New Life- Week 83 (Birthday Season)

October is a really busy month in our family for birthdays.  In October on the Clifford side we have Bryce, Breanna, Jensen, and Betty.  On the Lundberg side we have Kai, Kalani, and Maude. These are all in addition to mine, of course.  It makes for a fun month to celebrate someone new every time you turn around.

This week was my birthday.  Celebrating a mid-week birthday when you are a mom of young kids is a little difficult as the mom jobs don't magically go away.  I did however have a good day.  I had preschool in the morning and then Jeremy, Elsie, and I snuck in a lunch date.  After school pick-up, the kids made me a birthday cake.  Jeremy came home from work with Thai food so I didn't have to cook and we had dinner, cake, Crumbl cookies, and presents.  Jeremy got me a new wallet, in addition to some gifts that I may or may not have picked out myself.  Carrigan made me a very sweet #1 Mom award.  All in all it was a good day.

Also this week Kai and Kalani had their joint birthday party.  All the boy cousins, Jeremy, and Ben, and the boys' friend Mitchel went go-cart racing.  Their were a few missteps with some big crashes, Quincy getting cussed out by a worker, and food not showing up after the races were done, but the boys (big and small) still had a great time.

Now it's on to Halloween and then the sprint to the end of the year! Man, this year is flying by.

New Life- Week 82 (MORE Sports)

Is sports all I ever write about?  It kinda feels like it and it's probably because most weeks that's mostly what we do in our free time.  This week, for example, consisted of two baseball practices/scrimmages, one soccer practice, one club baseball tryout, one soccer game, one cheer clinic, and one select basketball tryout.  It's a lot and that was just for the older two kids and with a bye-week for our last baseball game of the season.  I am not sure what I am going to do when we add a third to the mix.

For now baseball is mostly off for a few weeks.  He has select tryouts in two weeks but until then it will just be any extra practicing we decided to throw in.  Basketball will also be off for a few more weeks after the tryouts today.  Soccer has two more week and then we will get a break from that too.  

As for the cheer clinic, that was just a one off.  I was looking through Facebook and saw an ad for a clinic where they learn a few cheers and then preform them that night at the high school football game.  As I was looking at the ad thinking how Carrigan might like to do it, I noticed that the picture on the ad was of her!  They had used a picture from the last clinic she had done.  It was funny because when we checked her in for the clinic that night, the cheer coach said, "Hey!  I know you! You are on our flyer!".  She had a great time at the clinic because she got to do it with her cousin, Isabel, this time.  Not only that, but it was youth night at the game so all the West Linn Football teams got to run the field at halftime so most of the family was there to see Isabel and her perform.

Well that's it for now I guess.  Another week, another sport...or 5.  Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Merrick made the club baseball team he tried out for.  We are weighing our options because they want him to play up in 13u and he still wants to tryout for the West Linn Select team.  We'll see...

New Life- Week 81 (Fall Break)

 This week was our unofficial Fall Break.  What that translates to is 2 (for Merrick) or 3 (for C.C) days off school for parent/teacher conferences.  We have only been in school for a few weeks so it seems strange to already have a day off, but I never turn down extra time with my kids.

We had some fun crafting and prepping for Halloween.  Our old neighbor has a birthday next week and we decided a craft that the kids helped make would be the perfect gift.  We came up with some holiday votive holder vases.  They turned out pretty cute so hopefully she likes them.  The girls and I  also went to a farm and garden store and picked out pumpkins.  We didn't buy pumpkins at the pumpkin patch but this was still fun because they had a pumpkin washing station where you could scrub your chosen pumpkin and have a little more fun than just grabbing one at the grocery store.

The extra time the last few days even gave us time for something that has been almost a year in the making.  We finally got around to putting up the basketball hoop Merrick got for last Christmas.  When he first got it, we couldn't put it up because we were still waiting for our new house.  When we finally moved in, the next door neighbors had a hoop and it just didn't seem like a big priority with everything we were trying to get accomplished.  Merrick frequently asked, but it just never made it to the top of the priority list.  This weekend we FINALLY got it done, much to C.C.'s disappointment because it meant she didn't get to carve pumpkins. 

Oh well, there is always next weekend....or next Halloween at the speed we seems to operate.

New Life- Week 80 (Fall Sports)

 This week I considered dropping the "New Life" title.  The kids are in school and sports and in many ways life feels normal.  And yet, we are not quite there.  All activities, including school, are constantly threatened to be shut down.  I track cases in the schools daily.  Mask and health screening are a part of everyday life. Additionally, multiple members of our YW presidency are currently quarantined with Covid (in fact another one just went down as I typed this).  Maybe one day we will get there for reals.

Anyway the highlight of this week has definitely been our fall sports.  We are deep into the fall baseball and soccer season and both Merrick and Carrigan are finding their groove.  Merrick is looking so solid on the field.  His pitching lessons are really helping him, you can see the difference on the field.  He has a game this evening, but he got a happy bonus this morning.  He went to watch his friends on the senior ball team and ended up getting recruited  because they didn't have enough players.  There is a bit of a learning curve to the senior ball field, but he held his own playing first base and got his first senior ball W.

Carrigan is also coming into her own on the soccer field.  Before the season started she fretted about how this is they first year with goalies and how she definitely didn't want to play goalie.  On just the third game she decided she wanted to give goalie a try.  She has played goalie for half the game for every game since then.  This week, she had some good stops and got to experience her first PK (which got by her).  I am proud of how brave she has been, taking on something that was very scary for her.