Allison had her 3rd grade music performance last week. They did songs about rocking through the ages. Each grade does a performance each year. Every year when parts get assigned and come home she flips out about how she got the worst part and she isn’t going to dress however she is supposed to. This year was the same. She was supposed to dress up like a nerd and she said there was no way she was going to do that. I have found it is best that I don’t say anything and by the time it comes around to the performance she is fine. That’s how it went this year too. Most of her friends ended up being nerds too so they all had a fun time planning their outfits and they did great on their performances.
Allison is in the front row, bottom left corner in the pink shirt.
Emilee sang a song with her class for the annual Veteran’s Day Performance at the school. She did a great job and liked that there was never any direct attention on her.
Matthew is done with football and started basketball practice, it is just once a week until games start after Christmas so he is also focusing on his baseball training. They aren’t supposed to throw in November so their arms get a break, so he has been hitting and doing Boost classes, which is weight and cardio training.
This is the 100th post for my blog! I didn’t really know what to expect when I started. I have really enjoyed having a blog so far. I think it is perfect for our little family journal. The kids like to read it already. I’m planning on printing out a book each year of it too.
Cute little sweet Emilee had her birthday today so she is a perfect subject for my 100th post. After counting down for the last few months her wait is finally over. She is now 6 years old. I can’t believe my youngest is 6. She came bouncing in this morning after sleeping in as long as she wanted (something she loves and looks forward to on Saturday) and wanted to have crapes for breakfast and then open presents. So that’s what we did.
She has said she wants everything she sees for her birthday for the past six months but she had a few things that were mentioned consistently. She loves tiny little things and cuddly soft little things. Mom and dad gave her a ‘big horse’ that she wanted. Grandma & Grandpa Terry gave her a Gleamerz and an LOL doll. Grandma and Grandpa Jones gave her a little purse with a baby unicorn in it. Matthew gave her Hatchimals and Allison gave her a little toy that is soft and fuzzy and can wrap its tail around her arm and ‘hang on’. She was also a good sport and gave Allison a big giggle when she opened a present from her that ended up being all her own underwear. She was in heaven. So many little snugly things that ‘she could just play with forever’.
She loves playing at other peoples houses so she was very excited to take her new toys and go play at Jovee’s house for a couple hours while we went to Matthew’s last football game. After that we picked her up and went to her birthday party.
This was her first birthday party and she decided to have it at her gymnastics place. She wanted to invite every person she knows but we narrowed it down a little and there was about ten of her friends that came from school, church, or the neighborhood. It was a perfect place to have a party for 5 and 6 year olds. They got to run and jump and climb to their hearts content. They had two gymnast helpers that did fun stuff with them too if they wanted. They all had a great time and were worn out with all the fun when it was over.
After playing we went to the party room and had cake and ice cream and opened presents. She requested a pink and purple tall (double layer) circle shaped vanilla cake with lots of frosting, just like the last couple of years. She picked out some Neapolitan ice cream too because it has pink in it but isn’t strawberry. It actually is strawberry but as long as it doesn’t have chunks of real strawberries in it she doesn’t notice and we don’t tell her.
I used to try and pick out what I thought would be nice when the kids had a party to go to but I have learned to take my kids with me to pick out birthday presents for their friends or ask them what they want to get them.They usually get something very different than I would have thought to get and their friends always love it. It isn’t as easy to put yourself in the mindset of what a six year old wants as you would think. Her friends did a great job and were very sweet with the gifts they gave her. Emilee helped me put together little thank you bags for each of them to take home. They all had the same things in them but different colors and Emilee had a specific color to give to each of them and they all said, ‘That’s the color I wanted!’. This is such a fun age for kids I think. They are still sweet and kind to each other and aren’t worried about boys or girls and can play all together. They still listen, and get excited easily and are easy to manage.
After her party it was dinner time, she picked Pizza Street for her birthday meal. The kids love that place, Ryan and I not so much, but it is the birthday girls choice so that is where we went. She got her fill of cheese pizza and frosted cinnamon twists and then came home to play with her new toys. The Terry cousins came over to play for a few hours while their parents went to a work party. They played tag and other games until they were worn out and ready for bed. She said she had a great birthday. She is looking forward to being sung to in primary tomorrow and then taking birthday treats for her class on Monday.
Emilee loves unicorns right now so Grandma and Grandpa Jones dressed up like unicorns to sing her happy birthday. 😂😂😁
The other night Ryan and I went out to dinner with some friends. Matthew watched the girls for us. (Awesome perk of having a 12 year old) I told them some options for dinner before I left that they could make when they were hungry. Matthew called us about half way through our dinner and we had to settle an argument about if he had to make Allison a pizza or not because ‘she won’t starve’. (Not so awesome perk about kids watching their own siblings) When we got home there was pizza stuff on the counter and cold cereal. We asked who are what for dinner and they all said cold cereal. Matthew mumbled something about the pizza not being very good. I asked him what was wrong with it and he said he didn’t know, he left it in the oven for me. I looked in and found this.
We figured out that he had set the oven to broil instead of bake and this is what a pizza looks like after it has been broiled for 14 minutes. Before we left I was reviewing standard safety rules because they said they were probably going to make a pizza. Matthew was being a little snarky and answering all my questions with the answer, “Immediately call 911 and run around screaming.” Luckily while his mouth was being sassy his brain remembered what we talked about. I didn’t specifically cover what to do in case you broil the pizza instead of bake it but when I asked him how he decided to deal with it he said, “It wasn’t on fire so I turned the oven off and left it for you to figure out. We had cold cereal so it wasn’t an emergency so I didn’t need to call you or 911.” I clarified if he meant the pizza wasn’t an emergency or eating cold cereal wasn’t an emergency, to which he said, “We still had food to eat even though we wanted pizza.” We were gone for two hours.
Sometimes I would love to see the inner dialogue and thought process of the 12 year old brain. He felt the need to call me to determine if he had to feed his sister at all, but when he opened the oven to what should have been a perfectly cooked pizza and instead found a charred melting blob he thought it best to just close the oven and leave it until I got home. 🤷♀️
I got to go out to dinner and enjoy a delicious meal with friends and my Punkin and everyone was healthy (and no one starved in the two hours we were gone) and the house was standing and no one called 911 so it was a successful evening.
Sometimes when I go to bed I find a note or picture on my nightstand from one of the girls. The other night when I went to bed Allison had left a path of arrows for me to follow that lead me to a cute little tree that she had made out of pipe cleaners and pompoms with little birds in nests. It is so cute! She just came up with it all on her own. I love it when she is creative like that. She has some artistic abilities!