Elena turned 7

She was lucky enough to celebrate her birthday 3 times.  The first was her party with friends.  We let our kids have "friend parties" every other year starting with their 1st birthday.  This year Elena and Kevin get friend parties and Jonah will have a family party.  I'm already looking forward to Jonah's family party: Friday night dinner (pizza), cake, presents, done. :)

Elena's party was at one of those local indoor bounce houses.  We had a groupon (to be more accurate: my parents had bought a groupon months ago and I used it for the party).  She was allowed to invite 5 friends (some siblings came too) and they had a blast. They ran around and jumped for 45 minutes, then we called them over to eat chips and juice boxes and Elena opened presents.  They bounced for another 45 minutes and danced while copying moves on a tv screen and then we handed out treat bags on their way out.  She had such a good time.

 

 

 

On her actual birthday, we sang to her at home, made her favorite meal, and she opened presents.  This was made all the more special by the fact that her cousin Tim (the husband of Dan's niece) was visiting for the weekend.  We were so happy to have him.  Come visit us, everyone! :)

 

 

 

My parents were visiting my brother across the country and missed the first 2 celebrations (Bethany was with us at the bounce house), so we had one final celebration Sunday night when they were back in town.  She was thrilled to have 3 parties with 4 kinds of cakes: pink Rice Krispies treats at her friend party, pink cupcakes for school, a cake at her family party, and butterfly cupcakes with her grandparents.

We love our sweet girl. I'm so grateful for the example that she is to her brothers (and to me). She's a smart girl, but she's also wise.  She's considerate and fair and loving.  She is friendly to everyone and loves to be super silly with her friends and with Kevin. She loves board games, card games, and dress up (imagination) games.  She has recently mastered riding a two wheel bicycle.  She's been riding one for almost a year, but can finally start and stop without help and feel comfortable even on a long ride.  She loves all things pink and fancy.  She's always starting some new project and then getting distracted before she finishes it - she gets that from me.  Below is a list of things to do when she's bored (apparently she got distracted before she finished the word "bored"). Good luck reading it - we're working on spelling. :)

 

This is a pyramid that she built last month while her brothers were playing with Duplos.  I asked her if she could figure out how many blocks there were without counting them all and she proclaimed, "my teacher taught us a formula to do that!"  She counted the bottom row and had the correct answer within a minute. (We really like her school and teachers.)

 

About a week before her birthday, her school had a literacy day and each student got to dress up as their favorite book character.  She chose Fancy Nancy of course.  It was perfect for her.  She dressed as fancy as possible and even brought a stuffed dog that resembled Nancy's dog Frenchy.

Christmas 2013

These first ones are pictures from Busch Garden's Christmastown.

 Mapping out where to go next.

 

 Jonah held his hands out and up like this for a while. He wasn't used to wearing mittens yet, but he kept them on.

 When we arrived home. Hilarious, right?  I love this picture!

 On a different day at home: His plane is eating the cookie.  I thought that was pretty funny for a 21 month old.

 At Elena's class party, they decorated their own tree (ice cream cone) and she loved eating it.

 Uncle Adam flew in from Utah a few days before Christmas.

 I love those random warm winter days. We went geocaching with Grandad and Uncle Adam in one of the city parks.  I could use one of those warm days right about now...

 Gingerbread houses at home.

 Skip ahead to Christmas Eve at Granny and Grandad's.  K and E made gingerbread and sugar cookies.

 While the older 2 cooked and decorated, I took pictures and Jonah and Dan wrestled on the floor.  I know it may not look like it, but Jonah is currently "attacking" his dad.

 We returned home and spent Christmas Eve night together with just our little family.  We haven't done that before, so we needed to figure out what we would do as a possible family tradition.  We read the story of Christ's birth in The Bible and watched A Muppet Christmas Carol by firelight.  It was wonderful. Here's a picture of our mantel. I grew up without a fireplace, so I love a good mantle especially at Christmas time.  Ours is covered with a lit garland and my (miniature) Nativity collection.  It's hard to see, but there are 15-20 little Nativities up there.

 Christmas morning at home: Jonah loved his picture of all of the many different Thomas and Friends trains as much as his actual new train.  He also loves his new DreamLight and his small Red (the fire engine from the movie Cars).

 Racetrack courtesy of Abuelo and Abuelita.  The kids also love the books that they got.  They can actually hear Abuelo and Abuelita read to them whenever they want now.

 Christmas afternoon at my parents' house:  I love this picture.  This is the moment when she realized that she was opening a new doll (American Girl sized and very cute).  She named her Lilly.

 It was adorable how excited Kevin was about his new white shirt and tie.  He wanted me to take a picture of him with it.

 This is a good shot of Jonah playing Lilly's (the doll) guitar.  He loves that guitar.

 Some post Christmas day activities:  The aquarium,

 Cuddling with Daddy on the couch,

 Riding the train at the zoo,

 Climbing around at the zoo,

 And the lights at the beach.  The kids absolutely love this display and I enjoy it too, but it is so random.  They have some fun ones that make a lot of sense - Surfing Santa, seahorses pulling Santa's sleigh, a scene of the Nativity, the 12 days of Christmas, and the shark (below) is a big favorite of my kids.  There are some other strange ones though:  dinosaurs, a rockstar Elvis fish, a merry-go-round, and more. 

It was a wonderful Christmas and it was so nice to have Dan home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year.

Fall Soccer

This is the first year that both Elena and Kevin played soccer.  I was so busy driving back and forth to 4 day a week practice (two days for each kid) and spending 3-5 hours at the games on Saturdays (their games were rarely close to the same time and always on two different fields about a half mile apart).  I thought I would go crazy.  Add to that the fact that Kevin would become very easily become upset at both practice -if he wasn't the first one to finish any given task/race- and at games -any time the other team would score.  I couldn't wait for the 2 month season to end. 

The rule used to be one sport at a time, but I think I will change it to one sport a year each.  And Kevin has to wait until he's a little older and better able to handle the stress of disappointment.  The good news is that they both loved playing soccer in general.  Also, Dan was able to come 2 or 3 times and that was really nice.  The other good news is that Elena really came into her own as a spunky and fearless defender.  She even scored a couple of times.  Kevin is a pretty athletic kid and he played really well on the days that the stars aligned and he didn't allow himself to feel too overwhelmed.  Kevin's team was the Hot Wings and Elena's was the Bumblebees.  They both wore yellow, but are different ages and therefore on different teams.

Kevin kicks the goal!

 Elena's field was much bigger than Kevin's and apparently I didn't get any quality photos.  She's in this picture in the middle of the action, but hidden mostly behind the girl in the pink shirts, blue shorts.

 Elena's team.  They are all such nice girls.

 How did Jonah entertain himself while the other two played?  Either practicing on the sidelines or sleeping.

 Keeping the boys entertained during Elena's games:  Dan kicking two balls at once with the boys.

 Grandad "flying" Kevin while being blindfolded by J.