It's 10 p.m. Friday night. I just got home about 45 mins ago with a bag of burgers from McD's. . .the kids and I left the house at 6:50 this morning. . .racing (again) to bus duty at 7:10. Tom had left for work at 5:30 so we were on our own.
No picture of the day today. Although I wish I would have had a camera tonight. . .Marie has indoor soccer practice from 5:15-6:30 then Thomas from 6:30-8:30. It's in the school gym right next door to my school so I usually stay late in my classroom catching up and/or planning for the next week. Tonight I finished up about 8:30 and wandered over to see if they were done yet. Tom was playing with Thomas' team (along with some other dads). . .but the cool thing was, Marie and Frederick were playing too! It was a great crowd. . .so much fun on Friday nights. . .and here's the thing: Tom told me that at one point they had to switch up the teams because the one team was just killing the other. . .and you know who they switched over?!? The 8-yr-old (Frederick) -- ha! He said "that evened things up a little bit". Wow. Wonder if his 13-yr-old brother caught that?
The following pictures are for friends and family to see how the kids are growing right before our eyes! They are not edited. . .if I took the time to do that it would never happen. Tom has to be out the door at 5 a.m. for work tomorrow. . .(yes, it's a Saturday) and the kids and I have to be out the door at 5:15 AM (!!!) for a soccer tournament 2 hours away. Such is this season of life. . .little sleep, too much take-out, and lots and lots of activity. We are blessed.
These are in no particular order. . .just what I dumped from the cameras tonight.
Frederick is to the far right. . .this is his Upward team. . .it's hard to get any decent pictures in the gym with either of my cameras. . .here's another but it's blurry. . .it's a good show of how aggressive he is on the basketball court though! (He's in red)
It looks like someone caught a picture of me warming the girls up one Saturday before practice. . .Margaret is the one in the back, always ready to cheer!
Then later on the floor (I think this was two weeks ago) Tom came over to try to get a picture of Margaret and she didn't want that. Fickle.
The next picture is all of us at my birthday lunch. We drove just outside of Nashville to do some shopping and then I picked Red Robin. The waitress took this for us but the lighting is pretty bad. . .
And then Thomas wanted to take one of just the two of us. . .just bad lighting. . .but here Tom is with his older wife :)
And Thomas wanted a picture with me too -- yea!
Funny thing about that shirt he is wearing. . .we had just bought it and he *loved* it and wanted to wear it "right now". Tom said "no". Then I sent Thomas out to the car to get the camera and he came back in with it on -- ha! Will he ever out-grow this dogged determination to do "what he wants to do when he wants to do it"?? It really wasn't a big deal -- I would have let him wear it out of the store! -- but Tom doesn't "get" being excited about clothes or anything so I think he only said "no" because he thought it would take time away from going to eat or something. . .
February 13th Margaret and I had cheerleading practice and Marie wanted to stay home to make Valentines (the girls were funny this year -- I offered to buy them when we went on our quarterly pilgrimage to Target near Nashville -- but they both insisted that they wanted to make them!). When we got home from practice she had an entire shoe box done for her class! So cool.
She got all the stamping stuff out on her own. . .designed them. . .and even stamped every single person's name out. She's so thoughtful that way.
Later Margaret and Frederick were hard at work making Valentine's for Margaret's class. . .
These turned out great too. Margaret got the idea at a church thing that we volunteer at once a month on Saturday night. . .
The kids were *really* "into" Valentines Day this year. This was the "spread" that morning. . .and most of it are little things they bought one another!
And cards from Nana and Grandpa!
Power gymnastics/cheer is another thing on our weekly plates. Margaret has been enrolled from almost a year now (I don't think she's *ever* stuck with one activity for this long!) and now the boys are involved too.
And that's Thomas in the background. . .in the crazy orange shoes. . .what is he doing?!?
He *loves* Power. It's technically a cheer place that offers floor tumbling lessons with a focus on being strong. Fitness is a big part of what they do. I probably took 20 pictures and this is the only somewhat decent one I got of him that night:
He and Margaret had a make-up class tonight and he was so excited afterwards. . .he did an unassisted back handspring! Really, that kid is amazing. He has begged for years and years to do gymnastics but it was just never really in the budget (time or money). . .I have always said "when I get a full-time teaching job you can take gymnastics". . .well. . .since I got that full-time job in January he started then. We've found the time. And he is doing great and really committed to it. Frederick, on the other hand, wants to be "good" but doesn't have the patience to practice and really work at it. He's so aggressive on the soccer field and basketball court, though, I'd rather see him there. Marie has had absolutely NO interest in gymnastics -- ha!
Last weekend we were at another indoor soccer tournament.
It was the first time we have ever been a part of one. . .it was completely different then we're used to (although his team does practice indoors in the winter) but really fun too. . .
I guess the best part is is that they won!!!
The funny thing is, their coach is the brother of their old coach. . .and last season they didn't really win any games, much less tournaments, so this was a fun thing to do right off the bat!
And, ugh, we (Tom & I) HATE the hair.
I really need to head to bed. . .it's now after 11. I notice that there's not much of Miss Marie in here. . .but she's as busy as ever! She's playing lacrosse now that her select soccer team didn't pan out this season. . .that was a big bummer for her but I'm really glad that her dad pushed and pushed for her to do this middle school LAX team. . .she seems to be *loving* it. They practice every Tuesday and Thursday right after school (which has been a challenge) and Tom ordered all her gear last week and it came in time for her practices this week and she loved that. I'll need to get some pictures of her. . .her first game is next weekend so definitely then. I know absolutely nothing about the sport but I guess we're all about to learn. . .
She'll still play soccer for the Y this spring. . .it is her first love. . .and our local soccer complex will have an academy training once a week where she'll see her select friends. . .it's fun to see her so "into" sports. . .it's always been just soccer but now she's expanding her horizons a bit :)
Here she is. . .she's trying to make "snow cones" -- and I did mean to put a "w" on the end of sno. . .because. . .she was using real snow -- ha! We had a couple inches Sunday and Monday morning it was still around:
This picture was taken Monday morning before Margaret or Thomas were even up. By 1:25 p.m. it looked like this (Thomas had made the snowman the night before):
And two hours later there just wasn't much left:
And I thought this was a funny sight too (although I'm sure the tulips think it's "funny"):
Of course yesterday it was 76 degrees. . .tonight spitting ice.
But I love these 70+ February days -- no complaints!!! Yesterday is was *great* to hear Thomas say "Mom, I just love this weather and it's making me wish for spring" -- oh yea, I know how you feel!!!
Tomorrow. . .soccer, Upwards, maybe a college basketball game. . .we'll see how the day goes. Sunday not much. . .one more 5-day week of school and then SPRING BREAK!!! 2 weeks. Yea! Grandpa Foster is coming to visit, then Nana & Grandpa, then the kiddos are going to
Cedar Lake Camp for a couple days. . .and the plan is to maybe,
maybe, sneak away, just the two of us, for those two days. Fingers crossed :)
Night!
Jenni
