Hallie's First Choir Concert

It was Wheel Night at Hallie's Elementary School an event that happens 4 times a year so that the kids can showcase what they have been working on thus far.

I have to say that the schools in Arlington are INCREDIBLE!! I love love love love Hallie's Elementary school. It is an art school and so not only does she have art, architecture, music, and dance classes, where applicable her school integrates the arts into all of her subjects.

For example Hallie learned how to count by tens by learning a song, she is in a class play that teaches the kids about the 4 seasons, and when she gets into 4th grade it gets even more high tech by teaching the kids about sound waves by writing having them compose a song that correlates the picture that they are given that uses long and short sound waves, which they are able to see on the synthesizer. Her school also has a claymation studio which last year won the Nickelodeon Shorty Award, a school garden, and violin lessons.

Hallie had her first Choir Concert this week, and let me tell you it was adorable. They sang 3 songs, Peel Banana (which is what the kids are doing in the picture below), The Wheels On The Bus with orginal verses such as the Daddy's on the bus say: Keep That Baby Quiet (ha ha), and The People on the Bus Say: Give that Baby some candy (ha. ha, again) It was adorable and Hallie sang at the top of her lungs!

After the concert we broke our goal of not visiting McDonalds until the new year

(we lasted one week!) and celebrated with some ice cream.

Camping Trip

A few weeks ago we headed out with our friends the Haws on our first real family camping trip. It WAS SO FUN!! Don't get me wrong I miss have a snuggly baby around but as our kids get older things like camping trips only get more fun.

It was Columbus day weekend and so in an effort to ditch the crowds in the Shenanadoahs we drove 3 hours to West Virginia. The roads to the campsite wound around little hills (mountains for all you east coasters) which was breathtaking for its beauty and its ability to make my stomach turn inside out!

We had no idea what to expect ,but when we got there we found this quiet amazing campsite. The whole campsite is surrounded by a beautiful river. It was warm enough that the kids were able to wade around in it, and shallow enough that i didn't really need to pay attention. In the summer the water levels are a little higher and you can float around the river over and over and over again and hop off at your campsite when you are done. Sounds heavenly!

I bought some watercolors so that the girls could paint rocks, but they ended up painting the trees, firewood, and water tap. Needless to say by the end of the trip we had a lovely campsite.