The Kids

This has been a pretty low-key week. It feels like the calm before the storm. Riley will be taking off again for a double header in Seattle tomorrow and be gone until Sunday night, Kendle has another basketball game tomorrow, and it's Valentine's Day on Monday which means I better get in gear and help Kendle and Morgan get their valentine's done over the weekend and plan something fun for Monday. I also promised I'd make our annual batch of valentine's cookies Sunday afternoon and I will have to be praying for some serious will power to not eat like 20.

Kendle came skipping home from the bus yesterday afternoon, bringing home a huge pink poster she decorated at school that says I love you mom and dad. She wanted to hang it right on the back of the front door where everyone would see it. She is so funny sometimes, all it takes is a little craft project at school to have it be "the best day ever".
They made their Valentine's envelopes at school this year, which I have to say I was kind of relieved about. Fun for the kids, and fun for me to not have to sweep glitter up for a week. I think she enjoys school more than she lets on. She tries to act kind of nonchalant about it. She always gets 100% on her spelling tests plus the bonus words. I've never really had to study them with her, she just already knows most of them. I think they need to give them some harder words to challenge them a bit. I told her we should start doing some of our own spelling tests at home with harder words and she kind of just rolled her eyes at me. One of her goals she made at the beginning of the school year was to be 1st place for AR in her grade. A boy was ahead of her for a while and then she started checking out a lot harder books from the library and got ahead. She proposed an idea for a reward and struck up a deal with her dad and I if she finishes out in 1st place at the end of the year -- a very BIG reward I might add, not in monetary means or anything like that, but a compromise on an issue we've discussed before. She really wants to get her ears pierced and we've told her she has to wait until she's ten, but I think if she keeps up like she has been, we will be holding up our end of the bargain.

Basketball has actually been going better than I thought it would. Kendle has been loving it and continues to surprise us every game. She likes practicing and we really need to get a hoop. At their practice on Tuesday night their coach gave every girl a pair of hard plastic goggle type glasses with the lower half of each lens blacked out with duct tape. It is supposed to help them not look down when they dribble and practice looking straight ahead. I thought that was such a great idea. She has been wearing them around the house and outside while she practices dribbling up and down the street. Their practice got cancelled last night so Riley just took her down there anyways since they already had the gym reserved and practiced more with her. He said she made 40 baskets. In her game last Saturday she made two really good shots. The first one was off a rebound under the basket, but the second one was AMAZING. She took it down the court and got  farther outside and just swished it, nothing but net. Riley and I just looked at each other and were like - WHOAH, where did that come from!? She is getting better ball control and can steal the ball away from the other players almost 90% of the time. She also makes good passes and assisted a few other girls in scoring. It has been really fun to watch. This probably sounds way too much like I'm bragging, but really we are just genuinely shocked she has been picking it up so well. She had never even really dribbled a ball before this season, and if truth be told she can be kind of a spazz and a walking tornado sometimes. Ha! I think playing soccer has helped a lot though in knowing how to defend people and looking down the court for your team mates to score and such. I  have also seen the extra boost of confidence it has given her and I'm proud of the way she plays hard and tries to do her best (although last week we had to remind her not to stomp on another players toes, no matter how annoying or mean they are). When she is done with her games she is sweaty and tired and happy. I love it. I'm sad there are only a few games left!

Morgan doesn't like watching the basketball games so much. He'd rather be wrestling with his brothers or down hiding under the bleachers or eating ten packets of fruit snacks. He gets mad that he's not old enough to play yet and doesn't get to go to practice. He does occasionally let loose a big old "Go Kendle" every once in a while during her games (usually when the other team has just scored). He loves tractors and since his grandpa showed him these tractor videos on YouTube, that is all that he wants to watch. (They are soooo boring, but some are put to some kind of fun music). His favorite ones to watch are when the tractors are stuck in the mud. He loves his grandpa and tells me all of the time how when he grows up he's going to be Grandpa Tovey. For the last few days he has been coming up to me and telling me he wanted to go see "the miracles" and he was making tickets for the "miracles". I could not for the life of me figure out what he was saying. Finally he said something about sitting on the tractor at "the miracles" and it dawned on me he was talking about Country Mercantile! Mercantile, miracles -- is that not the cutest thing? I thought so. That is his favorite place to go. He loves to sit on the big red tractor and then go inside the store and pick out a treat. He has such a mechanical little mind and always wants to see how things work. He is still obsessed with all things Toy Story and asks me all the time who I like best, Woody or Buzz.  He is really excited for his little Valentine's Day party at preschool next week. Hopefully I can make it through helping him sign his name ten times without either of us losing our tempers.

What to say about Cooper and Kale today....hmmmm.....they are just the busiest babies I've ever seen. Cooper more than Kale I would have to say. He goes a mile a minute and you can see the wheels just constantly turning. The poor kid this week has bashed his head about fifty times, got a bloody lip, and so on. His poor little face just looks terrible. I was telling Riley last night that he never cries for long after he's fallen off of something or just hit his head because he's already plotting his next move. He's always climbing up on something or running and falling. Kale is more methodical and not so random. He has certain things he likes to try and do and get into over and over again. His m.o. is wearing you down. His current favorite is turning the computer off at least ten times a day and getting into the dishwasher. Kale also really likes to bring me things and show me things and likes to throw things in the garbage so I have to be pretty vigilant about checking every so often what's in there. He is the one though that is learning to pick up their dirty clothes and put them by the laundry room door. :) They are sweet little guys with the happiest faces and growing up in fast forward it seems. They both got another tooth recently as well. They love to go "bye, bye" and when they know we are leaving to go pick up Morgan from school they will go in their room and start bringing me random shoes. Cooper will stand on his tip toes and try and turn the front door knob. Kale even brought me the diaper bag the other day and I thought that was so smart he thought we needed to take some stuff with us. I got all the bottles packed away yesterday and it was kind of a bittersweet feeling. No more "babies" in our house. :(

Well I didn't really intend for this to turn into that long of an update but there it is. Now nap time and workout time is calling. Too bad the nap time is for the twins and not me!