whose ready to play outside?

basketball morning

every week we see little signs of improvement... love.

while big sister's away...

chess club picture day

today was photo day for school groups and madelyn had her first "official" chess club photo taken. i only wish we could have talked her into chess club sooner. she has enjoyed it so much! love.

star student

mason is the "star student" this week. saturday we selected all of the pictures he needed prints of for the week's activities and picked them up on the way home from church. he spent sunday afternoon working on this "about me" poster. he did a pretty great job on his own.

monday he showed this poster and four other pictures. tuesday he got to bring a toy (his captain rex from star wars). wednesday he brought his favorite book (a new hope - also star wars). thursday he got to be teacher and lead his class in a song. and friday he had a letter mailed to his teacher read to him. matt wrote madelyn's and i got to write mason's. when i asked him if it was embarrassing to have the letter read out loud he said that only the part about daddy and i playing rock, paper, scissors was embarrassing. here is my letter:

"Mason,

Surprise! Daddy and I had to do rock, paper, scissors to decide who got to write you a letter – and I won! I get to have the privilege to let you know just how special you are to us.

You are our peacemaker. Our family would not be the same without your calm in the chaos (well, sometimes you are the chaos). You have a natural ability to know what is important and worth fighting for and what things can be compromised to bring joy to others.

One of my most favorite things about you is that you always put others first. You see the needs of others and if someone asks for something you have - you share it easily.

And if you are given something, you show your gratitude sincerely. Christmas was so special this year because of the pure gratitude in your hugs and thank yous.

Seeing you as a kindergartener has been so rewarding! We love seeing your passion for learning, your patience when reading and the pride you show when you succeed. It has also been fun to watch you try new activities now that you are, finally, old enough! The way you love playing chess and smile the whole time you are on the basketball court makes my heart smile.

The highlight of my day is putting you on the bus in the morning. Not because you are leaving, but because of the way you sign me “I love you” until I can't see you any more. It makes me feel so special.

But most importantly, I love how much you love Jesus. It shows in everything you say and do.

We all love you so much and are so very proud of you, Mason!

Mom"

update: when i went to his parent/teacher conference, his teacher said that the letter made her cry and that is just the same boy they see in class.

i have a dream...

floppy tooth

maddux asked me to take a picture of his 'floppy tooth'...

...and then it fell out the same day.

he and mason have been losing teeth within days of each other. the funniest part is that they name their price to daddy (aka the tooth fairy). love.

new uniform

manning has been wearing this police hat he made at school for the past two days. could this be his new uniform? love.

reading machine

mason has come into reading with such confidence. he has the patience with sounding out words that madelyn never had and is quickly becoming able to read just about anything he gets his eyes on. love.

mason lunch

today we met mason for his "half-birthday" lunch. it was also his very first time ever buying lunch at school. i am not sure which event was more exciting for him. (who am i kidding? it was buying lunch.)

the littles had swim lessons during his actual half-birthday date (yesterday) and i gave mason the option of having us join him on monday or wednesday instead. he gave it a moment of thought and then picked wednesday quickly following that choice with, "can i buy pizza lunch?" love.

manning

manning can be the best cleaner of the kids, he does know about order. love.

the puppy

the games brothers play... love.

simplifying the look

he has switched to only a headband. sometimes i worry that the positive reactions from strangers are that they think he is a sick little girl. love.

just another sunday

we had frozen yogurt for lunch after church to celebrate some stellar report cards.

manning tatted me up when we got home. (he gives himself temporary tattoos all of the time and is pretty proud that he can do it all on his own.

daddy and maddux passed out.

daddy's monkey on his back.

i love a good casual at home day. it is good for our souls and so rare. love.

fart running

maddux likes to "exercise" with me. unfortunately, he is more of a distraction than a help. today he showed me how he can "fart."

i told him that he could do that with his arm pits. he said that he knows but he can only do it with his knees. love.

ladies' tea

after basketball, madelyn and i went straight to a ladies' tea at church and the boys went straight to a chess tournament. madelyn loves anything "girls only." this tea has been a "mother-daughter" tea but this year they opened it up to the whole women's ministry. we had a lovely time but the programming was the same as two years ago and it went at least an hour over the scheduled time. we ended up just leaving because we had a few other errands that we needed to take care of today.

madelyn and her friend from church

today's tea was a (modified) high tea and they taught us a lot about proper etiquette. it was fun to watch the girls try to take the quiz on tea manners. thankfully, i had some cotillion manners to pull from and regular viewing of downton abby. a fun event. love.

jersey day

mason's team was feeling pretty baller in their new jerseys! mason picked the number 8 because "it is how old madelyn is." now they will scrimmage. today was basically someone running with ball while the rest of the team tried to stay on "their man" - even when they were on offense.

they are cute though and the parents are way into the game. love.

more manning handwriting

"lion king"

this time manning wrote this with me just spelling the words for him. he has some pretty impressive handwriting for a 3-year-old. love.

girl drama

a few weeks ago, while speaking with madelyn at bedtime, she revealed that she was having a difficult time with some friends at school. it was really heartbreaking because she shared that she hadn't told me because "it makes me too sad to talk about it." before readers get too concerned, this conversation was late at night on a day where she was very tired - the tears came easily. and the hardship was that she didn't want to say the scripted play lines during recess resulting in not being welcomed to play with the girls who were controlling who said what during their play acting. given madelyn's tendency towards being dramatic and that i know how she reacts when her brothers don't play the way she wants them to, i shared this account with matt and we agreed to wait until the scheduled parent/teacher conferences in a few weeks. (she didn't want to get her friends in trouble, still loves school and hates having even weekends off and her grades are not suffering at all.)

and then i went to the cosi assembly.

one of the other parents told me that her daughter told her that "school was very sad" and that "all of the kids are being mean to madelyn." so maybe it wasn't just madelyn's perception after all.

the main problem seems to be "indoor recess" because instead of mingling with other classes, they were limited to their own classmates so there was no break from each other during the day.

i contacted her teacher and then had another conversation with madelyn.

madelyn showed a maturity that i would not, even now. she had confronted the girls hurting her feelings individually, "i don't want to be rude but when you do this, you hurt my feelings." her statement was met with apologies and promises not to do so in the future. and then she pointed out that her class had worked on how they were leaders. some were identified as "problem solvers" and she wanted to speak with one of them before i became involved. (she had asked me not to contact her teacher, but i wanted to make sure her teacher was aware because of other stories madelyn had told me about the main girl regarding other of her friends - there was a pattern.) she wanted to handle the situation herself and it appears that she has! she really wants to repair the relationship with the offending girls and sounds like she is well on her way.

madelyn and i did speak about some new approaches to recess - choosing a different person every day to play with (maybe others felt left out too), try new activities, etc.

i will still meet with her teacher in a few weeks but do not feel that there is an immediate need. i am so proud of how madelyn has handled this situation and glad that she felt she could share her hurts with me. love.

twin day

madelyn and her friend spoke on the phone last night to plan "twin day" outfits. they decided on shirts they had tie-dyed at school, pigtails and matching bff-style necklaces.

what madelyn didn't know (or at least she had forgotten) is that we were coming to have "half-birthday" lunch with her (you can only come on birthdays and june birthdays are scheduled for january). it was just a bonus that we got to see her with her "twin" for the day.

they took their coats off for an actual matching picture.

madelyn was so excited to have us join her and the littles were a hit with all of the girls at the table. love.

day date with manning

maddux had been invited to a playdate after school, so manning and i got a taste of what next year will be like with just me and him every day (this is going to be a huge change for me because i will be the only one to play with again). 

first we went out to lunch. he was feeling pretty sad about being left out of the playdate. lunch made it all better. (notice that he is still wearing his "uniform.")

after lunch, we went over to the library. manning was looking very contemplative on the ride home so i took a picture. and then after we picked up maddux and mason, he was being thoughtful again on our way to pick up madelyn from chess. maybe he was reflecting on what the next two years would hold for him being without siblings most of the day?

he picked up this snowman craft at the library and we decided to make it at home. he was excited to paint it and then all of the cutting and glueing on his own. i was pretty impressed with his finished product. love.

star student

not that it doesn't happen frequently, but two in one day seemed noteworthy. madelyn brought home perfect math and reading tests today. so proud of our girl. love.

individual snow flakes

i just love when you can see the individual snow flakes. this picture is from the top of our mailbox. the kids were all pretty impressed too. love.

COSI on wheels

one of the biggest differences this year is that i have been able to volunteer at the schools! now that everyone is in school at some time during the week, i have been able to be available to help. the elementary school has cosi (a large hands-on science museum in columbus) come every year, but you have to be able to volunteer all day - a no-go for me - but the intermediate school has half day shifts. yes! the assembly was during the boys' preschool hours so if matt could make his schedule so that he could get mason on the bus and the littles to preschool, then i could take madelyn early and help with the cosi event. i was SUPER excited! silly, i know, but i have been hearing about and arranging volunteers for this event for years and was glad to be seeing it first-hand.

matt texted me this pictures of the twinning littles after getting them ready for school. matt enjoyed his first time school prep too.

even better, madelyn's class was there for the school-wide assembly so i was able to see her (her grade didn't come to participate until the afternoon shift). the theme this year was "ecology" and it really was well done - i even learned a few things. i knew that owls could turn their heads almost all the way around, but did you know that they don't have optical muscles? they can't even move their eyes! prey have wide-set eyes and predators have close-set eyes. tree rings come in pairs for each year of growth - a light one for the spring when there is lots of rain and a dark one for the summer when there is less water.

i joke that manning is going to feel smothered because i will finally be able to volunteer for everything once he starts kindergarten! love.

volleyball team pictures

it is a little funny to have "team" pictures when it is a clinic and you play no games, but we had a team picture none the less. i did not know that i would be in the picture (nor did the other coach). i also did not know that you could see my phone and keys giving me a big belly. oh well. love.

manning's new uniform

so today manning woke up and got dressed in what is becoming his uniform - blue "elsa dress," yellow wings with hearts, yellow superhero mask and his olaf sweatshirt and hat. i told him that he couldn't wear dress-up clothes in the classroom because it would be distracting for the other kids. his teachers cracked up when we got there and he walked right in, removed all of his costume pieces and stuck them in his cubbie. his teachers commented about how confident he is. yes, he is. love.

concussion training

for my "willing to help" transition to "head coach" (they published my name on the team lists without my knowing i was actually coaching), i had to take a 30 minute concussion class from the cdc. so while the boys were at preschool, i done did me some learnin'.  (i actually did get a little nervous that i would make a mistake on the online test - even though it was pretty much common sense - i am much better on paper.) done.

pump it up party

a no school day is the perfect day for a birthday party! we joined some friends at pump-it-up for their son's 5th birthday party. and all four kids were able to attend! we were all (and i mean all because the parents did not ask for or pay for this feature) surprised to get to have a glow party!

madelyn's neon earrings glowed too.

and then she found the karaoke. it was an odd choice for a 5-year-old's birthday party (the kids didn't know most of the songs and at least half couldn't read the lyrics on the screen), but there was "let it go."

maddux had no interest in karaoke.

even mason came over to sing.

i took this picture because the girl in front of manning is 5 (almost 6). granted, she is a peanut (she was on our soccer team in the spring), but our 3-year-old is almost her height!

it was nice to see friends and have the kids wear themselves out a little - well, until they sugared up with cake. love.