Sloane's first haircut

My plan has always been to let Sloane's hair grow as long as possible and leave it untouched.  Let's face it, I had some pretty bad haircuts as a child.  Some were my choice (the pixie cut), and some were not (the mullet).  My only defense was that it was the 80's.  I wanted to save Sloane this pain and let her have long, beautiful hair.  Sloane does not always agree to having her hair combed and brushed.  It is pretty much a daily battle.  Getting a girl to put on a bow is a huge battle.  I swear that every morning Sloane will go to school with a perfect set of pigtails, but when I pick her up she looks like a cat attacked her while she was napping.  So, it was time for a little trim.  I took Sloane to a local kids' hairdressing studio, and she got to sit in a car and watch a movie while she got her trim.  Sloane was surprisingly a perfect little client.  All in all, she only had about an inch cut off.  We kept a few locks of hair as a keepsake and got a few pictures.

Reading Parade

One of Finn's goals for this year was to qualify to be in his school's reading parade.  He just missed the cut off last year and was really sad about it.  If you read at least 1500 pages, you can be in the reading parade.  The kids in the parade dress up in patriotic garb and the whole school gathers around and blows bubbles at the participants as they walk by.  We were very proud of our little reader!  Finn has become quite the reader this year.  He is reading above grade level and has graduated to reading chapter books.

Seeing Stars

Back in January (yes, January), Rick's company had an outing at the local hockey game.  The Texas Stars is a minor league team not too far from us.  We've been to a few games before, and they are always lots of fun.  This time, Rick's company was allowed to get down on the ice and play.  Sloane and Finn slid around on their shoes and also got to hit the pucks into the goals. Sloane had one weak moment where she slid across the ice right  in front of a huge group of people who were hurling their pucks into the goal.  Luckliy, she dodged all the pucks headed her way.

So close...yet so far

Their was a wave of Vikings patriotism in our household during the football playoffs.  It was a few years since the Vikings had been to the playoffs and Rick got his hopes up, yet again.  Rick busted out his Vikings jacket form high school and the kids were donning their jerseys on game days.  Sadly, the vikings didn't pull through (duh).   One thing was accomplished, however.  Finn became a true Vikings fan.  Poor guy never stood a chance...

Ringing in the New Year

The Schwarz family really gets wild and crazy on New Year's Eve.  We took it pretty easy this year and decided to have a family New Year's celebration.  We had a delicious dinner at the restaurant Lupe Tortilla with some friends and their kids.  The kids busted out their festive noise makers at the end of the meal (sorry other restaurant patrons!).  Afterwards, we went home and played the Xbox dancing game together.  We let the kids think that they were staying up until midnight, but we let them do the East coast countdown and sent them on to bed.  They were none the wiser...