Matthew had a baseball tournament in Oklahoma a few weeks ago. It was actually for the sister team he plays with but they needed a few extra players so Matthew went. Long story short they ended up changing the rules for the tournament in the middle of one of our games-totally ridiculous I know- and our coaches decided that we were going to withdraw instead of let them just change things to make a point. So the tournament was a bust, but we had fun going to other games and were able to get back home earlier for Mother’s Day. Matthew’s main team has several siblings that Emilee plays with, there weren’t any that came on this team so she did a good job being a trooper even though she was bored most of the time. Allison stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa Terry instead of coming for the weekend. We are really glad that they live here. We all needed a break from each other and she loves spending time at their house.
Emilee’s I’m not having fun but fake it till you make it smile.
We weren’t under a mandatory stay at home order for Mother’s Day but it is still requested that you stay home as much as possible. Anyway, I requested the children each give a talk on mothers for church and sing me a musical number for part of our church at home sacrament meeting. They all did a good job. They sang ‘Gethsemane’ for me. I was hoping for a new song or a song related to Mother’s Day but I will take it.
With being stuck at home, I was able to keep up on the news more than usual. The important and the trivial. I decided to make a collection of the memes I thought were the best, either for sarcasm, irony, absurdness, or just plain funny. I picked my top 5 too.
The Office is one of my favorite sitcoms. During all the time this was going on, it was also the 15 anniversary for the show starting. I believe this meme is posted earlier in my blog but it made me laugh and it has some nostalgia to it so it gets a re-post here.
This got a good chuckle. Usually the sign is about accidents in the work place. Some nice ironic humor in lieu of the entire world being a dangerous work place. Also, if we had this sign at our house, the number got a lot higher than 6. Good old fashioned dad humor always gets a highlight on the list.Due to the horrible job and flat out lying the Chinese government has done with handling the virus they are under some world scrutiny. This meme was a dig at them from a different angle then everything else China related at the moment.Top 5 favorites. We are starting to see the evidence of no haircuts around our house. Matthew and Ryan are using this opportunity to try some new hair styles.
It is about the middle of May. The Kansas state wide stay at home order ended May 4th. Our county extended for another week. Bringing our areas stay at home order to last a whopping 52 days. Now we are in Phase II of the Covid 19 recovery plan. I believe phase IV is when things are supposed to be back to ‘normal’. The media and politicians are a mess, it is ridiculous to listen to everyone basically bicker and fight and make things up to get their own agendas across. The original idea of slowing the progression of the disease so health care could get prepared has now been changed to-no one should leave their house again until their is a vaccine or cure discovered, and if you think differently then this you are a selfish, hateful, evil person. We will not be done with Covid 19 until NO ONE ever is at risk of dying from it again. Interestingly enough the people I see against moving forward all have a guaranteed paycheck and other than socially their lives haven’t been disrupted that much. People on both sides of the argument have started protesting. The research and numbers from across the United States and other countries-excluding China who had obviously lied from the start, is coming back that while this disease is very contagious, it is not as deadly as first thought. The number of people that have or had Covid is way higher, I’ve seen reports that say 22-44% higher than the numbers show. So deaths are said to be between 4-10% are actually less than 1%. That is using the current death number which is suspected of including anyone that has died since March 13 whether it was from Covid or not. It is really hard to figure out what is fact or fiction on the news end of things. That is what the media is shoving in our faces. The impression I get and see and feel in my little world is that people are wanting to continue to be cautious but are ready to get back to their lives. There are risks all around us everyday. It is impossible and ridiculous to think you can eliminate and control them all. It is also quite evident that there are emotional and economical issues along with other consequences that I think are going to start causing a lot more problems than Covid, the longer things are put on hold.
We have done our best over that last few weeks to make the most of our situation and keep life happy and normal as possible. We have been blessed that Ryan has still been able to work from home. We have not had to worry about food or water or toilet paper or meeting financial obligations. We have been blessed with peace and calm in our situation. All of us have had struggles on occasion emotionally and socially. People are social and emotional beings and we have learned how important our needs in those areas are and require more attention then one might think. Luckily we have all been healthy for the most part as well. Ryan’s arm has started bothering him again, but he was able to get into Physical Therapy and is hopefully on the road to recovery. My finger was the only other trip to a doctor we have needed.
We decided to put in a basketball goal. This turned out to be a bigger project than planned. We ordered the first one and had Matthew dig the hole. Then we set the post and filled it with concrete. A few days later when we went to finish it we discovered there were missing and broken parts. So we tried to get a new one but the people we ordered it from were unable to tell us when that would be possible, if possible at all. So we returned as much of the old one as we could then ordered a new one from someone else. We got that one and it was the wrong one. Instead of a nice sturdy goal it was a cheap crappy one. So we returned it again and got the right one. This one was a square post instead of round so we had to dig a new hole and set the new post. Then dig out the original one enough to put dirt and grass in the area again. Finally we were able to get a basketball hoop in and we have all enjoyed it. Matthew taught me how to do a lay up too.
Matthew learned many new skills with this project. Including how to use a jack hammer.
How to fill a hole.
How to dig a hole.
And how to dig a new hole. LOL
I finished a project that I have had on my mind for a while. I did a picture wall in my basement. I have tons of frames I have collected over the years and plenty of pictures that I like to look at. I love the idea of a picture wall but I was worried about it not being my usually clean minimalist style and getting on my nerves after awhile. I settled on doing it in the basement because I knew it was going to be busy, but I wouldn’t have it in my face all the time so it wouldn’t bug my clutter avoidance side. I liked the way it turned out and I put a lot of my favorite snap shots over the years up. Just FYI the top far right picture has since been fixed so it is not crooked and taller then the rest. I promise.
We have gone on many walks over the last 52 days. Most around our neighborhood and on the near by walking path but we also explored several new areas too. I don’t know exactly I have just been told that Olathe has over 100 miles of walking paths to explore. We saw lots of animals on our walks including many different kinds of birds, frogs, snails, fish, cranes, squirrels, dogs, cats, spiders, rabbits, turtles and more. Matthew snorted a large bug up his nose on one of our walks. It took several minutes and lots of sneezing to finally get it out. I did not take a picture of it. My brother and his family came to see us for a few days on their way from Connecticut to their new home in Oklahoma. We went on a walk with them and saw a village of fairy houses that had been set along the path.
Very cute, very strong baby turtle.
Snail
One of the fairy houses.
Ryan and I also celebrated our 18th anniversary. I got a little excited and told everyone that it was our 19th anniversary, but Ryan showed me the math. LOL. We will plan on celebrating together later in the summer. On the actual day I went back to work for the first time in a few months, and Ryan traveled to Wichita for the week to help catch up on some stuff. Also his first time ‘going’ to work in over a month.
This is our favorite new recipe we discovered over the quarantine. Everyone liked it. Matthew said it is like eating at Chipotle. The elementary teachers all drove by in a car parade to say hi to the students. This was so exciting and a high light of our day.
A few weeks into the quarantine I got around to going through the kids back packs and putting them away for next year. I realized waiting this long was risky and when I opened Allison’s first and saw her lunch sack I was very nervous. Luckily she had emptied it at lunch her last day so when I opened it I was not accosted by rotten moldy food. The rest of hers and Emilee’s back packs was uneventful. I was about done with Matthew’s when I felt a lump in one of the side pockets. I dug it out and pulled out a potato complete with a face and hair. When all the kids saw it they were very excited to see “Beth” again. Apparently it had been several months since the last time they saw “Beth”. She was much more wrinkly and had grown some extra arms and hair. Thank goodness Beth didn’t turn into a pile of mush while tucked away in the dark pocket of Matthew’s bag. Apparently Matthew had made her for some project at school and when he brought it home everyone had met Beth on the bus then he forgot about it and left it in his bag. He even had a picture of Beth with one of his friends that had made a Rapunzel potato. Weird.
Beth as a young potato with her Rapunzel friend.
Several month older Beth on her way to the trash bin.
Most nights we tried to have a family activity before the kids went to bed. We would play a game, or watch a movie, or hang out and visit. One of our favorite games we ended up playing most nights is called ‘Cover Your Assests’. It’s perfect because even Emilee can play. She is actually pretty shrewd and does a good job. Matthew on the other hand is known for having the worst poker face ever and most often looses the game in spectacular fashion because he doesn’t use much strategy either. It was always fun though.
Emilee wanted a picture of her extra big win for one of her hands.
Family snuggle time.
Hair salons have been closed long enough for people who rarely get haircuts to miss one. For Matthew and Ryan who prefer to have their haircut every month they have missed a few. The girls have taken full advantage of their longer locks and enjoyed trying different styles for them. Both have been good sports about letting the girls have fun with their hair. Ryan has also grown his beard and let it grown until this past weekend. Then he decided to have some fun and shave a Hulk Hogan style mustache to gross us all out with. We went on a walk and much to Matthew dismay and my embarrassment drew far to much attention from passerbys. He has also gone to the store and a few other public places sporting his new look. Most people don’t know it is a joke and just think he is a gross weirdo, but his friends have all chimed in with their two cents. He is keeping it to get a reaction from his co-workers tomorrow on his video calls. Then I’m sure he will shave it and come up with some other creepy style. Matthew just looks at him and shakes his head and says, “How do you expect me or anyone to take you seriously when you look like that?!”
I went back to work last week. I am filling in at an office that opened the first day the stay at home order was lifted. It was a little stressful at first. One of their hygienists called and quit the day before because she couldn’t deal with the work and stress of coming back to work. The assistant had a panic attack about 15 minutes after being there. I had a pretty good mental battle of my own between rational and fear based anxiety. I think it will be a real problem for the majority of people when they start going back to work. After the first patient or two there we were able to get the flow down with the new safety precautions and procedures that we will have to do for an unforeseeable amount of time. It was nice to get out though and interact with people. I am going to be working there Monday and Wednesday until they find a new hygienist.
It is interesting to see the price and availability or lack of availability on certain items with all this going on. My kids always enjoy a fun slip-n-slide in the summer. I used to find them for 5-20 dollars. Granted they never last the summer but they can use them enough that I feel they get my money’s worth from playing on it. Pools opening up are still in question for summer so they have been begging me to get a slip-n-slide. When I started looking if you could find them you had to plan on paying anywhere from 100-250 dollars! They were heavy duty ones but they are still made of plastic. Good grief! I was able to find a ‘deal’ on one and told me kids they better take good care of it because this is the last slip-n-slide I will ever be buying. They have used it many times so far and love it. They best part is they can set it up and clean it up themselves.
This is how Allison’s first day of Summer went. Matthew and his friends were going to the pool so of course the girls wanted to go. I had to run to the store to get some things for them for Day Camp so Ryan was going to take them. As I was walking into the store Ryan called to tell me that Allison had broken her arm and they were headed to the hospital.
We went to the hospital closest to our house. I got there a few minutes after Alli. She was sitting in a chair waiting for them to take her back. You could tell she was in a lot of pain, she was focusing on keeping it together. Her and Ryan told me what happened while we waited for them to check her in. She had decided she was to excited to wait for Ryan to drive to the pool so she grabbed her towel and left on her bike, about 5 seconds into her ride the towel fell down and got caught in the wheel and flipped her over the handle bars. She had a couple scraps and of course her arm hurt really bad. She walked in the house and got an ice pack and told Ryan that she didn’t feel like going to the pool anymore and laid down on the couch. A few minutes later Ryan came to see if she really didn’t want to go swimming. She had her arm covered with the ice pack and asked him to get her a new one, he saw her arm when she lifted it off and realized that her arm was broken. She said, “Oh, that’s probably why I can’t move my fingers.” Then she got hysterical for a few minutes and Ryan said his brain was going hysterical too. He put the girls in the car and called me and headed to the nearest hospital. By the time they got to the hospital Allison had stopped crying and put her game face on. She never cried or even whimpered again after that.
A few minutes later they took us back and we started the waiting process for x-rays, doctors, and pain meds. When the x-rays came back it showed both bones broken, one obvious, one not so obvious. Since she was a kid and the way it was broken they wanted us to go to Children’s Mercy Hospital. They splinted it and gave her pain meds and sent us on our way. Ryan went home to drop Emilee off with Matthew and then met us there. Before he left to do that he gave Allison a blessing in the car then I took her to Children’s Mercy.
They put us in our room and Allison settled in and watched Harry Potter. The doctor came in and told her that they could give her more pain meds and do a shot in her arm to numb it then fix it, or do a shot in her arm that made her fall asleep and she could wake up when her arm was fixed. This seemed like an obvious decision to me but Allison didn’t even hesitate and said to just give her the shot to make it numb and fix it while she was awake. Ryan and I were both pretty surprised but she said she was sure. A little while later they came in to numb and set her arm. I sat at the bottom of her bed and rubbed her leg and tried not to pass out. She sat there and watched with only an occasional grimace and powered through it like a champ.
Through the whole process which took all day I was very impressed with Allison. It would have been totally fine if she was crying and upset. She definitely had a mental conversation with herself in the waiting room and you could see her decide to set her mind to the task at hand and handle the situation. When the doctor was explaining things, she listened and asked questions and when they were fixing her arm she cooperated and did whatever they needed without any issues. The doctors themselves kept saying over and over how impressed they were with how great she was doing.
Throughout the day she was asked several times if she needed anything to help make her comfortable. They wouldn’t let her eat or drink anything in case they had to put her to sleep, she didn’t complain about not eating ALL DAY even once, but she did ask if she could have some watermelon when she got home and a pizza with extra pineapple on it. Of course we made that happen. Her other request was she really wanted to see her brother, he was watching Emilee for us and can’t even handle someone talking about a broken bone let alone see one so he sent her some messages on the phone instead. Ryan and I were both touched that she wanted him for emotional support. After we got home Matthew sat in her room with her for a while and talked and hung out with her until she fell asleep. They have been spending a lot more time with each other since she broke her arm and it is nice to see them developing a closer relationship.
Ryan and I both had the thought separately that while it is crappy that she broke her arm it is also a blessing in disguise and opportunity for each of us to develop and work on our relationship with Allison without her having to much choice in the matter. Allison is extremely independent and isn’t always the most pleasant person to be around so the rest of us tend to keep a little more distance between ourselves and her than we do with other family members. Since she broke her arm she is limited on some of her regular activities and is around a little more than usual and obviously needs more help with things then she used to. She is also very particular about the way she looks and dresses and cares about presenting herself a certain way. She hates having to have help doing things that she has to do (shower, get dressed, brush and do her hair, cut her food, put on socks, tie shoes, carry things). Control is a big issue with Allison. It is very hard for her to even give the impression that she needs help because then she feels like she isn’t in control. This is when she can become quite unpleasant. Her SOP if she can’t control a situation to her desires is to take the stance that she could care less about it and wants nothing to do with whatever it was anymore at all costs. Again, this can be very unpleasant to be around. So while it would be annoying for anyone to not be able to put your shirt on. For her the situation is made even more loathsome and unbearable because she cares a great deal about her appearance and it irks her to no end that she not only has to ask for help, she has to wait and be dependent on when someone can help and be pleasant enough about it that whoever is helping her will continue to help her.
So the blessing in disguise, that for all involved seems to be very well if not perfectly disguised at times, is that Allison is presented with unavoidable ways to offer more opportunities of service and positive interaction with her to us, and we are presented with many opportunities to serve her and spend time with her in different ways then we are used too. It isn’t always pretty but I really do see many opportunities for each of us to better ourselves and our relationships with each other for the next 6-8 weeks she has her cast on. In case any of us are really slow learners though, Heavenly Father has given us plenty of extra practice time. We went to the doctor for a follow up a week or so after she broke it. They took a new xray and gave us an update. She will have her cast for 6-8 weeks minimum, then she will have a full time braces for several months, then she will be able to wear it part time for several more months. Then in 6 months to a year she can go back to her more active activities like gymnastics.
The new trendy word this year I have been hearing a lot is May-cember. Meaning that May is crazy busy and packed full of end of the school year stuff and it feels like December because so much is going on. It is true, its a busy month. I find the word a little obnoxious though. I feel like it will perpetuate the craziness and people will start making things bigger and more elaborate to live up to the word. I am a little grumpy and cynical today though so maybe it’s just my negative attitude. We have had plenty going on this month though. I have put some of it in other posts but there are a few things I think are worth mentioning that I haven’t yet.
Ryan and I celebrated our 17th anniversary. Wow. It seems like forever and 5 minutes at the same time. The kids spent the night at their cousins and Ryan and I went downtown and stayed at a fancy hotel in the Power and Light District. We ate at a fancy steak house, and walked around afterwards for a bit. We found a place called Insomnia Cookie. They had giant delicious cookies that were served warm and they were open and delivered until 3AM. AAAhhh! I have never met a cookie I didn’t like so I tried a few. They were YUMMY! It was a fun little find but probably good that they are far enough away from my house that I can’t just pop in whenever I have a cookie craving.
Saw this at the Insomnia Cookie place, that would make your day better for sure!
The last time we had family pictures taken was four years ago. I have never gone that long between pictures but I really love the ones we have up now. I have been saying every Spring and Fall for the past two years that we needed to get new ones so I finally made myself make an appointment. Part of the reason I was postponing was because I was going to ‘lose 10 pounds first’ but mostly because it is a lot of work to get clean, coordinating outfits that fit everyone and haircuts, schedules, and the weather to all cooperate. It finally got done though. Instead of losing 10 pounds I gained 10 more, we had to reschedule once for rain, and Allison got a giant purple popsicle stain on her yellow shirt hid from me until we got there because she wasn’t supposed to eat it in the first place, but thanks to photo shop, we still got them done. I haven’t seen them yet, I am anxious for them to come!
Girls fell asleep after family pictures. Smiling for an hour is tough work.
I have been working on a few projects, or encouraging Ryan to work on a few projects around the house that we have wanted done for a while. It is nice to be getting a few of them checked off. Ryan put a screen door on our back porch which is awesome. I love being able to leave the door open and get fresh air with no bugs. Assuming everything lives I finally have the rock beds planted we put in last year and everything replaced that died last year and our front yard is done and can just grow and be pretty. Sherri helped me figure out the back yard while she was here so I can start on that…next year. I decorated our bathroom and master bedroom. We have a nice, pretty, relaxing space for Ryan and I to go hide in when we want to now. I also completed phase one of two in our garage re-organization. I designed some custom shelves that would hold and organize all the sports stuff in our garage. Ryan was willing to build them but I was not willing to wait until he had time to do it so I did it. It took me longer to do it, but it got done sooner that way and I was pretty impressed with myself. Power tools make me nervous but I got over it and used drills, saws and all kinds of power tools to get it done. The next thing I am currently working on is putting a new sink in our main floor half bath. It has a pedestal sink in it now which is completely useless and drives me crazy. I ordered an unfinished cabinet and I am sanding and staining it to match the rest of our cabinetry, then Ryan will put it in. Oh, we got our house tested for Radon as well and it measured at unsafe levels so we had a Radon pump put in. Ryan is convinced and I am on the fence that the whole Radon thing is a farce but we got a pump anyway. They left a PVC eye sore up the entire side of our house when they put it in. Ryan was not happy. The next day I climbed up to the very top of our 30′ ladder while Matthew held it with enough focus that made me feel only slightly more secure then if he wasn’t there at all but he promised to call 911 if I fell. I painted it all the same color as our house. Ryan hasn’t said anything since so it worked well enough that he doesn’t notice it anymore.
Matthew finished up 6th grade! He said it was the fastest year of school he has had so far. He also admitted that it school ‘isn’t that bad’. He had Field Day too but I didn’t make it to his so I don’t have pictures. He said it was a good time though. He always enjoys when he gets to test his speed skills. He is looking forward to not having to ride the bus for 45 minutes next year because he will be at the new middle school by our house. He picked art, cooking class, engineering and I can’t remember the last elective for next year. I was impressed with his variety when he showed me.
I did make it to his award ceremony. He was on the Principals Straight ‘A’s’ Honor Roll and was also recognized for participating in Mathletes and being the representative several times for their school for the events throughout the year. He is such a good boy. He just takes care of what he needs to have done and does a good job and is a good person. I am glad I get to be his mom.
Emilee had her first Field Day this year. She didn’t really understand what it was but it was talked up enough by everyone and her teacher at school that she was very excited for it. She had a really fun time. She ran super fast in her relay. Her class was not the strongest at tug of war but they were the fastest in the mat pass. She loved the hamster ball and blow ups too. She tried the slip and slide but didn’t want to get to wet. I had a fun time sitting on the sidewalk drinking our lemonade and eating our snack. She is fun to just hang out with. She smoked everyone at the rope and net climb. She was pretty amazing on the pull up bar too. her gymnastic teachers always tell me how she is super strong. I don’t really notice it until she is doing more pull ups then the 3rd graders and climbing the rope in 3 seconds.
Playing Jenga with Carter.
Running in the hamster ball.
Zipping up the rope.
Racing the other kids up the net.
Getting ready for the class relay race.
For our end of the year celebration for Girl Scouts we went to a swimming activity. We had pizza and cupcakes and the girls swam their little hearts our for two hours. It was a fun time. Emilee says she wants to do it again next year so I guess I am in for another year as her Troop Leader. I still can’t believe I signed up to be a girl scout troop leader.
Emilee is getting really good with her reading and writing. I find lots of notes around the house that she has written. This is a picture she had laying next to her the other night when I checked on her before I went to bed. I loved it! We had just taken our family pictures the day before so she had drawn one of the poses we did. We are all lined up holding hands. I love the details she included too, all of our hair is correct and Ryan has his beard. Hehehe! So cute.
Ryan has been trying to take the girls out on a daddy date for some one on one time lately. Emilee was very excited and was watching like a hawk for Ryan to come home on their date day because she was very excited to go her Daddy Date. A friend came over and asked her to play and she said she would have to play another time because she didn’t want to miss her date with her dad. Emilee has the worlds biggest sweet tooth. For her date they started at the donut store with the best milk every made-strawberry flavor. Then they headed to a park and ran off some of the sugar.
My youngest is done with Kindergarten! It seems like just yesterday we were taking Matthew and Allison to Kindergarten! Emilee was excited to go to school this year but she struggled with the separation in the morning. She got braver each day and before long was jumping out the car door and skipping to class. She really likes her teacher. Mrs. Pahl is very nice and very organized and does a really good job making everyone feel special and important. I don’t think Emilee realizes yet that she won’t have Mrs. Pahl for 1st grade. We can worry about that later though.
For Kindergarten Promotion the kids sing a few songs for the parents. They all have a cute little graduation cap and tassle. Afterwards everyone goes back to their own class and the teacher hands out awards. Emilee got the Butterfly Award for her amazing colorful art work.
Promotion Songs
Emilee is not shy when they sing as a class. She loves it!
Heading back to class for awards after the performance.
Allison has had a busy last month of school. Her teacher’s name this year is Miss Coovert. It is her first year teaching and she is pretty awesome. Allison has loved having her. All the third grade teachers have made this a pretty fun year. They always had fun projects when they learned things and Allison loved being able to use her creativity. One of her favorite projects was making a bottle buddy of a famous Kansan out of a soda bottle and a foam ball for the head. She picked Bob Dole because his name was Bob.
They have gone on several field trips the last few weeks too. They went to the Topeka Zoo and toured the Capitol building. They went to the Fire Station, and last week they went to the Mahaffie Stage Coach Stop. I went on that one with her. We panned for gold, road in a stage coach and learned a lot about the different trails pioneers used to travel around. I am glad that I got to go on a field trip with her. She won’t want me on to many more probably. She is getting to where she wants to be around friends more and more.
Panning for gold, we didn’t have any luck.
Stage Coach ride!
Mahaffie Stage Coach Stop
Allison has been learning the value of honesty the past few weeks too, and is still working on it. She asked me to sign her planner after school one day, which is very normal. The ‘planner’ she brought me was not normal. It was a stack of lined paper taped together with “Do Math” written on it. At the bottom of said stack of papers was a suspicious orange piece of paper sticking out that said “Parent Signature”. As you might have guessed she wanted me to sign her ‘planner’ on the orange paper. I looked at her and said, ‘You want me to sign your planner, is this your planner.’ She looked back and said, ‘Yep, my real one is missing so I made one.’ I picked up the pen she conveniently had ready for me to sign with and signed the white paper, she of course said I should sign at the bottom where the orange paper said. I told her is she wanted me to sign the orange paper I would have to untape it and read what it said first. I wish I could have gotten a picture of her face when she realized that her plan had not worked. I remember coming up with ridiculous plans like that as a kid and wondering how my plan could have possibly failed. Allison quickly disappeared when I started un-taping her ‘planner’. I told her when she wanted me to sign it she could come talk to me about it. It was a think sheet from school. They have to fill one out when they do something they are not supposed. It says what they did, why it’s wrong, and what they are going to do to fix it. All the teachers have tickets at the school and hand them out to kids when they see them doing something good. When they get so many tickets they can turn them in for a prize in the office. Allison had decided that she would make her own tickets at home with our color printer and then turn them in at school and told her teacher the substitute they had the day before had given them to her. Again, how did this brilliant plan fail?!? I of course did not fail to point out the irony that she tried to get me to sign her think sheet about being dishonest by trying to trick me and be dishonest again showing she clearly had a lot to learn about being honest. After a long repetitive talk about honesty and trust, several drafts of an apology letter to her teacher before one was approved, and the punishment of being grounded from friends and all electronics for two weeks, I signed her think sheet.
The forged tickets…
One of the best days of the year in elementary school is Field Day. It was a great success this year. It was 85 degrees and sunny. Perfect weather to play outside. They had the younger kids do Field Day in the morning and the older ones in the afternoon. I went and helped out with both of them and had some fun one on one time. Allison helped her class win the relay race and the tug of war. She had a few turns in the giant hamster balls and blow up obstacle course and slide. They had fun water activities and lots of rope climbs, net climbs, hula hoops, dancing, pogo sticks, and topped it off with lemonade and popsicles.
Water games
Alli in the hamster ball
Allison and Paighton waiting for the hamster ball.
Running her leg of the relay race.
Nice job Allison!
Allison finished her second year of Girl Scouts this year. She bridged from being a Brownie to a Junior. She joined a new troop this year and has really liked it. They do a lot more outdoor stuff. She went on a campout at the Zoo a few weeks ago. They went on a night hike while they were there and saw the animals while they were sleeping. Then they slept in one of the exhibits. She has a few good friends in her troop too. I am glad she has found something that she looks forward too.
Allison with her Girl Scout Troop
Walking through the rainbow bridge.
She is now a Junior Cadette instead of a Brownie.
This week at school they had the talent show and awards ceremony. Allison and her friend Hailey started working on a cheer routine at the very beginning of the year. Somewhere along the way it got changed to Hailey and Paighton doing the cheer (I think because they had matching cheer outfits) and Allison was the comedic relief/judge for the cheer leaders. They were all pretty excited about it and had fun doing it.
Allison was awarded the Student of the Month for P.E. and Miss Coovert gave her the Helping Hand Award because she is always willing to help in the class room. She is a very helpful girl when she wants to be.
She can also be thoughtful. The past week or so she has been learning to sew a little bit. She made a few pillow cases for herself to use. Then she decided to make little throw pillows for each of her Grandma’s so she picked out some fabric, I helped a little but she cut, sewed, stuffed and then decorated them pretty much on her own. They turned out pretty cute. She definitely has talented crafty side. In between sewing projects she decided to make a snack serving platter for her chips, salsa, and fruit. It actually worked quite well.
For Mother’s Day weekend Ryan and Matthew decided that I would love to watch baseball. Just kidding. The coach asked if the moms were on board for a tournament that weekend and none of us were going to be the one that poohooed the idea so the coach decided that’s what we would want to do for Mother’s Day. The boys probably put him up to it though.
I do very much enjoy watching them play though so I wasn’t put out. The rain decided to come down almost nonstop for the whole weekend though so instead of playing baseball we spent most of it waiting the rain out in the car, or under an overhang somewhere. One of our games was close to one of the players homes so we went and had a little Mother’s Day celebration there while we waited for a bit. The boys each gave us a red carnation with a card that they wrote a little note to us on and it had a team picture and an individual picture of Matthew for me. There was brownies, donuts, and chocolate too so it was a pretty fun time. While the moms hung out and relaxed the boys and the rest of the kids decided to have a game of wiffle ball in the cul de sac. I think we only ended up playing one game the whole weekend. We all went to lunch together while we were waiting too. We do enjoy this team and the families. Everyone is nice and friendly and for the most part gets along. We have fun times together.
Emilee and Allison love being around the boys. Allison plays is cool and tries to act like she could take them or leave them. Neither one of them is supposed to be in the dug out but Allison will casually meander in there and try and go unnoticed as long as she can. Emilee is much less subtle. She knows better but occasionally I have to haul her out of the dug out or an after game huddle. She likes to give the boys more attention then they usually want with hugs, jokes, sharing toys, tickling, stealing their hats, offering one sunflower seed at a time, asking them for sunflower seeds and anything else she can think of. Some of them don’t know what to do with her so they just pretend she isn’t there. A few start calling for Matthew to ‘fix her’ and a couple are sweet and play a little bit with her. We remind Matthew that they will never admit it (at least Allison) but they watch him like a hawk and want to be like him and with him as much as they can so when he can he needs to include them. Sometimes I get an eye roll but most of the time he is good about letting them hang around when they can.
Team lunch waiting for better weather.
Matthew running the bases in wiffle ball.
All the moms and the boys on Mother’s Day.
Emilee spending a half inning on dads lap.
Matthew forgot how to wear a shirt.
Emilee giving Cam the run down on how many flowers she collected so far.
