Grant's St.Jude Trike a Thon

Grant's school did a trike a thon to raise money for St.Jude.  He rode over 70 laps.  The circle was small, the weather was breezy and there were a few crashes! Some goofball thought it was funny to run into kids, this kid seemed to alway find Grant. You did awesome Grant, good job buddy!

Anniversary at the Farm

Grant is in the cab with Pops

It is alway good to know where your roots are and ours can firmly be found traced to black soil.  It was our 12 year wedding anniversary and it was a perfect beautiful day to spend at the farm.  We planted pumpkin seeds - all varieties.  Brandon sent away for special Atlantic Giants (the 300-500 pounders!) and jack-o lanterns, little boo's, mixed...it is a potpourri of pumpkins or at least we hope it will be! Time will tell. Pops was going to give them a dose of nitrogen to encourage them along. The kids also got to ride the mini bikes for the first time.  We learned 3 things: 1) you can't hear instructions all that all with a full helmet on 2)Elizabeth's bicycle has a handbrake and Grant's does not, this knowledge or lack of, transfers over the motorized field of mini bikes 3) Pops can run really, really fast when chasing a 5 year old that hasn't figured out how to stop! Just use your imagination!

Our fashionista wherever she goes! 

We weren't on the road 5 miles and he was out!

Grant Loses a Tooth!

Our little boy who has two adult teeth growing in on the bottom row (shark teeth) finally lost tooth!
It was without any drama, which when we mention this to Elizabeth she is sure we are making fun of her - well in a way she is right.  Here is the difference between Elizabeth losing tooth and Grant losing a tooth:
Elizabeth - tooth is loose for weeks, asks us multiple times to pull it then changes her mind, lots of crying, lots of drama.
Grant - one day he has a really loose tooth, few days later he asks for an apple, he comes inside saying he is done with the apple he has hurt his tooth.  I ask if he wants me to pull it.  He says sure.  I grab a tissue, give it a pull and it's out! Whole things takes five minutes and no one is crying!  Well actually Elizabeth cried when he lost his tooth! Anyway...the tooth fairy brought him a sparkly $2 bill and he was on cloud nine!

Before

After

And yes I questioned the dentist about the so called shark teeth and he basically said start saving for orthodontics!  

Spring Break 2016

Our family had a divided spring break this year.  Brandon didn't have enough vacation time to join us for the whole week so he spent a long weekend golfing and I took the kids out to Arizona.  We all had a blast, but missed daddy not being with us - especially when Grant had to go to the bathroom in public places (but we made it out of that truck stop alive)!

As if going to AZ to visit the Campbell's wasn't fun enough, Amber added a bonus trip to San Diego. We had never been before and we were game.  Our kids are rock star travelers.  I know I have said it before, but I will say it again...they really do travel well - all 4 of them!  But let me start at the beginning...

Our very easy direct flight was delayed due to a mechanical issue.  I always find mechanical issues super comforting!  Let's just say when they started serving beverages in the terminal I knew we were there for a while.  By the time we got to bed it was 3am CST.  We all sleep like rocks.

The next day the children learned a valuable lesson about throwing rocks into the pool.  As in, Uncle Brian is not going to be pleased and even though you begged us to swim and we said "no" you are now going to put your suits and retrieve every last rock.  No we don't care if the water is cold, you made a bad choice.  However, after much crying and blue lips and shaking we let them have a towel and left poor Uncle Brian with rocks in the pool.  

The drive from Phoenix to San Diego is about 6 hours and I give my sister in law a lot of credit for her trip planning.  She had folders and clipboards and envelopes with activities and games and entertainment galore.  All of the stuff was really awesome, the bigger problem was the kids had trouble accessing the items due to our limited cargo space! The boys were actually much tidier than the girls.  We even took a sheet and put it up for a "privacy screen" limi style, sans the noise barrier.  But they thought it was fun and they stopped asking us for a food for 5 minutes.  Really we ate our way to San Diego!

On tap for California was Legoland, San Diego Zoo , the beach and Balboa park.  Check, check, check.

I will let the pictures tell the story, but we had an awesome time.  We stayed one night at the Legoland Hotel, which I would highly recommend.  The theming was awesome and they gave us an elevator ride we will never forget (cue the disco lights and soundtrack of Everything is Awesome).  They had a treasure hunt with a combination answer to the safe in the room with Lego sets.  The theme park was fun and the water park was chilly but awesome.  Major perk, the moms didn't have to get wet! And we all enjoyed our very first churro!  

San Diego Zoo was everything I thought it would be (amazing and hilly!).  We took the bus tour to start the day and heard a lot about breeding mates, which lead to lot of questions by a certain 7 year old girl!  We got to see the pandas, which was such a cool experience.  We walked our legs off and the kids had minimal complaining about tired legs.  We knew when to pass out the sugar!

Since the kids still seemed to have some energy and the moms had caffeinated we checked out a playground at Balboa park.  After a monkey bar incident we headed for rolling green grassy hills and played a family game of tag.  Honestly, one of the best memories we made.  The kid's legs were like Jell-O and they couldn't stay up.  Everyone took tumbles.  Some even knocked themselves out with a bag of kettle corn (me)!  

We finally found some real pizza in San Diego and hit the Ghirardelli ice cream shop.

Ice cream is coming!

The first attempt at pizza

The last morning we found a creperie for breakfast on Coronado Island.  The scenery was perfect, the people watching was fun, the food was ok, but totally worth the trip.  We then headed to the beach with instructions to the children of "these are the clothes you are riding home in, do not get wet!"  OK, whatever.  I dare you to take four kids that love each other to pieces to the beach and not get wet.  In reality a little wet would have been ok and even expected.  They got drenched! But again, the best memories were made and so worth it.  So we drove home with a little sand in the car, really the car had seen worse (girls: popcorn!).  It was so much fun.  

Making memories...one spring break at a time!

Easter

Easter! The kids really understood the true meaning of Easter this year.  They even drew pictures of the empty tomb. We went to church before hunting any eggs to try to keep everything in prospective. We had Ima and Pops over after church for French toast and then we went to their house for lunch and dinner.  Delicious food all day!

All was good until I was taking dinner out of the oven and tripped over Auggie.  The good news was the pizza made the counter, bad news was I had an epic fall that resulting in taking the entire weight of the fall on my knees.  Not good.  I was well cared for with ice, an adult beverage and as much pizza as I wanted.  Honestly, 4 weeks later, I still can't kneel on my left knee.  What a moment!  Regardless, it was a great family day and Grandma and Grandpa Briggs even joined us for lunch!

I know you all wanted a picture of this!

Easter Cake Pops, only Aunt Sandy!!

Basketball

Elizabeth decided to give basketball a try this winter.  It is a short season and apparently this is something that a lot of girls try in kindergarten because by 1st grade it is mostly boys playing!  This did not at all phase her.  She was glad to have another girl on her team but many teams they played were all boys.  A lot of the boys she knew from school and it was fun to see how they interacted with each other on the court.  The interaction typically being like they had never seen each other before!  Once during a practice when they were sitting down to wait their turn for a drill a few of the boys were messing around near her and she actually moved away from them because they were horsing around and not paying attention.  The look on her face is what we refer to her as "our aloof Elizabeth" which we better learn to tone down or a "miss goody two shoes"  label might follow.  Then again it's not wrong to follow directions and pay attention! She just needs to smile as she scoots away from them, and loose the glare and eye roll!

She had a lot of fun and her skill set progressed throughout the season.  The kids all wear colored wristbands to color coordinate who they defend.  One game she was paired up with an extremely athletic boy who she has been in class with the last two years.  He was blocking her shots, which at this level is not allowed.  The ref finally called him on it and he was a little upset, so the next time they met up, he stole the ball from her, something that is also not allowed, but he made his point!  He was not going to let a girl get the best of him and Elizabeth took it all in stride.

Signaute tongue out of the mouth

I think Grant appreciated basketball season because a) it only lasts 6 weeks and b) games are only once a week for 1 hour.  He is gearing up for spring soccer.  Cold, wet spring soccer...yeah!

Swim Season

Our little swimmers! Grant did technique school right before Elizabeth's practices so he got be in the picture too!

Anyone who knows us knows that our daughter is a swimmer! We are very proud of everything she has accomplished.  She has been swimming for over 3 years, but only starting competing last summer and has never wanted to stop!  We didn't do a lot of meets this fall/winter because of scheduling conflicts, but managed to squeeze a lot in as of recently.  She swims as part of the Peoria Y team that is affiliated the USA Swimming.  They have championship level meets.  She qualified for districts, meaning she meant the time standards in all of the individual strokes, but you can only have so many meet entries.  I really thought we selected butterfly and breast, but she ended up swimming the 25 fly and 25 free.  These are all 8 and under age categories.  In addition the coach put her on two relay teams, the 100 medley and 100 free.  She typically swims the fly on the medley relay.  She didn't really understand what it meant to swim at districts, but we we tried our best to explain.  There are 15-20 in our district.  At anytime in the season if you meet the state time standards you also qualify for the state meet.  The district meet was a two day event.  The top 8 in each event swam again on Sunday.  She finished 11th  in the fly and 35th in freestyle.  The medley relay team only had 8 teams entered in the event and the freestyle team only had 4, so the relay teams qualified to swim Sunday before they even swam Saturday.  As we were leaving on Saturday one of the coaches pulled me aside to let me know that Elizabeth's relay team had qualified for state and we needed to discuss if that was something we wanted to do.  We discussed and of course she was thrilled!  She was really excited to be going to state.  And even though it was a relay team and we knew they were going to get smoked, she is 7 years old and can say "I went to State!"  The relay teams finished 6th (out of 7) and 3rd (out of 4) at districts.  As proud parents we were happy to support her and promised Grant we would make it a fun weekend since he has had about all of the swim meets he can take.

We went out to dinner to celebrate and Brandon and I took her back on Sunday to finish out districts.  She had a really fun day with her teammates.  When they swam their last relay they were giddy.  7th place is exciting because the ribbons are PINK!! (insert screaming girls).  I took the girls into the locker room to get showered and one of her teammates said to Elizabeth "want to come in the double shower so we can talk?"  Well one of the showers was a handheld with no holder and so I warned the girl using it "be careful and keep the water pointed in your direction!" Elizabeth interrupts and says "She is sensitive" and for a brief moment I think I have maybe offended this girl and then she completes her sentence "about her shoes!"  Me...she was talking about me! Even though she was totally making fun of me at least she had the decency to do it in front of me and we all got a good laugh!

The chlorine in the air was so bad it was burning our eyes, especially Grant.  So he put on goggles and curled up for a nap on Ima's lap.  She keeps saying he is too big for this, but somehow he wiggles his way in!

Unfortunately the coach that had invited her to swim on the state relay teams was mistaken.  Another coach had reviewed the times and they offered her an alternate position to which we declined.  We had a very sad little girl but nothing can take away the wonderful swim season she had.  Learning life lessons usually aren't easy.  We will take a few months off and both kids will be doing summer swim team!