Spooky Season

Spooky season has officially arrived at the Clifford household this week.  Weeks ago the girls broke out the Halloween decorations and have been not so patiently awaiting the start of the Halloween festivities.  This week it finally happened. Due to parent-teacher conferences, Elsie was off of school on Wednesday-Friday, Carrigan was off Thursday and Friday, and Merrick was off on Friday.  This meant extra time for some fun.

On Wednesday we had our church primary pumpkin patch activities.  My girls both brought friends along for the pumpkin picking and activities.  As is tradition, they had a fishing booth, doughnuts, Halloween tattoos, and the kids played on the playground.  Since C.C. enters Young Women's next year, this is her last pumpkin patch.  She made the most of it and it was a good time had by all.

Friday, we took advantage of the day off and I hosted a Halloween party for all the cousins who wanted to participate.  We ended up with all my kids, Nana, Aunt Emily, and all the Brown kids minus Colvin.  In all fairness to Colvin, he may have participated, but had surgery that afternoon on his ankle after a very serious injury in Football on Tuesday.  His was definitely an excused absence. 

For those that attended, we had an afternoon filled with Halloween festivities.  We painted mini pumpkins, bobbed for apples, decorated sugar cookie jack-o-lanterns, and watched a Halloween movie (complete with Halloween popcorn with candy corn, Reses Pieces, and mini chocolate chips).  It was a great way to spend a school free afternoon.

Here's to more spookiness ahead.

Growing Up

 This week, everywhere I turned I was reminded that my kids are growing up faster than I can keep up with.

Elsie is becoming more and more independent.  It is not uncommon for her to get herself breakfast in the mornings and it seems like everyday she tries something new.  Last week, we had a little snafu where her bus came super early and she ended up walking half way home by herself.  She was less than thrilled about that at the time, but this week she decided that she wanted to try it again.  One morning she asked if we would let her walk home from the bus stop by herself.  She did it and she was very proud of herself.

Carrigan is also growing up right before my eyes.  Now that she is in middle school she is so much more independent.  She walks to and from school everyday.  She's taking responsibility for her grades and doing revisions when necessary.  Also this week, she has decided that she wants to embrace her natural curls.  Something about that is making her look older too.

Merrick has always been the picture of responsibility, but he too is maturing so much this year.  He has reached the age where he is always gone.  He leaves the house at 6:30 every morning, and typically goes until 7:30 or 8.  Even when he doesn't have practice, he's at the court or on the diamond getting in reps or liftings weights.  This weekend we also experienced a first, his first high school dance.  Homecoming was yesterday and, unlike when I was in high school, probably at least half the kids go without a date.  He decided to have a few friends over for dinner and go to the dance together.  It was a little surreal to drop him off for his first dance, but he had a good time.

I don't know how I am going to keep up with all these changes.  Send help for mama who is missing her little babes.

Friday Fun Day

This week the kids didn't have school on Friday.  You'll potentially be hearing that from me several times over the school year.  This year our district got rid of early release Wednesday and replaced them with select Mondays and Fridays off throughout the year.  Let me say, I'm a fan.

This past Friday was a work day for me.  However, I had a recruiting event on Thursday evening after working a full day and ended up working 12 hours that day so I felt justified in flexing my time a bit on Friday.

Merrick started his day at the gym at the church working on his hoops, something he does pretty much everyday.  Eventually, the girls and I joined him.  I still worked, but the girls roller skated around the gym and Merrick finished up his practicing.

The afternoon is where the real fun began.  Merrick went to up the middle school to meet a friend and hang out.  No pictures because teenage boys are not likely to take pictures and share them with their moms.

Carrigan left as well and went to the mall with a couple friends.  The walked around, window shopped, ate mall treats, and bought random things that they truly didn't need.  It brought back lots of memories for me.  All the was missing was the pay phone call home when it was time to be picked up.  One friend's mom took them and stayed with them so I did get a few pictures, yay!

That just left Elsie and I, something I imagine will be said more and more in the coming years.  She really wanted to try out a new park so we headed to the next town over, Tualatin, to try a park that we have never tried before.  It had a river theme with a pretend river running through the ground and obstacles around.  She had a blast creating an obstacle course and running it while I timed her.  They also had a rock climbing wall that she enjoyed and never really got the hang of.

All in all it was a fun day and a big improvement over a couple of hours on a random Wednesday that ultimately gets wasted.

How tall is he?!?!

How tall is he?!?! That's a question I get asked A LOT about Merrick.  This week was extremely busy, but also a slow news week so I think I will take the moment to address this question formally on this blog for future reference.

As of now, Merrick stands at 6'6".  We had his 15 year well check this week and talked at length about his height with the doctor.  I wanted to formally document what the doctor said so in the future I can look back to it.  Otherwise, I will never remember with my Swiss cheese brain. 

Merrick's doctor said that while he continues to be way off the chart in terms of his height, he grew 2.5 inches in the last year, he has not started showing any signs of slowing down.  He said that we should anticipate that he will likely grow at least another 2.5 inches before he is done, which would put him at around 6'9".  I truly can't wrap my head around that.  

So there you have it.  Will he end up 6'9" or 7'0" or 6'6.5"?  Time will tell and now we have this to refer back to.

Full Swing

 This week I felt the shift and it feels like we are in the full swing of the school year.  It's always a soft start in the beginning as things get rolling, but we have arrived at the main event.  The sports have started, homework has started, and the "back to school" events might do me in.  This past week I attended two curriculum nights (one for Merrick and one for work).  We have at least two more curriculum nights to go and we'll see if I end up squeezing in any more for work.

On the sports front, Elsie has started soccer.  She had her first practice and first game this week.  Unfortunately, I couldn't make either.  I may have mentioned it, but Jeremy is coaching and Merrick is assistant coaching (as his sports schedule permits).  Since he has to be there, if C.C.'s volleyball conflicts, I am on C.C. duty by default.  I'll hopefully be able to make it to something sooner or later and report back with some pictures.

Carrigan is still doing horseback riding lessons and has started volleyball.  She has practice twice a week and games every Saturday.  Despite only having one practice so far, one got cancelled due to curriculum night, I have already notice big improvements.  Her serving has started to improve.  There is a lot of pressure to serve overhand.  This has been a challenge for her tiny self, but yesterday she made it over the net and scored a point in two of her three chances to serve.  She also returned a volley and has started diving after the ball.  I'm excited to see where the season takes her.

Merrick has been staying plenty busy, despite the fact that his sports are still ramping up.  He's helping with Elsie's team, as I mentioned, cleaning horse stalls, and tackling lots of homework for a challenging academic schedule. Basketball should start this week, but in the meantime, he picked up a baseball game this weekend just for fun.  Fall ball is an interesting beast.  It's less competitive than spring baseball and they encourage coaches to play kids at different positions. While that's the plan, we have never seen that play out for Merrick.  He always ends up camped at first base.  Today, he started at first base as usual.  I will a little surprised to see that they next put him at right field, but the next inning I nearly fell off the bleachers when they put him at shortstop.  He played two innings at shortstop and did a decent job.  He jumped and almost  caught a ball hit above his head, probably 11 feet in the air.  He then made up for it by tagging that kid out as he later tried to steal second.  It was an unusual game to say the least, but it was great to see him in his element again today.

These kids keep me unbelievably busy.  Most days I feel like I have a very tenuis grasp on all that needs to be done, but mostly we get there.  As if we don't have enough on our plates, today they girls decided it was time to start decorating for Halloween.  Things are getting spooky around here.

Merrick's 15th Birthday

 As the title of this week's blog indicates, the highlight of the week was celebrating Merrick's 15th birthday.  I would be remiss, however, if I first didn't mention our family Labor Day adventures. The kids got a bee in their collective bonnets over the weekend that they really wanted to go to the beach on Labor Day.  It had been really hot over the weekend and we had spent some time at the river, so I think they were envisioning a similar experience, but I knew that we were headed for a major cool down and the weather could be a little dicey.

Alas, my prediction was right and the weather was not great.  It was chilly and windy, as it almost always seems to be out at the Coast, but we made the best of it.  Jeremy found a hole on the beach and right away got to work carving it out and setting it up as a shelter for the day for us away from the wind. It was a tremendous help. We had gone to Pacific City, which is know for a massive sand dune.  The kids have been loving the sand dunes in Astoria so they were really looking forward to it.  We brought sleds, but those were mostly a flop. The sand was just too fluffy and soft to get much of a run going. We still had fun trying.  Everyone but Elsie also climbed to the top of the dune (probably about 1/4 mile straight up in soft, fluffy sand-the kind you slide right back down with every step).  Merrick somehow climbed it three times.  Despite the weather, and thanks to Jeremy's shelter, it was still a great day at the beach.

Now on to the main event, Merrick's birthday.  It was a pretty low key day and he spent the vast majority of it away from us. Since starting seminary this week, he has been leaving the house at 6:30am.  While Seminary doesn't start until 7am, he has been going at 6:30 so he can shoot in the gym everyday prior it starting.  So that's how the story went on his birthday as well.  He stuffed some birthday cinnamon rolls in his mouth before running out the door.  He did have a nice treat at school, his cousin, Quincy, drove him to McDonald's for lunch.

That night we finally got to celebrate Merrick all together as a family.  We invited my parent's over for Merrick's choice dinner and dessert (homemade mac and cheese and cinnamon roll cake). We also opened presents.  Merrick got a new cell phone and case, a new basketball, a bat weight, dribble goggles, some fancy hair product, and money.  He did pretty good for himself.

While I think he had a good day, what he was really looking forward to what happened the next day.  Friday, after school, he, Elsie, and I spent a super fun hour at the DMV so he could test for his learners permit.  He had been taking practice tests for a few weeks, but never really studied the book.  He was super nervous when we arrived, but he came in clutch.  He passed with flying colors and ultimately we left with permit in hand.  Within minutes, we were in the high school parking lot and I was switching places with him so he could drive us the rest of the way home.  A little backstory here, Merrick had already driven with his cousin several times so this was by no means his first time driving.  While he still has a way to go before being a comfortable, proficient driver, he's driven everyday since Friday and he is well on his way.

I could not be more proud of the young man he is becoming.  He is hardworking, dedicated, kind, and ambitious.  He's pretty much loved by all who know him.  I can't wait to see where life takes him and I'm thrilled to be along for the ride.