Three Days of Birthday Fun

Gabrielle had three days of birthday fun beginning with a sleepover party with soccer friends on Sunday night followed by a family party Monday evening and then a party with her school friends at The Potters' Quarter on Tuesday. She was very appreciative and seemed to enjoy it all! I also really enjoyed our lunch and shopping together on Monday. It's so great to have daughters!

Avalon and Gabrielle with their new fun glasses they bought shopping together. For her sleepover party, she and her friends went shopping, had dinner at Dickie Jo's and then a movie. 

Avalon, Athena, Gabrielle

Dinner at Dickie Jo's: Meleesa, Kyndsi, Maddie, Athena, Elle, Avalon

The girls after the movie: Journey to Mysterious Island. After the movie we went home, played a little hide-and-seek, had a baking contest and the girls chatted until at least 2:30 (when Chad and I went to bed)!

At our family party with Grandma

All four of our kids smiling and looking at the camera...amazing!

We love our 11 year old girl!

Fun with cousins!

Elle painting her pottery 

 Julie and Jorja

 

Shealynn, Kirah, Sarah, Gabrielle, Jorja and Christina at the Potters' Quarter

Happy Birthday Gabrielle Marie!

I am so proud to be Mom to our caring, loving, hard-working, beautiful, talented and smart Gabrielle Marie who is ELEVEN today. We have a busy couple days planned. She has five soccer friends over now/tonight for a sleepover, we will have a family party today (Monday) and on Tuesday she invited five school friends for some pottery and cake. Fun!

Elle continues to grow taller and taller...she is now just over 5'2'' (2+" taller than last year on her b-day :)

Happy Birthday Ellie Bellie Jelly! We Love You So Very Much!

Baby Shower for Davida

We had a fabulous and relaxing time together at Davida's baby shower at LaPerla restaurant in Eugene. Davida was an angel, as always. It was sweet to see her sisters, Morgan and Maddie, enjoy themselves and it was fun to visit with everyone and to spoil Davida and her mom and dad :)

Afternoon with Tucker

When Marilyn first arrived a couple weeks ago, we spent the afternoon at Duane and Mary's house. So much fun having our little ones together (Nev was in heaven!) and so great to visit with Mary and Duane....

Apparently Nev wasn't into pictures this time ;)

But she sure was into Tucker!

So adorable!

My beautiful sister happy to hold her nephew

So great to see Jackie again too and happy she will be close by in Corvallis for a while!

Willem's Basketball Season

It was strange this year with only one of our kids playing basketball. Gabrielle's team dissolved and she did not want to find another team, hoping instead to just play with her middle school team next year which will be pretty low key and will allow her to continue to focus on soccer (as she still did indoor soccer, speed & agility training, CrossFit and soccer skills training this winter and hopes to again next winter). Cade considered playing with his school team while still making soccer his #1 priority, but his knees have been bothering him with Osgood Schlatters and he decided to just focus on soccer and not risk the extra pounding that basketball would cause.

So, we were left enjoying just Willem which was kind of nice. We got to go to all of his games and he and his team were really a lot of fun to watch. His team played both the regular six game Kidsports season as well as the extended season (5 or 6 extra games). His team probably won about 2/3 of their games. Willem made us proud with how he listened so well to his coaches, passing the ball to all his teammates often though he showed he was capable of taking the ball in to the hoop himself many times (if his shot was a little softer, he would have made more baskets those times he did take it in :). He also rebounded well, often getting 3 or 4 rebounds in a row (before finally making a shot or passing it off :), and he stole the ball many times. He usually scored about 10 points a game (I think his high was about 24), got about that many steals and even more rebounds. We were lucky he had really great coaches, our friends Donnie and Christy Hakala, and hope he can play with them for many years to come. Willem loved the games and endured the practices ;) (not enough scrimmaging he would say).

The boys wanted to be the "Reigning Unicorns of Death" but officially they were the "Reigning Unicorns of Victory"!

Yes, we were one of those families....lost Willem's uniform mid-season! Luckily Willem did not care a bit!

Nev and Nia at his last game :)

The boys played quite a bit of basketball at home too which reminded me of my brothers doing the same year ago!

 

Dunking on the short hoop!

Genevieve's Three Year Doc Visit Stats

Since Nev's baby book is pretty much non-existent, I wanted to document her three year doctor's appointment stats here (she was actually 3 years and almost 2 months at time of today's appointment):

Height: 38.75 inches, 85th percentile

Weight: 35.5 pounds, 85th percentile

It's always fun to compare her to her siblings at age 3...

Elle was 39.5 inches and 36 pounds

Cade was 38.5 inches and 34 pounds

Willem was about 40.5 inches and 39 pounds

Nev was great at her appointment, talking away to the doctor and nurse and telling them about her little owies. She was a little apprehensive about going when I first told her, worried about shots, but I told her the doctor was just going to check that she's is healthy and strong and that I wasn't sure she'd get any shots (I really just tried to put off the subject and not dwell on it...distraction, distraction!). Luckily, there were no shots and it was a really good experience including lunch at Mucho Gusto with Mom afterwards :).

Nev playing with cousin Jacoby last week :) I love this girl!

My Valentines!

Happy Valentine's Day! After a great two weeks with my sisters here visiting (lots of great pics to come), it was back to the regular routine today. Except it was Valentine's Day! We scrambled to finish Valentine's cards for classmates and I was at Target at 10 pm last night getting some last minute things for our kids (nothing new there!). This evening, after soccer practices and indoor games, Chad and I met up with three of our kids in tow (Cade practice until 8:30 so he couldn't join) at BJ's for dinner. The kids loved their little gifts from us and it was nice to just be together for a couple hours. The best part of the day was Genevieve telling me numerous random times during the day, "Happy Valentine's Day, Mom" and "I love you, Mom" as she took our conversations about Valentine's Day to heart. She also told several other passersby, "Happy Valentine's Day". 

The other really awesome thing about today, though non-Valentine's Day related, was Cade received an official invitation to US Club Soccer's regional camp held in Irvine, California. The camp is paid in full by Nike and US Soccer and is held over four days in April. There are just four camps for boys born in 1999 scheduled for this year (in Texas, New Jersey, N. Carolina and California) and there should be about 75 boys per camp. It is based on these camps, as well as the ODP camps, that National Teams for each age group are selected. Pretty neat stuff for Cade to experience and nice to see him getting rewarded for his hard work.

Back to Valentine's Day...Chad spoiled me with red tulips, some treats and some nice wool socks and gloves for the upcoming spring soccer season where he knew I would be chilled on the sidelines :)

I love my five special Valentines: Chad, Cade, Gabrielle, Willem and Genevieve and am so proud to call them my family! Here are some iphone pics from today and the past couple days of the five of them...

At dinner tonight

Chad, being the great daddy he is, sharing a tea party with Nev

Cade practicing his dunk with Will looking on, I love the dairy in the background

I Love My Sisters!

I have the best sisters and I so LOVE it when all three of us can get together. We always laugh until our stomachs hurt. Marilyn is visiting for a couple weeks and last Friday we got a sitter for our little ones and the three of us got to spend seven uninterrupted hours together. We worked out, shopped, went to lunch and then did a little car shopping for Jackie (my niece and Marilyn's daughter). We always have to get a picture when we are together. It started out very normal...

Then we decided we needed to do something different. Hmmm, what should we do?...

'Let's all jump', we decided...

We got our biggest laugh looking back at all the pictures (there were lots). Marilyn's expressions and jumping cracked us all up....