Proud Mommy

I sure am a proud mommy.

1st Grace - Grace read me this story last night. When I finally got a chance to see it I was surprised by how well she is writing, both her penmanship and how well she sounds out words and tries to guess how they are spelled. She told me that the requirement was to write 4 sentences, but she "filled the whole page!" I think this is pretty good for a 1st grader.

Next Emma - Emma Jo's 7th Grade Girls Basketball team is currently in the playoffs for their league. They came in to the playoffs ranked 2nd since they lost one game in the season. Last night was the first game of the playoffs and THEY WON! Today is game 2. I'm very proud of how well she is doing, how much she has improved over last year, and the fact that this is her 2nd year on the 7th grade team and she is still only in 6th grade. Just think how good she'll be as a 7th grader!

Then Cooper - Cooper is learning so much at Preschool! He comes home singing new songs, telling me about animals and plants, and examining everything to see what it is made out of. The other day when I asked him what letter he was learning about (they have a letter of the week each week), he couldn't tell me the name, but he could show me the sign!

And Finally Henry - Henry has learned how to crawl! He has been getting by with scooting and reaching lately, but he is now officially a crawler. He has good form and is now working on the speed! Now I need to start baby-proofing!

A Day Off

Sometimes it is the little things.
Little things that add up to be everything.
I have a million little things to do everyday and sometimes it gets to be too much. That is the way I have been feeling this week. I'm sure it is compounded by the fact that Henry has become the baby who DOESN'T sleep. Jason reminded me that Cooper was once the baby who only slept while being rocked, so I'm sure that someday Henry will sleep. Although it doesn't feel that way at 3 in the morning when you are up for the 5th time.
Anyway, I was scheduled to go on a Girlfriend's Retreat with First Baptist Church this weekend. I had been looking forward to it, but in the past few days it felt like just one more thing that needed to be checked off my "to-do list".
Last night I made the decision to say no. No, I'm not doing what I should do, I'm going to do what I want to do. So today, instead of leaving my family and spending the day with the women from church, I decided to go shopping.
Mom, Emma, Grace, Henry and I packed up the Yukon and headed to Emeryville. We were hoping to find a chair for Emma's room at IKEA. It ended up that we didn't really find too much of anything to buy, but I did find a little peace. It felt great to not have anything that had to be done. I did have three kids with me but Henry was a shopping angel and the girls did great, especially after lunch at California Pizza Kitchen.

Leprechaun Cake

Last week I happened upon a blog posting about a Leprechaun cake. I instantly knew that the kids would love it. Even though St. Patrick's Day was on Thursday, I still decided to make the cake on Sunday. Emma Jo was at the house helping Jason get things ready for new flooring, so it was just the little kids and I.

We mixed up the cake batter and separated it into six different bowls. Then Grace and Cooper got to add food coloring to their bowls to make all of the colors of the rainbow (this was accompanied by singing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song about "Red-Orange-Yellow-Blue, don't forget the Purple too!"). Then we carefully layered the colors into our bundt pan. The kids enjoyed squeezing the batter out of the baggies. After it baked it was time to add the marshmallow clouds around the edges and in the middle. Then Grace was in charge of making a leprechaun trap, gold coins, a sign and a ladder.
It didn't turn out as beautiful as the sample blog, but it was pretty darn cute and the kids loved it! Emma Jo was surprised when we slicing into it and there was a rainbow inside.
This was definitely a hit and we've already talked about ways we could adapt the method for birthday and other cakes.

Apple!

Henry thinks he is a big boy and wants to eat whatever the family is eating. Last night I had Henry sitting at the counter and had given him some Cheerios to snack on while I fixed dinner. He was not very happy with the Cheerios and was whining and complaining. I saw the big bowl of apples sitting in front of him and decided to see if he wanted some apple. I cut off a little slice so that he would have some of the flesh available without peel. He instantly grabbed it and started gnawing away.

He happily "ate" it the entire time I was cooking without another complaint (except when he would drop it).

Rock and Worship Road Show

Saturday night I got to take Emma Jo and a few members of her youth group to the Rock and Worship Road Show in Sacramento. I was very excited to get to go to the concert and even more excited to spend the night with Emma. Since Henry was born he had monopolized my time and energy. I feel as if I've given the other kids the short straw, especially Emma Jo. She is so independent and un-demanding that I haven't given her the attention she deserves.
She was gone all of last week at Outdoor Science Camp at Mt. Hermon and I missed her. The concert was probably not the best decision in terms of Emma being tired from camp and then the time change (not to mention a nursing baby who sleeps with mommy), but it was a great decision in terms of a night worshiping Jesus together and a night spending time with Emma.

(I wasn't sure if I could bring my camera into the show, so this is one I got from the RWRS blog.)

It was a long afternoon/night. We left Windsor at 4pm and didn't get home until 2:50 am (3:50am if you count the time change). Thankfully there were only 7 of us from FBC so we were all able to ride together in the Yukon. We stopped for dinner on the road and I got my first taste of Sonic! We finally arrived at the concert at 6:45 and the only seats left once we walked in were behind the stage. It would have been great to see the front the stage, but it was an amazing experience regardless. I definitely hope to go back next year.

I was exhausted yesterday, but it was so worth it!

I had been worried about Jason and Henry, but they survived. Big thanks to Mom and Dad (Grammie and Grampa) who came over and helped with Cooper and Grace. It is nice to know that everyone will survive (and even enjoy themselves) without me. It makes me not feel too bad about planning on attending the FBC women's retreat in a couple of weeks.

Dance, Dance

Last night Grace got a care package in the mail. It turned out to be old dance costumes that used to be Aunt Tracy's. Her mom has given up on having granddaughters and decided to share them with our family. She thought Grace would enjoy them.

Turns out that Cooper likes them!

So does Grace.

Even Henry wore one of the headbands.

Cheerios!

Last night we gave Henry is first taste of Cheerios.

He loved sitting at the table like a "big boy" and he was so proud when he could actually get a Cheerio in his mouth!

I think Lucy ate more then he did. But he sure did have a good time!