The Countdown Begins

Cade showed us the outfit he is going to wear the first day in Hawaii.

When Did This House Get 2 Moms?

Conversation between Cade, Maddy and myself.

Me:  Cade, you need to go get in the shower or bath.

Cade:  Can I wait until commercial?

Me:  No, go now.

Cade:  But I haven't seen this in forever!

Maddy:  We just saw it so go now!

Me to Maddy:  Do I need to remind you that you're not his mom?

Maddy:  But YOU just said it.

Me:  But I AM his mom!


We're in trouble.

Time to Catch Up

We decided to stay around here for Christmas this year instead of going over the mountains. I hate to drive in the snow plus Granny Janny and Papa Butch had a full house already. One of my sisters and her family and my brother and his family came up from Utah to visit them. A couple days after Christmas, Matt, Sara and their two munchkins came over here. We checked out the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, the Troll and the Ballard Locks. Note to self: go to the Locks when the fish are running. We went in May and saw so many fish it looked like the water was boiling. This time not a single thing. Lesson learned. The Gardens were cool to see (just wish it wasn't raining) and so was the Troll.

Brother Matt had to fly back home but Sara and the boys got to stay longer. My Matt had 2 free hotel nights he had to use by the end of the year so we used them both for New Year's Eve and stayed in downtown Seattle. We went to the top of the Space Needle and went around the Seattle Center. It was cold but it was a beautiful clear day. We couldn't see the Space Needle from our rooms so we took a short walk down the street and had a perfect view of the fireworks.

Cade finished basketball in December and Ryan started in January. It's nice not having them both play at the same time. Matt is coaching Ryan's team again this year. They have a smaller team which makes things much easier. Ryan had his second game today. He did AWESOME! He scored, he rebounded, he stole the ball a ton. It was so much fun to watch! I wish I could have gotten some pictures of his face but Matt was pretty much standing in my way the whole time.

Stealing the ball

Wondering if he should quit playing football during recess. It looks more like he is trying to play quarterback than basketball.

On his way to scoring after stealing again

You Better Watch Out, Better Not Cry...

When Maddy was little I took her to get her picture with Santa. She wasn't too sure about the old man in the suit so I had to jump in the picture with her. We have never returned for another picture until tonight. Yes, at ages 9 and 7, Ryan and Cade finally get to pose with St Nick himself. Maddy pouted the whole time. Actually for the last few days she has not wanted to get her picture taken. "I am 12 and am too old to get a Santa picture." Lucky for us, we had 2 families behind us in line who had high schoolers who also had to endure the same torture as our girl. She received no sympathy. We finally made it to the front of the line and it seems Maddy may have warmed up a little bit. The picture turned out great. I am so happy I paid the $10 to Groupon to put Maddy thru this. As the kiddos are getting ready to leave Santa, Maddy turns, trips over Santa's boot and falls flat on the ground! Sing with me now..."you better not pout I'm telling you why!"

Thanksgiving

Whenever the kiddos have 1/2 days at school, I still have to stay the whole day. The kids were supposed to have 1/2 days two Fridays ago and then again last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It was parent/teacher conference time. It started to snow and stick on Monday so all the students went home at the regularly scheduled 1/2 day time. The district strongly suggested that staff should leave as soon as the kids got out. Given the fact that we live across the street from the school, I knew I would be fine getting home but with Matt out of town, I thought my kids would do better with me home. Monday night we got the email saying there would be no school on Tuesday. I was really hoping we would get the same email regarding Wednesday so we could head over to mom and dads sooner. Lucky for us Wednesday was canceled so we all got a long Thanksgiving break. The trip over to Manson took us a long time not because the roads were terrible but there was an accident on Snoqualmie and a slowpoke on Blewitt. We have not been to Manson for a while so it was nice to get away. 

Here is a photo recap of our vacation...

Turkey Bowl was inside this year. I think it may have 'warmed up' to 15 degrees.

Sledding

Snow Surfing/Eating Snow (Maddy's picture is blurry but I had to be equal in the eating snow dept)

Baking Lion House Rolls with Granny Janny

The trip home was uneventful which is nice. We did see a lot of wildlife...buffalo, coyote, a hawk capturing a rabbit. Glad the ice was on the mountain and not on the road. So glad we got to go but glad to be relaxing at home.

Our First Winter Wonderland

We got some snow here a couple days ago that canceled school for 2 days. The kiddos in the neighborhood decided to take advantage of it even though it was well below freezing.

Soccer, Basketball and Soccer again

Today our morning started off nice and early with a Maddy soccer game. It was dry but cold. Cold enough to have frost on the ground. Luckily one of the girl's parents bring hot chocolate to the game for the girls. They were nice enough to share with our boys today. The girls team did great. It is fun to see them go out and play hard.
Cade had his second basketball game today. Lets just say the other team cheated (ok maybe not). I heard one boy from the opposing team say as we were walking out of the gym, "my grandma kept score and it was 54 to 18." Whatever. I am going to go with Cade and say we only lost by 6 points. Cade did great! He scored his first basket of the season. It is so funny to see any one of them score and run down the court with arms in the air. Cade did a great job of going after the ball and he will have a nice big bruise to show off.

Notice the tongue in check in these 2 pictures. He is so going to bite it off one day!

One of the boys on the other team was at least a head taller than Cade. He was a very good player. Turns out he has a personal coach for basketball and football (I told you they cheated).
Ryan had a soccer game this afternoon. Oh my goodness! This was one of Ryan's best games ever. He was so aggressive and quick and it was SO much fun to watch him! He scored one goal and almost scored 2 other times. One of those times one of our players made a perfect pass to Ryan. Ryan went to kick the ball and his foot got too far under the ball and it went right over the goal. Ahhh! So close! This afternoon his coach called to talk to Ryan. She told him what a great job he had done today, how he was a great influence on the team and how badly she wanted that ball to go in the goal for him. How awesome is that?! She has been such an amazing coach this year. I wish Ryan could have had her in previous years. I have so many pictures of Ryan playing soccer that I didn't take my camera today. I wish I had. It was raining the whole game and I wish I could show you how muddy they got.
Good game day, kiddos!