Heather's TK class had a special evening program where they sang songs telling the story of the gingerbread man. Then at the end they had a bonus dance number.
The dance video (or download using this link: IMGP7445s):
Thanksgiving this year was just us at home.
I made roll dough the day before so it just needed to be shaped and let rise.
Heather helped me make pumpkin, chocolate-chip cookies:
Then we went outside so she could ride her bike for a bit:
And then it was dinner time. Turkey, rolls, green-bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, and pies (of course).
Heather loves The Magic School Bus and had been asking to be Ms. Frizzle for Halloween for months. Luckily Grandma was willing to take a crack at making her a costume. And it came out amazing! Thanks, Mom!
Heather wanted to look like Ms. Frizzle in her favorite episode, the haunted house episode about sound. Here is the source material:
And here's the result:
Corinne got to make her Halloween-costume debut in the blanket costume Jess made when Heather was smaller. I like this pictures because Corinne is so excited she's vibrating (since she's blurry, but Heather's not).
Heather was a little hesitant about it at first, but she loved it. And her new "Liz" is one of her core-group stuffed animals now. Liz is always next to her in bed and is always taken out to the family room every morning.
The above pictures were taken a couple of days before Halloween. Here's a day-of picture. Heather's face paint was from the Halloween party they had at school.
I got my ghosties up again and bought some batteries to light them up properly with LEDs. Still needs some work, but they're getting better:
This was Corinne's first experience trick-or-treating. She caught on pretty quickly. As soon as a door would open she would try to climb inside and reach for any candy she could see. We did 5 or 6 houses with her and then dropped her off back at home while Heather and I did some more.
We got most of the street trick-or-treated before it started sprinkling. This caused most people to head inside, even though it stopped before we made it back home. But we were a bit soggy and Heather was worn out so we called it a night.
After our Thanksgiving traveling, Christmas was a simpler affair. We stayed in Livermore and decided to buy our tree from a lot, shipped from Oregon, rather than driving out to cut it ourselves.
In contrast to our cut-it-yourself adventures of the past, though, we did get a very nice tree. We looked for a Douglas Fir at the tree lot, but the largest they had was barely 5 feet tall. So instead we got this massive Grand Fir. It's very full, very green, and the needles are fairly soft. But I don't think it has as much pine smell as a Douglas Fir. Economics and specialization being what they are, it was cheaper for someone to grow, cut, and ship this tree to us than it would be for someone to grow a tree here and for us to go cut it down ourselves. I'm having a hard time selling the cut-your-own-tree Dickerson tradition.
I got the lights up on the house and added some more above the eave over the garage and wrapped around one of the trellis columns. I had to more-than-double the number of lights we had inside on the tree to get this massive tree properly lit.
Soon enough it was Christmas Eve. The Badger family invited us to their house for Christmas Eve. We stayed there for a few hours, ate snacks (including l'il smokies and wassail), and hung out. Then it was back home to get to bed and wait for Santa.
Last year Heather awoke to find various stuffed animals dressed up and sitting on the couch. She seemed to get a kick out of that and this year she discovered the bear wearing this fairy costume. Heather came trundling in to our room at about 7:15 am carrying this bear and being concerned / excited about the bear wearing this costume. She insisted that she wear it instead. So we put it on her and then headed out to the living room.
I set up my off-camera flash on a stand with a white umbrella in front of it. In general it made the pictures all come out much better lit this year.
Heather received this booklet (thanks Erin!) which has layers of material on each page. When the top layer gets wet it allows the colors behind it to pass through. So it's "coloring" with water. Heather had played with similar toys at friends' houses and was enthralled. She ignored everything else and played with this for the next 48 hours straight (minus eating and sleeping).
