryan got home. It was hard to stay in all day with sick children. Both kids did nap, and we watched Polar Express about 3 times (once with Soren, once with Keira, and once with them both awake). I welcomed a freezing cold run in the dark tonight, as well as did some errands once the kids were asleep.


On Friday, Keira went to school, but we still did a lot of nothing. Keira's teacher told me that she couldn't move well in her snow pants, and it made me think of Randy from A Christmas Story. I was able to convince Keira that she could move in them, so hopefully that won't be an issue anymore. She wore them on Wed with no issues, but had a dress on underneath, and not baggy pants.


The kids bickered a lot because they just didn't feel well. We tried explaining that Santa only gives presents to children that behave. They love the song, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" but don't quite seem to get how their actions go along with the words. That evening, despite the kids being still somewhat sick, we bundled them up and took the out to Ann Arbor for their Weihnachtsmarkt, which was only tonight. It was really small, and in the farmer's market space in Kerrytown. It had only a couple authentic German booths, but we did pick up some chocolate advent calendars for Keira and Soren.




We also went out to dinner at the Heidelberg with Kris, Linda, Greg, Ellyn, and all the kids. They did very well considering how tired they were and that it was late.

On Saturday, I woke up super early to run 10 miles in the freezing cold darkness with Valerie. We ran so early because we had a church breakfast with Santa scheduled for 9:30, and Ryan had building cleaning afterwards, and wanted to ride as well. When I got back from my run, Ryan and I felt that the kids were too sick to spend the morning with lots of other kids, and opted to keep them home. Ryan went ahead and got his bike ride at the Tree Farm done during the breakfast, and then went at the end to clean up. Keira and Soren were pretty bummed that they didn't get to go to the breakfast, so I made them breakfast for lunch. I also got out our pyramids (I waited to get the big one out until Soren was asleep), since they didn't have one set up last night.




They started to feel a bit better in the afternoon, so once Soren woke up from his nap, we headed over to 3 Cedars for their Country Christmas display. It is really fun to head over there. Everything is decorated nicely and they do a nice job with Santa pictures. They are also the only cider mill that is still open, so having cider and donuts was also a main highlight of the evening! It was too cold to play outside, although we did have to pry Soren off of the wooden train. Keira and Soren were both really excited to see Santa, until about 30 seconds before and they freaked out. We did a family shot, and bribed Soren to sit still by the promise of the cider and donuts, as he just wanted out of there. The picture came out a lot better this year than last year!











On Sunday, we had another distastrous sacrament meeting with Soren at church. Between not feeling well and his age, we just struggle with him to be quiet, and sharing is also a big issue with him and Keira. Ryan took him outside and drove him around a bit to see if he would go to sleep, but no luck. We eventually brought him to nursery, and I ended up subbing in there, so he was OK. We had a restful afternoon at home.


Sadly, we were unable to get onto lds.org for the Christmas Devotional due to "server errors", but hope to be able to tune back in to watch the taped version this week.