Too Much Fun for One Day

Our Saturdays tend to get really busy, especially during soccer season.  Here's how one of them went a few weeks ago.

Molly had team pictures at 8:30.  Ick.  There was no way that Gerrit and the boys would be ready in time, so I just took Molly to pictures and the game right afterwards.  She had fun but got really tired!

We spent a lot of time between games trying to do some cleaning and then watching a show as a family.  Miles was not a big fan of the cleaning.

Miles's game was at 12, but I had a baby shower at 12:30 so Gerrit took the kids and a friend took me to the shower.  It was a low-key shower with just a few friends at a local burger place.  I had a great time!  Gerrit and the kids?  Not so much.  It was really pretty hot, and Miles got pretty discouraged during the second half because they were losing badly.

We needed to go to Trader Joe's to replenish our cookie butter supply after Elliott's nap.  Since the closest one is 30 minutes away, that needed to be a Saturday thing.  Miles completely lost it when we told him.  Usually, he'd be excited because he loves Trader Joe's, but he was still worn out.

"Why is it so far away?"  "Do we really have to drive there?"

This was all before we got in the car.  It went straight downhill once we actually started driving.  First, Miles starting yelling at Molly because her stuffed animals were in his space.  We encouraged him to just read his book and not worry about it.

Then he started picking fights with Elliott.  And losing.

First, Elliott tried to take Miles's book.  I gave Elliott an Elmo toy to distract him.  Two minutes later...

Miles:  Mom, you gave Elliot a toy.  You GAVE HIM A WEAPON!!!

It was a really long drive.  The trip through the store was mildly okay as long as I kept Miles as far away from the other two as possible.  We specifically chose a place for dinner (Zao Asian Cafe) that I knew Miles would love because no one could handle one more problem.

This is what the drive back looked like:

Yeah, they needed that about three hours earlier.

Bookworm Adventures

Miles is currently on a Bookworm Adventures kick.  He's played this game off and on for a few years and really likes fighting all of the different villains with the words that he spells.  You get 16 letter tiles and have to spell words from those...it's really pretty tough!  These are this top words for book four, and he came up with them all on his own.

Miles's favorite of all of these was "platelets."  He's set a goal to beat the whole game!

Sweet Baby

Elliott loves babies.  He likes to wave to the other babies at church. He likes to look at pictures of babies in books.  He likes taking selfies with me and then looking at pictures of the baby in the phone.

He likes to play with Molly's baby doll.

Look at him feeding the doll!  He's going to be such a good dad someday :)

Soccer Season

It's time for spring soccer again!  Molly begged to play soccer this year.  She only made the deadline by about two weeks and is so, so much shorter than all the rest of the girls.  She's been having a great time playing and making new friends.

Miles has been doing a really great job at soccer this year!  Past seasons have been hard for him to either be excited about playing, actually participate, or not cry when things don't work out.  This season, though, he's just been playing hard and really excited about games and practice.

This is his "Coach! I'm ready to play!  Put me in!" position.

Read You Must

The reading program at Miles's school this year was Star Wars themed.  Well played, elementary school librarian!  Just like last year, the kids had to read a book from 9 different categories that corresponded loosely to a Star Wars character.  Miles got to read two different body/disease books (one for nonfiction, one for his choice) and mostly just picked his own books this year.  The highlight was his fantasy choice, Sideways Stories from Wayside School.  Who doesn't love that book?


He got a pin for each book he read.  These pins are now all over my house.  He also got a little glow-stick lightsaber for completing all nine genres.  The big ending party was an outdoor movie night to watch A New Hope.

It started out 8:30 so it got to be just a Dad and Miles night :)  They had a great time!

Blessing Quest

One of the things that we like to do on Sundays is to look through the Friend magazine and see if there are any fun activities that we can do as a family.  Miles and Molly and I decided that we wanted to have a "Blessing Quest."  The magazine article showed photographs that children had taken of some of their blessings.  I handed Miles and Molly my phone and told them to go for it!

Miles's Blessings:

 "My body is a blessing.  It does amazing things!"

 "I think nature is cool and this bush was great.  It's also on my favorite path to play on."

 "I really like this tree because it looks like a rabbit."

 "Mountains are a blessing because we have a beautiful world to live in."




Molly's Blessings:

"I love this tree!  It is beautiful!"

"Our neighborhood is a blessing.  It has our house and our neighbors and all of my friends."

"Dandelions are a blessing because you can blow on them and they are so much fun" 

"I love our pretty bushes!"

Gerrit and I both decided to take a picture of some of our blessings, too.

Mine: (Gerrit was putting Elliott down for a nap when I took the picture).

Gerrit's:    

                                                     

Checkmate

Miles had his first chess tournament!  They played four games to start with.  He won two games and lost two games, and that put him tied for third place.  Unfortunately, that meant he had to play a timed tiebreaker game and he had never done chess with the timer.  It really threw him off!  He ended up coming in fourth out of eleven.  I'm so proud of him!  He really practiced for the tournament and it paid off, even if he didn't get a trophy.

Fancy Nancy

Molly was finally old enough to go to our library's Fancy Nancy tea party this year!  She was so excited to dress up and go to the party, and I do love all of the awesome events that our library throws.

 Each girl got to bring a doll and wear dress-up clothes.  Molly wanted to bring the baby doll her friend gave her for her birthday and then wear her Rapunzel dress and big blue hat.

 The library gave each girl a sparkly tiara and then they got to color a Fancy Nancy picture.

 They decorated the library so nicely for the party!

 Molly was delighted when her best friend Lexi and her big sister Kiley showed up and came to sit with her :)

 Delicious snacks included sugar cookies, chocolate-covered pretzels, grapes, and pink lemonade.

 For activities, they read a Fancy Nancy book, had a cute manners skit with some of the librarians, and then the girls got to make bracelets for themselves and their dolls.

So cute in the photo corner!

Cousin Time

These kids can't get enough of playing with their cousins!  We headed back up to Logan recently for Charlotte's baby blessing and then had some time afterwards to eat and play in Emily's central building.  Miles and Molly had a blast playing with Will.  They were particularly fascinated by these tiny cubbies that they all fit in.  It made for a cute photo opportunity!

Spring Flowers

One of my favorite things about our neighborhood is that it just explodes into bloom every April.  It's the perfect sign of springtime and just so cheerful!

I was so worried that the plum tree in our front yard wasn't going to bloom this  year.  The repairment had to cut off a major branch to get the excavator in and then it kept getting damaged while they were in there.  It was a relief and a testimony of resiliency to see this tree bloom, every bit as beautiful, even with a major piece missing.

I love our next-door neighbor's apple tree.  The pink blossoms are just so vibrant!

 I don't know what kind of tree this is, but it grows in the middle of our island and looks like fuzzy pink pompoms.  It's Molly's favorite.

The lilac bushes on the side of our house are fantastic and smell so good!

The neighborhood also has a ton of apricot trees that bloom a little earlier in the season and some yellow forsythias.  It's colorful and gorgeous, and the best part is that it is colorful and gorgeous again in the fall and then green and shady all summer!

May the Party Be With You

Miles had a lot of different ideas for his birthday party this year.  I convinced him that while he would really enjoy a disease party, his friends might not.  We went for his second choice...Star Wars!

 We sent out these jedi training camp invitations.

We decorated the house and the outside by drawing storm trooper faces on some white balloons.  It was really windy that day and all the outside ones popped fast...but the inside ones were still a lot of fun!

 For favors, we found some great stuff in the dollar section at Target.  Each friend got a bubble lightsaber, a Star Wars eraser, a page of stickers, and some Star Wars fruit snacks.

 Everyone started out by decorating a lightsaber made out of pool noodles and duct tape.  It was really only Molly and Kellyn that did much decorating!

 Playing "Dark Side" tag.  The person who was it was trying to turn people to the dark side.

 Pin the lightsaber on Yoda.

Bomb the death star.  I couldn't find any of our beanbags so we just used socks.  Gerrit thinks Miles is getting to old for pin the tail and beanbag toss...and he might be right, but it was at least fun this year!

We set up a Jedi obstacle course in the basement and carefully kept all the kids away from the actual obstacles like the busted wall.  Gerrit did briefly consider having kids go through the broken wall so I'm glad he decided against it.

Gerrit was a really, really good sport.  He not only taught the kids some basic lightsaber moves, but then let each kid fight him and died dramatically each time...for all eight kids!!!

One BB-8 cake!  The inside is vanilla with a cookie dough filling, and I made a cake ball for the "eye" portion.  It was a lot of fun to make and I'm mostly just glad that it is recognizably the character.

Baby Jedi!

Miles and his friends had a great time!