We had Thanksgiving in Roanoke with the family Schindhelm, then over to Bethesda for Christmas Day and further festivities with the Ferrara clan. All were wonderful and illness free this year. The new year brought an uncharacteristic amount of snow fall (and even more snow days) and a new renovation project: the downstairs bathroom, because hey! we weren't yet crazy enough. This one has not gone as smoothly as the last, which is weird because it's like an eighth of the size of the prior project. We hired the same people but the best I can explain: the mojo is just off. Things have been over ordered, under ordered, ordered late, over budget, and it's taken longer than the big renovation that got us into this house. But I'm assured the final product will be amazing and I'll want to move to the guest room just to make it mine. Sorry, Jay.
Annie is quite the little performer. In addition to getting bitten by the "Frozen" bug (God help all us mothers) and treating us to numerous at-home performances of "Let it Go" (in which Oscar always has a cameo as Olaf, the snowman), she has performed in the winter ballet of the Roanoke Ballet Theatre's Magic Toyshop as a fairy with real-live ballerinas (and a professional DVD keepsake to boot!). She played Laura in her school's mini-drama adaptation of Little House in the Big Woods. Precious and riveting (because now that she is seven I can no longer just call her "precious"). This spring she'll be in another Roanoke Ballet Theatre production of some ballet that has a French name so it's lost on me, but I'm sure someone in it is sad at some point.
Oscar, well, besides the breaking of bones, is pushing our skills as parents. He is not quite as invested in learning the English alphabet or its coordinating sounds as his sister was at his age. In fact, she could read at this point. Not that I'm bragging, I'm just mentioning it so you know how woefully unprepared we are in dealing with this challenge. He's getting there though, just at a pace that a boy, well, with several broken bones would be going. He does make us smile a lot though, which is good, because I'd rather he keep us in stitches than himself for a change.
That's the news from these here parts. We'll see you in the spring! Hopefully this spring.
