Track Meet

Once each spring the county puts on a track meet for our 3rd-5th graders. Emma was cool and skilled enough to get picked as one of her school's athletes. What event? Why, the sack race of course. (I heard they are going to add it to the 2012 olympics.) She sort of wished she'd been able to do a running event, but was glad to at least be counted among the sporty 4th graders and miss almost a whole day of school to boot. She didn't win--she was somewhere near the middle of the pack--but she didn't fall down or give up.

The days surrounding the meet were warm and sunny. The day of the meet was rainy and freezing. Freez-ing. I wore a jacket and I wished I'd worn full snow-gear and brought my own fireplace. I sent Emma in her team t-shirt and some shorts and oh-you-might-want-to-grab-your-fleece-too-I-think-it-may-be-a-little-chilly. Luckily Mom and Dad lent me their super huge umbrella so Emma and her friend and I stayed (relatively) dry during the first hour while it rained. Here are Emma and Caroline staying mostly dry:

Here is Emma at the starting line (short, center of shot, yellow bag):Texting Scott after the event to tell him all about it:

Happy Birthday, Anna

I'm just going to start calling this the birthday bag. (Because I've used it for many tweens' birthdays.)

Silence = Mischief

(Alternate title: Your store-bought pizza crusts are in danger!)

I was going to include a photo with this post, but I changed my mind

If kids' snot had even the smallest monetary value I'd be a ga-zill-ion-aire.
Twice over.
This week alone.

Happy birthday, Fern (who loves bugs)

"Did You Think to Pray?" pillow

For Emma. Because it's a good reminder.

choose the right pillow

For Josh.
Because his favorite color is "all the colors".

"Dumbledore"

Easter Weekend #3 (last one, I promise): Kids After Church

I tried to recreate some of last years poses, but none of them turned out that great, so we mixed it up this year.

Easter Weekend #2: The Family Photo Comedy of Errors

Easter morning we woke up, got dressed for church and tried to get a nice shot of the whole family all dolled up. As tends to be the case in these types of endeavors, we left it till the last possible second and were quite rushed. Here are our attempts, in chronological order:

{Mmm, yeah...not all of us were ready for this one. Also, notice right away that I did not take the time to clear our background of clutter. Or really, to figure out a better background. Or to notice that one side of Josh's collar is tucked in and one it out and the bottom of his shirt is not tucked in at all. Or to wait until Afton was in a good mood--thus the paci. But don't worry, we'll take lots of shots in our three minutes till we need to leave! One will turn out great.}

{Oops. I forgot to turn on the timer.}

{So close! Afton, leave Dad's face alone!}

{So close! Emma, open your eyes!}

{Oops again. You mean you have to push the timer button every single time?}

{So close! Lydia!!}

The first of many Easter weekend posts: Grammy and Grandpa's egg hunt

Olympics birthday party

Josh had a party last Saturday. (Not nearly as many photos as I'd like...I sort of forgot I had a camera while the festivities were underway.) Weeks ago, he said he'd like to have a Kirby party. Coincidentally at that time his very favorite video game was Kirby Super Star Ultra. I was perplexed at how to create such a party, but planned to give it a shot. Later he changed his mind and said he'd like an Olympics party. Coincidentally, he'd recently turned his favor to Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games. Sweet. A 6-year-old birthday party like that practically plans itself! Later still, his screen-time and focus returned to Kirby and he reported that he'd like a Kirby party after all. Dang. I'll admit it: I sweet talked him into sticking with the Olympics idea. I pointed out the pros of such a cool party and he was easy to persuade.

Originally I thought we'd work out some way to adapt the winter events to be done without the snow and ice. (Bobsled = Sliding down the stairs in a sleeping bag?) But the weather was nice and the summer events seemed much easier to manage so we went with that.

The kids arrived and were invited to make up the name of the country they'd be representing and create a flag for their country with construction paper, scissors, glue and markers. Then we headed outside for the events: 100 yard dash, standing long jump, discus (with the huge foam frisbee), shot put (tossing a bean bag into the olympic rings drawn on the sidewalk with chalk), soccer (maneuvering through some cones to score a goal), and then wrapping up with a relay race (putting on a life vest, goggles and a swim cap, running to a tree and back then handing the stuff off to the next teammate). It went well. I was a bit worried about how the gaggle of boys would do with all of the waiting time that came with taking turns at many of the events. Luckily I had an ace up my sleeve that I did not even know about--Emma. Emma and Ben were my official party-helpers, dressed in track pants and white t-shirts and equipped with whistles. I had planned to do the main bit of directing and having them help out with crowd control. As it turned out, I simply had to tell Emma which event was next and she took care of everything. "Tweet! Okay! Everyone come line up right here for the long jump. Okay, spread out here, now when I blow the whistle you each take turns jumping as far as you can like this? See? Okay, ready? Tweet! ... Tweet! ... Tweet!..." She was awesome, she kept perfect control of the crowd the entire time.

We finished up with gifts and cake in ice cream cones topped with yellow frosting. Get it?

USA! USA! USA!