Christmas celebrations

Who says you have to celebrate only on the day itself?  The season is so fun when you spread the joy out all month long.

 We got a couple of good snow storms before Christmas and we were able to build a fort, have a good snowball fight (Caleb and Parent only participated) and we got some good sized icicles.

 Haley finally enjoys nursery (the last month of the year she got an awesome teacher and now loves it), better late than never.  She really enjoyed the present she got of bubbles.

 Yes, they do love each other every now and then.  This is Christmas Eve.

 We found a very cool house this year.  The decorations included a fire breathing sea monster, dinosaurs and a light up pig.  Oh, and they even had seals popping up out of the bush with a ball on the nose.  Not your typical santa and his reindeer here, people.

 Haley saw this snowman decoration and called it a robot.  So cute.  And of course Caleb needed a picture with it.

 Caleb always being inventive started sledding down this hill with no snow.  They had a pretty good time with it.

 Two of the loved Christmas presents this year.

This is a shot from Christmas Eve.  Caleb did a great job with Silent Night on the violin.  Seeing as how he only really practiced for 2 and a half days it was a pretty good job.  Peter also did great with his "Fiesta de la Posada (Party at the Inn)"song.  People were happy, for the most part.  They had fun with surprise presents, playing in the snow, time off from school and eating more sugar than real food for a good 3 days in a row.  

Christmas lunch Day 5

We went with a nativity theme today, plus the pringles because heck the boys like them.  I was rather proud of myself for thinking to put the animal cracker cookies in.

 So, this is what the boys ate at school.

But this is what they saw when they opened up the lunch bag...all wrapped up and ready for Christmas break to begin.

Its SNOWING!!!!!! and Christmas lunch Day 4

This picture does not do it justice!  The snowflakes are big and beautiful and there are lots and lots of them.  YEAH!!!!!

Snow means water for our lake, yes!  It means yummy snow ice-cream to eat after school with the boys.   Forts to build and snowball fights to keep happy instead of turn ugly.  We love it.  We even had snow-flake pancakes this morning to encourage the snow to come down.  It worked!

 And yes, I planned this lunch perfectly.  Snow!  The water bottle is my favorite, a melted snowman.

Christmas lunch Day 3

Rudolph!

 Kids make the holidays more fun.

Christmas lunch Day 2

Nutcrackers!

 So much fun!

Fun Christmas food

Just for fun this year I am deciding to make some fun, festive food for the kids this week.

Sunday morning they all had rudolph waffles.  Super fun

 Christmas lunch Day 1: Christmas tree theme.  I think they might be excited for lunch this week.

The sleepover

Cousins can be so much fun, and so loud when they are all together.  This years sleep over was fun for the boys.  Spencer even joined us this year.  When we picked them up they got to go to Cabella's and lucked out by seeing Santa and going to a shooting range for free.  Wahoo!

 When they got home we had dinner and fun robot cupcakes.

 They set up "dark town" and had fun playing together.  There may have also been a bit of bickering when part of dark town was destroyed and had to be rebuilt.

As was mentioned, cousins can sometimes be loud and certain boys needed some alone time.  At least they were happy together for the most part.

We also let the kids dye eggs for the fun of it.  Never a dull moment at the sleepover.

A busy time of year

I do not feel like I have been that busy, but day to day life has gotten in the way of keeping updated.  November has been full of a lot of projects for Diedre.  Sometimes I wonder why I conjure up so many different projects for myself.  Life would have less sewing and cleaning up if I did not have so many ideas floating around in my head. 

So, what else did November bring?  November brings one of my favorite times of year, Thanksgiving and birthdays!  We as a family did our turkey family and it was awesome as usual.

                                      

Rob always has a vision for his turkey.  I think this year he was going for the punk turkey look.  It was great!  My turkey was lucky to get any feathers, Peter was stealing them all for his own purposes, none of which involved gluing them into the pinecone.

Caleb is always the King of Turkeys, with lots of feathers and pizzaz.  

In November we also had our Pie Party which was delicious and super fun.  We did lots of homework, tried to get some reading done, hung out with friends and family, ate yummy food for our birthdays, and did a bunch of sewing for some fun Christmas presents. 

 Also included were cute kids.  Haley who loves to pick flowers and then tear them apart for her own special cakes that she makes.  Haley can also be found spinning around to either the music playing from the radio or in her own head.  William got over the foot in a boot thing and now is happily jumping on two feet.  Peter is back into playing football with his stuffed animals and can be found at anytime setting up a game with his toys and alerting me of the score.

                                      

And cool man Caleb continues to be the master of lego building.  Seen here is his Forbidden Forest from Harry Potter.  Family is awesome and time together can be fun, on edge at times, and always an adventure.  Now on to December!

The To-Do list for today, 28 Oct 2013

• Wake kids up
• Make lunches for kids
• Take kids to school
• Take William to doctor to x-ray broken foot
• Get William a boot for said broken foot
• Give Haley a nap
• Clean house for pie party on Saturday
• Get kids from school
• Homework
• Let kids mess up house again
• Dinner
• Bed
• Clean house more

Not much for your typical day, right?  Oh wait, did you check out item #4 on the list?  Yeah, you read it right, broken foot - William - x-ray.  BOOO!  

So, after church yesterday the boys were having a wonderful time jumping in the leaves.  A lot of leaves!  The pile was huge!  At around 6:30pm  I hear William crying.  Peter told me he hurt his foot somehow while jumping.  I got William out of the pile and had him take a few steps.  But he was crying too much so I picked him up and carried him inside.  He wanted some water, a blanket and to be cozy on the couch.  After about 15 minutes I took a look at his foot and there was some concern.  It was swollen, a bump on the top of it and he could not put pressure on the foot.  Hummm.  Some would think broken.  We talked about it and decided to wait through the night until we could go to the doctor's office and avoid the Sunday night copay at the emergency room.

Leading to today...  Doctor saw foot, told us to go to the x-ray department downstairs, and take some photos with the "superman camera" as I affectionately called it.  We went to the x-ray tech only to wait an hour to finally find out that yes our insurance company would cover the x-ray.  Got the x-ray, went back to the doctor and he said... it might be broken.  Grrr!  They cannot really see from the x-ray.  So, we will treat it as if it is broken.  Got the "ninja boot", the "power boot", the "grumpy boot"...whatever you want to call it, William is not happy with the new piece of equipment he gets to wear for the next two weeks.  Think Halloween parade at school or trick-or-treating with this boot along as company.  Someone is not excited.

   

Then we go back, get another photo from the "superman camera" (aka, x-ray) and see what that says.

All in a day's work.

Birthday Girl

Little Miss Haley turned three years old, and this is how we lived it up...

 On Haley's last day of being two Caleb decided to try and teach her the crab walk.  He was somewhat successful.  Brothers are awesome, when they are nice. 

 Even though Haley says her favorite color is pink, she insisted on a blue cake for her birthday.  She also loves flowers.  So, I combined the two and made her a blue cake with lots of colorful flowers.  It was yummy and pretty, she liked it.

 Haley's birthday flowers.

 Haley was fortunate enough to spend the morning watching her brothers play soccer.  It was a mighty cold and windy morning so she spent most of it bundled up.  But she did make room for Swedish fish, the playground, and watching her brothers do awesome.

 Upon coming home she had lots of grandparents that came to visit and bestow gifts.  She received so many fun things.  She was a bit tired because of no nap, and she does not do well with a lot of attention  on her, but she enjoyed playing with each of the things.

 She loved this dress she got and wanted to put it on right away.  Then she was ready for some blue cake.  But she did not want to be sung to, that was made very clear.

After all the grandparents left she got to work on painting a birdhouse.  Then she ate some chicken, cucumber and yellow pepper for dinner.  After that she was ready for bed and got to snuggle up in her new, soft as a cloud, pink blanket.  A great way to end the day.

What can I say about this girl?  She is beautiful. Her hair is long, golden and curly.  Her blue eyes are beautiful and her smile is so sweet.  She loves to read, loves to play with her brothers (especially William), and is all girl.  Pink, dresses, talking with her toys...  Then only things she does not like are when her brothers tease her, the doctor, too much attention, and combing her hair.  OH, and she really likes to sing but do not acknowledge that you like her singing, because then she will stop singing.  Happy Birthday, Little Miss.  We are glad you are here.

Fall Soccer 2013

From youngest to oldest the story will be told...

Haley girl, she was a toughy. She stuck through it all and she was an awesome little sister this season.  She went to every practice and every game.  Whether there was rain, ice or wind, she was there with mom, most of the time right in my face.  Three schedules was kind of tough for the girl, she got tired and a bit bored, but she was there for her brothers; even if sometimes she would have rather been at the playground.

This was William's first season playing soccer with an organized team.  Sure, he has gotten plenty of practice with his brothers, but this was his year to get his very own jersey, coach, soccer schedule; the whole deal.  He had a great time!  True, it was hard for mom to go back to watching jumble/huddle ball, but it was fun to watch the little man play.  There were games where he was not that into it, more slow and easy was the pace then.  But there were games where he got in there, scored points, moved the ball down the (very small) field, and used the leg.

A very happy William with his own trophy, another soccer star.

Look at that face on Peter!  He was into it this year.  As his coach told me (this is not just mom talking) he was one of the four main players on the team that helped them win, consistently.  Wahoo!

He really found a place in defense.  

Funny and kind of lame story from the beginning of the season.  So, with three boys in soccer comes three schedules and some juggling.  First game of the season I thought I had things covered.  All the games were nicely written in my calendar, William's game was up first then Peter's right after.  We went to William's game, cheered him on, and then I looked at the clock and saw that it was time for Peter's team to warm up.  I called him over and sent him to the field.  Then disaster struck!  We both saw his team playing!  What?  How could that be?  OH, coach informed me that the game started at 5:30pm, not the 6:30pm I had written down.  Soccer Mom FAILURE!!!  First game of the season and my son only plays for the last 5 minutes of the game.  I told Peter that I was so sorry, I told coach that I was so sorry and that it would not happen again.  Then I told Peter that I was sorry again.  The matter of fact boy that he is said, "It's okay mom." Then, seriously 3 seconds later, he said, "Actually, it's not okay."  Knife to the heart and call me crushed!  I did find out later, to my benefit, that the rec league had changed the schedule times after posting them to the web and I had written down the original time and then they changed it.  So, I am not such a dork, just a loser. 

But we did not miss another game.  We showed up early for every other one.  Peter used that leg a lot in clearing it out of the box so that the other team could not score.  But he was also able to help out front and even scored a goal!  Yeah Peter!

Look at the size of that goal that Caleb was in charge of this year.  Whew!  And those clouds, there was many a game that had cold, windy bad weather.  Caleb was moved up to the big leagues this year.  Bigger field, bigger goal, and of course a bigger heart was also needed.  This was a more challenging year by far.  Last year his skills were not really tested because his team had such a strong offense.  But this year, with the bigger goal and field, he saw a lot more action.  Not all of the balls were stopped.  Not all of the games ended on a happy note.  But this boy played big.  In heart and body.

He got his knees and jersey dirty by diving, he even injured his thumb one time.  He got yelled at by his mom to do better, try more, keep positive, stay focused, you are awesome.  He heard it all from me.

And he really did make some awesome saves.  There was one game that I swear he make 15-20 saves against a great team.  There were other games where the team was down and it was a mental game rather than physical, and Caleb stayed in there and gave it his all.  This was said by his coach, "lots of kids ask me if they can have a shot at goal but when it comes down to it, Caleb is the one that wants to practice at goalie and that is why he is there."  Another coach quote, "Caleb is one of the better goalies at his age level.  Still a lot to learn, but we definitely want to see him come back."  Now that may be a coach sugar coating it to make a kid and mom feel good inside, but we will take it.  Caleb will need new goalie gloves and cleats next year, but he is already talking about practicing in front of that big goal again.  Soccer is awesome, and so are my boys!

VEGGIES!!!

Tonight I heard something I never thought I would hear.  My Caleb, never ceases to amaze me.  Tonight I made stir-fry for dinner.  Yummy stuff like rice, peppers, broccoli, carrots, ham, eggs and soy sauce for flavor.  It was delicious.  I gave a bowl to Haley and a plate to William and Caleb (Peter refuses all such food that has a smell other than banana or sausage).  I told the boys to just pick out what they would want to eat and have some pear that was at the table.  Now, a bit of back-history.  Caleb is the boy that only eats fruit once a year, and veggies only twice a year.  A real healthy eater.  And Caleb has always gaged at the very smallest piece of rice.  So, he was about out of ham and eggs, and I got him to try a carrot.  He said he really did not like it, but I got him to try it with rice.  He did it.  His eyes widened.  He liked it!  Then he went for a bite of broccoli with rice.  Then pepper with rice.  He liked it all!

He came to the pan to get more broccoli.  Upon seeing the spoonful I gave him he exclaimed, "Veggies!"  Thirty seconds later I heard him telling William, "I like rice."  Thirty more seconds and he was saying that next to country fried steak this was his favorite meal and that if I want him to eat vegetables, to fix this again.  Yeah for trying new things.  Yeah for kids who are willing.  Yeah for big boys who are awesome!!!

Happiness is...playing soccer in the rain

Even if there is pelting ice mixed in the rain, it is still happiness.  I love me some good sports, especially when there are awesome kids playing hard and having fun.  I wish I had a picture to show for tonight.  I could post a picture from another game, but that would not do it justice.  And I could have pulled the camera out of the bag, if I had remember it was there.  But every time I have tried to take a picture of Caleb someone scores on him, so I have just stopped.  Plus, I was shielding my face from ice at the time that it would have been really awesome to take a picture so, yeah, the camera did not happen tonight.
But it was fun!  I ran the two youngest to the truck and they hunkered down there for the rest of the rainy, windy, cold game.  Peter was a trooper and stuck it out on field with me.  And the whole team was awesome.  When coach pulled them out they wanted to go right back in.  Caleb made some great saves, the defense helped Caleb keep it at zero, and the offense actually did great at passing and scoring.  All in the rain, with a time of pelting ice in the face, and more rain following that.  My favorite save tonight was when Caleb game out of the goal box to dive on the ball, even with a gray/opposing team member charging at him.  I love it when he shows no fear in his playing, but just puts his heart into it.  And I know that he likes it best when he plays that way too.  One more game to go.  I hope it is just as exciting and fearless.

Motivation

Beginning tonight my boys start soccer games.  We have already been practicing and getting excited but I wanted to do something more.  I made up a pillowcase for the three of them and then spent time coming up with some motivational things to put on there.  Caleb is being promoted up to the big goal and he is a bit nervous to be in front of something so big.  I wanted to help him feel a little bit of encouragement, along with William and Peter being motivated as well.  So, this is what I came up with. 

Here's hoping for an awesome season!

Hitting the books X 3

Technically school started a week ago, where the alarm clock became part of our lives again and enforcing a bedtime became rotten.  But it was not until yesterday that all three of my cute boys were in school.  Wow, now even William is a school bound boy.  Life just keeps rolling along.

The 5th grader.  Look at how tall that boy is!  Mrs. Johnson is his teacher for both Spanish and English and so far so good. She seems nice and he seems to like her.  Yeah!  He is in a portable this year, which he is not excited about, but we have not heard too much complaining. 

 

The 2nd grader.  What a cute, excited kid for school.  Mrs. Gruer is his English teacher.  Senor Boud is his Spanish teacher, until tomorrow.  Senor Boud is moving on to International Business and Peter will be having a new Spanish teacher starting next week, Senora Barcelo.  Peter really enjoyed Senor Boud as a teacher so we will miss him.  Here's to hoping that the new teacher is just as great.

 The Kindergartner!!!  Look at that excited boy.  It is his turn to start school.  Miss Lebegue is his teacher, although all the kids call her Miss L.  He was so excited to start.  We had the option of either full day kindergarten or half day.  We chose half day.  It is nice, he gets to go learn and have fun at school and then come home and be with mom and Haley for a little bit.  Haley has missed William like crazy these last two days that he has been gone.  William seems to enjoy school.  He is not bouncing off the walls with excitement when he comes home, but he really likes his teacher.  He is bummed that he does not know any of the kids in his class but we are excited that he gets to make new friends this year, a whole year of new experiences ahead!

 Something new with this kindergartner.  I saw this on the computer and wanted to try it with William. Every year of school he takes his picture in this shirt and come high school graduation day we can look back on how he has grown physically and intellectually.  Fun times are ahead.