Carmen and Maria had some friends from school come over after the Skatathon for a sleepover. It was pizza, popcorn, the park and movies and then in the morning we had blueberry pancakes and sausages. Isabel had her first Gymnastics class this morning at the Plymouth High School and she LOVED it. She is just a doll. Naturally, Maria and Carmen wanted to join in. Later today Maria and Carmen are going to Bella's for her birthday party.
Thank you for all your donations to the Skate-A-Thon! Spiritus Sanctus has a very small budget and next to the tution and the auction, this event brings in the most money for the school. Believe it or not, Carmen's 1st grade class of only 8 kids won the prize for the most money. They will get a pizza party and movie next week.
Grandma Paula and Grandpa Joe took Mikey to the Borders bookstore by their house in Birmingham to see talk show host Laura Ingraham at a book signing for her new book, Power to the People We went back to Monroe to get some things we forgot yesterday but it was nice to see Father Dan and his sister, the Sister again. Grandma Paula got her book signed and Mikey got to meet Laura too! Here is a link for some photos at the booksigning and a photo of Laura at our parish, Shrine of the Little Flower. Unfortunately no photos with Mikey. :(
We went to Monroe today to celebrate Sam Centa's 100th birthday. He received over 100 birthday cards from family and friends. It was nice to see lots of 1st and 2nd cousin & kids all playing together. Sam lives at the Centas compound along with Father Dan Complo, the priest who married Mike and I almost 10 years ago, and other family and friends. Father Dan, although retired now, celebrates mass daily at their home and so they had mass right there after the cake. Carmen and Mikey with with baby Maggie Denja
Sam Centa with baby Mickey Maher who just turn 1 today.
well, the girls newest "thing" is their dolls. katie got an american girl doll for her birthday which helped to rekindle the love the girls have for their dolls and we had to dig out all the clothes and i'm already getting requests for christmas presents. carmen had me email tita tina from the american girl website and i've been scouting out www.dollclothessuperstore.com and www.dollmarket.com
here's isabel in a matching outfit with her girl
i'll post some of carmen and maria later, they are having a sleepover with katie tonight and are engrossed in rehearsals for some show they are going to put on for us...tomorrow i guess?
we're also going to a 100th birthday party tomorrow. exciting stuff! aunt elisa's dad is turning 100 so we're off to monroe to celebrate tomorrow afternoon. should be good to see everyone and hoping to hold little baby maggie, alex and maureen (mike's cousins) newest arrival.
We made a trip to Sturgis to visit Grandma Alice today. It was very nice to see her and even Coconut came along. In the front of her house, Grandma Alice had a pair of Grandpa Bruce's boots turned into living art. The girls played with a doll house that Grandma had gotten from a garage sale while Mikey wreaked all sorts of havoc in and outside the house. You can see the dress that Grandma got Isabel in the photo above. After we left we made an attempt to find the house that Grandpa Bob grew up in near Bronson but we just could not find the street. Hard to believe considering how few there are around there but it will have to wait till next time. Mikey was not enjoying the long car rides either so we had to cut our search short. On Friday Carmen was student of the day so she got to take the Guinea Pig into school for the day. After school we went to Katie's 7th birthday party and then Maria and Carmen had a sleep over afterwards.
Isabel got her Guniea pig today and she named him or her (we don't know which) Coconut. The girls from across the street from Grandma Paula, Mary and Sophia, came over to visit.
Isabel carrying Coconut in her purseSophia holding MikeyI think Sophia wants a baby brother
We finally took down the pool today. It is a sad reminder that summer really is over. I always feel that I squandered it but we really did most of what we planned to do this year. Every season has it's charm but summers' long sunny days warm the soul and really make up for the short, dreary, cold days of January & February. It was Carmen's turn to spend the night by herself at Grandma Paula's house tonight and she was so excited too but she traded places with Isabel to go to the Fall Festival in downtown Plymouth. Isabel wanted to go to Grandma Paula's even more then the fair! Can you believe it? We did not get any photos unfortunately but the girls rode a few rides and pigged out on elephant ears and other assorted junk food.
First off, Television never got any better than "Little House on the Prairie" only as good and rarely even then. Not every episode was great and the frequency certainly waned over the 10 year span but the quality is timeless. Nowadays, you must take the good with the bad to get any good at all. LHOTP was overtly moral, explicit, and in your face. Television and movies now must be ever so subtle about any moral message, talk of God and faith for fear of being considered "proselytizing". And of course what is considered good, moral and ethical certainly has changed too.
In other news Isabel is in an all day preschool class of 2. She is by far the star pupil considering the other troubled youth, Mikey, also the class clown, has been suspended 3 times in the first week alone. He would most likely be expelled if it were not for that darned "No Child Left Behind" act. It is not that he is not smart, it is that he requires so much of the teachers time. His parents obviously do not give him enough attention. The teacher is nice enough although he has no formal experience in teaching. You get what you pay for. On the plus side, he does allow for the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer during class. Since Isabel's birthday is late November she could not start Kindergarten this year, although she wanted to. We hope that she will be a bit better prepared for it next year. In addition, she completed her 2 week eating challenge, so she will be getting her pig soon. She has been a great sport about waiting.
The girls started school last week. They both like their classes and are already back into the swing of things. Maria is finding out that 3rd grade really pours on the homework, so the rumors of Mrs. Blousey being lousy may in fact be true, only time will tell. In any event, all the kids think she is SO pretty. Carmen says she likes 1st grade better than Kindergarten. Isabel is homeschooling with daddy and she is really getting into it. Tita Tina offered once again to pay for Isabel's preschool but we did not see the point. We signed her up for gymnastics and maybe an art class.
Mike and I had dinner all by ourselves last night at McCormick & Schmicks provided by Christina and Kevin who are in Maine for the holiday weekend. Cristina called today to say she had seen her first whale while subsisting on nothing but lobster for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was an awesome dinner and it was not at all difficult to spend all $100 let me tell you. Maria would have loved the seafood. Maybe next time.
We had a few picnics in the park last week. This photo below was from Kellogg park in downtown Plymouth. We also went to McClumpha park where Carmen once again found a friend (Katherine) from preschool. Maria is always going on and on about how Carmen always finds friends wherever she goes. Old ones and new ones. "Carmen, Carmen, Carmen" Well, today Maria made a friend and she was all about Maria. We went to another park in Birmingham by Grandma and Grandpa's house. Booth Park was completely redone over the past year and is now their favorite park. It's centerpiece is a hill made of artificial grass which the kids quickly figured out they could sled (or surf) down on pieces of cardboard boxes taken from a nearby restaurant dumpster or from home. There was a sign the last time we went that said "No use of cardboard, plastic or unsafe material for sledding" but some kids had tore it down and used it to sled down the hill. We were there when it first opened till 10:30, well past dark along with many other kids. It also has water sprayers that sends out a mist of water as well as beautiful landscaping, rocks for climbing, tunnels and dolphins jumping in rolling hills that look like ocean waves.
