Why Are They So Happy?

A few reasons...they just beat the top U11 girls team in the Oregon Premier League 2-0 (FC Salmon Creek of Vancouver, WA, who have only lost twice since last June and won the league in the fall), they are shopping at the outlet mall, they are about to get Jamba Juice and they are together! More pictures of the game to come!

 

Fun in the Rain!

Genevieve spent 45 minutes in the pouring rain in our muddy backyard today. I was surprised she wanted to go out there with it being so cold and rainy and more surprised she stayed out for so long, playing all by herself in the puddles and with the toys. She was so wet and pretty muddy by the time she was done! I love this smiley girl!

Notice how wet Nev's hair is...she was standing and then playing under the dripping gutter for a while!

OSU Gymnastics Meet

I'm so glad Amber asked me to go to an OSU gymnastics meet with her for so many reasons. First, it is so nice to have three hours to visit with my sis. Second, it was fun seeing Gabrielle and her friend, Kyndsi, having a ball together. Third, I love gymnastics and it was great to watch some great performances; OSU is ranked 6th in the nation and they won the meet with a season-high (for them) team score. Fourth, going to OSU meets is something I used to do every year with my mom and it just brings back a lot of good memories. I love that I can still enjoy it so much with my daughter and sister. And, the bonus was seeing sweet Jacoby; he joined us for the first hour of the competition. He always brings a smile to my face!

Snow Day!

The kids were so excited to learn school was canceled today. Their smiles say it all!

Elle, Athena and Nev were dancing in the falling snow and catching snowflakes in their mouths

Click on the collage to get a close-up of Willem's face in these pictures...priceless!

Elle's Birthday Weekend

Elle said she had the best weekend ever for her 10th birthday. Here's a little rundown of a perfect weekend for a ten year old (and one that is sure to wear her parents out)!

Friday evening Elle and five of her very good friends (all members of her soccer team plus cousin Meleesa) met at BJ's restaurant for dinner...

Elle, Kyndsi and Meleesa

The highlight of the dinner was the big warm cookie with ice cream

The girls mauled it! The cookie was huge but consumed in a couple minutes!

Athena, Avalon, Meleesa, little sis Savannah, Kyndsi, Jordan and Elle

After BJ's, I took all the girls home with me. Genevieve was a little doll for all the girls and she was loving it!

Gabrielle and Athena planned a ton of games (with prizes) and the first game was toilet paper brides. Gabrielle's team was very smart to somehow convince Genevieve to be the bride. Kyndsi was the other bride and, though beautiful, was no match for Nev :) 

After a couple more games, they headed outside on the dairy for the 'Freaky Dairy Walk' which was a little scavenger hunt (they had to do things like milk a cow, have a calf lick your fingers and high-5 a worker) and then lots of running around. They all had a blast...

Then it was back inside for showers, hair and make-overs and finally sleeping in a tent which I don't think actually happened until about 2 am! The next morning they were back outside playing in the cottonseed and running around the dairy.

The last girls left at 5:00 pm and then Elle and I were soon off to dinner with Elle's best friend from her class, Jorja and her mom, Julie. We had a great time at dinner, shopping and then Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream!

Sunday was Elle's actual birthday and she awoke to a new purse/bag with ten $10 bills (she did turn 10 :) in it which she added to her savings for the iTouch she has been wanting. We then drove with all six of us to Cade's 11:00 am game in Portland and made a stop at Paradise Bakery (Elle's request which I gladly obliged). We then headed back to Eugene for another soccer game for Cade but Elle decided to go to the St. Paul basketball tournament with her cousins where she met up with friends and ended up having another sleepover. The next day we picked her up and went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a little party for her and cousin Andrew (Sweet 16 for him). After the party, Elle had enough cash to buy her iTouch which she has loved!

The birthday cousins!

Chad with his three sisters

Ten Years Ago...

..our beautiful daughter, Gabrielle, was born. She is an amazing girl, very considerate, loving and kind. She is determined and tough but so sweet, too. She is a great sister and friend. We love our double-digit girl so very much and are lucky to call her our daughter. 

Elle is also getting quite tall! We measured her and she has just passed the 5 foot mark!! I wonder how tall she will get?!

More to come soon on her fun birthday weekend!

Valentine's Weekend

I had a great Valentine's weekend thanks to my awesome hubby! He surprised me with a night away at Valley River Inn (where we spent our wedding night and ten year anniversary) and he coordinated everything with the kids and his mom to make it happen. I had been planning a family movie night and dinner out with the kids and Chad on Saturday to celebrate Valentine's Day but when Chad told me he was whisking me away Saturday evening, we took the kids out to Dickie Jo's burger joint for lunch and let them pick out some movies to watch with Grandma. Chad and I were then off for the evening. It was so nice to relax with my hubby for a long evening, to sleep in and to enjoy a little run with him along the river bike path in the morning. Meanwhile, the kids, of-course, got spoiled by Grandma!

Warms My Heart

I was going through Gabrielle's school papers and found the note Nev is holding in the picture below. It is a contract between Gabrielle and Genevieve and says: "I, Gabrielle, love Genevieve with all my heart and nothing can or will change that". It is then signed by Gabrielle and it appears she has signed Genevieve's name as well.

And, a month or so ago, Cade made lunches for Gabrielle and Willem and he put the following note in each of their lunches, "Have a great day. Love, Cade".

I get along with all my siblings so well and want the same for my kids; seeing them get along and be kind to one another is something that makes me so happy!

Progress...

It's amazing what a couple timeouts and feeling better did for Genevieve. Nev has been much easier the past few days. She is still spunky and persistent but she has been going to bed happily again, she was great at the doctor's office today for her two year appointment, she hasn't screamed for more than a short time in the car and she is fighting me less when we change her clothes. She even did pretty good in her bath, until we had to wash her hair! I realize it is probably two steps forward and then we will go a step back again but it is progress! 

Here are her stats for her two year appointment: weight 28.5 lbs (60%), height 35 inches (70%) and head 19.5 inches (90%).

It seems like Genevieve is changing and growing a lot lately. Here are a couple updates I want to remember:

Nev's favorite toys right now: playing with cups and water in the sink; Play-Doh; Little People; her dolls with the dolls' nuks, bottles and blankets; her purse and pretend cell phone; dancing and playing with her guitar.

And her favorite shows: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora and Elmo. She still likes the Wiggles but is preferring these others now. It is so cute to watch her watch these shows because she, more than any of our other kids, interacts with the T.V. so much, answering the questions the characters ask, dancing and jumping when the characters ask and yelling out 'backpack' or 'tootles' when it's appropriate during the shows. So entertaining!

 Concentrating on filling up those cups!

Willem!

One of the moms on Will's basketball team is a photographer and she was kind enough to take pictures of all the boys. I love all the different expressions she captured of Willem! Willem just finished up his 'extended season' of basketball and is done for the year but informed us he definitely wants to play again next year. It was a blast watching his team play so we are very happy he wants to play again next year!

 Here's a collage the photographer put together for us. Left to right: Willem, Mitchell, Ethan, Patrick, Hayden, Noah, Max, Nicolas, Jackson, Treyson

The ABCs by Genevieve

Genevieve has really started to sing along to songs on the radio lately. Today, she sang, very clearly, "You're amazing, just the way you are" from the Bruno Mars song. I hope to catch that on video soon! Nev has also started reciting the entire ABCs in the past week. Here she is this morning getting most of the letters...

Scenes From Our Weekend

It was another busy weekend for us with a basketball game and an indoor soccer game for Willem (plus a fun playdate with Ethan squeezed in the middle), two basketball games and some soccer skills training for Elle (plus a Meleesa playdate squeezed in), ODP soccer practice and a couple sleepovers for Cade, and a couple indoor soccer games for me. Chad and Nev (and me most of the time, too) were along for the ride! We also watched cousin Roman play his first outdoor game of his winter club season and had fun at cousin Meleesa's birthday party. Chad took the camera along this time and took some pictures of Willem's last basketball game and of Elle's basketball game...

I love this picture as it shows Willem next to the smallest boy on our team. Willem looks like a giant compared to Macoy (who is the only Kindergartner on Will's 1st grade team).

Willem's team played great in this game. The other team was short a player so we let them borrow one of our players each period (thus the 'skins' in some of the pictures). Willem was on fire in this game scoring 24 points, getting about 15 rebounds and a dozen or so steals. His team is so much fun to watch as they are a mix of so many different personalities and levels but they all have so much fun playing!

Gabrielle's team started the YMCA league last weekend and have played four tough, close games, winning two and losing the other two by just a basket or two. The last two years they won all their 'Y' league games but this season they haven't been able to get by on their athleticism and decent ball skills. The other teams that play much more basketball are catching up to these soccer players in basketball uniforms. Elle still really enjoys the games (practices not so much) and continues to improve but she tells me often that she likes soccer much more!

 

Cade had so much fun this weekend with Liam and Pascal. He spent Friday night at Liam's house, one of his favorite places in the world. He really enjoys Liam as well as Liam's parents and triplet siblings. It's so nice he has found such a great best buddy. Then on Saturday, Liam and other best friend and cousin Pascal stayed with us. There was lots of nerf basketball (look how Pascal towers over Cade now!), soccer and video games!

Two

Nev has been two for a little over a month now and I have to say it's been a bit of a tough few weeks for her. We are so enjoying her big vocabulary and how expressive she is. We also love hearing her sing along to songs and dance whenever she hears music. But it's been tough for her being sick; she recovered after her hospital stay but then got sick again this week with breathing issues. Also, lately she has been really disliking her car seat as well as her crib and she has been fighting against every bath time and every clothing change. All of my distraction techniques that used to work so well are not doing the trick anymore. She has spent many car rides lately screaming the entire 45 minute trip and she's figured out how to get her whole upper body out of her regular car seat (as well as buckle herself right back in if she decides that what she wants to do!). Chad and I have since switched car seats in our cars so that the car seat in my car (where she spends more time) is now much tougher for her to squirm out of! So as you might have guessed, Genevieve has also been introduced to the timeout chair this month. I do my best to just keep calm, still try to distract, sometimes just ignore and then talk to her when she finally is calm. I know all of these are things she will grow out of but it is sometimes hard to see our sweet little girl so unhappy and frustrated!  She is a determined little girl with lots of spunk. I know our job as parents is to channel all that energy and figure out how to get her to use it in positive ways. It helps to see our big kids and how much they have matured and I know Nev will get there too! At least that's what I have been finding I am reminding myself of a lot lately.

Here is our happy Genevieve after playing outside... 

And here she is sleeping after I gave her a nebulizer treatment. A bright side of her hospital stay earlier in the month is she loves her doctor toys :)

Julie's Birthday Dinner

I love it when my friends have birthdays because it gets us together for an evening to catch up which we don't get a chance to do nearly as much as I'd like. Saturday evening we celebrated Julie's birthday at Mookie's Restaurant. Five hours flew by! I am lucky to have such great friends! Happy Birthday, Jules!

Julie, Liz, Christy, Me and Amy

And the guys: Doug, Chad, Kevin, Pancho and Donnie

Nev(er) a Dull Moment!

Here are some pictures of Genevieve over the past month. They are all just little things that happen in a regular day with Genevieve, some taken quickly with my cellphone. She is such a fun and spunky little girl, very adventurous and active, pretty independent and looking to be a little stubborn as well lately (changing her clothes each day, taking a bath and sharing have been challenges recently for her...and us too ;)

Here she is after heading upstairs to hang out with her big sis who, it turns out, wasn't really watching her as Nev had time to get into Gabrielle's make-up kit and put make-up on all on her own. She was pretty proud of herself when she walked downstairs to show me...

Here's Nev enjoying a yummy berry smoothing that Chad often makes for the kids...

Here's one a caught of her after she said her eyes hurt from the sun and she needed my sunglasses...

Here she is trying on all my necklaces and bracelets. Oh did she have fun for quite a while...

And just a random Nev smile...

And finally, we were having some fun washing her hair!...

We can't imagine our lives without this little girl we love so much! In fact, Cade continues to beg us for another baby (sorry, not gunna happen :) because he just thinks Nev is 'so darn cute' (he says that most days!) and fun and adorable (plus I think that competitive streak in him wants to have more siblings than his cousins)!