Busy, Busy!

Our busy weekend started on Friday with Victoria’s first “real” babysitting job. It was at our house still, but she was in charge of 9 month old Kristen and got paid for the job. I did help a couple of times and went to book club toward the end of it, but it was about a 3 hour job, so she definitely did some good work!

Saturday, it was the usual ice hockey and dance, but I was in Dearborn for a clothing drive at one of our church buildings. Jason worked at it on Friday at the end of his work day. The building is across the street from his office.  Luckily, our friends were able to drive Victoria and Austin so Jason could get some projects done and Karissa was in charge of Erik.

When I returned, we had to get ready to get our family pictures taken. My friend did them two years ago and I loved them, so I wanted her to do them again. Of course it turned out to be a very busy day, but the kids had fun outside where we were shooting the pics. Too bad Erik did not want to cooperate, at all! I worried about him being a goofball, but I didn't think he would just shut her down! He did end up warming up to her (his friend's mom who he knows), but it was a lot of work!

After the photo shoot, Jason snuck in part of the Nebraska game. We ate a quick dinner and got ready for the Ward Trunk or Treat. My kids had planned, back in August, to go as the Scooby-Doo gang. Victoria wanted to be the villain, holding to the tradition she has of being some creepy character. She ended up being an old man. It worked out well. She wanted to hang with her friends the whole activity anyhow, so the rest of the "gang" stuck together. Karissa kept making sure we all did, too!

Our neighbor Bethany, Tessa, and Victoria

If that wasn't enough pressure to look good and act good for pictures, then dress up for the Halloween party, the Primary Program for Sacrament meeting was at church on Sunday. We didn't get to church early enough to make sure we sat on the side where we could see all our kids. In fact, we couldn't see Erik, for his first Primary program, at all! He was totally blocked by the organ. After sitting through the program, though, I realized it was probably a good thing. If we had sat on a different side, he would have been more anxious or worried or whatever it is that gets to him in public situations. Also, if he could see us smiling up at him the whole time, he would not have stayed on the stand, or worse yet, he would have made a scene. I don't know if he sang, but everyone I asked who could see him said he behaved well. When it came time for his to give class to say their parts, he walked up to the podium with them, looked at Jason and I, then dropped to the ground. We didn't see him, but I could see Austin smile and roll his eyes at whatever Erik did on the ground. I guess he got back to his seat all right. Victoria, Karissa, and Austin did well and have always enjoyed using the microphone. They sang the songs beautifully too. 

They got glow sticks for doing well in the program. 

If that wasn't enough, Austin was assigned to give the scripture and prayer in Primary sharing time and Erik the talk. When asked if it would be more difficult for Erik on this day, I really didn't think it would make a difference. I figured if he actually said his line for the program in Sacrament meeting, then he would just think it was microphone day and do the same in Primary. I wrote a quick, nice talk about temples with a picture of our family outside the Indianapolis Temple. He had told me he didn't want to go up and that he wanted Jason to do it for him. Well, that's what happened. He didn't even want to hold the picture. Jason gave a nice talk in Primary! Austin did well with the scripture and prayer. I'm glad he can read so we didn't have to practice a ton. 

To finish off, the missionaries came over for dinner and Jason had a meeting Sunday night to attend. No wonder I was so tired on Monday! 

Soccer

Karissa surprised me this fall and said she wanted to try soccer. She has never really expressed interest in a ball sport, ever, so I was excited to let her try something new. She did the program that Austin and Victoria did last year, DACA. They would have done it again too, but Austin's ice hockey (free) and Victoria's dance class are a little too close to the same time for my comfort, even though we did manage to get Victoria to dance last year, somewhat on time. They are doing the one at their school, which is easier to manage. Since Karissa isn't at Miller Elementary to be there on time after school and I really did love DACA last year, it worked perfectly for her.

Karissa surprised me again by getting into it! They practiced for a half hour, then played a game for a half hour. She put forth effort and stayed with the game. She had a friend on her team and a friend on the opposing team, also making it enjoyable for her. After the end-of-the-season party on Saturday, she said she wanted to do it again in the spring- another surprise!

Team picture day. 

You can see Karissa's yellow shirt heading toward the ball behind purple-shirt guy. 

She was excited to get her trophy!

11 Years

Victoria is now 11 years old and turning into a wonderful young lady. In case you didn't know, she is a people person. She wants to have someone around her, always. This past year she has really wanted to have a friend over any chance she could. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, not at having a friend over, but the process of trying to organize a playdate with friends' parents or grandparents. A lot of them work and it's hard to get a hold of them, so I started to encourage her to set up playdates at school.

 She has great friends and they help her to fulfill whatever it is she needs for her social self. It is for this reason, and many others including the fact that we don't have a landline phone for when she babysits at home, that she got a phone for her birthday. Actually, it is the same phone as mine, lucky girl! She will be a working girl with babysitting jobs and that might also help her fill her social needs. Yesterday, she texted her friend and set up something for today after school, so nice! I'm not quite sure how many of her friends really do have their own phone. According to Victoria, it's everyone, but I do know that not many of them have landline phones either and she feels intimidated calling parents' on their personal phones. Well, now she can just text them herself, assuming she has my permission, of course.

She had already bought the phone with Jason on Tuesday, but opened it yesterday on her birthday.

Now I have to worry about phone abuse!

Being in 5th grade, I've been encouraging her to do some of the challenge activities with her homework so she's ready for middle school next year. She has more homework this year which makes it easier for me to say, "No friends" on certain days. She's progressing really well on the piano, enjoying her tap and ballet classes and the work-out she gets there, and she's taking a 7 week after school sporting class with Austin. It's right at their school and includes coaching for soccer, baseball, and basketball. She has been playing basketball at recess with her friends and the boys at school and this was an easy, inexpensive, introduction to learning some better skills with these popular sports. She really enjoys anything athletic. She still loves to write and draw as well.

Her birthday party was Saturday evening. We streamed the latest pop songs, the girls hung out in the basement and played air hockey and twister, and we had a hot dog bar with all the fixings. I had to incorporate a craft or two, mostly because I can't stand giving out goodie bag junk. Having them make something to bring home is less expensive than buying nice take-home gifts. This year, they made leaf print cards and bat headbands. Some girls really got into it and did a great job. Others, not so much, but they went outside and jumped on the trampoline and ran around in the really nice weather we've been having. We played "I've Never", ate "spider" cupcakes, and she opened many nice gifts. We ended with a fire outside, since it was dark by then, and more running around in the backyard. It seemed to be a great party for this 10/11 year old group.

The whole gang. I guess I didn't take another group one. 

Erik had to help blow out the candles, of course.

This is the one I made.

She added extra bows, so it didn't look as much like a bat, but still super cute!

We love Victoria and are excited for more adventures with her as we enter this different phase!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I feel like every year I keep posting the same things, but every year I have my children's eyes to see things a little differently than the year before. Fall is by far the best season here in Michigan. Sometimes it's shorter than I would like, but this year has been good and it's supposed to continue to be a nice long fall because of the good temperatures. Mid-60s, on average, most days. Not much rain, but just enough.

As has been the case since we moved here 9 years ago, I took my preschooler on his field trip to the apple orchard with his preschool pals. We have two preschool groups from our ward this year, so we all got to go together. I guess the only downfall to autumn this year is that there were less bees in the spring because of some late cold weather, so there were less apples on the trees. That meant the kids couldn't pick their own apple from a tree, but had to pick it out from a bin of apples that had already been picked. Lucky for us, we have our own apple trees, so Erik picked one from our tree the other day. Less apples also means more expensive cider- $8.50 /gallon this year from the cider mills. At least it's not $10/gallon like it was 3 years ago. That was the winter/spring we went to France and had summer weather in March, followed by another freeze. It threw everything off!

Here's this years' pictures of the Plymouth Apple Orchard.

Erik brought the thermometer from the dr kit for some reason...

The four in the back are in his group. 

Anna, the only girl in both groups, and Victor, a friend we helped out that day because his mom had to stay home with a sick sister.

Pretending to be bees pollinating the apple tree.

The apple bins. I guess I didn't get a picture of the trees...

Wagon ride back to the play area.

New this year- hay bales to play on