King Estates in the RV

Saturday afternoon a group of friends and I piled into an RV and headed for King Estate Winery as part of a package we bought at the St. Paul School Auction. It was a bummer Chad had to work out of town so he couldn't join us. This is the third time we all joined in to buy this package and we had another fabulous time! We once again never made it to the actual wine tour which is part of the package....we were having too much fun chatting, laughing, sampling wine and eating. After our four hours at King Estate, we headed back to Brandy's house for a few more hours of fun. I am so lucky to have a great group of friends! I'm voting for a fourth visit to King Estate next year!

On our way to King Estate, we had to drink wine out of plastic cups with lids to avoid any spills!

Here's the group that rode in the RV; Pat and Nathan joined us at the winery

It is so beautiful at King Estate, I wish I took a picture that did it justice.

The girls (minus Annie & Brandy)! Julie, Me, Christy, Sheri, Sandy, Amy and Julie

I'm not sure what Pancho said here but he was making us all laugh all afternoon!

And, finally, a shot of the group at the table

Another reason it's great to have daughters..

...they are excited to stand in line with me for 40 minutes to be one of the first 50 customers at Old Navy to receive 50% your purchase! The kids were out of school today and after hanging out a bit this morning, I remembered Old Navy had their annual 50% off deal. I asked Gabrielle if we should give it a try and she was so excited! We had never tried before and had no idea if we would be early enough. We got there 40 minutes before it opened and by our count, we were the 48th customer in line! Gabrielle probably counted the line ten times as we were waiting. She also was awesome walking around with Genevieve while we were waiting. We had a great time shopping together (using the 50% off coupon and probably buying too much!). I kept thinking how fun it is to have daughters!

Luckily the weather was nice while we waited.

Cousins Visit Antonia

Cade, Gabrielle, Willem and the rest of Antonia's Eugene cousins could not wait to meet their newest cousin, so on Tuesday, my sister in-laws, Jennifer and Amy, took a bunch of them to visit Antonia in the hospital. They were all so genuinely excited to meet Nia and to hold her. I just love that about my family; how much all the cousins adore each other and cannot wait for another addition to the group. Of-course meeting and holding their new cousin made our kids pester Chad and me all the more for another sibling!

Antonia's going to be spoiled by her big cousins!

Cade has always loved babies

I love their very genuine happy faces

Willem is a great big cousin!

Jacoby loves it when his cousins visit!

Cade and Willem love hanging out with big cousin Roman. And Roman is so good to them.

 

Such a beautiful and loved little girl!

Sports Update...

Before the very exciting day yesterday, we had another busy sports weekend with eight kid games (including one in Portland and one in Salem), two games myself (indoor soccer) and another family birthday party (Mariah turned 15!). It was a good thing Antonia waited until Monday to be born! 

Cade: Cade is busy with State Cup Tournament soccer as well as spring basketball. His EMFC U12 soccer team has played three State Cup games so far, winning one 2-0 (Cade got a goal and played the whole game, it was a fun match), tying one 1-1 and losing a very close one 0-1. He has one more pool play game next weekend in Portland and then we'll see if his team makes it to the quarterfinals. It'll be close as they have to be one of the top two in their group of five. 

Cade's basketball team won their Super Regional tournament this past weekend in Salem; there were six solid U10 teams in the tourney but none of the three teams Cade's team lost to in the State tourney last month. But it was fun for them to win the tourney and they played well. Cade had to miss a couple tourney games because of his soccer State Cup but still played well in the championship game.

Gabrielle: Gabrielle is also playing both soccer and basketball. Elle's U10 Athletica soccer team was split into two teams for this spring season in the top 4-5th grade Kidsports league. It will be a good challenge for Elle as she will have to play more and carry more of the load (each team added a couple girls from the 2nd team). Her team lost to a good 5th grade O'Hara team on Saturday but bounced back to beat a Churchill 5th grade team on Monday (Elle got a goal and a couple assists). 

Gabrielle started playing with Oregon Magic's 4th grade club basketball team last month and has really been enjoying it. She loves her teammates and really likes her coach. They played in their first tournament this past weekend and ended up 2nd out of 4 teams. Though I don't think Gabrielle scored a basket, she played a lot because of her great defense, rebounding, passing and hustle. She is content playing her role and is having a lot of fun.

Willem: Willem cannot wait to start his soccer games with his Little Metro team. Games start on Friday and he talks about it every day!

Some shots of Elle's basketball tournament...

Notice on the sweatshirt there's another Ficek girl on another 9U team. We keep running into Elle's 2nd/3rd cousins out on the soccer fields and basketball courts!

And some shots of Cade's basketball tournament this past weekend...

Myles, Henry, Jaren, Jack, Mitchell, Donnie

(Ethan), Jace, Alec, Ben, Cade

Welcome Antonia Marie!

Today I had the honor of witnessing the birth of my beautiful niece, Antonia Marie. Her mom, my sis, was amazing and she and dad Tony are now proud parents once again! Antonia (‘Nia’) was born at 3:56 this afternoon, weighing 7 lbs 13 oz and measuring 21 inches. She is gorgeous and I can’t wait to hold her again!

Isn't she beautiful!

I'm a very proud aunt!

A very happy Amber and Tony just after Nia's arrival!

Big brother Jacoby wasn't quite sure about it all but he did great and even gave Nia a kiss!

An hour after Antonia was born, so very sweet and content!

Muddy Girls!

Yesterday it was Willem, muddy as can be after his soccer practice and today it was Gabrielle! Here she is with some of her best friends on her soccer team (I used the camera on my cell phone for the first time :). They had a blast practicing in the mud after all the rain the past couple days!

Athena, Kyndsi, Jorja and Gabrielle

Happy Easter!

We had a fun, busy day today which included Easter baskets and Easter Mass in the morning then a delicious brunch and indoor Easter egg hunt at my dad's house, followed by a relaxing late afternoon dinner at Chad's parents and finally a late evening indoor soccer game for me (to work off all the good food!). 

The kids had a lot of fun with their cousins at Opa's house. Genevieve enjoyed looking for eggs for a little while but then was just content playing with the three eggs she found and watching all the activity around her. I can tell the bigger cousins (including our big three kids) are growing up because the hunt went off so smoothly with no one getting upset that they found fewer eggs than someone else! After the hunt the cousins spent a good hour or more trading the candy and money they got in the egg hunt. 

At Chad's parents' house it was so nice to see Chad's dad cooking dinner and enjoying the day especially since last Easter he was still in the hospital recovering from major back surgery. Overall it was a good day feeling blessed with our families and with the celebration of Easter!

Genevieve really enjoyed her Easter basket which was mostly just empty Easter eggs :)

Our sweet kids: Gabrielle, Genevieve, Willem and Cade

It's always tough to get a good family picture but we keep trying :)

The kids waiting anxiously at the top of the stairs while the eggs were being hidden at my dad's house

Sweet Nev looking for eggs

Let the trading begin!

Genevieve playing chase with Uncle Tony!

A couple more sweet ones of Genevieve

Doesn't my sister Amber look great 39.5 weeks pregnant!

Decorating Easter Eggs

This afternoon the kids and I met a group of our friends at Sheri's house to decorate Easter eggs. The kids got really into it and I enjoyed visiting with great friends. Genevieve continually wanted to explore the house and luckily with all the girls around, I had lots of help following her around!

I love my boy with all his spunk and his blue, blue eyes!

Genevieve was into everything! So much to touch and explore!

Sandy, Sheri, Brandy, Christy, Julie, (Ethan!), Jenn and Me

Great friends and soccer teammates: Jorja, Gabrielle and Kyndsi

Sheri and Keith have gorgeous views from every room in their house! I think Genevieve was just interested in the rain falling outside.

And one of Nev outside this afternoon when we had a little break from the rain.