Let the Games Begin

Another season of fun outdoor games is rolling around!  I love the warm weather and Spring/Summer and sunshine and being outside!!  We’ve picked up soccer practices again and the boys had their first soccer games this week!  Jared’s team actually won!  This seldom happened last season so we were thrilled!  Great way to begin a new season!  Jared and Gavin had practices that overlap, so the boys get to play on the outdoor play equipment while they are waiting for each other to finish!  Love, love, love being outdoors!

Allen Side March Birthdays

After scheduling and re-scheduling to celebrate everyone on my side’s March Birthdays, it finally happened!  I brought my camera to take pictures of everyone, just so I could have periodic pictures in this book for you to have.  We celebrated Kirt, Kenna, Jared & Derek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

		Allen Side Birthdays 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Look At The Big Boy!

Little Scoots finally did it!  He took off today for the first time on his bike, without training wheels!  I’m so proud of him!  I saw another little boy in our neighborhood riding and it dawned on me; Scott’s big enough to try….so, I put him on the bike and he took off!  I was worried he might struggle to do things physically…. on time, because of his gross motor delay. But, he did!  My other boys didn’t try riding a bike without training wheels until they were somewhere around 5, so he’s doing great!

Ninjago

This is the latest craze at our house.  I think Jared got just about every possible collectible for his birthday and he loves them too!  Jared and Gavin live, breathe and eat these guys!  Gavin was so inspired (my builder), that he made his very own paper nunchucks!  Here, he’s demo-ing them for us!

He Wears His Sunglasses At Night

This is just a quick picture of my cutie, Scott.  Scott was born in the wrong era; he was supposed to be born in the 80’s!  Every time we are listening to the radio, he yells to turn it up if an 80’s song is on.  He particularly picked up on what is probably the lamest song of that era;  “I Wear My Sunglasses At Night."  When he saw I had extra sunglasses, he requested to wear them and he does…….everywhere!  And he always accompanies it with that song!  This is a picture of when I caught him putting on his show in the backyard!

And That’s How We Roll

Many a day are spent where Michael and I feel like we’d be just as well off beating our heads against a wall, than try to get our kids to listen.  It’s interesting how kids seem to be born with the innate ability to completely ignore anything you say to them.  We tell them over and over again what needs to be done and we could say it straight to their faces and they would not process a word we said.  So, in Michael’s frustration, he tried this technique, which I second!  He taped Gavin’s chore list to his shirt and told him that he had to check off each one as he did it and that he had to keep his list on him until we checked it all when he was finished!  Loved it!  Pictured above…..one very un-amused Gavin.  Sometimes, the hardest part about parenting, is keeping a straight face! 

Upon further examination of this picture, I realized that this happens to be the lovely occasion we had a little bit ago where Gavin said in frustration to me that he wondered what it would be like to not have a Mom.  So, his wish was my command.  At that point he was told if he didn’t have a Mom, he would be folding his own clothes, scrubbing his own bathroom, making his own dinner…..you get the point.  So, this particular chore list included those type of things, to get our point across.  He did apologize and I haven’t heard talk like that since…..

Knowing Is Half The Battle

Today Jared competed in his first school district annual “Knowledge Bowl.”  Each year the district assigns a category of miscellaneous information for the kids to study, from which a series of questions (a grade level higher than they currently are in) are drawn.  This year’s category was Science.   This is new to me, since Jared is our oldest.  So, what happens is there are teams from various elementary schools in the district that meet at one school in four different classrooms, and challenge one another.  There is a moderator and formal parental  judges; one from each team.  It was a big deal, and in hind sight, I wish I had helped Jared more. 

The questions were difficult.  Each kid sat at a table with a buzzer and buzzed in; Jeopardy style.The kids were nervous.  You could see on their faces, at times, that they knew the answers, but were intimidated.    From our school there were two teams; one which seemed a bit more prepared than the other.  Jared belonged to the latter.  They did put up a good fight though and Jared by far scored the most points for his team, of all the members!  Overall, I think, he had a fun time.  The hardest thing in life is to not give up when we face challenges and I felt bad that by the middle of the fourth round, Jared’s team pretty much felt defeated.  He wanted to mope and give up.  I do wish our two teams were a bit better balanced, but its made me resolved to help him get ready for next year’s competition, which category is a little more in my ballpark……Art!

I have to admit feeling a bit guilty I didn’t spend time with him studying for this.  Part of me feels like I let him down.  Honestly, he’s been struggling a bit with his regular assignments in math and by the time I spend my afternoon going through homework and some days, piano with both older boys, along with Scott’s review of the alphabet, I’m a bit overwhelmed.  I kept trying to get him to prioritize the more important; his math, but he’s definitely had the Knowledge Bowl on his mind and took it upon himself to cut up his flashcards and study.  So, what he had to show for himself today was all him!  We are proud of our boy!