Merry Christmas 2017!

Christmas truly is magical!! After all the fun leading up to Christmas Eve, it didn't disappoint! We continued our tradition of assembling our gingerbread house (this year it was a log cabin) before eating spaetzel soup for dinner and going to Christmas Eve mass. After mass, we came home, got into our jammies, cozied up by the fire and opened presents from our family. Just before bed, we wrote our notes to Santa and got his cookies ready. This year, we remembered to put some oats out for the reindeer although we forgot to give Santa milk...oops! It didn't seem to matter because when we awoke Christmas morning, Santa had come! I opened all of my presents to find all the gifts on my list, plus a few unexpected ones. I was surprised to get a puppy that I had wanted a few months bag! My puppy is an Alaskan Husky who sleeps so well! I named her Mindy! I also got a tablet and a soccer ball too! I was so very happy with all that I received! We capped off a wonderful Christmas morning with a crab casserole and putting the start on our Christmas countdown tree. I'll be busy playing with my new toys until Mimi and Papa arrive!

Holiday Fun Times!

As if the anticipation of Christmas isn't exciting enough, Mom and Dad had some special activities planned for us a few days before Christmas. We got to go downtown and visit Dad, then had lunch with Cathy and big Adam. The next night after Dad got home from work, we went bowling! I had so much fun, especially tap dancing to the Christmas music on the wood floor in my bowling shoes. We ate pizza and had a great time, ending with a tour of Christmas lights in the neighborhoods on the way home. The next afternoon, Mom dropped me off downtown and I went out to lunch with Dad (Mom kept telling me I was going on a date with Dad, ewwww!). After lunch, we strolled around downtown then headed to the theater where we saw the Nutcracker Ballet! It was really cool seeing it! Seeing that was a very cool way to prepare for Christmas! On a side note, we had a few very warm nice days so Mom took us to the park. I'm happy to announce that I can now make it all the way to the top of the web at the big park! Yay!

A Snowy Visit

I screamed with excitement again as Grammie and Gramps' car pulled into the driveway for the visit with us! We had a great time with them despite the weather being cold, rainy, then snowy (the snow part was pretty neat!). One  night, Mom and Dad went to a hotel so we got Grammie and Gramps to ourselves to watch movies and bake brownies! We also took a trip downtown to Marbles Museum! I got to show them all my favorite activities at the museum and it was so magical because it was snowing outside! Before they left, we got to open all of our presents from them sitting in front of the Christmas tree. I'm so glad they came to be with us to celebrate the magic of the season!
After they left, Mom tried to keep us occupied with fun activities. One day, we went to see The Muppets Christmas Carol movie at the Renaissance Center, we rode scooters on the greenway another, plus we went roller skating one afternoon with the rink to ourselves of course! Plus, we are  now all set for Christmas because we went to visit Santa! I told him exactly what I wanted for Christmas. After visiting with him we went for a blustery sleigh ride with flurries swirling in the air! He sent us a letter in the mail, so I am certain now that he knows to visit our house! It has really put me in the spirit for Christmas. I'm really enjoying our break from school and I'm loving all the anticipation this week leading up to Christmas! What other fun things are in store before Christmas!?!?!

The Decorations Are Hung!

We are really gearing up for the holidays! The day after we got home from Pennsylvania, we hung all the outside decorations. After that, we only had one week of school left before Christmas break!! My last week of school was filled with all fun activities, the last three days, I had to carry all of my supplies in my backpack because we had to be out of our classroom during track out. One day, I brought a secret present to school (Mom didn't tell me what was in it) and we exchanged them at school. I got a colorful owl that I named Owen for my gift. We also celebrated Dad's birthday that week. Despite all of us being sick, we still managed to make it a nice day for Dad with cake and presents.
On the last day of school, we went to the tree lot to find our Christmas tree! It actually didn't take us long to find a tree, and we enjoyed skipping around the trees and enjoying the atmosphere while they tied the tree to our car. I probably won't forget this tree because 1) I got to put the star on and 2) a few days after we stood the tree and decorated it, it FELL DOWN!  Don't worry, Mom and Dad got it back up and it looks just beautiful!
The first week of track out, Mom took us to Toys R Us so I could look around and make sure I tell Santa exactly what I want for Christmas. We had a fun day looking around and enjoying the mall. I wrote a very nice letter to Santa describing each and everything. We mailed the letters in the mailbox on main street and hopefully Santa can fulfill my list!
On St Nick's day (Dec. 6) we woke up in the morning to find a gift left by the fireplace. The gift was for Adam and me and inside was a cookie maker! That evening after dinner, we made cookies. The cookie maker makes all sorts of shapes that we can decorate with sprinkles! What a cool gift we got! The decorations are out, cookies are made, Santa letters mailed. Now all we have to do is enjoy the season and have fun! Next up - a visit from Grammie and Gramps!

Gearing Up for the Holidays

The nip is in the air and it's starting to feel like the holidays! To kick things off, we went to downtown Raleigh for the Raleigh Christmas Parade. Then, we headed to Pennsylvania (the nip was really in the air up there) to celebrate Thanksgiving with Grammie and Gramps. We had a nice visit with them. We played games, did puzzles, walked through town looking at lights, visited the library, watched movies and my most favorite was helping with the Thanksgiving meal by making the pumpkin pies! The entire Thanksgiving dinner was delicious and if I don't say so myself, the pie was yummy!! Matt, Nicole and Conner joined us for dinner so it was a nice big family meal. I was really thrilled too that Gramps was able to fix the Casio keyboard so I could play all of my songs live for them! Our trip went really fast and I was sad to leave but luckily Grammie and Gramps will be back in just a little over a week! Now I just have to finish one week of school, then it's track out until Chrismas!

Happy Halloween 2017!

It has been a super fun Halloween season! Leading up to Halloween we participated in some cool activities. We attended a North Carolina Symphony concert, my first ever seeing an orchestra. Before the concert, they had stations set up for kids to try different instruments. I tried the violin and cello. The orchestra played Halloween themed music and some dancers performed Peter and the Wolf. It was interesting seeing the orchestra although I only prefer listening to music by Bach or Mozart. Maybe I will hear some when we go to our next performance. The day after the concert, I got to go to a special event at the library with my best friend Lila. We worked on crafts, played some games and had a trick-or-treating parade. It was all practice for Halloween night!
The day before Halloween I had a school field trip. We went to an historic farm where some ladies taught us about what life was like on a farm 200 years ago. They showed us all of the chores they had to do; like cleaning and caring for the animals. I couldn't believe that they had to wake up at 4AM to get all their chores done! I like helping with chores at our house, but I can't believe having so much to do that you would have to wake up that early! I had fun, especially since Lila was my field trip buddy!
The night before Halloween we carved our pumpkins. Mom was impressed at how well I cleaned out the pumpkins. After I designed the face for my jack-o-lantern, Mom cut it out for me. I love my design. On Halloween I had a really fun time trick-or-treating although I wasn't especially excited for the event because I had to give up most of my candy due to my braces. That's okay, I sold it to the dentist so they could send it to soldiers serving our country.

Fall Happenings

I've been back in school a couple of weeks now, and things are going along just fine. Mom and Dad had a conference with Mrs Jackson and she gave an excellent school report for me. I am a superstar student! It's also fall, and very close to Halloween. One Friday night we went to a fall festival with lots of activities, one of them was carving pumpkins and I also got my face painted! I just can't wait until Halloween, just around the corner!

Track Out Fun!

Mimi and Papa came to visit us the second week of track out! We went to the Museum of Life and Sciences on one day. It was so fun! I got to finally plat at the treehouse playground and climb all the way to the top! And for the first time, all of the animals, including the black bears were awake and moving around for us to watch! Usually they are hiding in the corner and are barely visible. The lemurs were playful and doing so much we watched them for a long time! Another day, we went to the new spray ground in Wake Forest. THAT was super fun! The best part was letting the big bucket of water dump right on your head! Luckily we had perfectly warm September weather to enjoy being out in the water. I'm glad that Mimi and Papa came to spend some time with us during track out. 

The next week we spent a few days relaxing, doing things around the house and Town. One day we went to Sassafras playground and while I did enjoy the zip line as always, this time we enjoyed swinging in the crazy circle swing. There was nobody there, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves!

Later that week, we took off on another short trip to Charleston! We went there to visit with Jessa, Mom's friend from college. She has a son named Sam who we got to me, and there were other families with kids there that kept things fun and entertaining. The beach was so much fun, I didn't want to leave once we got there. My favorite was standing thigh deep in the water and pretending I was Moana, singing about the sea. This time I tried boogie boarding. It was a blast! Once I figured out how it worked, I caught a few small waves. I also enjoyed collecting shells on the beach and taking them back to the front porch where we displayed them on the railing for Jessa's mom. We really had a nice, relaxing track out from start to finish. Going back to school won't be hard at all!

A Trip to a Mountains!

Not 24 hours of being done with school had passed before we started another new adventure with a trip to the mountains. On Saturday morning we got up and drove for a couple of hours and before I knew it we were on the Great Smokey Mountains Expressway headed toward our mountain adventure. We stayed in a real cabin up in the mountains (we almost fell into a ditch and had trouble getting up the road to the cabin). Once we got up to it though, there were beautiful views from the cabin. Adam and I got to sleep in the loft, which was really cool and I had fun running from one side of the house to the other soaking up the view from the big windows.

During our trip, we took a day to explore Great Smokey Mountains National Park. We drove around the park stopping at different overlooks, took a hike along a ridge with views of Clingman's Dome though the woods and then stopped at the historic mountain farm to walk around and learn about farm life a long time ago. While there, we spotted elk walking through the stream! We also saw a historic mill which was run using water diverted from a nearby stream. The water was COLD! That was our only day for adventuring because once we made it back to the cabin, we didn't leave for a while because of hurricane Irma! 

Luckily we had our binoculars, activity books, puzzles and games to keep us entertained. We could watch movies until the power went out! It was a crazy experience sleeping in the very dark cabin. Because the weather was bad, and there was a lot of rain, we decided to leave the cabin and head home halfway through the week. Dad let us walk down the very steep gravel driveway and explore  the woods near our cabin. We did, however stop at a very cool place on the way home!

I had so much fun at the Biltmore Estate! We walked though this huge house and got to look in the rooms - my favorite being the swimming pool and bowling alley in the basement! We toured the lush gardens nearby and enjoyed the beautiful weather before we needed to get in the car and drive home. It was a great experience being in the mountains and I had lots of fun with the new adventures!