Thanks to her friend Stella, Emilee was willing to try a new sport this Spring. We signed her up for Softball. It ended up not starting until June but we were still able to do it.
Practices were fun and she liked going to those, but once games started it was a little trickier to get her there. I ended up bribing her with an ice cream cone from McDonald’s after each game she went to. We still missed a few but she got to most. She did really well too! She got a few good hits in and ran the bases. She chased the ball down and threw it to first a few times and got two outs. She learned a lot about how the game works and what you are supposed to do on offense or defense. They usually got a team treat afterwards to that was a motivation for her to go. I didn’t know that until after promising her an ice cream cone so she loved getting a bonus treat.
She loved when we would come watch her too. Allison and I made it to most of the games. It was a bonus when dad and Matthew came, his baseball overlapped a lot.
Dad and Matthew tried to help her practice hitting and play catch with her during the week too. Emilee is naturally athletic but she is averse to sweating so we are hoping she will push past that and try again next year.
This is a day that I usually prefer to pass by unnoticed and then pretend to be disappointed when someone remembers we missed it. Most of my family seems to be on the same page with my opinion, with the exception of Allison. She anticipates it for months and has almost the same giddy excitement she has for Christmas or her birthday when it gets close. With the entire Nation on stay-at-home orders I think in general most people paid more attention to it this year, simply because of lack of other things happening. Allison had a long list of tricks ready to go.
She placed a piece of card board in all the toilets. Thank goodness she hasn’t discovered other ‘options’ for this classic trick, that I will not even mention here because she does eventually read this.
She put tape across several doorways. This happened to be the day I did laundry and often was carrying things in front of me so I couldn’t see as well. So I personally ‘fell’ for this one at least 5 times and so did others. She was very pleased with herself.
I also found tape covering the faucet when I turned it on in my bathroom.
The one she did that made me chuckle the most was drawing on Emilee’s arm while she was sleeping. Emilee came in and said, “Mom, I don’t remember drawing any of this on my arm.” She still draws on herself enough that it was a total possibility she did it, but was confused she couldn’t recall it.
Allison’s pride and joy prank for the day was getting a hold of Matthew’s cell phone and changing her contact to “Campbell” who is Matthew’s crush. She then texted him like she was Campbell. Matthew figured out pretty quickly that it wasn’t Campbell but he thought it was her sister. He even told Allison about it and she was giggling while she sat right next to him and continued to text. He figured it out shortly after that. Then I helped him change it back and change the password on his phone so she couldn’t get into it anymore.
The winning prank of the day was by me though. Thanks to my neighbors. They pranked me first with the following pictures.
This is the Governor of Kansas. I was shocked when I saw the schools would go through July.
Once they new they got me they said they were looking it and would send me more info when they found it. A minute or so later she said here is what we found. and send me this.
I was still a little confused and thought it was not very appropriate of the Governor of Kansas to do something like this. Then I saw the subtitle-the Hogan’s are the neighbors that sent it to me. They got me good. Then I decided to pass it forward to my kids.
Allison was mad for a good 30 minutes before she calmed down. 🤦♀️
As I have mentioned part of the reason for our pre-Spring Break is because it is parent teacher conference time.
I went and saw all of the kids teachers and saw how they are doing. Matthew was supposed to come with me and show me a presentation that he had made about how his year has been going. He was sick so I just went myself and his teacher showed me. He is doing great. He catches on pretty quick most of the time and things seem easy. His biggest area to grow in is challenging himself more. Not just doing the minimum and being done. Pushing himself to go above the minimum even if it is uncomfortable (because it will be) and growing more than the ‘requirement’. When I was telling him how his conference went I told him this is a nice way of his teacher saying-don’t be lazy, and I agree. He rolled his eyes and said ‘okay mom’. Then I gave him a hug and told him I am proud of his effort he does put in. I know a lot of moms that have to remind, nag, beg, threaten their kid to not just do homework but turn it in, and even admit they have it. I ask Matthew on occasion if he has done his homework but more so he doesn’t feel like I don’t care than I am worried he hasn’t done it. Since Kindergarten he has come home and done his homework on his own unless he needs help without being asked.
Allison was also supposed to come with me to her conference. She did and showed me her slide presentation she prepared for me. Then we went through some of the papers she had written the first part of the year. She is doing very well and her creativity shows just as much in her school work as it does in other areas of her life. I took a picture of a couple so share. Even her research reports are fun to read. She is a talented girl. She excels in many areas. One of her favorites right now is Math. She seems to have a good portion of her dads engineering brain. I am very proud of her and how hard she works. Her area of improvement is to slow down and take her time. It isn’t a race to finish everything. Then she gave me all the sticky notes she had collected from various teachers on the board of “items needed” for their classrooms, while she was waiting for me to finish Emilee’s conference. When I tried to explain the items are for the kids/parents to get that are actually in that teachers class and picking one was enough she was mortified at my “lack of caring for others and their needs.” When I told her I would split the cost of whatever she wanted to get for the teachers she put a few back and kept a more reasonable amount of sticky notes. 😘
Learning about geese was more entertaining then I thought possible
All from the head of Allison.
Emilee was the only one that was not supposed to come to her conference. While I enjoy my children’s company this is the way I prefer to have a parent teacher conference-with just the people listed in the title of the event. Emilee has improved her reading a lot this year. I will admit I was a little bit nervous at the beginning of the year. It was a bit of a struggle to get her to even try to read. She has tried hard and is doing really well now. In Emilee’s life in general I feel like she has started to accept the fact that she can do a lot of stuff for herself. While she is the youngest and all of us are guilty of just doing things for her because it is easier-and quite frankly she prefers it that way- I think we have made great strides in her willingness to try doing things on her own and for herself. She has shown it in playing basketball and not taking herself out of the game because she is ‘done’, making her own peanut butter sandwich, and reading books on her own even though she might not know every word. Her teacher said she is a happy fun girl to have in class and I am proud of her too. She had a very good folktale about how guinea pigs learned to run I got to see at her conference.
It is Valentine’s celebration at school time! It was Emilee’s turn to have me help at her class party so I went and ran a game for them. There were many cute boxes and lots of excited kids. It is cute to see them deliver all their valentines. I helped with a game called Cupids Arrow. Each kid get a straw and a bunch of q-tips. They put the q-tip in the straw then blow through the straw and try to get it in a bowl. One boy started at the game area and was not happy at it because ‘the games are always boring and the worst part of the party’. Once I explained and started the game, he ended up being the biggest fan and was hard to get to move on to the next area. Emilee opted to go with a traditional mail box for her Valentine Box that she decorated.
Handing out her candy and excited about the candy she will find in her own box when she is done. The girl has the worlds biggest sweet tooth.
Allison’s party was not at exactly the same time so I was able to stop by and hang out with her at her party for a little bit too. True to her previous endeavors when making her Valentine Box she had to go bigger then the year before. Last year is her last year to make boxes which will be sad to not see the creative ideas she comes up with, but good in that they can’t get to much bigger or she won’t be able to carry them with out help. She went with the Rooster theme like last year but created an entire scene instead of just one rooster. This poor guy is running for his like so he doesn’t get eaten by the roosters that are quickly gaining on him. The last rooster is reminding them that they are vegetarians and don’t really want to eat him. The barn door is where you put the valentines.
Allison stuck with the Rooster theme again this year.
Emilee tried basketball again this year. She played on a team with her friend Stella. Stella’s dad was the coach for the team.
She has done a really good job. You can tell that a few things have clicked for her on how to play so she enjoys it more and her skills are getting better. It is fun to watch.
The girls are still young enough that some pretty cute mistakes or distractions happen during the games too. Sometimes they get confused and shoot at the wrong basket. Another time two girls that were guarding each other decided to take a break for a minute to play patty cake together.😂😂
It has been snowing almost weekly this winter. That is a lot more often that usual for us. Most of them have been less than an inch but some have been a couple inches. Several of them have been the really wet snow that is good for snowman building. We have played a lot in the snow but winter is always a time to get creative about what to do indoors.
Allison has her braces on and gets to go to the dentist a lot these days to have them checked. She found a fun toy in the treasure box after her last visit.
Allison also tried her hand out at the school National Geographic Geography Bee this year. She was the representative for her class. I was proud of her for trying it. The questions were pretty hard.
Merry Christmas!! December is here. I knew that with Thanksgiving being late Christmas would sneak up pretty quick this year and it has. SO BUSY! I have made a point the last few years to make an effort to not over pack the activities and that has been the plan this year. There just is a bunch of stuff going on this time of year between, regular schedules, end of year stuff, plus holidays. So it has still been busy but I am enjoying it. I have cut out a lot of family activities. We still do stuff together but I have just done the things that the kids have brought up and wanted to do. So some of our favorite activities this December have been wearing our PJ’s grabbing some hot chocolate and driving around looking at Christmas lights, watching a Christmas movie together (Elf and the Santa Claus movies 1-3 with Tim Allen are our favorites) We read my awesome Christmas book collection together a lot too. We decorated a ginger bread house too.
I have not done our White Elephant Christmas party that we did for years last year or this year. It is was fun to do but I am enjoying not doing it more. Ha! We simplified our treats for neighbors and friends this year too. Instead of making chocolate pretzels and other treats we put a note on a bottle of sparkling cider that said “Pop! Pop! Fizz! Fizz! Oh what a good neighbor you is!”
Some of the other fun things we have done is the girl scout holiday party. I am still a troop leader for Emilee’s troop so I was with them, but Allison was there too.
Our Elf Bubbit came. The girls always want him to come the day after Thanksgiving but Bubbit is one of Santa’s special elf helpers so he has to stay and help Santa until at least the 10th. Since we will be out of town this week Bubbit was able to come a few days before that. Emilee is our elf spotter. She can find him faster than anyone. She likes to leave him notes too.
The girls and I went on a neighborhood hay ride too. Allison wanted to have a seat at the front of the wagon with her friends but Emilee and I decided to sit at the back which worked out great because the second set of horses liked to be right behind the first so we could basically touch them. The girls sat on Santa’s lap afterwards too.
I sang with a group in the Relief Society Christmas activity. It has been a long time since I sang. It was a little stressful getting parts worked out. We originally started with 10 singers and ended up with only 5. We sounded good and it was fun though.
Ryan and I were put on the Ward Christmas Party planning group. We were in charge of Santa and his room and then activities to entertain the kids. The whole party went really well. Santa came with a Mrs Claus that was grumpy and I honestly would have liked to cut her out of all the pictures but it all worked out. The kids loved all the crafts, dinner was yummy, decorations were awesome. The person in charge of the program had a lot of primary kids play the piano, the ukulele, or viola, or sing a song. It was really fun.
Emilee and I went to one of the Highschool choir concerts. They sang a lot of fun songs. A lot of the songs they sang were ones I sang when I was in choir TWENTY years ago. Uuuuummmm, I just realized when I typed that my 20 year high school reunion is this summer! Wow that is crazy. Anyway, I digress. We all went to Leah’s choir concert as well. She is in a choir called Allegro. It was very nice. There is several different choirs and they all sang some very good Christmas songs together.
We had our first snow day for school this month. They cancelled church because we had a big snow storm and then school on Monday was canceled too. The cousins got to sled together for a few hours and we ended up with about 5 inches of snow. It was a fun winter treat before we head to Florida for Christmas.
Allison had a couple rough days, this is the first smile I got out of her after trying for a very very long time. I love her cute smile.
Last year four families from our baseball family got together for a Friendsgiving. We did it again this year. It is a fun time. The kids like it because there is a group of them to play and all of them have at least one buddy. We are all very different families but we get along really well and enjoy each others company. Everyone brings a few appetizers and we visit and hang out for a few hours then eat a dinner together. Then play games and visit some more.
This year there was minute to win it games that we all did. We divided into five teams and each team rotated between five games. There was potato rolling, apple stacking noodle fishing, cotton ball flipping and cookie eating contests. The winner of each team wrote their name down on a paper. After all the teams finished we went to each game and the five winners from each team played the game. Those people earned a laminated turkey medal. Then the winner of each of those games played against each other in a final championship game. The final championship game ended up being Cam, Matthew, Jake, Allison, and Frank (his mom actually one but requested a proxy for the championship game). They each had a paper plate with 10 candy corns on it that were covered in whip cream so you couldn’t see them. Whoever found all ten and put them on a napkin next to their plate-without using your hands of course- was the winner. The kids loved it. Jake was the winner and he got another laminated turkey medal for his efforts.
It was a nice relaxing enjoyable evening. The friends that have done it every year are moving to Poland this summer for a couple years. One of the rest of us will have to try and live up to the Friendsgiving tradition while they are gone.
I have been waiting to post this post to add some fun pictures to it…long story short-they aren’t coming. So take my word for it, we had a fun time and looked ridiculous doing it.
After counting down almost daily for the last 6 months Emilee’s birthday final came! She was so excited. She has been asking for some lego dragons fora long time. I was able to find some on ebay since they were not sold anymore and she got her little family of lego dragons for her birthday.
To celebrate she wanted to have a few friends over for an all day play date. She spent the night at Jovee’s on Friday and then I picked her up and Jovee, Reese, Cambrie and the rest of our family went to a movie together. It was cheesy, bad acting, and pretty ridiculous and they loved it. They giggled and laughed through the whole movie. After the movie we went home and had pizza and rootbeer, opened presents and then blew out candles and ate cake. The weather was great so Emilee picked a park and we went and played for a few hours. After her friends went home we met Jovee’s family at Sake Lounge and had Emilee’s favorite food- a Shaggy Dog. It is a sushi roll.
I think she had a fun birthday. She said she feels a little bigger but not much. We have lego dragons all around our house.
