Little Apple Soccer Academy

Patrick loved playing soccer this spring and was angry whenever it was canceled, which was frequently due to weather. Noticing a trend here? The last game was perfect weather at least and I finally got some photos.

 Emily was watching intently. When the weather was bad this season she either cried until I let her sit in the car or I just left her home. I suppose someday I will sign her up and let her try soccer too. She is pretty tough from playing with Patrick.

 Double goalie, best defensive strategy ever.

 Looks like he is talking trash here. Seriously, he started going off at one point and the people next to us were cracking up but we had some counseling with him immediately. I have no interest in his athletic skills, we are putting him in sports for the life lessons so that is what I'm going to hammer into him.

 I know nothing about soccer but this looks like basketball defense to me.

 Looks like a good crash about to happen here. I love how other kids are oblivious to what's going on, typical for the age.

 Check out the sweaty, crazy hair. Proof that he was running hard and getting tired. That's the other reason we put him in soccer. Get tired!

 There is no official goalie at this stage of soccer but Patrick often would take on the position because he is so competitive and doesn't want the other team to score.

 This is when he pulled his jersey over his face and was showing his teammates that he could still see them. Fascinating. Get back to running.

 Incredibly proud of his participation medal. Seriously, it is ridiculous how much this means to him but he is young so they can all be winners if it means no crying or trash talking.

So goofy.

3rd Grade Agriculture Day

After many years of not getting to do anything with Anna's class, I finally managed to go on her field trip a couple weeks ago. So many things were canceled and postponed this spring due to winter hanging around, but thankfully I made it on this one. The kids got to learn about all sorts of farming stuff at Cico Park, which included petting animals, so Anna was thrilled. I didn't touch any, just took the photos for her.

 Piglet

 Approving her friend Emma's photo taking skills.

 Chick

 Cow. Okay, horse, just checking to see if anyone has read down this far. These are just for Anna someday as she loves all animals. Poor girl lives in an animal-free house.

 Everything on this table has ingredients that come from a cow.  Vegetarians take note.

 Goat. I think.

More pigs. Oh so close, trying so hard to reach them...

Uploading photos!

So I will post a lot later. Finally getting some time to catch up around here with some dreary weather today. I think it is finally safe to put away the winter clothes. I figure if we get snow in July it will feel so great that I will be happy to sit outside in shorts to cool off. I will just leave you with a teaser photo. There are some army guys attached to the school and they just returned from a deployment and came to help with field day. Love to see them having some fun with the kids.

My peeves for the night

Wow, nothing like putting your kid to bed (late) and discovering that he peed it the night before. After doing laundry all day, I get to do another 4 loads as there are a lot of things involved in his nest and they all stink. Yay.

Also, still no sign of our tax refund check which we filed in February. Are they getting multiple signatures on the apology letter? Kind of feel like not paying any taxes this year and thus not risk overpaying again.

These are my distractions tonight, so much other stuff I should be doing. At some point I will even load some photos on here...

It's been a week?

I'd have to look at my calendar to see what we've been up to, it's that time of year. I don't prefer having multiple things every day, usually overlapping, so it's been a challenge. Actually, I myself can handle that sort of schedule, but the children in tow cannot. The past two mornings have been chaos due to just one thing going wrong to set off a chain reaction. It usually involves shoes. Or bandaids. Or pull-up changes. Then I rush like mad and am frazzled and yet manage to actually show up on time.... to find that others are late and I shouldn't have worried. I finally made it on a field trip for Anna's class and the other schools were so late that we stood around with 30 minutes to spare. I did get photos of that trip that I will post soon.

Megan had her sports physical today and ended up getting 3 shots so her arm was sore and she had a headache. I let her take the rest of the day off. She needed a break anyway, too much stress in her class.  She is ready for summer and perhaps some home schooling. Of course I won't mention names but she has a huge problem student in her class and we can't take it anymore. So I don't know what will happen next year with Megan but I can't have her exposed to such an unstable person. A huge distraction in the classroom to say the least. I have made my views known but have yet to get the appropriate response so I guess the next step will be public and messy and embarrassing. While I feel sorry for the parents because this seems to be a case of nature overruling nurture, I'd like my child to learn in a safe environment without constant distractions. Six years of torturing other children is enough, time for a special classroom.

Patrick is finishing up his soccer season tonight and due to epic bad weather, he has not gotten to play nearly enough for his taste. He does love it and it makes him tired so we will continue it next season. I also started everyone but Emily in golf last night and they loved that too. It was perfect weather though, I suspect the girls will not love it in the heat. Patrick is very eager and wanted to go buy his own set of clubs RIGHT THEN. Sean was working so he sadly missed out on a lovely evening on the patio at Colberts where Emily and I enjoyed a fabulous dinner while golf finished up. I did bring him home a meal at least. I could definitely get used to having the kids in golf, my kind of sport's schedule. I'm hoping Patrick loves it enough that he won't be mad when we don't put him in baseball. Apparently it is best to not do both those sports, the different swings confuse them.

Anyway, on top of sports we've got all the usual end of year things like programs, picnics, teacher appreciation stuff and buying summer shoes. Yes, that's a significant task and I learned this year that Megan's shoes now cost double because she's in adult sizes. Yay. Supporting the local economy!

Life Skills

Let's review... parents are supposed to teach their children how to be independent one day. An important life skill which will serve them well in many situations is learning how to quickly get out of a car and run into a building while it is raining. I do the school drop off on Thursdays and there were some parents doing a disservice to their children today.... escorting them to the door with an umbrella to make sure they didn't melt from the rain. Come on.

Speaking of "Come On", it is Arrested Development returns month!! Can't wait to discuss the dysfunctional siblings with my functional siblings. Kawkakaw! The siblings in this house have been fighting like crazy lately, I think anger over this weather is affecting everyone. Emily and Anna have adjusted well to having the pink room to themselves though. Emily will arrange every single stuffed animal (last count, 34) on Anna's bed during the day for her and make the room "look pretty". At night Anna will place every single pillow on the floor near Emily's bed so she won't get hurt when she falls out. Megan cynically pointed out that Anna did that so Emily wouldn't cry and wake her up when it happens. Funny how we used to be so paranoid about the kids falling out of bed and now Emily does it all the time and we just go in and put her back in bed, no problem. Okay, Emily might find this to be a problem but now she has pillow floor to cushion her fall. That poor fourth child.

Pot of black tea on board, no motivation to go to the gym so I guess I will force myself to do projects inside today. After the crappy winter full of days trapped inside it's disturbing that there is still stuff left for me to do. Surely I can wash and put away winter clothes now, right? I mean, this is the last snow of the season? I have been thinking about ordering school uniforms for next year since there is a sale going on... clearly I'm thinking past the long, unstructured summer....

In the mood for snow?

The girls were just watching a Christmas episode of Zack and Cody, however you spell that show, and there was a huge snow storm on it. How sad for the kids that I won't celebrate Christmas in May, even with a snow storm on the way. Such a slacker mom. Anna was disappointed enough at the Tooth Fairy's bad memory lately. Clearly she knows how it works so she kept coming to me and saying in her fake acting voice, "boy, the Tooth Fairy sure is slow this time".  Hint, hint, give me some money. It seriously took us 4 nights before we remembered.

I signed the kids up for various summer activities today, trying hard to keep in mind that it will be scorching hot and the kids tend to hate being outside then. Only two weeks of preschool left and three weeks of real school left. Slight panic about how we will manage but at least Sean is home this summer. Going to try and get by without a regularly scheduled sitter like I've done in the past. Too complicated with all the different camps and stuff I've lined up. Just going to wing it...