Spring Break, Flowers, First Pitch, and More

We are loving spring around here!  Nice weather, beautiful flowers, working in the yard, playing outside.  Love it!

Spring Break week was so nice.  We stayed home, played with friends, cleaned, went out to eat, etc.  Oh- and I also issues the boys a "sports challenge" in which they would have to complete 10 levels of playing together a particular sport for a particular amount of time WITHOUT ARGUING.  And by the end, they also had to say- gasp- encouraging things to each other.  They had a very rocky start, but by the end of spring break they were doing great.  Now to keep it up...

 Allie loves "helping mom with the dirt".  Over the last week, she stuck with me putting out the entire load of mulch we had delivered and even cried if I told her we had to stop.  She has her moments of typical toddler "help" where she makes everything more complicated but generally she is a great little sidekick and always cheerful about our work.

This weekend was a fun one.  Mama and Daddy came into town Friday afternoon and we headed to Kids' Night Out.  Gray also had his buddy Elisha spend the night and come with us.  Everyone got to bed late, but happy.  They slept in Saturday morning and we had a beautiful day for watching the boys play lacrosse.  Both had some great moments but probably our favorite was this one:  Gray is fighting for the ball at his end of the field and bigger opponent picks it up and takes off.  Gray races after him and is headed down the sideline right by where we are sitting.  As if it was happening in slow motion, we watch him with stick raised and chat amongst ourselves about how he is totally going to hit the guy--hopefully legally as he has had his share of "slashes" (illegal hits that require a time out) lately--and watch as he chases the guy down, about to cross mid-field, which will stop Gray because his position prevents him from going over the line.  He sees his opportunity and slams the other guy's stick so hard he knocks the guy's stick flat out of his hands to the ground.  This doesn't happen too often, but when it does, we are told it's affectionately called a "yard sale".  Gray can really lay it all out there when he plays a sport and he was quite entertaining.  Backstory we found out later--the guy he "yard saled" had just gotten the ball from him and said "Thanks".  Moral of the story:  don't mess with Gray.  :)

We came home and all the males in the house ate and headed off to Raleigh to watch State play baseball.  They had a great time--high scoring game and big win for the Wolfpack.  But the boys' highlight was getting chosen to throw out the first pitch!  Matt says when the person asked them, Gray jumped right on it with a big YES, Elisha also said yes and Joshua gave an immediate no. Joshua did go out with the boys and after some thought, regretted not choosing to pitch also, but still loved high fiving the players, which he recorded on the foul ball he got from the game.  Gray and Elisha each got a ball as well and the happy campers headed to Zaxby's for dinner and came home tired and happy.

Meanwhile, the girls and I had some fun of our own-- an early celebration of Mimi's birthday: picnic at Duke Gardens.  The weather was perfect and it was crowded, but fun to see so many kinds of people there.  Of course the flowers were gorgeous this time of year too.  We fed ducks, watched fish, ate supper, and walked around the gardens.  What a great day we had!

We were sad to see Mimi and GrandGene go today.  Julia did her usual post-visit mope, the boys got busy with homework, I got a nap, and Matt went to play basketball.  Now we're getting ready for another week--end of school is always busy, but exciting as we count down the days till summer break!

Happy Days

We made it through our week of celebrations!  We enjoyed all of the extra good food, family, and friend time and even survived the big sleepover.  Pics from the week:

Easter morning photos before any of the boys were ready.  These two have gotten so close.  Julia loves taking care of her and teaching her.  The night before Easter I heard them chatting away upstairs, Julia quizzing Allie on the true meaning of Easter.  Easter morning before they got up, Julia had already read the Easter story to Allie from her Bible.  She is constantly teaching her things and giving her rewards for good behavior.  :)  Today she taught her that worms wiggle and snakes bite.  There is always a test at the end to check for understanding.  :)

Julia wanted to be a photographer too.

The best of the kid pics.  I have several others in which there is always one who is not meeting the simple task of looking and smiling.  Julia began grumpy because she wanted to hold Allie and Gray *always* gets to hold Allie in the picture.  (Disregard the pics above we had taken 10 minutes prior where she is holding Allie.)  Then she recovered and Gray thought it would be fun to pretend to be sad.  Somewhere in there Joshua threw on a big frown just for laughs too.  I find this type of thing particularly "amusing" when we are supposed to be leaving for church and still have to run by the grocery store on the way.  

We didn't get any of Matt.  He was just ready to go.  

 Out of order, but last weekend kicked off the lacrosse games.  I had to work but then my last class canceled so I rushed over to see the game.  It was so much fun having 6 other families we know there!  The boys enjoyed their first game and came home ready to practice more and improve for next game.  I still cringe every time a kid gets whacked with a stick.  Once Gray got hit on one side and then the other side and then went down.  But the kids don't seem to mind it.  Glad they are enjoying this sport and happy it's another one where they have been able to play on the same team.

 Monday was Matt's birthday.  Somehow I didn't get any pictures of him.  Probably b/c he worked the night before and the night of, so we hardly saw him.  But we had a nice dinner and dessert and gave him gifts and cards.  I loved each kid's card to him.  Julia was so excited about her mystery card and thought I must have given Matt extra clues when she heard that he guessed who it was from.

Joshua had a hard time figuring out what to make but then came up with this idea...

Julia helped Allie make her card that morning before school.  She was going to have Allie do it all but then she got into helping her and decided to add her name too.  :)

Gray spent close to an hour making his card.  He drew out 39 candles and 39 oreos for the cake.  

 Julia had her mile run Wednesday.  I had to work and missed her record time of 8:17!  I was so impressed.  She ran 10:10 in the fall, so she improved a ton.  I suggested that she might be interested in doing more running in the future but she shot that idea down, as her throat hurts when she runs.  :)

 Here she is afterward with our neighbor Eli in the back.  They have 5th graders help count the 2nd grader laps.  He ran out quickly so as to be the first one to choose Julia.  :)

 Also Wednesday, some of the moms put together a shower for Gray's teacher, who is getting married over spring break.  I had to miss b/c of work also, but looked like so much fun!

 Friday was Gray's birthday.  I took the morning off of teaching so I could make his requested breakfast and not be too rushed.  He opened a couple of presents too and loved this book of my Granddaddy's about baseball greats.  He read it on the way to school that morning.

 A little later, Allie and I joined Julia's class for a field trip to Duke Gardens.  I found out last minute that they prefer younger siblings not to come, so I put Allie in the sling so as to be least disruptive.  We were both ready to be done with that by the end, but she did great and it was a beautiful day.  Julia and her friend Karen were so cute holding hands around the garden.

 Friday afternoon, some of Gray's friends rode the bus home with him and the rest trickled in over the next hour.  Then they piled in the truck to head to the park for sports.

 This new gaga ball pit was just installed the day before.  What great timing!  They had a lot of fun but boy were we tired of hearing them yell at each other.  This group (for the most part) plays very similarly to Gray-- everything is a big deal, worth arguing over, and highly emotional.  Whew.  Glad they had fun but man we needed some chill pills.

 We later had pizza, apple pie with ice cream, and a movie.

 I had to capture this moment particularly for Julia, who is perfectly comfortable in the midst of a pile of boys.  After the movie, we sent them to the garage where they could play awhile and then sleep.  Thank goodness for the loft Matt and his dad built out there.  The weather was perfect for them to sleep there and we could mostly shut out the noise so the rest of us could rest too.  The boys thought it was really cool to have their own space and it was a total win-win.  

 Saturday, we had our own Easter egg hunt in the yard.  Joshua was with a friend, but the others enjoyed it.  They didn't mind that they had to go into their old candy baskets to get stuff to put in them.  Plus I added some cereal, though a certain little one wasn't not very excited to find the cereal eggs once she tasted the candy!

Fun week, but I'm thankful for less eventful days for the rest of Spring Break.  Today we just enjoyed being outside playing and gardening.  Hoping the weather keeps up like this!  Have a good week!

Friends and Fashion

It's been a couple of "normal" weeks for us.  An event here and there, but mostly just general family life.  But as I looked back through the pictures, there was a definite theme...

Julia has loved dressing Allie up and Allie's been going along with it pretty well too.  Love when the synchronize their dance moves too.  

When Matt opens the door after my last class, Allie loves to rush over and ask to "come in", meaning come sit behind my desk and mess with all my props...many of which technically are her toys, but it does make a bit of chaos when I can't find the things I use often!  Oh well.  This day I let her sit on my desk and she loved wearing the glasses that I always think I'll throw on to be silly during class but usually never use.

Gray and our neighbor walking home from the bus.  These guys are a lot alike in interests in personality and they have gotten a lot of face time over the last month--mostly doing something outside with a ball.  This day I had to take a picture because they are dressed alike and both walking not on the sidewalk...kind of the way they live life.

 And speaking of non-sidewalk walkers (literally and metaphorically), Julia falls into that category as well.  I have had many opportunities to capture her unique fashion choices this month.  Yes, that's Grandmama's Christmas vest.  Love her.

 Friend time!  We loved hanging out with lots of friends at our neighbor's birthday party.  Their dog was a highlight for the elementary girls.

 And our fashionista is at it again.  That's 5 patterns there, folks, but who's counting?!

We are still getting snow and though it didn't stick, the kids got a 3 hour delay out of it this week.  More headed our way Sunday I hear and then hopefully that is the end of it!!  I'm ready to plant my flowers.

Can you believe your eyes?!  It's Abraham Lincoln in the flesh!  Well actually in the wax I guess.  Julia wanted to be Jackie Robinson for her wax museum project but he was taken so she went with Abraham Lincoln.  She really got into learning about him and it was interesting to try to help her understand the complexities of his beliefs and why he did what he did.  Of course to her, it's all black and white--or wait- that's a confusing metaphor...to her it's clear that you either disagree with slavery and do all you can to stop it or you agree and are a very bad person.  We found out Lincoln had mixed feelings and it was all very much for her take in.  But she did a great job on her speech, though was a bit dramatic at home about how exhausted her voice was from that 30 minutes of people visiting her booth.  :)

 I printed the pictures she picked out but she did the rest of the poster all on her own without input from me.  You can hardly tell here, but Mary Todd has a princess crown sticker and many of the pictures are frames with hearts and other designs.  She also threw in a A-A-Abraham cheer on part of it.  This kind of thing is right up her alley and she loved working on it.

 Gray had his last mile run for Cameron Park today.  He did well and beat his best time by a second.  :)  6:38.  He has a new friend this year who was his partner to count his laps and cheer him on.  These two are adorable together--different as can be in looks and personality, but best of friends.

Next up we have a big birthday week for Matt and Gray!  There will be lots of eating (I've already started a lot of baking) and lots of celebrating, with special dinners, Gray's sleepover party, the start of Spring Break, and Easter all rolled into one week.  Hopefully we can keep up our amazing winter of health and get all the fun times in!!  Happy weekend!

Life in Pictures

Work resumed its normal pace for me in the last week or two, which means not much downtime to blog and a lot of "Should I clean/read/exercise/shower or sleep?" kinds of decisions.  Usually sleep wins!  But I do feel after 4 months I'm really hitting my stride in this VIPKID job in that I'm much more relaxed, flexible, and able to handle whatever comes my way in class...which this morning was 2 out of 3 kids crying.  :) :)  Thank goodness for the 12 year old that could chat about the birthday he just celebrated last week.  Such a cool job.

We did get in a whirlwind trip to SC to spend a little time with my fam celebrating birthdays.  It was so nice to be with everyone even if it was just a few hours.  Here's what life has been like since the last post...

Warm week=outside

Fashionista...this is Julia about to play volleyball

Sweet girl was SO excited for her teacher's bday that she wore a party hat and her best dress to school

Classic.  Wheelbarrow races at the bday party in SC.

Too little for races.  Can't get enough snuggles.

3 Birthday Boys; between me and my sisters, we had a kid born every year from 2005 to 2012--except 2011, but we doubled up with two on the left in 2012.  

Somebody bonded pretty well with her aunt and uncle this trip.  

Sister time

Visit from the Baker kiddos had everyone giddy on a school night.  Love sharing everyday life with other families!  Allie had to hit the hay early so she said goodbye to all, leaving Ava on the office couch where they were playing.  The next day about dinner time, Allie walked in the office, looking at the couch and indignantly asked, "Where's Ava?!"  I think she loves getting to be one of the "big girls" now that she's old enough to play a little more.

Julia was ready to cheer on the Wolfpack in the tournament...if only enthusiastic fans were all it took to win!  :)

We hadn't been to the cardiologist in 6 months so it was time for a check up.  Allie did great!  She wavered between wanting to chat with everyone she saw and eyeing each person suspiciously as they worked.  This may have been her first time not crying when they measured her height!  She has gained a pound in the last 4 months and remains in the 2nd percentile on the growth charts.  But that's fine with me.  The main growth I was excited to hear was that of her pulmonary arteries!  Dr. Milazzo says she looks "amazing" and no intervention is expected for years.  

It may be cold this week, but we've got the end of school and summer plans on the brain.  In the blink of an eye, Gray's going to 'graduate' elementary school and plans are beginning for the end of 5th grade ceremony and party.   Soon it will be time for beach, pool, slower days again.  But for now we look to finish out March well and have a nice Spring Break break!  We've got lacrosse going into high gear next week for the boys, I'm starting to volunteer in a 6th grade English class, and Matt and Gray have birthdays in a few weeks.  Time just keeps flying!