Thursday, December 31, 2015

Missoula Children's Theater Dec. 2015 King Arthur's Quest

Another successful Missoula Children's Theater production.  

This year it was King Arthur's Quest. 

Graham was a squire and Benny, by coincidence, was assigned to be his "mini-me".  


These little people were so dang cute!



These are the Damsels of the 1st order.  Lucy was the Damsel of the 2nd order.  She was not "distressed".  She was fabulous!  She was supposed to act super irritated with all the girly girls who needed help.  The part fit her a little too well.  






Wednesday, December 30, 2015

December Happenings

Sullivan discovered the costume bin!

The little guy and I met up with some friends at Lorrie's Farm.  She's an American woman that has lived here for 10 years and has a great farm with animals and orange groves.  


Sullivan LOVED running around and seeing all the dogs and chickens.  


And then he was drawn to the dog cage......naturally.   His friends, Mac and Wesley felt they needed to join him.  

Her beautiful view of Mt. Etna.  


On another crisp December afternoon, Sully and I drove up to Nicolosi with our friends, the Davis'.  Bradley and Sully loved their little pizzas.  


Sully is VERY into the swings at the park lately (the last 6 months of his short life).  The lazy mom in me has always appreciated a park with no swings, but alas, the one nearest our home is equipped.  Check out that helmet and that view.  


Sullivan loves him some frozen blueberries. 


Lucy had a holiday choir concert.  I got to attend it all on my own.  Jason was in Michigan for a training and I got a sitter for the boys.  It was wonderful!  This picture cracks me up because it looks like she is seriously mad at me.  

I got to spend a couple hours at Benny's school building gingerbread houses.  We rocked it....of course.  



Graham was supposed to go to school wearing a crazy Christmas costume.  This was the best we could come up with.  I was actually pretty impressed with my tissue paper bow tie.  

Lucy, Graham, and I went with some neighbors to drop off some donations to a group of refugees that  are living an hour or so away.  Their need is great, and we did very little, but I hope it was a good experience for them to see.  

This man kept saying to Lucy how much she reminded him of his little sister.  He hadn't seen her in years and you could tell how much he missed her.  


I don't remember what Lucy Goose was all dressed up for, but I remember thinking how pretty she looked, so I made her stop for a picture.  She just got her braces off last month!  Look at that smile!!

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Flag Football 2015

Jason and I thought it would be fun to coach Benny's flag football team this year.  Well....we kinda got peer pressured into it, but hey, we're sporty...we got this!  

We didn't realize until a week in that Jason was going to be gone for 2 1/2 of the 6 week season and that we, as a family, would be on vacation for Thanksgiving week.  Needless to say, it was a hectic time and I was WAAAAYYY too stressed out about coaching a bunch of 5-6 year olds, but we made some memories and hopefully Benny will remember that he had super involved parents.  Ha.  

We lucked out that one of the parents was also "super involved" and was willing to help out a ton while Jason was gone.  Wouldn't have survived the season without Robert!  

This picture is hilarious to me!  It looks like Benny is trying to be tough, right?  After the picture was taken, he asked Jason if he knew why he posed with his arm up.  Jason asked him why and he responded, "Because I wanted everyone to smell my armpit."  Awesome.  


Did I mention that coaching 5-6 year olds is kinda like herding cats....except it's worse because at least you don't understand what the cats are saying.  These kids could whine!!!!!!  
But, let's be honest, there's a ton of down time in football.  



We were sooo relieved when the short season was over!  Benny had a good time and I heard him brag a few times that his Mom and Dad were his coach.  Mission accomplished.  

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Sullivan age 2

Oh, this boy.  We love him so much and can't imagine our lives without this crazy guy.  I feel sad that I haven't done a better job documenting his funny antics, but alas, the curse of being the fourth child.  Here's my attempt to journal about this guy at age 2.  
Sullivan, age 2, talks soooo much!  His vocabulary is seriously impressive and everyone we meet asks how old he is because he talks so well.  He's always been a talker and I absolutely LOVE hearing the way he's working things out in his brain.  

Here's some of the funny things he's been doing:
-"Bye!  I lub you!"   He says this a lot, but especially when he thinks he's going outside with the older kids and they've all gone out the door.  In his mind, he is their equal and should be doing everything Benny and Graham are doing.  
-Sullivan LOVES our neighbor, Megan Fahey.  He calls her "Neggin".  When he sees her, he almost always says, "Hey!  I found her!"  I hope I can remember just how he says it with his hoarse little voice.  
-The Faheys gave Sullivan an old football helmet for kids that he wore EVERYWHERE for a solid week.  If he ever spotted it, it was on his head for the rest of the day.  He loves bike helmets, too.  Sometimes he'll grab one, hold it on his hip like a big kid and say, "Hello!"  You can just tell he thinks he's pretty cool.  

Sullivan's favorite things right now:
-How to Train Your Dragon  (he calls it "Dragons" and always wants to ride on us so we can be his dragon.)  Sometimes I have to straddle him at night to brush his teeth and he screams, "I'M NOT A DRAGON!!!!"  

-He loves Big Hero Six or "Baymax".  If we are at an appointment or out running errands, he demands to watch "Baymax" on my phone.  I give in WAY too much.  He found a few of my bobby pins one morning and now calls those his "microbots".  

-He's not a great eater.  He loves milk and apple juice.  He asks for milk all day long.  He'll eat yogurt, string cheese, and applesauce, too.  But at dinner time, the only thing we know he'll eat is rice.  Just plain rice.  Oh....and corn dogs.  

Toy Story is another favorite.  I love hearing him walk around saying, "Howdy, howdy, howdy!"  He jumps from the ottoman to the couch yelling, "To infinity and beyond!"
One of my absolute favorite things that he does is when he runs.  He rarely walks.  He runs and then when he stops, he jumps to a stop with both feet.  He does it ALL THE TIME and I love it!
He calls a spaceship a "bay-shun".  
Ever since the kids started school in the fall, he has LOVED his little backpack.  We pack it up with a couple snacks, a few of his favorite toys from that day, and a sippy cup.  We take him to the community center a couple times a week to the babysitter there while I go to the gym.  He has to have his backpack, his jacket, and usually a ball cap to wear.  




Monday, November 16, 2015

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Graham age 9

Seeing these pictures of my Graham-bo makes me a little sad.  He's growing up too fast and I just wish I could slow time a little bit.  It seems there's never enough time to sit and talk and enjoy each of my kids.  I feel like I'm so rushed and ready to move on to the next thing...dinner, bedtime, schoolwork, etc.


Graham turned nine years old in August.  How is that possible?  He is enjoying 3rd grade much more than 2nd.  Ms. Seetai is much sweeter and soft spoken than Ms. Leandro and it seems like a better match.  Graham has always been a great student and has no problem understanding concepts in school.  I know his teachers always sing his praises and he has lots of friends at school.

Mr. Graham was on the swim team here at Sigonella for a while, but then started to have ear trouble.  Another set of tubes helped his chronic pain and irritation, but whenever he got in the water, he couldn't stand the discomfort.  So......he had to stop.  He enjoyed his time swimming, even if at times he claimed to hate it.  His favorite stroke is the breast stroke.

The big event of this spring is his role in the school musical.  It's more of a community musical here in Sigonella.  He got the lead in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!  He is Jeremy!  Rehearsals have started and he's doing a fabulous job!  I think we were all a little surprised that he got it, but he has a great voice and is such a bright kid.  I can't wait to see how it all goes down!

Graham loves playing with his friends.  He feels very, very frustrated when a day passes when he didn't get to just "play".  If he has homework and then has to go to sports practice or scouts, he isn't happy that he didn't get time to just "relax".  His favorite Wii game is Mario Galaxy and he loves to play Minecraft on the iPad.  Graham is a great big brother and is almost always great about letting Benny follow him around and play with him and his friends.  Henry Boller is one of his best friends and they share a lot of the same interests.  A bunch of the neighborhood boys love to get together and play a live version of Minecraft outside on our street.

Graham is also a fabulous soccer player.  He loved playing goalie this year on his team, The Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies.  I had fun watching and coaching him this fall.  He is signed up to play basketball starting next month.  He claims that's probably his favorite sport.

For breakfast every morning Graham has pancakes (if Jason has made a big batch recently), but if there aren't any, he has two pieces of toast with peanut butter and "sprinkles".  We got the sprinkles from a package that Susanna sent us from The Netherlands.

Graham has a tough time getting up for school.  It starts so early here!  They have to be out for the bus at 6:55 am!  He has a hard time settling in to sleep at night, too.  Of all my kiddos, he seems to need the least amount of sleep time.  He really needs time to read a book for thirty minutes or so in order to relax and get tired.  Sometimes Jason and I will come up to go to bed, and we will have forgotten to tell him to turn out his reading light and go to sleep.  He will have read for over an hour and a half!

One of my favorite things about this boy is his expressions and enthusiasm.  I've always said that it's all or nothing with this boy and the same still applies.  If Graham likes what J or I have made for dinner, he goes on and on and on about how good it is and that he loves it.  If Graham thinks that something is unfair, it's all we will hear about for a very long time.  He's quite the little debater, too.  Just the other day, he didn't want to do his after school chore.  I told him that he doesn't get paid and that he'll be upset when he doesn't have money when we go to the store.  He promised that he wouldn't and said, matter of factly, "You should just be glad that I'm not commercial."  When he talks about something he's excited about or mad about, his blue eyes get really, really big and his eyebrows raise really high.  Every time.

I love it when he is getting ready to leave the house to play and he'll say, "I love you, Mom"  before walking out.  He does the same thing when he has asked to play the iPad and I say yes.

Graham loves it when I assign him to watch Sullivan for a while as I shower or get something done.  He plays with him and can really get him laughing.  He doesn't, however like it when I let Sullivan play in his room while he's at school and he destroys his whole Minecraft Lego set-up.  Oops.

This boy has a very tender heart.  When we told him and the other kids about Grandpa Lynn's death, he was very, very sad.  He cried for a while and I could tell a lot of his heart ache came because he was sad for Jason.  During the funeral, he cried nearly the whole time.  It made my heart hurt, but also made me grateful to see him feel something so strongly about someone else.

I love this boy.  So very much.  As my first son, he'll always have a special place in my mother heart. He teaches me so much.  Yes, that includes patience, endurance, and humility.  He is also teaching me how to not let the small stuff matter so much and to focus on the most important things.







Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Halloween 2015.....by Lucy Ray


We had a great time enjoying the Halloween festivities this year.  

                                       Tonight we have, a Zombie, Bunny, Tiger, and Pirate.

                                                       Our tiger wanted to be a dead one



My Little Pirate


Graham wasn't too happy about being a bunny, but he figured it out


You can't see Lucy's gruesome Zombie bite from this angle, but it looked pretty scary. 

Here is the story that I heard from the girls

First, I young boy who caught the Zombie disease was walking into a soccer game, and Alyah (the one in the red) tripped over the soccer ball and was bitten in the face. So then, Alyah was walking around at night and saw Bailey (the one in the white) trimming her tree, and Alyah bit her. Then Bailey heard noises from a fashion show, and apparently, Lucy was too busy looking at her self in the mirror getting ready for the runway, she didn't see bailey sneak up behind he and bit her neck. Now they are all going around eating people's brains.  

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Fall Soccer

Fall soccer 2015 was an overall success.  Benny loved going to his games, but especially loved the snacks provided afterwards.  His buddy, Teyfen Jones, from church was on his team, which made sideline visiting more fun for us!  We love the Jones family!




Benny could be seen showing off his ninja moves as well as soccer skills.  He's a quick little brick and I loved seeing how determined he could be!  Every time he made a goal, his smile was sooooo big and bright!  Someone would always comment something like, "Look at that million dollar smile!"


Dad did his hair the morning of his last game.  Thanks, Dad?


Teyfen and Benny boy

Sullivan made game watching and coaching a little tough because he always wanted to be at the park a little bit away from the field.  It seemed like there were always some girls willing to keep an eye on him for us, though.  He's quite the charmer!  


Lucy had a great season, too!  She was still recovering from her knee injury that she got early last summer (fell down hard during PE), but the brace helped a lot.  


She is a determined player, too and never gave up!  It's tough playing in a league of girls and boys 11-14 years old!  Some of those boys outweighed her by 50 pounds or more, but she kept barrelling through! 



Phil Andre and I coached Graham and Ella's team again this year.  We were named the Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies.  Catchy, I know!  It was a great group of kids and I really enjoyed the time with Graham.  
Benny, Phil, Penny, Eliza, Gabe, Jeff, Cavin, Jared, Jacob, ME, 
Graham, Ella

One of the moms made these amazing cookies for us at the end of the season.