Winter Fisherisms

Here's one of my favorite parts of my blog...the kids cute sayings:

• Maggie: Sargento cheese must come from Sargentina. Riley rather mischievously replies: Yep, that's where they grow cheese. They plant a tiny piece of cheese, water it with milk, and out sprouts a block of cheese.
• Maggie: Are those kid-knee beans?
• Maggie crossing the crowded street at the hockey game: This is a flurry of people. 
• Maggie: The crack of light is in my eyes.
• Maggie: I can't wait to get to our hotel at the Pineola Inn and fix it up. Chris: How are you going to fix it up? Maggie: Oh you know...put stuff in the fridge.
• Maggie: Yeah, boyyyzzz! (Said in reference to at least 10 things a day)
• Riley: Nice!!  (Said in reference to at least 10 things a day)
• Maggie: I don't even know what nausea means. Riley: It means having hallucinations.
• Maggie: The Baroque composers are Bach, Handel, and hmmm....Vivaldi, right? :) 
• Riley: Mom sounds like Leroy from Winnie the Pooh.
• Riley during his bath: Check out my bubbles I made using chemistry. I call is "shamwash" (it's made from shampoo and body wash). Chris: That's cool! You didn't want to call it "bodypoo."
• Chris: I ate spicy pods for lunch. (Being silly about the dumplings he had).
• Riley: It'll be about 28 years for you dad and maybe 34 or maybe 38 years for you Mom that I'll have to take care of you when you're old. 
• Chris to Maggie joking about her behavior clip system at school: I'm going to put your clip on black if you don't straighten up.
• Chris to Maggie: Do you need some help setting up your lights? Maggie: No, no, you're older so you better do less work.
• Maggie: I'm going to go refresh the snow. (She runs outside and blows her hot breath in the air to mix it with the cold and try to get it to snow more). 
• Maggie looking at her wrinkled bath hands: Oh look, I have granny hands! 
• Maggie seeing a picture of Grandmama from her wedding day: That smile never gets old! 

Holiday Highlights

 December 2019 was a beautiful blur! We kicked off the month with our annual trek to Christmasville and enjoyed the festivities downtown Rock Hill. Zippy and Peppermint kept us entertained each morning. Daddy helped pull off a surprise family trip to a Checkers hockey game for Star Wars night. Maggie and I went to see the York County Ballet and Eliza perform in the Nutcracker. We had a "Snowbody has Better Friends than Us" half day playdate with our QCP buddies. We attended the Lowry's Parade and helped set up for our Shiland Luminaries. Old Town Church had a special Christmas candlelight service. We went out to Mr. Tokyo a few days before Christmas and ate our weight in sushi, Aunt Melissa and Uncle Rodger hosted our family for a Christmas Even cookie decorating, puzzle playing, soup and dessert eating evening. Santa arrived with some special electronic surprises and a few themed travel gifts. We saw both sides of our families and got to celebrate each other. 

We rang in 2020 with the Casons. We had an after Christmas QCP party the weekend after. Maggie got her hair cut and straightened again by Ms. Carol (one of her favorite hairdressers ever). The kids planned a really awesome MLK Jr. House Party complete with snacks, a dance party, story time, and jokes. It was REALLY sweet and one of the best ways we've seen our darlings collaborate! Aunt Charla gave us a scare when she had a stroke and we sent her a care package to help her along her road to recovery. It's going to be a long one. The kids tried Ethiopian food for the first time. Riley was a big fan...Maggie not so much! The kids were on the same basketball team through the Oakland Baptist church team and had awesome coaches (Jason and Marsha) who really helped them develop their skills and their confidence. January 29th was Lobby Day in Columbia and I had appointments set up with Senator Climer and House Rep. Simrill. On a whim, I emailed Governor McMaster to see if he would also like to meet and talk about education issues since I would be in Columbia. To my surprise, he responded positively and we had a 20 minute meeting. He had a lot of questions and his biggest one was whether or not we still taught cursive handwriting in schools. :) We still have a long way to go with education policies and making it a priority in our state, but I was thankful for the opportunity to make my concerns heard and to help educate others.

Chris came through again with two more fantastic pinewood derby cars that he helped Riley and Maggie create. The QCP kids had a great time cheering each other on. The kids were selling coupon cards at Harris Teeter when it suddenly started snowing. That was a special treat! Wish it had stuck around, but it was gone within the hour. Maggie and Chris got to go to a Daddy Daughter dance at St. John's with a bunch of Maggie's friends. Unfortunately, she was too busy with her buddies to spend much time dancing with her daddy. Riley and I went to Lake Wylie Bowl N Bounce and did his first ever round of laser tag. He wanted to be on the opposing team and thought it was hilarious every time he got me! As an "Experience Christmas Gift", we took the kids to snowtubing in a small city called Jonas Ridge. We stayed at a quaint hotel/lodge called the Pineola Inn and ate at one of the two restaurants in town. The next day we checked out Linville Caverns. It was a lot of the fun! The following weekend, we went to see Grimmz Fairy Tales on Feb. 22nd as part 2 of their Christmas gifts. It was a hip hop rendition of stories like Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Rapunzel. I loved that they had character building lessons as the theme of each one. We finished up the month by having the kids participate in Read Across America week. They loved the crazy hair day. We checked out the Art Show and Book Fair that week too. Then we brought in March by going on a family "hike" at Riverwalk.

It's been a beautiful, busy, and brilliant winter! We are looking forward to more of the same this spring!