whoopsie

As Thom John pointed out to me, I created our first REPEAT post yesterday!  Silly me!  When prepping a post, I generally make an album of photos and then write about the photos and the post evolves from there.  Well, I guess I made two albums with the same photos without realizing it.  Anyway, here's a snippet of our night tonight - that'll help erase any memory of the double-post :-)

Blizzard of 2016... part two

The kids' schools were closed on Monday and with two kids at home, two feet of snow on the ground, and an "alternate" train schedule in effect, I got to stay home with the kiddies.  We started off the morning pretty lazily, watching cartoons and playing tennis and bowling on the Wii.  On Sunday, I saw posts on Facebook from other local mommy friends that there is a big hill over at the local high school that makes for great sledding.  I took the kids over at mid-morning to check it out and it was AWESOME!  The hill was just the right for all ages - there were kids from toddler to high-school there having a good time.

The kids' last run after two+ hours of sledding and climbing up the hill - they went together this time and wiped out spectacularly!  That was the end our of sledding fun.  Afterwards, we went home and everyone napped for a couple of hours!

Leaf Paradise

The kids helped with some fall clean-up work this weekend - they helped to sweep our patio and then rake up leaves into a nice big pile:

After that, it was time to jump!

Sean lost interest after the jumping 10 times and wandered off to play while Clare enjoyed dancing and singing in the leaves:

Her very own song, "Leaf Paradise"

September at the Beach

No, we didn't get caught up in Pope Fever and we didn't board a flight with the Pope to Italy.  For Pope Weekend, we took the Sooy Babies to the beach!  Despite the clouds, the kids had a ball at the beach.  We even gave the lifeguards something to do - Clare and Sean got into a spat and Clare whacked Sean in the back with a sand shovel.  Sean ended up with a scrape and we asked the lifeguards for a bandage and all was well.

Here are a few snaps and a video from our afternoon:

Queen of the Pool

While Sean had swimming lessons everyday at camp this summer, Clare kept up with swimming lessons with her teacher.  She showed us her progress at the beach these past two weeks, bravely boogie boarding, body surfing, and ducking under the water!  Tonight was her first lesson back after two weeks at the beach and she really took things up a notch!  Check out her new "trick"!

Wednesday and Thursday evenings

Wednesday and Thursday nights have gotten busy for us.  Wednesdays at 6, Sean has tennis practice.  His best girl, Madison, is in the class too.  And that is good because she helps Sean focus and pay attention to the coach :-)  He's learning all the parts of the court and the terminology and playing lots of fun games and running races.

After tennis, we go to Clare's swimming lesson - she's making great strides!  She's working on swimming on her own and going underwater.  She's still uncomfortable with floating on her back, but she's getting braver each week.

On Thursdays, Seany has baseball practice.  While he's working out on the field, Clare likes to pick dandelions, run around, and try to get on the field... and mug for the camera, of course!

Five Day Weekend

Seany had a five day weekend last weekend thanks to a President's Day break and a snow day.  Clare just had a four day weekend :-)

We sure did pack a lot into this weekend.  On Friday, Daddy and Sean got to spend the day together - highlights included going out to lunch and seeing the Spongebob movie.  Saturday was basketball for Sean, swimming for both kids, and then Clare went to a birthday party at the Garden State Children's Museum.  After we got home from the party, we had Grandma and Grandpa Corcoran, plus Aunt Mary over for dinner and dessert!  On Sunday, it was Sean's turn to go to a birthday party - at a hibachi restaurant!  Sean didn't like the food very much, but the cake (from the Cake Boss' new bakery!!) was a hit.  And Monday was time for Sean, Clare, and Mommy to spend the day together.  Because it was about 8 degrees all day, we stayed in and played games, Legos, Wii, colored, and napped.

On Tuesday, we woke up to about 4 inches of snow and no school for the kids.  Luckily, Mommy could work from home but unluckily, she had a lot of work to do.  Thank goodness for Netflix streaming!  But we got to take two breaks to go out and play in the snow:

Bell Choir

The kids participated in the bell choir at Grummy and Pop Pop's church on Long Beach Island on Christmas Eve.  They played to "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."  The music director would hold up a card with color squares on it and when the player saw the color that matched his or her bell, it was time to ring it.

After the bells, the children in the congregation were called up to help decorate the Christmas tree with ornaments:

And after the service, we stuck around to take a few pictures and chat:

We tried to get a picture of Clare with the 91-year-old organist, but Clare was not happy about that so we didn't get to take it this time.  Ah well.  We all went back to Grummy and Pop Pop's house after the service to enjoy some more Christmas Eve festivities.