This week with the Oppenheimers

It has been another exciting week at the Oppenheimer house.

Highlights include Henry and Gemma's first attempt at bowling. On Friday, Marisa took the kids to the Hartford Bowling Alley. They had such a good time that I took them again on Saturday (I do have to say that I bowled a 211 game, which included me opening with 6 strikes). The kids rolled the ball down the lane.

The average time from when Henry or Gemma started the ball rolling and it hitting the pins was approximately 2 minutes, but they loved it. When I tried to help Gemma, she said, "move" to me, and pushed my hand away.


Henry did not have any swimming lessons this week due to the schools being on Spring Break. I did, however, discover that Henry has a mean basketball jump shot. It is pretty impressive. I also discovered that Gemma is left footed, which could make her football life interesting as she gets older. I am seeing a white, female, Ashley Cole.


Henry's latest obsession is running around either our house or the block pushing a big plastic truck. Gemma has been very jealous and we finally found one for her this week. Getting her own, :"Monster Truck" was the highlight of Gemma's week.

On a personal note, my soccer team won 2-1 this evening in our 11.15pm game, and I ran in a 5k race this morning posting a time of 23 mins 14 seconds. It did snow for a portion of the race, which made it interesting.

This is a pretty short blog for a pretty normal week here. Nothing unusual going on at the moment. Although we did eat at a great new Indian place in Sioux Falls, and at our favorite Mexican restaurant this week as well.

Another week, another sick kid

 

This was a busy, but ultimately not overly exciting week at the Oppenheimer household.

 Gemma's speech has come on leaps and bounds. Every day she comes up with something new, and improves.

We finally has some very nice warm days this week and almost all of the snow has melted. The kids have been playing outside, although it appears they have forgotten how to play outside. They seem to want to come in after a few minutes. We have taken some walks to the park though and played on the swings, including the park at Henrys new school.

Henry has discovered that he is very quick at pushing his truck around the track at the middle school.

Marisa was out the first couple of nights this week at a spa night, then at a cooking class, giving me some quality time with Henry and Gemma. I was out late Tuesday for the Major League Soccer opening night, and St. Patricks Day.

Both kids got to wear green on St. Patricks Day. They wore matching Hyvee t-shirts (sorry, no pictures), and loved it. 

Henry had his second swimming class on Wednesday night. He did not like it quite as much this week. Let's just say there were a few tears.

Yesterday included my soccer team losing 1-0 in our late game. Our game next week is at 11.15pm !

The plan was to go out today, but Henry woke up puking this morning, so we are just staying home for the day. Gemma is loving the extra attention she is getting while Henry is sleeping. Hopefully he will be ok by tomorrow.

 Finally, a new Indian Place opened up, so Marisa and I are going to get a take away curry tonight. I am not sure that a Chicken Madras would be the best thing for Henry's tummy though, so he will not be having curry!

Next week, my Under 12 Girl team (Team Mia Hamm) is going to get started for our spring session, so I am coming up with training plans and team strategy)

Have a good week everyone.

Henry and Gemma - speech, swimming and Catholic School

This week has been a fun one for our little family in Sioux Falls.

We do have 1 big announcement to make.

Starting in August/September, Henry is going to be attending St. Marys Catholic School for pre-school. This is a little school attached to a huge Catholic Church right next to our house. The cost is not different to any other pre-school in the area. We went to do a tour the other day, and it is a beautiful facility with some great staff members. It has a wonderful family atmosphere which we think will suit our shy little boy. Neither of us are Catholic, but after discussion with the principal we concluded that there will not be too much religious teaching at his young age. The plan is to only have him go there for pre-school for a few years. If all goes well, Gemma will start there in 2012.

When there is no school, Henry will still go to Nikki's house, which is where Gemma will continue to go for daycare.

Marisa is very excited to be able to walk Henry to and from pre-school every day and is adjusting her work schedule accordingly.

At the time that Henry gets to actual school age, we will likely send him to Mark Twain Elementary School, which is one of the better elementary schools in the area and is about 7 blocks from our house. He will obviously attend middle school at Patrick Henry across the street from our house.

The other fun thing about the pre-school is that Henry will wear a school uniform. A white polo shirt and navy blue trousers (not unlike the Spurs strip).

Henry also had his first solo swimming lesson this week, meaning he was in a group without Mum and Dad in the pool. He did extremely well. While every other kid in the class was crying, Henry was being a big boy and learning how to swim. He even told the teacher when he needed to get out and go to the potty. I am guessing that not every kid did that.

Gemma is having a bit of a speech explosion. She is talking more and more. Although she is still a long way behind where she should be at her age, the gap is closing fast, and we are optimistic that she will be caught up soon.

Other fun stuff we have done this week included Marisa and I going out on another date night last night. We went bowling with some friends again. As usual I was dominating with scores in the 130's. I played soccer on Friday, scoring a goal and assisting in a goal in a disappointing 3-3 draw. We conceded with 30 seconds left.  We also took Henry and Gemma to watch some kids basketball on Saturday. One of Nikki's children, Kaden, was playing in an under 12 tournament. They won their tournament with us cheering them on.

Last weekend Marisa's parents came and visited last weekend. We did not end up eating at Grille 26 but did have a great time. Henry, Gemma, Jim (Marisa's dad) and I went to the humane society to see some cats and dogs. We discovered that while Henry loves cats, Gemma is more of a dog person, as she made connections with some animals twice her size.

This week is a busy one for the Oppenheimers. Marisa has a cooking class 1 night, and spa night on another night. I am planning on a St Patricks day happy hour 1 night as well. I also have a meeting tonight to get the season started for my under 12 girls soccer team, so that will take over shortly here.


Finally, as you probably read on facebook, Henry has come up with some nicknames for Gemma. They include Shemma, juju and video. You have to love is imagination. He also said at lunch on Friday, "Henry's cool, Mummy's cool, Gemma's cool, Daddys not cool"
So that's the summary of our week.... Hope you all are well.

Henry and Gemma- Playing in March

Not much activity or excitement on the Henry and Gemma front this week.

Gemma's vocabulary is expanding day by day. When we get into the car, she points to the DVD screen and says "Movie."

One evening this week, Marisa was going through a numbers book with Henry, and I was going through a letters book with Gemma. Henry is excellent at counting. Gemma enjoyed the letters book and repeated a lot of the letters. When we got to "H," I asked her what H stands for and got the enthusiastic reponse of , "Henry."
Henry still has the same obsessions with Cars, Toy Story and Thomas. Gemma is still interested in anything Henry does.
Gemma also pooped on the potty earlier this week, so we are making some slow progress on that front.
Marisa's parents, Jim and Virginia are in town visiting for the weekend. Last night the kids were very well behaved as we ate at Cherry Creek. It was really nice to go out and eat in a bar/restaurant that is now smoke free. Thank you South Dakota for passing that law!
This morning, Henry was super excited to ride in Grandpa's big red pickup truck to Micky Donalds. 
There are tentative plans to go see the puppies and kitties at the Humane Society later on and to do some shopping.

Tonight, we are going to take Marisa's parents out to eat at Grill 26 which should be a lot of fun.
In other news this week, I have entered the "Shamrock Run" for the end of the month, which is a 5k race in Sioux Falls. This is my 1st race in my quest to do a half marathon in September (then possibly a marathon next year), Marisa discovered that she got a 65% discount on jeans at the GAP by reopening her GAP card, so has a new pair of jeans. Also, it was little brother Markipoos's birthday on Tuesday. It appears he had a good time.
As you can tell by this update, it has been a cold, not very exciting week, with the exception of a 2-1 Chelsea win over United on Tuesday.
We will wait and see if next week is more exciting.