Football is for girls too

Recently Mac and I signed Kate and Avery up to play flag football this Spring season. It is our first experience with field sports, and I thought - hey, they get to run around a lot, it's non-competative (right, because it's just FLAG football, not tackle) - perfect! Well, I was right about the first part - they get to run around a lot. The girls get to be very active, and I can see how good it is for them. They are just beaming all the time now. They love being a part of flag football, and they exhibit a real sense of pride and self-confidence being part of a team. It's easy to think that your boys need to be active, but I've realized it's just as important to have your girls be active, and just as beneficial for them as it is for boys. So I am really happy that we decided to do this. However, I was wrong about the competative part. I was totally overwhelmed when we went to the first day of practice with all the teams gathered together for skills and drills. There were several coaches whose techniques were aggressive and in-your-face with the kids. There were also tales from parents and some coaches about other coaches who were in it to win all the time, and wouldn't let the girls play offense at all. Now that got me really concerned, so I've been watching carefully at practice to see how the coaches deal with my girls and to see what they say about their approach. So far, Avery's coaches are golden. I couldn't ask for better guys. They give everyone a chance to play equally in all positions. They are strict but kind, and they seem really welcoming and glad to have Avery on the team. They have expressed repeatedly that their main purpose is for the kids to have fun. I'm afraid Kate is not so lucky in her coach. So far, he seems really focused on winning, and it looks as if Kate might get stuck on defense with a minimal role in the game. Mac tells me to wait and observe some more before I go jumping to conclusions, but I have a hunch that this coach's style is going to rub me the wrong way, and I'm already planning out what to say to him if my hunch is right. Something like, "When is Kate going to play offense? When will you give her more direction than just "watch the ball"? How can she improve if she isn't given a chance to play in that position?

I get mad just thinking about it, but Mac is right. I'm making assumptions now that I don't know to be true . . . yet. I'll be watching closely, and I won't be afraid to voice my displeasure if my kid doesn't get fair treatment. That's right. I'm one of those moms now. And that coach better step up his coaching or watch out!

Sensitive Kate

This first story happend back in January, after Mac took a job two hours away, which means we only see him on the weekends, if that, because he also travels on weekends. It's been hard on all of us. I thought it was hardest on me, but our daughters are sensitive to the change too, especially Kate.

Kate: "Sometimes when daddy's gone for a month or two, and I look at the picture of him smiling, I cry." Upon saying this, she started sobbing, so I hugged her and asked her why she cried. "Because I miss him." I told her she didn't have to be sad right now because Daddy was coming home this very night. I hugged her tight some more and told her that Daddy sometimes looked at her and her sister's pictures and cried too because he misses them. She looked at me and said, "I would really miss him if he died." "I don't think he's going to die for a long long time," I said. "I know," she said, and then, "If he died, I would cry and cry until he wasn't dead anymore." More tears. I told her I would feel the same way. Avery and Lilly looked on a little puzzled, not being quite as sensitive or mature as their six-year-old sister.

This next story happened this week:
Kate was in Joshua's bedroom talking to him and playing with him when she suddenly started sobbing (yeah, this happnes a lot with her). Worried, I rushed in and asked what was the matter. "I never want to leave him!" she cried. I didn't quite understand what she meant until she continued, "He's so cute! And I love him so much!" More tears and uncontrollable sobbing.

A couple of days later, she again is playing with Joshua in his room for a long time while I do a few things around the house. Joshua starts fussing, so I finally go in to pick him up and tell her to get her pajammas on when I glance over at her and see that her eyes are full of tears. "What's the matter?" I ask her. "I'm feeling like I love him again," she says to me.

Kate's a pretty special kid. I don't know what I'd do without her!

Piano Recital

I'm probably way too behind to catch up properly on the last couple months, but these photos were too cute not to post. So in a catching-up effort, here they are.

Back in May, Kate had her piano recital. Sort of. I got the date wrong, and we went to the Piano Gallery one date after her scheduled recital. So we were the only ones there, but the two people working at the store allowed us to hold a solo recital, and here are a few pictures from that night. Kate did great. She has been able to pick up on her lessons very well, and we are delighted with her progress. Now I just have to find a teacher in Arizona so she can continue her lessons.

Some Catching Up To Do

A lot has happened since my last post. Beside moving 1000 miles, we celebrated two birthdays and other milestones.

Avery turned four - here is the cake I made, using one of those giant cupcake pans. I didn't like how one side cooked faster than the other.
Here is he family enjoying one of Avery's new toys, the bubble machine!

Lilly turned two!

Not related to Lilly's birthday in anyway, but this dress Ave is wearing is something I made in sewing class!

The happy birthday girl, looking a little beat up with a cold sore and a cut on the cheek.

Lilly loves cats, so I made her a cat cake.

Our other milestones include me learning how to sew (yay!), Kate's piano recital (photos to come), Kate & Avery's dance recital (photos to come), Mac starting grad school, and registering Kate for Kindergarten (yikes!)

What 3 and 5 year-olds think is funny

Lately, when the girls are supposed to be getting their pajamas on at night, we hear a lot of giggling and noises that don't inspire a lot of confidence in their actions. This is what they had to show us after we sent them to get ready for bed one night:

And of course, they thought they were so hilarious, that these costumes were repeated night after night after night for a while. The one thing I do have confidence in my girls- their silliness!

When a 5-year old shoots the camera

Our five-year old really likes to play photographer. Here are a few samples of her recent work:

Sister being silly . . .

A close-up of sister . . .And lastly, me with the trash!

I grabbed the trash and began to walk from the kitchen towards the front door to throw it away when I heard, "Smile Mom!" So I did. Is it sad to say that my pose with the garbage is one of my favorite photos of me this year?

Christmas Memories

So I'm not going to even mention my long break from blogging, or promise that it will never happen again. Suffice it to say, we moved to a new home, and that event really knocked me out of my routine. I still don't feel like I'm back to normal yet, but I had to get caught up sometime. The following is just a brief telling of my favorite Christmas memories and photos.

Here are my three girls in their Christmas Eve pajamas. Kate and Avery were especially excited for the next day. My favorite memory of Christmas 2009 is the morning of Christmas, we all kind of slept in (past 7:00 PM is sleeping in for us). Usually Lilly is the first to wake up, and then the other girls jump up once they hear her. Lilly was sick, though, and ended up sleeping in. So Kate work up first and crept quietly to our bedroom, where she stood in the doorway choking back sobs. I sleepily asked, "Kate, what are you doing?" She just sobbed louder, so I asked her what was wrong. She began to speak through her tears, but she was so upset that I couldn't understand her. Finally I interrupted and said, "Kate, you're not in trouble. Now calm down and tell me what's wrong." She finally was able to spit out her concern: "Did I miss Christmas?"

Between chuckles, Mac and I assured Kate that she hadn't slept too long and missed Christmas. She cheered up pretty quickly once she understood. Here is Kate wearing one of her Christmas presents: a hat, scarf, and mitten combo. This was the only present, she told me a couple of days after Christmas, that she didn't like.

All the girls acted really grateful on Christmas morning for all the gifs they received. This made me grateful, too. For some reason, I was worried that they would act like spoiled brats and complain about not getting the right stuff or saying they didn't like their presents. But they were really good and happy about everything, and that made me happy. And I will always love looking back and remembering this cute face. These are some great memories! What is your favorite memory from Christmas 2009?

My favorite place in the house

We bought a piano this summer, and I love having it in our house. No one can play it just yet, not unless you count dinking out the right hand melody as "playing", and I'm not even very good at doing that. Luckily, at least one of these three will turn into a budding musician.

Kate starts lessons in a week, and I am so excited for her. I always wanted to take lessons when I was young, but I never got the chance. Now I'm living vicariously through my daughter and getting so much joy from it. Hopefully, she'll like piano lessons and appreciate what we're doing by giving her this opportunity (yeah right). You want to know what she said when we bought the piano? She said, "I want to play a different instrument."

I furrowed my brow and asked her, "A different instrument? Like what?"

"The violin," she told me. (There's a girl down the street who plays the violin.)

"Well, you have to start on the piano," I told her. "And after two years, then you can start lessons on a different instrument if you want." (If we can afford it, I wanted to add, but she wouldn't have understood that at her young age.)

Silly Girl

There's something about being four years old that makes you think it is so funny to do thisand this and this

when mom tells you to smile pretty.

I love those big eyes on Lilly, though.

Move over, Beyonce!

With three little girls in the house, we do a lot of dancing and singing. Kate's dance moves have really evolved lately, and they are too funny not to share. I'm giving Mac credit for teaching her this stuff, because I'm too embarrassed to admit that she could learn this from me!

April in Idaho Falls

These pictures were taken this morning.

Here's baby sister wondering why she can't have fun too.

I just LOVE Idaho Falls in the SPRING!

What Color Is Your Day?

After reading about establishing early writing habits from this website, I felt inspired to get Kate and Avery their own journals. They love writing in their journals. It's much easier to get them dressed and ready for bed when they have their journals to look forward to. They usually draw pictures, but I try to encourage Kate to write a few words and Avery to write a few letters. It's fun for them, plus it's rewarding for me to see them enjoying something kind of academic.

Drawing Your Dinners

Yesterday I stopped by The Post Register's office (our local newspaper) and purchased a THICK ream of paper for $7. Seriously, the paper is going to last forever. And for $7, I think I got a gread deal. Before dinner, when I needed time to get things cooked and ready, I spread the paper over our table, gave the girls crayons and markers, and let them draw their dinners. They got as excited about this as they do when I tell them they can watch a movie. Kate was especially enthusiastic, asking me repeatedly, "What else do we have for dinner, Mom?" And then she went around to the other side of the table and drew toys and animals. Today she asked if they could do it again. It's never been so easy to prepare dinner. I read about this idea online, only now I can't remember which awesome website it was, so I apologize for not being able to cite the source. But to whomever it was, THANK YOU!

Another book by our in-house author

Kate created another story the other day. I'm not posting pictures of it, but it looks a lot like this one, only now she's starting to understand the concept of spacing between words. While I'm not posting photos of this wonderful piece of literary accomplishment, I will copy the text for you to read, except that I'm taking the liberty of correcting misspellings and adding punctuation. And please know that I did not help her with this - it is fully her own creation - and it does NOT reveal anything too accurate about our family life. Not at all.

Title: The Boy Was Writing on the Table.

Once upon a time there was a boy.
A very special boy. He was writing on the table.
"Mom, can I go to bed?" the boy asked.
"Yes," said mom.
"No," said dad.
"Yes," said mom.
"Yes," said dad.

The End.

Playing Dressup

Two Christmases ago, Mac and I got the girls a chest of pretty dress-up clothes - fancy dresses, crowns, necklaces, and dainty gloves. The girls loved it, and they used it all the time . . . for a while. Recently, the girls played dressup again, only this time they got creative. They forgot all about their special chest of princess dresses and accessories, and instead, came up with this:

Yes, those are panties on their heads. At least they're clean panties. I know because when I saw what they'd done, the first thing out of my mouth was to ask where they got the panties from - from their dresser drawer or from the dirty laundry basket? They assured me that they got them from the dresser, and I believed them, so then I grabbed the camera. I hope that I've raised sensible enough girls that they don't go putting dirty underwear on their heads, or anywhere on their bodies for that matter. Don't they look sensible to you?

High School Musical Dancing!

We're big High School Musical fans at our house. We just took the girls to see the third movie in the theaters. They are still a little young to have the stamina for a theater movie, but it was still fun. Kate and Avery do a good rendition of "Bop to the Top." I'll have to find the video and post it, but this video was readily accessible, so I hope you enjoy it. (And yes, sadly, my house is usually this messy.)

A Budding Author . . .

Kate is really into grabbing five pieces of paper (I don't know why, but it always has to be five), stapling them, and making it into a book! I am really proud of what she's able to do, since she's only four, so I thought I'd share with you one of the cute books she made. I helped her very little. Sometimes, after she had written a word, I would tell her that she spelled a word wrong and how to spell it correctly. She would look at me very confidently and say, "Well, I like to spell it a different way." So I will provide a translation for your convenience for when her spelling gets a little "different."

Cover Page: Boy Stop Writing on the Table . . . Stop Writing.
(Page One): Princess (I'm thinking this is a short prologue to tell us that a princess becomes important later on in the story).

(Page 2:) "Boy, stop writing on the table!" (Apparently, this is a mom speaking, although she's not important enough to be mentioned specifically.)

Page 3: The boy stopped. He gave his mommy a hug.

Page 4: Princess was walking in the woods. She saw a monster.

Page 5: They got married in the temple. (The princess didn't marry the monster - she married the boy, just in case you were wondering.)

Page 6: But there were pirates in the boat. (Cue the scary music!)

Page 7: The pirates came to the . . .

Page 8: Came to the temple!

(The End.)

What a cliff hanger! I mean, did the boy and his princess live happily-ever-after or what.? It's quite a disappointing ending, although not as disappointing as in Breaking Dawn. As her editor and agent, maybe I can talk Kate into writing a sequel with a more satisfying ending.