Hootie Hustle

The girls' school had their fun run on Wednesday, called the Hootie Hustle.  Thankfully, the schedule had second grade and kindergarten running back to back, so Nathaniel and I went for two hours to watch both of the girls run.  Amelia had run 27 laps last year, and so she set her goal as 30 laps this year.  She ended up running 33 laps, so she was very proud of herself.

The organizers made sure to take a class photo after the race, so I snuck over and took one, too.  That's the principal, Mr. Briggs, in the pink shirt behind the class, and Amelia's teacher, Mrs. Lutz, in the black shirt on the right side.

Here's Amelia with her good friend Kiersten after the race:

I was a little concerned about Megan running laps, because her allergies have been bothering her since she was in Glen Carbon last weekend, and she's been coughing more than normal.  We've been giving her Zyrtec every day, and I brought her inhaler along just in case.  I suspected that she would run a few laps, start coughing, and then give up, but she surprised me.  I was helping mark laps for all the kids, and after nine laps, Megan came up to me coughing, saying that she was having a hard time.  So I pulled her aside, gave her her albuterol inhaler, and let her rest for a minute.  After that, she wanted to get back to running, so she took off and didn't stop until they called time.  She ended up running 29 laps!  She had wanted to get 30 laps, and was very disappointed that she was so close, but I told her that having to stop for her inhaler cost her a lap, so really, she would have had 30.  I think that made her feel a little better.

I did see Megan walking a couple times, especially after she stopped to get a drink of water.  One time I got this photo of her walking and chatting with one of her friends.  It was cute.

 Megan's teacher had all the kids sign each other's shirts in Sharpie, which I thought was a fun idea.  Here's Megan and her best friend Maddie after the race:

And they took a class photo of Megan's class, too, with Mr. Briggs and their teacher, Ms. McKeith.

Thanks to both sets of grandparents who pledged money to the girls for their school! 

Dandelion Photos

Mom asked if I was going to get photos of my kids in the dandelions this year, and I definitely wanted to.  This year was harder than normal because the girls are going through a bad attitude stage and they made picture taking very challenging.

I took Nathaniel for a bike ride while the girls were in school two weeks ago, and we stopped at this patch of dandelions near the girls' school to get a few photos.  Nathaniel liked picking the flowers, but then he got mad that we couldn't play at the school park where the first graders were having recess.

I got these two photos of Megan after school one day, but then she ran off to talk to a teacher who was walking to his car, and she flat out refused to come back to take any more pictures.  The second photo pretty accurately reflects Megan's general attitude nowadays.

And Amelia was crying because she didn't want to take pictures either.  I completely snapped and sent them outside to play when we got home, telling them I didn't want to see them until dinner time.  Amelia wrote me this apology note in chalk on the driveway:

We tried to go to the park the next day, but Megan had a crying temper tantrum about riding her scooter, so we turned around and went home instead.  The two girls had a few fairly major consequences, and because of all these behavior issues, Megan is going to bed at 7pm every night for the rest of the school year, while Amelia gets to stay up later for quiet reading time.  It has made a positive difference in her morning routine (plus, I bribe her with ipad time once she has done all her morning jobs) and her general attitude throughout the day has been better this week.
I managed to get a few photos of Amelia during Megan's soccer practice last week; we talked about it in advance and I explained to her why these photos were important to me, and she cooperated nicely.  Once she decided to cooperate, I took a whole bunch of photos in under two minutes, and then I let her go play at the park. 

I don't ask my kids to pose for photos very often (anymore), and I wish they would realize that it's much easier to just smile nicely for one minute and then run off and play.  Here are some outtakes:

This is the fifth year I've taken dandelion photos in Wisconsin, and it's fun to look back and see how the kids have grown up.   Here's May 4, 2015,  May 21, 2014, May 13, 2013, and April 14, 2012.  This year, I'd say peak dandelion season was April 24th through May 1st, so spring is definitely earlier than normal.

Amelia's hair cut

Amelia has been asking for months if she can get her hair cut short.  I told her that she certainly could, but she had to think about it for a few months to make sure she really wanted to.  Two of her good friends have had their hair cut short recently, so I think that's why she wanted to do it.  Plus, she doesn't like to brush her hair because of all the tangles with her curls, and I suspect she figured short hair would be a lot easier to brush.  One of the moms in Megan's Girl Scout troop works at the nice salon in Sun Prairie, and when I asked if I could bring Amelia to her salon, she volunteered to come over to our house instead.  What a great deal for me!  She brought her kids over to play with Megan and Nathaniel, and she cut Amelia's hair in our kitchen.  Amelia got nervous at the very last minute, but decided that she still wanted to go through with it.  Amelia did not like the fact that I had to wash her hair in the sink beforehand, and she wasn't really a fan of the hair dryer:

But she loves her new short haircut, and she loves that it takes two second to brush in the morning.  It doesn't curl under perfectly when it is air dried, and I'm not that great at using a hair dryer and a brush to get it to curl under, but it looks really cute anyway!

She asked me not to post any photos until she got to surprise Grandma Jane last weekend.  And she facetimed with Mom and Dad so that they could be surprised by her short hair, too.  So now I guess I can post a few photos.  :)

Amelia's First Communion

I was reading back through some of my very old blog posts, looking for summer Olympics activities for kids, and I realized that I really love looking back at old photos, reading about what the kids were up to, and remembering all the funny things they said and did.  So even though I get tired of journaling our activities, I'm going to try to keep up with it a little better than I have been.  I imagine that in four more years, I'll be grateful that I did.

Amelia celebrated her First Communion on May 1st at St. Albert the Great Catholic church in Sun Prairie.  They had a retreat for the kids the day before, where they practiced what would happen during the mass, and they had a chance to taste a non-consecrated host and wine.  Amelia was reluctant to try the wine, but the youth leader said that all the kids had to try it.  Here is her reaction:

They had a conversation afterwards about whether the kids had to drink the wine during the First Communion mass.  Because of the way everything was arranged, there really was no way to skip the wine, but the youth leader said that as long as the kids were respectful about taking the cup and raising it to their lips, they didn't actually have to open their lips and swallow any wine.  Amelia said that the host tasted like cardboard (which I think is exactly what I said about it when I was in second grade) and that the wine tasted "really yucky, like rotten grape juice".  In fact, she wanted to know why anyone would ever want to drink it for fun.  Hope she continues to feel like that about alcohol as she grows up!

Mom and Dad came up for the weekend, and Becky and Brian drove up with their kids just for the day.  It was nice to have some our family here to celebrate Amelia's special day.  Thanks for making the trip, everyone!  I made them all hang around after the mass so that we could get a picture of everyone together.  It took a while because lots of families were trying to take photos all over the church, but everyone waited very patiently and smiled very nicely when told to.  And we didn't even have to bribe them with candy.  It's getting a little easier to get a nice photo of our kids together!

Amelia and I had to show up early so that the kids could practice one last time before mass started.  They were told to walk very slowly down the center aisle, and Amelia was worried that her partner would walk too fast (her partner was a boy, and he did walk too fast).  She takes instructions very seriously and was a little nervous that she would mess up, but you can see that she was excited:

They took a few group photos before mass, too.  Amelia didn't know any of the boys, but a few of her friends from Girl Scouts are in the photo below.  A couple of her other friends from school had done First Communion the previous weekend.  It's really nice that some of her friends from school also go to our church.

We had a row reserved for our family on the side of church, so it was a little difficult to see the kids processing into church, but Ben did get a few photos (sometimes being tall has its advantages):

Father Terry called the kids up to the altar during mass to renew their baptismal vows, and also to introduce them to the congregation.  I thought it was nice that they had the kids respond to the baptismal vows.

Amelia was very excited to receive First Communion, and she is looking forward to the next time we go to church so that she can go up and have communion with all the grownups.  They went to Jeff and Jane's church last weekend, and I forgot to ask if they had communion during that service.

She wore the silver cross necklace that Mom and Dad had given her for her baptism, and Father Terry blessed it after mass.  Becky and I bought the dress together, hoping that Natalie could wear it next year, and Megan the year after.  I made Amelia's flower wreath at the last minute, and we had to add a white shrug because it was really cold outside and all First Communion dresses are sleeveless.  Along with her "praying hands", Amelia is wearing a very serious smile, befitting this very important occasion.

After mass and picture taking, we went home and had a little celebratory luncheon with brats, hot dogs, watermelon, corn on the cob, and pesto pasta salad.  I picked up a chocolate cake with white frosting, and Amelia wanted Mom to write "Happy First Communion, Amelia" on it in purple frosting, so that's what Mom did.  The kids had fun playing downstairs and making a gigantic mess, because, as Amelia said "Natalie and Noah make everything funner."  I didn't take a single photo the rest of the day, even though I had meant to get a cousin lineup.

Finally... some snow!

I was reading Amy's blog yesterday and thought it was so funny when she said it finally got cold in Texas.  Her boys were wearing windbreakers.  I guess they've adjusted to Texas temperatures already!  We've had a pretty cold week here; the windchill was below zero all day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, so the girls had inside recess.  Yesterday, it finally warmed up to 33 degrees, so I sent the girls outside to play after school.  Megan asked if she had to wear her coat.  When I said "Yes, of course!" Amelia responded with, "Well, I took my coat off at recess because it was so warm out, and I was perfectly fine."  That's right, now 33 degrees is "so warm out."  It's supposed to get even colder this weekend; the high on Sunday is supposed to be -4.  Yay.

Anyway, that got me thinking about my kids playing out in the snow.  We've only had two decent snowfalls this winter; the first was on Nathaniel's birthday, where I got the following photos of the girls.  I didn't make Nathaniel go play out in the snow because it was his birthday, and I thought that would be unfair.

We got another decent snow over Christmas break, and the girls immediately went outside to play.  That first morning, I think they were outside for about two hours before they came in saying they were cold.  I asked Nathaniel if he wanted to go out, and he said yes, so I bundled him up and took him out.  Isn't he so cute?

He didn't like the snow at first, and he HATED riding in the sled while I pulled him down the sidewalk.  Sorry for the light in these photos, my camera was set strangely and I didn't notice until I downloaded the photos.

 But I kept him out a little while so that I could help the girls sled down our front walkway.  The girls LOVE sledding this year, and it is so convenient that they can sled in our yard and our neighbors' yards; next time it snows, I should take them to a real sledding hill.  Our front hill isn't that long or that steep, but if conditions are right, the girls have to bail before the sled hits the snowpiles lining the street.

I was just about to take Nathaniel inside when our neighbor came out with her two little girls.  My girls played in the snow with their friend, and I sat Nathaniel in the snow with her almost one-year-old little girl.  And then, I had a brainstorm and I brought out Nathaniel's sand trucks.  What a turnaround in his attitude - he loved the snow when he could pile it in the dump truck or the loader.

Tubing

During Christmas vacation, Amelia's Girls Scout troop took the girls on a field trip to nearby Cascade Mountain to go snow tubing.  They went in the evening to take advantage of the half price tickets, so it was dark the entire time we were there (sorry for the lousy photos).  Since Jeff and Jane were here, we decided to take Megan along, too.  It was really crowded because of the holidays, so we had to wait in long lines to get up the magic carpet to the top of the hill.  Megan really liked the escalator like magic carpet.

The tubing itself was a lot of fun.  Megan was a little nervous each time, but would be smiling and laughing as she got down to the bottom of the hill.  They had workers at the bottom of the hill to pull the inner tubes back and help the little kids get up.  This is Megan at the end of one of her runs:

Amelia made a big chain with some of her friends, she is the second in this chain, although you can barely see anyone:

After that, she joined up with us again, although she never wanted to make an inner tube chain with us, she always wanted to go by herself.

Nathaniel spent some of his time running around outside in his snow gear, with Jane chasing after him, and some of his time inside eating snacks:

We had a lot of fun, and now the girls want to go back again (although we will definitely try to pick a less crowded time.)