Wrapping up 2008.....

We are off to Dallas this afternoon for 4 days to ring in the new year, so I thought I would have a year-end posting today. The Zyrieks have had a fantastic year with many great experiences. Gary and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in Mexico. Congrats to us!! Anna turned 5 and Caroline turned 2 and our dog Ally turned 8. We enjoyed trips with the girls to the beach, Dallas and Rapid City. Anna started kindergarten and learned how to read....Caroline became a fan of Elmo and by year-end Dora (my personal favorite!). We lost my step-sister Leigh Ann in May and Gary's grandmother in late November. We have seen the stock market (and our 401(k)'s and the girls' 529's) sink lower than we ever imagined and we saw the country elect the first African American president. We do not know what we will face in 2009 (except for me turning 35!!), however, we know that we are blessed, we have faith that will take us through the peaks and the valleys and our families are very important to us and very close to us to share all of our special times with all throughout the year. Here's to a new year and new experiences and laughs!!

Christmas Day!!

The girls woke up around 7:15 and were excited to come downstairs!! Anna, Caroline and Gammy were upstairs and I went up there to retrieve Caroline. Gary waited downstairs with the video camera. Anna was super excited to see her new "art desk" that Santa brought. She said "it is so much bigger than I ever imagined" and next "How did Santa get that down the chimney?"....Caroline was overwhelmed with the entire scene and did not know what to think. She played with her toys and took a spin in the cozy coupe. So much fun!!

Dad, Julie and my sister Elizabeth dropped by for a quick visit that morning. They had a quiet house since Jennifer, James and Blair plus my neices and nephews were all not in Memphis this year for Christmas.

After Dad's visit, we got ready and headed over to Mom and Dan's house for a late breakfast (the kids had not even noticed that it was 10am and we had not had a bite to eat!!) and another round of opening gifts. Santa left Anna a fishbowl with a "real live fish" as Anna said at Mom's and she promptly named her new fish Sassy. Caroline was excited to be there and loved tearing the paper off her gifts.

We went back home for a while and for Gary's mom to nap and then went for a late afternoon visit to Dad's. The girls received a mini piano there and loved banging on it and creating "music". All in all, a great day. We are so blessed and loved having the girls be with all of their grandparents on this fun day. Gary and I really see Christmas morning differently since the girls have grown up. We all will sleep well tonight!!

The den on Christmas morning

Caroline driving her new cozy coupe complete with Ra-Ra and Bebe.

Caroline, our new budding photographer.

Anna with "Biscuit" who obeys 10 commands!

Ally with her treat from Santa Paws.

Caroline checking out Anna's fish Sassy.

Anna learning a new song on the piano.

Christmas Eve

The girls woke up knowing there was only one day left until Christmas....the Advent calendar had only one surprise left to be unveiled. Gary and I could not believe that the big day was super close. Gary's mom arrived last night and the girls were already enjoying having her in town. They helped her wrap gifts that she had shipped to the house. The picture shows the lovely wrapping jobs and HUGE tags that accompanied them a la Anna!! I cooked a nice Christmas Eve late lunch/early dinner complete with turkey and dressing. We ate on the nice Christmas china that was Gary's grandmothers. A special treat that we will enjoy for years to come. After lunch we went to the Christmas Eve service at Hope. Not quite as traditional as we had wanted, but still enjoyed the candlelight service at the end and singing Silent Night and Joy to the World. After church the girls came home and baked cookies for Santa and got ready for bed. Anna was very excited but both girls went to bed without any sounds!! Santa left quite a spread for the girls....we hope there will be many smiles in the morning!!

All the presents under the tree...many wrapped by the girls.

The pretty table before Christmas Eve dinner

Anna getting the cookies ready for Santa.

"Settling down" before bedtime

The scene at bedtime....ready for Santa.

Visit with Santa

We visited Santa on Saturday night. Anna was ready to go over with him her list. She also wanted to tell him thank you for writing her back. Anna received a letter in the mail on Friday as a reply from Santa. What a way to make it exciting!! Even Mom and Dad were surprised!! We went to the Collierville Mall and shared time with Santa. There was no line and so we got lots of one on one time. Caroline kept saying "Not yet Mommy" and then finally agreed to sit on his lap. Not too happy about that part, but glad to receive a piece of candy at the end!

The girls with Santa. Better than last year for little Caroline.

Anna and Santa

The family with Santa

Avery's wedding

The final person from my supper club got married on December 13th in Jackson, MS. Avery Edmonson was the bride and she was gorgeous!! Avery was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2006 and finished all surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation at the beginning of 2007. She moved home from Memphis to Jackson, MS to be closer to family and she found Mr. Right in the process!! Congrats to Avery and Lea!!

Ramsey, Laurie, Susan, Susie, Mary, Avery, Emily, Lisa and Kim (Supper Club)

Avery and me at the reception


Gary and me at the reception.

Christmas Parties

School was soon out for the holidays with the Christmas parties in full swing at Harding. Caroline had hers right after her Christmas program and Anna's was on Friday. They are now out of school until January 6th!! Whew!! I'm off from work the entire time too....pray for sanity!!

Caroline and Mya at their Christmas program

Daddy and Caroline during her Christmas party.

Anna and Miss Christy at her Christmas party

Cheerleading is here

Anna started her cheerleading season at church in December. She and the other kindgergarten girls cheer for the basketball games in December and January. After hours of practice, the girls were decked out in their uniforms and ready to go!

Anna is ready to cheer on the players at Hope.

Anna and her friend McKayla

Caroline thinks she is ready for cheerleading too.

Nutcracker

Anna and I went to the Nutcracker ballet this year for the third year in a row. The place where she takes ballet is the production company for the main show in town. Therefore, Anna recognizes a lot of the people on stage which is fun for her. She was particularly drawn to the Dew Drop Fairy, Rachel Shumake, from the company, because she knows her well from ballet and church. Anna is convinced she will be on stage one day for everyone to see!!

Anna and Mommy before the big show!

Anna showing off her favorite ballet steps after the show.

Best Christmas Lights!!

Gary has a coworker that takes days and days and days and days to put out his Christmas lights. They are so amazing and are set to 20 minutes of music that you can tune your radio to 106.3 FM to hear while taking in the scenery. The address is 8598 Sycamore Trail Drive in Germantown. You can visit any night between 5:30 and 9:00 p.m. Believe me, it's worth the drive over.

Picking out the tree

It was time for the Zyrieks to venture out and pick out a Christmas tree. Call me crazy but I HAVE to have a real tree in my house. My parents have fake trees now as they are older but I love having a real tree. Gary and I figured out long ago that Home Depot had great trees for very good prics. We took the girls with us this year to find as Anna called it "The Perfect Tree". We started looking around and Anna and Caroline both showed us ones that did not make the cut. At one point Anna even said, "That one is not awesome enough!" Finally we found the right one, had the trunk trimmed up and put it in the Sequoia....decorating would come later.

i like this one!

carolie and ra-ra (baby doll) survey the choices

the tree for us!

Ann Sibert

Gary's sweet grandmother Ann Sibert died on Sunday, Novembe 30th. She was 84 years old. What a blessing it was for me to have met her back in 1992 and continued my relationship with her all these years. She was an amazing Southrn woman who worked in the military, the education system in Alabama and in politics, even running George Wallace's campaign for governor in Alabama. She and her husband Lathem were big Auburn fans and were great people. We traveled to lower Alabama for her funeral this week with Gary's mom and enjoyed seeing all of Gary's family. She will truly be missed!!

Ann
Gary with Ann in Eufaula

Ann, Mary, Gary and Anna (4 generations!)

Ann and Gaga

Thanksgiving Day

We had a fun Thanksgiving Day and the few days following. We started the day with lunch at Mom's house. The girls fed the geese before lunch with their cousins from Dallas, Blake and Drew. This was one of the best moments for Blake as he had the stomach bug most of the weekend. After lunch at mom's we headed over to Dad's which has been our tradition my whole life that I can remember. My uncle Blair remarried on Saturday the 29th so all the family came in town to help celebrate. We had 25+ people at my dad's for lunch. All of the seven grandkids enjoyed being around each other and wreaking havoc all over the place!! We are thankful to have had the chance to see so many of our family members that weekend!!

Anna with cousin Blake

The Zyrieks

The 7 grandkids

Blair, Lisa, Jennifer, James and Lizzie @ wedding

Giving Thanks, part 2

Anna's class had their feast on Monday, November 24th. Her class dressed like Indians by decorating shirts, selecting an Indian name (Princess Snow Fawn) and wearing their self made hats with feathers! Anna's class had a great time feasting away and Anna was a beautiful Indian princess. Kindergarten is going well. Anna made a list of what/who she was thankful for and I have included part of the list below:

1. Mommy
2. McKayla
3. Daddy
4. The Month of November
5. Food
6. Ally (the dog)
7. Many other things
100. In very small print.....her sister Caroline!!!

Love how McKayla her friend made it second on the list before Daddy!!

Snow Fawn with Miss Christy

Giving Thanks, part 1

Caroline's class had their Thanksgiving Feast on Friday. The two year olds in the early childhood program at Harding wore Pilgrim hats and the three year olds were indians. Caroline wore her hat most of the meal which was so cute. The Early Childhood program has a long tradition of serving formal Thanksgiving dinner to the parents. It is very nicely prepared and very enjoyable.

Crazy Caroline

Caroline had quite a day at school on Tuesday. She went through 3 shirts due to yummy snacks of yogurt and applesauce so she came home in a classic white t-shirt. Then, she decided she did not like her hair up any longer so basically she looked like a ragamuffin when I picked her up from school!! The picture below shows Caroline proud of putting her three "dolls" in time-out. Why, you ask are they in time out? Caroline ALWAYS replies, "Because they hit their friends!" She is hilarious. We never make it through a day without a good laugh from her.

Midnight Madness (eastern time)

My friend Laurie invited me to join her and two others at the Tigers game on Monday night vs. UMass. The catch was that it tipped off at 11pm!! The Tigers were the first game in a 24 hour college basketball marathon on ESPN which started at midnight eastern time. There was a great crowd of about 16,000 (even though they announced over 18,000) and much fun was had by all. Some people showed up in their pajamas and most people stayed until the end, which was 1:30 a.m. Surprisingly I made it to work around 7:45 on Tuesday morning but by mid afternoon the 4 hours of sleep had hit me like a brick. Great time and I hope to attend more games this season, only next time during prime time!!

Anna, the reader

Anna is doing a fabulous job this fall of learning to read. While she had picked up on some of it this summer, she has exploded with reading since beginning kindergarten. Each week her teacher sends home sight words which we keep in a Ziploc bag and review every night. She is now up to about 50-60 sight words. Her class started the Accelerated Reader (AR) program a few weeks ago where the kids check out a book and read with their parents and then take a short test on the computer at school about the book. The kids earn points for each test they successfully complete. Right now Anna's class does one book per week. Each Friday she brings home a new book and this week it was "Are you my mother" by P.D. Eastman. She can read the entire book on her own which not only makes her very proud of herself but Gary and I are super proud parents. Caroline helped tonight by holding the book and turning the pages!! By Monday of each week Anna is ready to take her test and wants to bring home a new book....maybe after Christmas she can do more than one book a week! Such exciting times for us as parents of our new little reader. No more "spelling" words out to avoid Anna knowing what we are saying.

Secret Reader

Every Friday Anna's class has a "secret reader" that comes in the morning and shares several books with the class. This week was my week and I was excited to be the surprise of the day. Anna was shocked when I walked in and was very glad it was me! I read three books to the class and received applause...one book "Caps for Sale" they knew as a favorite and had such fun imitating the monkeys in the book. Anna's class is learning to read very well and were a lot of fun to be around.

Trick or Treat

The girls had a blast trick or treating on Friday night.....they lasted for 2 1/2 hours!! We were pushing them around in the double jog stroller and around 8:30 Anna just could not get out any more. By then Caroline had the hang of it and wanted to continuously ring people's doorbells. We filled and emptied the girls trick or treat buckets 3 times, so that was PLENTY!! I told Anna on Saturday that the candy was only going to be around for a week and then we were going to throw it out. That of course brought tears and pleading from Anna.....Enjoy seeing the Auburn Cheerleader and the South Dakota Buffalo (costume sent by Gary's mom when Anna was 2)....

Fell prey to Facebook

After hearing just about everyone I know talk about how fun it is to be on facebook, I joined tonight. I already have seen so many people I knew from high school and college. I'm excited to catch up with these folks but have been warned that facebook can be addictive....must show restraint!! I promise to update the blog this weekend with some trick or treat pictures!! Have a great rest of the week.

Fall Festival and School Parties

We have definitely gotten our use out of our costumes this year! The best part of it all is that we spent no money on them. We already had Anna's Auburn cheerleader costume from going to the football games and Caroline wore the famous buffalo costume that Anna wore when she was two. We started the festivites on Friday the 24th by attending the fall festival at church. Lots of games and candy were enjoyed by the family. We progressed into Caroline's class party which was on Thursday. They wore their best "wacky tacky" outfit. On Friday the kindergarten classes enjoyed their annual Pumpkin Patch festival at school. Anna especially was glad to have a free day from uniforms!! I've attached a few pictures below.

Caroline posing in the early childhood pumpkin patch. They got to pick one to take home and carve. They threw out "magic pumpkin seeds" the day before and the ground was covered with pumpkins the next morning!

The girls before church getting plenty of use of their fall smocked dresses!

Anna at her pumpkin patch festival at school.

Caroline enjoying craft time during her class party.