CELTIC FEST 2016

(Yes, I wore my kilt too. With running shorts underneath.)

Guinness and Oktoberfest. The Oktoberfest was mine though.

Outdoor Celtic dancing lessons

Showing off the necklace she purchased. (pictured at the end of this post: the wooden sword James bought himself).

Indoor Celtic dancing lessons (so much more fun with AC!) We stayed in here for a long time because the kids were loving it (especially Will).

Cora sat out and pouted for a while. I had just thought she was tired (we had started the day very early and she'd already been in the sun for 6 hours due to soccer and the first hour of our time at Celtic Fest), but it turns out she just wanted to dance with Will ("a BOY, mama") for a few songs.

FALL SOCCER SEASON OPENER

 Yes, Jay is once again coaching both James and Cora's U8 teams. It's great having them in the same age group again because they practice on the same day (Tuesday evenings), their games are slightly closer together (9:00am and 11:00am, instead of 9:00am and 12:00pm like last year, so just 4 hours on the fields between warmups and cleanups rather than 5...), and they're playing on the same size fields with the same size goals (those tiny U6 fields were getting really frustrating with the constant out-of-bounds).

Pre-game warmup starts at 8:15am and consists of drills, reminders, and a pep talk. James' team is all new to us this season, and with the change-up to cut-off dates for each age category, he has Kindergartners, First Graders, and Second Graders on his team. You'd think that spread would be hard to handle, but the kids don't seem to notice at all and Jay says even the little bitty guy is doing great on the bigger fields with bigger boys.

View of all four U8 fields from the closest shade tree (Cora needed a walk)

James had to play for the White team today because they only had 3 players and none of the other kids on our team were willing to be traded. James played SO WELL today. He got in there and did his best, and it was so fun to watch him!

James takes a throw-in

On the ball!

Popsicle break between games. Followed shortly by a hot dog lunch.

Pre-game pep talk for the girls (only 6/9 of them though - not everyone showed up early as coach requested)! Emily (on the far right) has been on our team for the past 4 seasons (since Fall of 2014) and it's been so neat to see her and Cora grow up together on the fields (they're in the same grade at school, though Emily is 10 months older than her, and go to different schools, so we rarely see Emily outside of soccer season).

Taking it to the goal...

SUCCESS! It was a team effort - I believe McKinley there closest to the goal actually tapped it in. The girls generally did a really good job working together and passing/assisting - Jay had to hold them back halfway through the game because they were dominating the other team, which is a nice change for him ;-)

I love the determination she shows on the field - all but one of our girls are pretty aggressive this season

Going in for a steal

Emily and Cora racing across the field back to their goal - I think Emily scored 3 this game and she was HAPPY!

Team lineup (missing one girl who was absent today) after their victory: Emily, Cara Beth (a good friend from Girl Scouts and dance), Mari, Ally, Kennedy, Cora, McKinley and the itty bitty one that just turned 6-years-old yesterday (Kindergartner) whose name I can't recall. Lots of new names to learn for me this season (on both teams)...

Hands in for a victory shout!

WINDOW READER

You never know where you'll find James reading...

This particular afternoon was an attempted escape from Cora and her costume craziness, but he told me he liked the light in the window too.

EARNED AND RETURNED

Cora had her costumes (ALL of them) taken away a few weeks ago due to her poor behavior at school. (Now, when I say poor behavior, it is generally just talking that gets her clip moved down the color chart from green to yellow to orange to red. But she talks OVER her teacher, interrupts lessons, and disrupts the class - especially her good friend, who sits next to her. And once she stuck her tongue out at her teacher after she had to get up and move her clip down - that was a red day. Anyway, while the sass is obviously not ok and not tolerated at home either, and the talking/disrupting is rude, it's not like she's being bad. Regardless, we had to come up with a punishment that she'd actually care about - so first went the Barbies, then the costumes. Stuffed animals were next on the list...)

When she brought home two purples in a row last week (Thursday and Friday) and followed that up with FOUR purples in a row this week (today was a yellow) day, we celebrated with ice cream and the return of her Barbies or costumes. She chose the costumes. And she went through 4 or 5 outfit changes before Jay was even home from work!

So, what brought on the change? Well, after an entire August of yellow, orange, and red marks (I think she had one green day...), and at least 5 or 6 different days of "parent contact", Jay and I were kind of tired of hearing about it. I know, I know. She's OUR kid and the teacher needs our help figuring out what makes her tick, but come on, she's 6-years-old and in your care during the day - how much can we really do from work (when we're supposed to be working)?! So in a bout of frustration, I told her teacher to just move her seat to the back of the room and make her sit by herself and see how she likes it (thinking she'd hate it and start following the rules so that she could move back up with her friends). Well guess what? She likes it at the back of the room. She sits right next to the TA's desk and she told me she wants to stay there all year. Since they get so very little social/group interaction during seatwork hours anyway, I'm fine with her staying back there. If she's happy, learning well, and coming home with "good" colors (ensuring that mama and daddy are no longer getting text messages multiple times/week), then she might as well stay put. Besides, she's making friends with her TA (Cora has made her a necklace and bracelet so far, which she was VERY proud to present to her), so at least she's sitting next to an ally ;-)

SOCCER SEASON KICKOFF

 Fall soccer 2016 kicked off this week with practices, and the kids' first games are this weekend. They were pumped (despite the oppressive heat) and had a great time on the field with coach daddy and their all-girl (first time for Cora, now that she's U8) and all-boy teams and practice sessions.

BOOOO-OPOLY

James found the fun Halloween-themed Monopoly game that Robyn gave me a couple years ago for my birthday, and since he's "almost 8!", he talked us into playing. It probably took 3 hours total (2 the first night, 1 the next day) for James to be the first to run out of money and end the game. It was a fun (longer) family activity and the kids really loved it. They totally schemed and traded cards so they could put "haunted houses" and "full moons" on their properties, and were quite proud of themselves!

Jude helped warm up the game for us before we started playing...

The kids requested lights off and candles on, to set the mood, of course.

Fancy dinner by candlelight while daddy doles out the moola (cereal and cupcakes!)

Getting late, but nobody wanted to quit...

Happy little monkeys! (Mama vetoed candles on the second night because her eyesight is going bad and she didn't want to spend another hour squinting in the dark...)

LABORING AWAY

As planned, we stayed home this weekend and worked! We pressure washed the front porch and walkway, the driveway, and the carport (and the bird feeders). We removed cobwebs from, well, everywhere. We trimmed trees and bushes, and made giant burn piles. We washed out all the many buckets that Cora constantly fills with dirt and rocks and toads. We swept and vacuumed and dusted and cleaned bathrooms. We painted the rocking chair (and the bird feeders). We bought new plants and pots, and tried to dress us the front porch just a little. We finally scrubbed the last of the guinea fowl grime from the sunroom and (re)set up a "Bootcamp/Circuit" zone. We're exhausted (and we still have so much to do...), but we made serious progress and it felt good to cross some of these big things off our list!

 There's more we'd like to do (out front, and out back), but that will have to wait for another weekend when funds are replenished and someone comes to visit who has an eye for these things...

SWIMMING BY THE FIRE

(We started this fire Saturday evening with the Kennedys and it was still going two days later on Monday night... SO MANY branches, and we just kept adding and adding and adding...)

AN ANNA AND ELSA (EGG) SANDWICH

Jay let the chickens out to roam this morning, and shortly thereafter noticed that Anna wasn't with the group. When he went looking for her, he found her under the shed deck, panting. He scooped her up to pet her and find out what was wrong, and found an egg! Her first egg! (And it ended up being a double yolk!!) Obviously, her eggs won't normally be this large, but as our Easter Egger, she's likely to have mostly brownish eggs, like this first one.

And, of course, that's Elsa's egg on the far right and Lady's olive egg in the center, for comparison. It's surprisingly fun (and satisfying now!) having our very own chickens! Now, if I could just get Chester to stop chasing me up the hill...

BONFIRE BUDDIES

We're like a walking Keens ad...

Cora's lack of costumes (taken away weeks ago for bad behavior) doesn't stop her from dressing up (here she's wearing a sequined cat shirt and a very old Halloween skirt, like 3T old...)

Big bonfires are better observed from the safety (distance) of the deck

 Just a few scenes from the evening. The kids were busy (girls in the kids' rooms playing "house" and the boys either in the living room playing sword/lightsaber fight or upstairs playing Legos) and us parents were snacky and chatty. Good times! And always best to end with a bonfire and treats!

DR. WHO?!

That didn't take him long... happy little dude!

COBWEB CLEANER

This kept her busy for a few minutes while mama and daddy started pressure washing. Then she got upset that mama wouldn't let her use the pressure washer and retreated to the house.

CAMPAIGN JAMES

James' first GATES project/homework assignment was to create an 8.5x11 "fake" campaign poster. The instructions said to come up with an "office" to run for, include a slogan and a picture of the "candidate", and then list some things that describe the candidate. So, basically, a fancier/more creative "About Me" project. After reading the instructions together last night (somebody forgot to bring the project home earlier this week, but that's ok - he's working on these things!), James quickly told me that his favorite things are Lego Dimensions and the Ghostbusters movies (the originals - we haven't seen the new one yet). He came up with the concept (including the portal, and Slimer and himself on the little blue Lego Dimensions disks that the characters are built upon) and the slogan by himself, as well as some of the description bullets (I helped with some of them because he was tired and it was late by the time he got home from his Den meeting). He did all the drawing, coloring, and cutting for Slimer (holding a sausage, of course) and the portal himself, and Jay and I helped cut out his photo (back to school picture!) and some Ghostbuster accessories (they were just too small and detailed for him - plus, it was a family project according to the instructions, so we figured we were supposed to do some of it anyway). For a last-minute creation, I think it turned out really cute. James was pretty excited to take it into GATES today to show it off:

P.S. If you haven't heard his puns yet, you should. I know, I know. PUNS. But he's pretty dang good at them (and completely cracks himself up with them - if you don't laugh along, he'll simply repeat it and then explain it to you, because he figures you just don't get it, otherwise you'd be laughing too).