Sunday, January 27, 2019

O'Riada Manning Ceili

This evening, Christopher's dance school hosted their (now annual) chili (pronounced kay-lee) fundraiser. It was a great evening with a silent auction, live music and lots of dancing. The boys were happy with the food selection--hot chocolate, mac and cheese, what else do you need? And Jonathan and Daddy got a little crazy...



Of course the kids all had a blast showing off their amazing dance moves! Here is Chris performing his reel...


Then all the boys got out there and showed us their reels. The boys who dance second and third in this video are both on their way to Worlds this year!


Joseph, the owner of the school and Christopher's teacher, showed us some of his fancy footwork too...


Finally, the kids did an actual ceili, or group dance together...


Irish music is always fun and upbeat and this ceili was no exception. The kids and parents all had a great time and we are thankful to have found our Irish dance family!

Cuteness and Dancing

Close...

Closer...
Closest...
Poor Athena. We didn't take that many pictures of her during her first year with us, so I am trying to make up for it now. She is our third fur-baby after all!

And since we've had some requests for dancing videos, I'm putting a little snippet up of Christopher dancing a bit of his hornpipes this morning (in sneakers). Unfortunately, we can't take videos of his actual competitions. He's in performance group now so hopefully we'll post some of those in the near, busy-St.-Patrick's-Day-season that is rapidly approaching!

Friday, January 25, 2019

County Kerry

In a few weeks, we'll be returning to Ireland in order for Chris to dance in the All Ireland dance competition. It will be held in Killarney, County Kerry, which is in the southwest corner of the country. It is a part of Ireland that the boys haven't been too, although Brian and I have both been there before. The boys already have Dublin and Galway jerseys, but we had to get them prepped with their Kerry gear too!



Monday, January 21, 2019

New Orleans Feis

We just returned from balmy New Orleans, where they have flowers and palm trees in January. Why did we come back, you ask? Oh, you know, that whole "work and school" thing... We were down there for a double feis weekend for Christopher. We actually stayed just a couple minutes from the airport where the feis was being held. Not only was it a double feis weekend, it was what is called a "second chance" feis. So you actually have two opportunities each day to perform. Chris did great! It was his first PC (preliminary championship) level feis and he started with a second place overall and then earned a first place in his second chance!

The trophies at this level are getting bigger so we actually had to acquire a tote bag to carry things home, as we did not leave extra packing space. On day two Chris earned a fourth place and then a second place overall!

On the PC level, you have to get two overall first places to move up to OC (open champs). Chris is now half way there! Meanwhile, Jonathan earned a crown and scepter for sitting through two days of hornpipes and reels...
Christopher even made the New Orleans newspaper, the Times-Picayune which was cool to see...


Two other funny, food-and-drink related things from the weekend... Not sure if you know this, but Jonathan is quite a carnivore at school. He's generally a picky eater so we were happy to see him eat anything, really, even chicken. That being said, we are now able to order him meat when we eat out, especially while traveling. One evening, after we had a 3PM lunch (so typical of feis weekends), no one was particularly hungry at our usual dinner time--except J. We decided to make a stop at McDonald's so we could get fries and we could buy Jonathan his first ever Happy Meal. We really built up the Happy Meal because it has the toy in it. He was so excited, but wanted to know why it was called a "Happy Meal." We explained that the toy in the meal made kids happy so he couldn't wait to bring the special box back to the hotel to open it...
He was fired up until, that is, he opened the box and in lieu of a toy (which they must have run out of but didn't tell us) there was an extra set of french fries. Jonathan (in his typical dramatic form) was devastated and declared that "This is a sad meal!" He then cried a bit, but in the end he finished all of his french fries and a corner of one chicken mcnugget. I told him we would try another time... Also, Chris wanted a sip of my coffee before he danced the round where he ended up winning first place...
He now claims that he must have a few sips of coffee before every competition! 

Another funny "Jonathanism" came as we were returning the rental car this afternoon. A little background-- when J got his big boy bed over the summer, it was delivered by deliverymen in a Budget rental truck. Well today we passed a sign for Budget Rental Cars and J declared, "Look, it's the truck that delivered my bed! Except I call it 'Fudge-it.'" I suppose you had to be in the car when he said it but it was so incredibly funny and very typical of him to say!

Yesterday, when feising was over, we avoided New Orleans itself like the plague, what with the rather important football game going on, but today we made it down to the French Quarter. We strolled around, checked out shops, took the streetcar and the boys got their Mardi Gras masks!






Thursday, January 17, 2019

Curling

Not sure if a dog could get more curled up than this one! She's spending this cool, damp day curled up on a pillow on the couch--we should all be so lucky...


Monday, January 14, 2019

Sledding!

Well, there was no power at Pembroke today so the boys got a free day to go sledding! Here are a couple of their runs...


Sunday, January 13, 2019

Playing in the Snow

We went out back this morning to play in the fresh snow and the dogs joined us! They were going crazy...


It's been so nice to be outside because for the first time in awhile, it is not very cold when it has snowed. We had a nice morning out there and the trees still look beautiful!


The garden, on the other hand, is making it look like spring is very far away...


Saturday, January 12, 2019

Go Chiefs!

After a day playing in and shoveling snow (we think probably about a foot of it!) we decided to act like real Kansas Citians and came inside to watch the Chiefs playoff game. After we shoveled in the morning, we probably got another 6 inches of snow throughout the day! Then we had some chips and Velveeta dip for dinner and the boys settled in to watch the game!

Back to School

Well, the boys were back to school this week, hence not that many blog entries. One thing we have been doing after dinner almost every night, however, is having a dance party in the living room! J's current favorite is the Foo Fighters because we can do the "crazy dance" to the lyrics of Dave Grohl. Here is a sample of what our after dinner antics look like...


And today we woke up to beautiful snow! It was stuck to the trees and looked so nice. Of course, we lost power for about 30 minutes this morning, just as I was about to make breakfast, so we hung out with the candles to keep us company...
Finally, when the power came back on, I got some french toast started and I wish we had a smell app on the computer because it smelled soooo good!
And, according to the boys, it tasted pretty good too! After some coffee, we were ready to hit the snow!


Chris made a fantastic snowman in the front yard and we repurposed our holiday planter materials to give it some hair and crazy eyes!
Later, we added a carrot for a nose (amazingly we had a carrot in our fridge!) and at first the snowman had a serious face...
The boys determined she was a girl (due to the hair) and named her Vanessa Sweetie Banana Von Vooglum. After receiving her name, she was much happier!


Sunday, January 6, 2019

Awwww...

This level of cuteness is not worth shooing off the couch!

Friday, January 4, 2019

Downtown Adventures


We had a lovely morning in downtown KC, which is growing by the second! We took the streetcar from Union Station down to the River Market and then to the downtown library and there are so many apartments, restaurants, and businesses being built along the way. Very exciting! Anyway, the boys had a great morning riding the streetcar...

At the library, Chris attempted to teach J how to play chess--that lasted about 3 minutes!
We met Daddy for lunch at his office and then came home to enjoy the fruits of their labors. In the River Market, we stopped at the Italian market and the boys picked out some hard-to-find-in-KC quality Italian desserts. Chris left the cookie and took the canoli, and Jonathan went for the chocolate sandwich cookie!



Thursday, January 3, 2019

Mission Accomplished

Look at how well we keep our dogs off the couch...
So much for that grand plan!

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone's 2019 is off to a good start! Yesterday was rainy and cold here so we celebrated by going to a nice cozy movie (The Grinch) where the boys got to relax like pros...
The movie was good, the Grinch was nicer to the dog than in the original movie (this made Mommy especially happy) and the animation was beautiful. After the movie, we went to our favorite restaurant, Blue Koi, for their delicious noodles and tofu--yum! We don't typically stay up til midnight because, no matter when we go to bed, both of our boys are up by 6AM. Someone set off fireworks at midnight, however, and woke up Jonathan who was very concerned that it was thunder. After reassuring him and wishing him a happy new year, we all went back to sleep. Chris said he heard nothing. Today we went to Eggct, bright and early for breakfast which was delicious and then we all swore that we weren't going to eat out again for the rest of the month! (Hmmm, we'll see...)

It was very frigid here today but we've all been inside more than necessary this holiday so we went out first for a morning walk and then later in the day just so the boys could run around. This was the temperature...
But that didn't stop Christopher and Jonathan from playing t-ball in the front yard! When they came in their cheeks were so rosy and they were happy...
It was a perfect afternoon for some soothing hot chocolate!