Keeping Busy

The end of swimming, the end of fun. Oh how we love swim lessons. The last week we let them stay extra long so Char could build up the courage to go down the medium slide. The resulting photos were hysterical. 

Clark, meanwhile, wanted a photo of him coming down the big giant slide. 

What else have we been up to this month? Clark got perfect attenance for 100 days and earned an ice cream party. Poor miss Char had one sickie day so she was quite sad. 

But her class did get a popcorn party for everyone in the class making 20 days of perfect attendance so that was pretty sweet. 

Mom went on a cleaning spree, taking apart each room of the house week by week. This was the haul of soon to be trash in the workout room. Our house is now very clean and very tidy...for like a day. 

One sunny afternoon Ezra stole his mother's phone and later Cheyenne texted me this cute photo. These two....half the time besties....half the time enemies. But always cute. 

The kids have been coming to Booster club meetings with me and going to the kid center. Mrs. Chervany and Mrs. Sanders always set up little crafts and have a snack. Clark always says after that is was boring but I believe his face here says otherwise:)

The 4th graders this year journed to CWU for a STEM science fair. Clark was very excited about the big bus ride and said he had a great time. 

One stop was the planetarium where they learned about the cosmos. Clark later informed us that Neptune is made up largely of diamonds so we know he was paying attention. Sad they didn't have a photo of him with the snakes. 

And finally, St. Patricks day this year was on Sunday so we dressed up for church and then came home for a warm afternoon at the park before celebrating with green pudding and oreos (Dad's pick). 

And of course, Char is in her Hermione costume because we are now on movie 5 of the Harry Potter franchise and Clark has sooooo many questions. I keep telling him - READ THE BOOK! 

Under the Sea and Dodgeball

We've been looking forward to it all year: The Moxee Winter Program. UNDER THE SEA!

The kids have literally been talking about this since January and about a month ago started playing all the songs on the Alexa and then showing me the corresponding dances, so I've basically seen the program 100 times already. 

But it was way better than I could imagine. Clark's grade did Yellow Submarine (and he got to wear a starfish) and the combined with 3rd grade for a country line dance esque Under the Boardwalk. 

Charlotte's 1st graders did Over the Deep Blue Sea (where she was blocked by a taller kid so I had to take photos when they bowed)

And then a combo dance with 2nd grade for Surfer Shake. This was unanimously the most hilarious of all the songs and she was waaaaaay into it. 

And thanks to a random person for catching my son in a rare moment in the wild among the crazy 4th graders. 

Then just two weeks later, Clark surprised us all by singing up for the interschool dodgeball competition. All three elementary schools 3rd and 4th graders competed head to head in a crazy free for all tournament. It was chaos at it's finest and Clark really shone as one of the throwers. 

Up in the stands, we kept miss Char busy with funny faces. 

It was a tense last minute before Moxee scored the winning goal and the 4th graders went wild! Definitely something he will remember forever and we are so proud of him for finding the courage to sign up.  

Birthday Palooza

 Something about February brings out the birthdays every year. We started off with our favorite: Miss Stella!! It's great to be 8. Since we couldn't make the pool party (because of another birthday party) we came down Super Bowl Sunday to watch Clark's old favorite team (who is now his hated rival) defeat the 49ers. And of course, celebrate the birthday girl. We busted out Grandma Sue's sports tablecloth and tucked into delicious food, an Usher half time show, and tense moments where poor Clark just stared at the TV, willing the 49ers to do something. 

The conflicting birthday the day before was for Ezra! He invited half the ward it seemed to D-Bats for some batting cage and dodgeball fun. It was a lot of energy and screaming kids. Clark and Char both took a turn in the cage and did really well with Justin's training. 

After a panicked scream when Charlotte saw balloons on the table, one of the kids did the most genious thing: let the balloon go. It went wizzing around like a fart and she burst out laughing. Then she got her own balloon and tried to blow it up. So I guess as long as the balloons stay deflated she is fine with them existing in the world.

The most fun (and eye opening) was the dodgeball arena. Clark looks quite studly strutting around all self assured before he whips a ball at the opposing team. Charlotte just had fun feeding him balls. And I opted to stay out of the grown up invitational which was a good choice after seeing how seriously the growups took it (AKA a few kids got beemed in the face). 

The next Saturday was....you guess it, more birthday! This time for Vivianne - Charlotte's bestie at school. It was at Nerds Laser Tag and I brought Timmy and Clark along just to keep them busy but the birthday party quickly adopted them as honorary members. 

Yeah, Timmy is apparently into chess. Who knew?

Char enjoyed one game of laser tag and then just wanted to play arcade games with the boys. 

I won't be sorry to be out of this stage of life but they sure are cute and we are so happy they have fun friends.

And now....

 .....some funny things our kids have been doing:

1. One afternoon we heard Charlotte trying to spell her name and she kept muttering "Charlotte Murray Gailan". Umm....huh? Yeah, so apparently our baby has spent her entire life thinking her middle name is "Murray" instead of "Marie". Apparently, Mom needs to enunciate. 

2. Clark made up a song in the shower one day that was quite catchy. The basic gist is "Green is light, green is light, green is so light." Show stopper. 

3. During Christmas the kids really got into some classics, including Santa Baby. Every time it came on Charlotte would just burst out laughing. I asked her why and she said it was so funny because she loved the little baby santa. Bwahahaha! Yes, apparently she thought the song was about an adorable baby santa giving presents. 

4. Our house has been inundated by Backstreet boys and N'Sync. Dana played Clark a song one afternoon and then we showed him the Brooklyn 99 "I want it that way" video and that was the beginning of the end. We regularly find them dancing and howling in Clark's room to boy band music now. And Charlotte will do a little "Wooo" at the end of the I want it that way. 

5. Charlotte spent a whole afternoon calling Groundhogs day "Beaver Day" and we both chuckled a little whenever she did it but sure didn't stop her. 

6. They have bonded over the Switch. They will regularly play soccer, bowling, and even minecraft together on the big TV. It usually devolves into crying after half and hour but it's pretty sweet to see them get along. 

7. Charlotte is very into drawing videos lately and has made some progress in her art. I especially like her "Pand" and the chicken. We get colored princesses dropped off at our door regularly. 

8. And finally, football has been a big theme this month with the whole family rooting for the Ravens. Last Sunday, an epic rivalry matchup between the Ravens and the Chiefs was made even funnier by the fact that we have both those halloween costumes. So of course I made them dress up. Sadly for Clark, his Ravens had an off day and the refs didn't help out with some bogus costs. Poor dude won't get to see his Ravens in the Super Bowl. Guess we're cheering for the 49ers now. 

Back to School...oh wait, nevermind

 The last days of winter break were spent trying to stave off insanity with a variety of board games, electronics, and really cold walks. Clark and Dana got into a very extreme Jenga game one night.

Charlotte dealt with the stress but deciding one Saturday morning to chop off a large section of hair on the left side of her face. Basically a side mullet. Oh child....at least she cleaned it up nicely, right? Gina thankfully got us in quickly so she now has a beautiful Farrah Fawcett angled cut. 

The first day back at school dropped our kids like a hammer. Charlotte spent the afternoon curled up like this.

But they quickly adapted and enjoyed the small skiff of snow. 

We started swim lessons and hallelujah they are both old enough to finally be in the same class. Clark is by far the most advanced and has moved on to trying out the butterfly and dolphin kicks. Char, meanwhile, just loves the strokes and adores being with her big bro. 

Cute photos of her randomly attacking Dana one night and me trying to put her layered hair into an Elsa braid. (Spoiler...it didn't hold for long). 

But all that first week magic dissipated when we got slapped by a polar vortex which took our temperature from 40ish to 4 in about 10 hours. Brrr..... We got about a foot of snow, which instantly froze and turned our neighborhood into an ice rink. The days became 2 hour delays and snow day, 2 hour delay, another snow day. The kids took it in stride, helping Dana clear the driveway each morning and shaking off the cabin fever by playing on our jungle gym. 

The absolute best day was when we got the invite to come sledding at the teeny tiny hill at Brit's under construction house. It was perfect. The kids built a sweet ramp where Clark got serious air and they ran up and down, up and down while I got to chat with moms and tour the bones of Brit's soon to be home. Heaven. 

Well, it's almost February and 40 degrees are just around the corner. Which should help the soupy swamp that is the pickup field. Summer can't come soon enough!