November 14, 2007

Well, November has been, and will continue to be, jammed packed. Jesse, Carl's youngest brother, came to Charlotte for training for a week and so stayed with us. Which was great! The kids were so excited to see him, and he really seemed to love to see the kids. He went to the Renaissance festival with us, it was our third year in a row to go, and as always it was great fun! We all got to ride on a camel, James got new arrows and a new sword, Emma got an elaborate Tiara and met the pink pirate lady that taught her the pink battle cry, "Fear the Pink". Now, any of you pink fans, you need to jut your fist up in the air and yell it as loud as you can, if you would like to join us in our pink revelry...Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of the Pink Pirate, sigh... Anna felt very special to try on Emma's fairy wings, and also really enjoyed the butterfly ride, Emma's favorite ride. We got to see the belly dancers perform. a celtic harpist, and a jousting match. Emma had her 5th birthday on the 5th. I took cupcakes, a pinata, and balloons to school. That afternoon we picked up her best friend, Kennedy, and went to Monkey Joes. It is a kids gym with all of the inflatable slides and obsticale courses inside. They had a great time. I learned to do fondant, and made a great cake for her. You can see the pictures of Emma and Kennedy, leaning up to each other. Carl and I were admiring the pictures and I said, you know, imagine them in 10 years together. I can see them as inseparable. Carl said, "they'll be chasing boys" and I said, "and the boys will be chasing them". Carl just turned a kinda sick color... We didn't do a big party for Emma, as we are leaving in 2 days to go to NYC for Thanksgiving for 8 nights. There is the American Girl doll store there. It is on the corner of 5th avenue, in manhattan, 4 stories high. I might be more excited about it than Emma. We are going to let Emma get a doll and the whole works there. I am sure you will see those pictures. Carl travels so much that he has built up a ton of points on his hotel membership. So, we are going to see the Macy's day parade, and our hotel is on the parade route and it isn't going to cost us anything! Today, was a fabulous day! (it was also in the high 70s) I convinced/coereced Emma into letting me take her training wheels off. She did it! I got really tired after running for an hour or more, and so we will have to work some more on it tomorrow. Emma rode practically the length of the driveway with my hands out on either side of her. I think one more day of practice and she will have it all the way. Her biggest stumbling block is that she is afraid of falling and getting hurt, but once she realized I wasn't letting her crash, she did it!
James is doing great, as always, he is James. He got his spelling test and math test back from last week and got 100% on spelling and 90% on math. So, I am really proud of him. He was a great help today in playing with Anna and giving Emma courage while riding her bike.