Basketball Season Is Here

These two critters have been itching like crazy to play on a basketball team. Millie played on a team at the YMCA in Knoxville when she was 4 but she hasn't played since. They have had two games so far and they have both done great.

Reed started his first game off with a bang. He got the "tip off" and ran the ball down the court (while dribbling) and scored immediately. Most kids in his age group don't seem to have the concept of dribbling...or rebounding...or making a basket...or actually paying attention to the game. I'm not going to say Reed is the fastest or the best shooter or is basically the only one on the court other than the coaches that actually has a clue what's going on so I just won't say any more.

Praying Before The Game

When Millie had her game a few hours later, I was nervous for her. Reed had done so well I was just praying that she would score at least one basket or she would be very upset. She is super competitive so it would not have been good for her to not have succeeded at this after Reed did so well.

Warming Up Before The Game With Reed's Ball

I'm not sure why I worry about her, she had it wrapped up. Her team won 16-14 and she scored 8 of those 16 points. She did great. She was aggressive with her rebounding and super fast to break away and run down the court to score before everyone else ever caught up with her.

Both kiddos were supper happy after their games which made me a supper happy mommy.

Millie's second game was today and her team won 20-12. Millie started the game off great by getting the tip off to her team and allowing them to quickly score the first point.

Millie ended up scoring 1 basket in the first quarter but in the next two quarters she played, her defender was one of her best friends from her class. They stayed on each other like glue with majorly aggressive defense and neither one of them was ever open for the rest of the game to score. Millie has several other strong players on her team though so they were able to score while Millie and her friend just tried, unsuccessfully, to get open.

The Actual Blizzard

A few days after the pretend blizzard, we actually got some real snow. It was time to bust the tractor out and do some serious snow removal.

2012 Interview Questions

2012 Interview (Millie)

What’s your name? Amelia
How old are you? 7
What school do you go to? Floyd Knobs Elementary
Where are you? Mammy’s house
What’s your favorite season and why? Summer because it’s hot and it’s my birthday season
What’s your favorite thing to do in summer? Play outside, ride my bike, Rollerblade and swim
…spring? Play outside
…fall? Basketball
…winter? Play in snow and go sledding
What’s your favorite thing about each of your family members?
Mom – She teaches me stuff
Daddy – He teaches me sports
Reed – That he’s weird
Who lives in your house? Dobby, mommy, daddy, Reed and Millie
What’s your favorite animal? Giraffe, horse, cat and cheetah
What’s your favorite color? Purple and black
What activities are you doing right now? Basketball and piano. I just finished cross country and tennis
What’s your favorite number? 23
Who are your best friends? Katelyn, Larkyn, Alyssa and Heidi
What’s your favorite special in school? PE
What’s your favorite subject in school? Math and reading
What’s your favorite movie? The Never Ending Story
What’s your favorite book? Harry Potter series
What’s your favorite game? SkipBo, Brain Quest and Trouble
What’s your teacher’s name? Ms. Miller and Mrs. Cotner
What’s your favorite toy? Ball maze, little princesses and animals and legos
What’s your favorite food? Macaroni, duh!
What exciting things happened this year? Winning softball games and cross country, moving to Floyd Knobs, climbing a mountain in Colorado, being in Vince and Holly’s wedding, riding Wildebeest at Holiday World and getting Dobby, our cat.
What do you hope to do next year? I want to get first place in Cross Country, go to Hawaii or Florida and finish all the Harry Potter books.
Why do you like being a kid? Because I get to have a lot of fun and because I get to go to school
One word (or more) to describe you would be ... Athletic, nice, silly, smart, artist
What advice would you give your parents? Don’t yell at me as much,
If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why? A horse because they are fast and I could give rides and be in races
What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now? Driving a car, get my own cat, have my own phone, living at college. I’ll have a boyfriend. If I had to say…they boys I like most now, not my boyfriend but the boys I like best are Noah and James.
20 years from now? I’d be living in my own house, maybe in Hawaii, Ill be married, probably have kids and be a tennis player
What would be the ideal allowance? Tell me how you would use it. $10 – Spend it all on Harry Potter legos
What is the grossest thing you can think of? Chicken or pork
What’s your favorite song?
To listen to – Nobody’s Perfect and Dynamite
To play on the piano – Music Box Dancer, Carol of the Bells and Spring (4 Seasons)
What do you want to be when you grow up? An author and illustrator or a softball player.
What do you think is best about being a parent? That you get to play with your kids and make your own decisions.


2012 Interview (Reed)

What’s your name? Reed Albert Meunier
How old are you? 4
What school do you go to? PreK at School Elementary at St. Mary’s
Where are you? Mammy’s house
What’s your favorite season and why? Winter, I like the snow
What’s your favorite thing to do in summer? Eat milk so you don’t get burned hot and turn into flames
…spring? Ride bikes
…fall? Catch leaves to take to my teacher
…winter? Pet Midnight (Mammy’s cat)
What’s your favorite thing about each of your family members?
Mom – Her kisses and snuggles
Daddy – He plays in the snow with me
Millie – She plays animals with me
Who lives in your house? Mom, Dad, Millie, Me, Dobby and Jacob
What’s your favorite animal? Cat
What’s your favorite color? Blue and red
What activities are you doing right now? Basketball and drums
What’s your favorite number? Same number as Millie
Who are your best friends? Somebody on my soccer team, Conner and everybody at my school
What’s your favorite special in school? Play on the playground
What’s your favorite subject in school? Centers
What’s your favorite movie? Bennie (The Sandlot)
What’s your favorite book? Kindergarten workbook, Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf
What’s your favorite game? Euchre, Trouble and Spot It
What’s your teacher’s name? Mrs. Landrum and Mrs. Walker
What’s your favorite toy? Drums, Fluffy and legos
What’s your favorite food? Pretty much…BACON!
What exciting things happened this year? Played on a real soccer team, got a cat, moved to our new house and I was in a wedding!
What do you hope to do next year? Play baseball and basketball, learn to read all my sight words and start at a big kid school.
Why do you like being a kid? So I can play with Dobby
One word (or more) to describe you would be … Cute, snuggly, kissy!
What advice would you give your parents? Give more hugs and kisses. Let us eat some sweets!
If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why? Lion because they are strong
What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now? Driving a car, Ill be in highschool, playing baseball and of course I’ll have a girlfriend. Brooke, that I really miss from Westfild. And I’ll be going to second grade.
…20 years from now? I’ll be married and probably driving a car and I’ll be living in Texas
What would be the ideal allowance? Tell me how you would use it. $29 – And I’d put it in savings.
What is the grossest thing you can think of? It’s totally monster mucus, I don’t like that. It makes me throw up.
What’s your favorite song? The Bennie Song – In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.
What do you want to be when you grow up? Fireman
What do you think is best about being a parent? Getting to have a job

The Blizzard

Our Blizzard they called for ended up being about an inch of snow. I was not surprised. But the kids were excited none the less. Getting the kids ready to go swimming is a real pain in the butt but it's still easier than getting them ready for the snow. Millie has a snow suit and she can mostly get herself dressed once I lay out all the layers and tell her what order to put them on in. Reed doesn't have snow clothes so its a matter of digging through drawers and finding what can go over what. He ended up with 4 pairs of pants on, 2 shirts, and a jacket. I just kept thinking "I can't put my arms down!"



I went out in the morning and shoveled part of the driveway and made the kids a fort.

That afternoon Rick went out with them and they had way more fun. They got out the big ball they got from Vince and Holly for Christmas. It slid really well in the snow.

They then decided to build a snowman on the back deck for Dobby to see from his condo. Dobby hopped out there and enjoyed watching them.

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning finally arrived in our 18 days of Christmas celebration. For the past 3 years we have stayed at our house on Christmas Day. It's just so much better for the kids. We started this when we lived in Knoxville because all we did for 3 days it seemed was drive. Drive, drive, drive. We are closer now but have stuck with the tradition of staying at our house on Christmas Day. Anyone is welcome and we invited mine and Rick's parents along with a few of my aunts. Mom and Dad were the only ones that took us up on the offer but that was fine. Everyone is busy and we, as much as anyone, understand that.

Breakfast was a yummy Santa pancake that oddly, the kids didn't like. I guess they just like their pancakes straight up. Oh well. Next year I'll have to go back to doughnut snowmen. Everyone likes a good doughnut snowman.

Mom and dad came over later for lunch. Reed and my dad were having a serious talk over a bowl of pistachios.

After lunch it was time for some lego building of course.

I asked the kids what their favorite things were they have gotten.

Millie - Dobby, getting her nails done, the big play house to color and a maze ball.

Reed - Dobby, Fluffy (a build-a-bear dog) a drumset, rocket launcher and his semi lego set.

Meet Dobby - Our House Elf Kitten

Christmas seems to have lasted forever this year. We had our first Christmas celebration with Rick's family on December 9th in Evansville at Jeff and Lyndsie's house. We will have our final one on the 27th with my family at Laura and Joe's house so my kids have had 18 days of Christmas.

Sandwiched between all of that was a surprise gift from my Aunt Mary Jude. She offered to pay the adoption fees for us to get the kids a kitten. Rick and I had been kicking around the idea because we wanted the kids to have a pet. My kids have been begging for a kitten so we finally agreed. I picked him out at the New Albany Animal Shelter on the 18th and then paid for him to stay until the 23rd when we could pick him up and give it to them on Christmas morning. But, after I got home, I felt bad leaving him in there so I went back the next day and rescued him.

Prior to picking him up, Rick built a cool kitty condo on our deck off of our sunroom so the cat's litter box and food can stay out there. There is a little pet door in the window for him to have access. It now has carpet in the bottom, a nice tree log for claw sharpening and a few shelves for him to climb on and lounge up high and watch the wildlife in the back yard. This cat has it made!

The kids saw the kitten when they got home from school and were very excited. It had several names in the first few hours but by the end of the evening everyone had settled on Dobby. Dobby is a character from the second Harry Potter book that Millie has just finished reading. In the book, Dobby is a house elf and he slams his head on things to punish himself for doing bad things. Our Dobby kept sliding around on the slick floor chasing a ping pong ball and smacking his head on the walls, floors and chairs so it seemed fitting.

After a week, our little bag of bones has made himself quite at home at our house. He loves to be where the people are and will find any available lap to snuggle on. We still keep him in the sunroom at night and when we are not home but I'm sure he will get more freedom when he gets bigger and learns to stay off the couch.

Reed's Christmas Program

I'll be honest here, I love Reed but his Christmas Program was brutal to sit through. There, I said it. It started 15 minutes late then the principal (who I'm not real impressed with anyway) made about 10 minutes of announcements about carpool procedure. Not the time or place for all those details with a packed gym of aunts, uncles and grandparents who could care less about carpool lines and PTO announcements.

Anyway, it finally started and Reed looked like he was going to be sick. Not sure what was going on. He kept squatting down and had a look of pain to him. He sang but his showmanship was lacking.

He did his speaking part great, though, so I was a proud mommy. Then when the PreK group was done, they left the stage and we had to sit though Kindergarten and then through First Grade.

Maybe my heart wasn't in it that night but I was ready to leave. Maybe it's because I could tell something was off with Reed but who knows? Just call me the Grinch.

Piano Recital

Millie had been practicing extremely hard for her piano recital. She started piano in kindergarten but then we moved and never found an instructor in Westfield but she got back in it once we got to Floyd Knobs. She had only had less than 2 semesters of lessons at the time of this recital. She wanted to play Carol of the Bells and We Three Kings. Carol of the Bells was very difficult and she nailed it at the recital. There was an older resident of the nursing home sitting next to me and he looked pretty bored until Millie played and he turned to his wife/friend and said "that little one is really good!" Made me a little proud!

Practicing before the recital.

Millie has lots of special folks come see her play. Her Great Aunt Mary Jude, her Aunt Laura and her Grandpa.

Her teacher's aide, Mrs. Cotner and her husband, came to listen.

Aunt Holly and Uncle Vince drove straight from Colorado to see her. Vince had no sleep in 2 days and was falling asleep but we really couldn't blame him.

There was plenty of time for some Meunier bonding before it started.

Reed waited patiently for it to be over so we could eat.

All of Millie's beautiful flowers she got afterward from Mary Jude and Vince and Holly.

And now for the video. This is her practicing at home before the recital because I figured I would not be able to get it there.

We Three Kings


Carol of the Bells

Halloween

The kids sure had a different kind of Halloween this year. In years past, we have always lived in a neighborhood where we would walk to a few neighbor's houses then the kids would come back to our house and hand out candy, lots of it. Living in the country is a bit of a downer when it comes to Halloween. We didn't even go trick-or-treating because we would have only had about 5 houses to drive to and the kid's costumes had to be taken on and off to get in the car. Too much trouble. So we went to several church parties where they could play games and wear their costumes. On Halloween we stayed home to hand out candy...to our 2 trick-or-treaters. One was my nephew and one was my mom. I called both of them to make sure they came.

My mom made Millie as awesome dragon costume. Millie wanted to be a purple dragon and she was the prettiest and coolest purple dragon I ever saw. Reed wanted to be a knight so they pretended Millie was Reed's dragon and he controlled her. Mom made his costume too including a custom shield that said Sir Reed. She rocks.