YAY Natalie!! Twice!

Every quarter at the elementary school they give out awards to students for creativity, citizenship, reading, music, art, PE, etc. Some awards one per class, some one per grade. Natalie got one of the highest awards - the Principal's Award - "excellence in all subject areas." We were out of town the day the awards were given out - and it would have been great to get hers with everyone else, but it was still as exciting when she brought it back the next Monday.
The first YAY! Natalie!

Yesterday soccer games began. It was a beautiful evening. Natalie and Jake have their weekday soccer practices and games at the same time, but different field - even different field complexes. So, Robert and I divided and conquered. Since I took the camera, pictures of Jake playing will have to wait until I'm at his game.
Natalie's team did great. This is the first season they are doing all-girls teams (all-boys teams play each other as well - obviously, but I thought I'd put that in there). She has a wonderful coach that works great with energetic 6-8 year old girls.
In the pre-game picture below, Natalie is the fourth in from the right.

Going into the fourth quarter, Natalie's team was down 0-2, then . . . Natalie SCORED!!

I must say I was impressed I got this shot, even though it isn't the clearest - timed to see the ball going into the goal and her celebrating. I'm impressed because I was holding a squirming Logan on my lap and being zoomed in that much on my camera means I need to hold pretty steady.

The second YAY! Natalie!
Her goal got the team on a scoring drive and they made 2 more goal in 5 min. to move ahead 3-2. Her team ended up tying 3-3, with the other team making the tying shot right as the whistle blew for the end of the game. It did make it a nail biter!


The final score of Jake's game is in question, they don't officially keep score for that age group and scores can go into double digits with no goalie and small field. Jake did, however, make THREE goals of his own.

Lunch With An Author

Over the summer, before 6th grade, Alyssa had to read some books - one of which she would choose to do a book report on at the beginning of the school year.
The book she chose was "Yankee Girl" by Mary Ann Rodman.

Today Mary Ann Rodman came to the middle school to visit with the 6th graders!

Students could write an essay on why they wanted to have lunch with her and a few would be picked to do so. Alyssa was one of the students that got chosen to have lunch with Mary Ann Rodman! She was so excited to meet a real author in person and ask her questions and have lunch with her. She also brought in her copy of "Yankee Girl" and had Mary Ann Rodman sign it!

So, that was the real post - but now a total side note:
I was thrilled that Alyssa got to meet an author of a book she read. I have gone to two Book for Young Readers symposiums at BYU (a fabulous opportunity if you ever get the chance!), where they have authors and illustrators come present. I told her how fun it is to meet authors and get to learn how they get their ideas and their writing process. But even cooler than that, you get a peek into their personality and even some of their quirks. (Like Alyssa seeing all the facial expressions that Mary Ann Rodman does.) I've met Steven Kellogg - who is so fun to watch draw in big swoops and he talks really fast and he really has a dog named Pinkerton and one of his books, "Can I Keep Him," was really about him wanting a pet and when he published it his mother didn't know how she felt about "airing their dirty laundry." :) I've met Christopher Bing who has re-illustrated classic stories, for one reason being that he wants them to be historically accurate - like "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" and like in "Little Black Sambo" he wanted the book to look like you picked it up in a jungle - water damage, ants and everything! He is amazing! I could go on. And the best part . . . I have a great little collection of autographed books for me - I mean my children!
OK, side note over - because as I said before, I could go on!

Alyssa's First 5K

Sure it would be great if the "5K" meant $5,000 - but it was her first race and just as exciting.
The middle school does a 5K race and 1 mile fun run in the spring and Alyssa wanted to run in the 5K.
It was an early morning (my alarm didn't go off, so I'm glad we got her there in time!) and she was excited and anxious. After signing in and getting her t-shirt, she joined the others.

Ready . . .

Set . . .

Go!

Here she comes to the finish . . .

Done!
She ran so hard that she ended her race by throwing up after finishing. Good thing she didn't have time for breakfast.
Her age group was 11-14 year olds, so she was one of the young ones. For not training - she did great with a 30:34.3 time. That gave her 13th place out of 33 for her age group and 98th out of the 233 total runners.
She came home, slept, went to 1 1/2 hours of soccer practice and has had sore legs since!
She can't wait for the next race!
Way to go Alyssa!

Not Again?!!

This past Monday saw yet another trip to the doctor's office for Logan.
He is a great patient because he thinks that if he sits still and quiet and makes no eye contact whoever is touching him will leave him alone. This always makes me laugh because he looks so serious and like he is obviously, silently saying "quit touching me NOW."
Past doctor's appointments have been for his ears or being brought along for Jake - at least once a month since November!
Monday, when we went in for a rash Logan had, we pulled into the parking lot and he said "no ear hurt! no ear hurt!"
That was the first time he ever verbalized going to the doctor's office. I laughed and said "sorry buddy, we're not here for your ear this time."
This was one too many for him and, although he sat still while being looked at, he was all over the place the rest of the time. I had to give him that much, this really has been too frequent of a trip for us!

Mexico Beach

Last week Robert (meaning UGA) had Spring Break. The kids, unfortunately have Spring Break in April. They did, however, have last Friday off (teacher work day) so we made a last minute trip to Mexico Beach, Florida!

We have some friends who were going down and invited us to help fill up the beach house. A beach house right on the beach!!
We left Wednesday after school and got there very late. The kids, who had slept in the car, woke up early and couldn't wait to get on the beach. Even though the morning was cool and misty (the sun later burned off the fog) - the sand, shells, and water were perfect.

Mexico Beach is right next to Panama City, FL - in the panhandle area. So, facing south we got both sunrises . . .

and sunsets over the water!The beach was perfect! Even with some spring breakers, there weren't a lot of people on the beach in our area. Being in the gulf the water was warmer and waves calmer. And there were MOUNDS of shells!! Literally!! One older lady gave Alyssa a whole bunch and said that here you can take you pick of favorite shells and find buckets full! We brought home buckets full!

We had a sand castle contest the first day. Mine was a shell castle, where I lined the bucket with shells as I filled it with sand. I was a bit disappointed that they weren't so clearly visible when I dumped it over.

Robert suggested sprinkling water over the castle and it washed away the outside sand perfectly.
Robert found a real shovel at the beach house and used it to make a big pile of sand for the family sand castle. It was a climbing mountain and volcano for quite a while before being shaped.
And ended up being a sand face - of our favorite animated clay character, Wallace - instead of a sand castle, the nose, ears and mouth remnants of lava flows. So much water had been poured over the mound of sand when it was being used as a volcano that the sand had the perfect molding consistency.
Alyssa made a castle with moat and walls and a floor of shells and additional moat of shells to further ward off invaders.

The Graham group castle was made later in the day (the picture was taken later that evening when other beach goers - or probably just Avery - had gotten to it). They had a pile about as big as Robert's. The moat was of dual purpose - sure for the castle moat, but it also kept Avery from playing on the castle during construction. They even carved brick into the walls. I can't remember if any actual judging took place, but it sure was fun.
As I said before, the beach was perfect! Sunny, perfect air temperature (not too hot, not too cold)!
Logan didn't care for the water (and I was all for that) but wore himself out playing on the beach. He was in sandbox heaven!
There were also birds to chase, boats to see and planes flying overhead (there is an Air Force base right there as well). Jake had an equally fun time on the beach . . .
and had wonderful sisters who took him into the water whenever he wanted.
Alyssa and Natalie couldn't get enough of everything and had a hard time saying goodbye. It really was a perfect long weekend.

There was a pier just down the beach that you could access. We took a walk there

and later Robert got a fishing license and spent the afternoon with Joey, Natalie and Jake fishing.
OK, so the picture will not allow for any "fish" stories. The proof is in the pictures! but to hear Jake tell about the reeling in of his fish (the picture with Robert and Jake above), you would have thought he caught one as big as himself!
The last night we took a walk down to get ice cream. The kids got some souvenirs to bring home as well - and many memories. Thanks Rachel and Joey!

With in hours of the first day there Robert said we'll have to go back to the beach when the kids are out for their Spring Break!

Unemployed

Tomorrow (actually within 12 hours of writing this post) Logan is getting tubes in his ears - due to a recent and frequent history of monthly ear infections unrelated to having a cold. Today we went to do all the pre-op stuff.
As the nurse was going through the list of questions she asked if I was unemployed. I said I'm an at home mother. She marked "unemployed"!
I was a bit taken back and laughed at the thought of that label in relation to all I do as an at home mother! I've never thought of myself as "unemployed."
So, now I'm wondering - can I seek "unemployment" benefits?! :)

Chicken Mania!

We had an activity at church last Saturday. It included a chili cook-off, pie contest and chicken mania! Our family participated in each part.

Robert made Chili Verde - although it didn't win, the pot was scraped clean! We hold to the Texas chili philosophy - meat, no beans.

(the pot in the middle)

I made pumpkin chiffon pie - one of my favorites. Again, not a winner but all eaten.
(pie 29)

Logan had fun playing chick, chick, rooster (variation of duck, duck goose). He wasn't really playing with the others - he was just having a ball spinning around in the middle of the circle.

Robert, Alyssa, Natalie and Jake joined teams for Chicken Mania: three team members man the sling shot and try to shoot rubber chickens into the "pants" of the forth team member across the room.

Alyssa and Jake were on a team with some friends. Natalie was on a team with friends.

Robert was on another team and even went 6 for 6 one round.

His team went on to win second place!
Good food, good friends and a fabulous evening!

In Like A Lion!

This will be a bit of a lengthy post because how often do we have SNOW in GEORGIA! In MARCH!
The last two days of February were rainy . . . REALLY RAINY - dumping at least 4 inches. It was fabulous. After a bit of a break (Saturday afternoon) it started raining again Sunday morning . . . then we got some hail . . .

We drove carefully to church, and the snow started. They canceled the last hour of meetings and we drove even more carefully home. I didn't worry about Robert driving (plenty of snow driving experience), it's the non-experienced snow drivers you worry about!
As soon as we got home we dug through what is left of our winter outerwear and got the kids outfitted. Natalie and Logan were the only one with complete sets. Alyssa used my boots and gloves and we improvised the rest. But SNOW and KIDS - winter outerwear doesn't matter.

When they started rolling the snow for the fort and I saw grass, I didn't think it would last to long - but the thick wet big flakes kept falling (until about 10:30pm). At first Logan didn't care to go out, but then wanted to join his siblings. He did not like putting on the snow pants, coat and boots - and had nothing to do with mittens.



He decided inside would be better . . . but still wanted to go out.
I finally put regular shoes on and his coat and put him in the garage . . . he was OK with that and actually ventured out into the snow. He later cried when he had to come in.
Sleds are something that stayed in Utah when we moved but our kind neighbor lent the kids hers - more hours of fun! (scroll to the end to watch Jake snow surf)
Our world became a beautiful winter wonderland! Unfortunately, not without damage. We could hear tree branches snapping and even a tree falling. There was popping all night long. It was actually when we heard A LOT of branches breaking off in the woods that we had the children play closer to the house.
Robert started shaking off the trees and bushes he could, but not until after our magnolias took a beating. We are hoping we can stake them up and they'll be ok (if they haven't broken).
We cleared the garage enough to pull in the van and moved the car from under threatening trees.
School was canceled for Monday and UGA was also going to be closed. Worrying that the power would go out during the night (it had been flickering on and off throughout the afternoon) we had a fire going and the kids slept in the living room - we didn't have to twist their arm for that one. We did loose power for a few hours during the night, but everything was back on by morning. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day (still is because I'm posting it this afternoon). The kids were up by 7:30 and out to play by 9am.
Here is the snowman Natalie made.
The sled was well used again, Logan even went for a couple of rides.
A bunch of neighbor friends came over to join the fun.
By now the snow was crunchy, but Robert found some good snow on the car to lob snowball's at the kid's fort.

Here is Alyssa (and Izzy) waiting for the snowballs (Izzy thinks it is a game of fetch - scroll to the bottom to watch her fetch snowballs).

Robert, with the perfect shot, got it right over the top of the wall and smack into Alyssa's stomach!
We took a walk through the woods to see what kind of damage we had and to check the river (after 4 inches of rain it was already high).
The snow had weighed down all the privet. We hope it is enough to help get rid of it but we think it will be more resilient than we want. We did get a view of what the woods will look like once we do get rid of all of it, you can even see the house from the river.
There are a lot of deep puddle areas in the woods and the river is up past the bank. In the picture is our island, which usually clears the water by at least 6 feet! It is almost over the island and the river hasn't crested yet. It looks like some of our riverbank has been washed away, but we'll have to wait for the water to go down to see for sure.
OK, my videos post at the bottoms, so I'm just putting these here so I don't have to move everything around to get them in order.
This is Jake snow surfing down the hill Sunday,

and Izzy fetching snowballs,

and Alyssa and Logan sledding.