Summer's Begun

This week was the second full week of summer and yet with the kids at camp last week it feels like this was our first true week of summer.  We started the week with a trip to the zoo.  It has been a few months since we have been and the treat this time were some new baby animals.  There was a baby mountain goat, and a brand new monkey that I could never get a picture of, because it was snuggled u in its mama's arms.  Maybe it is because I am in the baby stage myself, but I really loved seeing these new baby animals.

The other excitement of the week is that Emily, Tala, Kai, and Kalani came to visit.  We have spent lots of time over at Nana and Papa's house and Elsie has loved getting extra family snuggles.  We always say that Aunt Emily has the sleep aura, but apparently Elsie has it too.  The kids also got to have a sleepover and in true Merrick, sports loving fashion, I walked in the house in the morning to find him watching the world cup.

 

Unfortunately, our weekend ended on a low note with a tummy bug for our Carrigan girl.  We have lots more fun planned for the week to come, so hopefully she is on the mend soon.

4 Months Big and Blackmail

This has been a BIG week for Elsie.  Early in the week she took her first ever dip in the pool and on Friday she turned a big 4 months old.  How do I even go about telling you about this girl.  I think I have said this a few times in the last few months, but having an infant is hard.  When you haven't had an infant in your home for a while you forget all the hard parts, but our sweet Elsie smooths out the hard parts.  She is a little ray of sunshine.  Everywhere I go people comment to me how alert and expressive she is and it is true.  She is outgoing, vocal, and smiley and lights up for those she loves.  She is not yet rolling over but is getting close and has recently discovered her toes and has been known to even suck on them.  She usually wakes up about twice a night, but only eats once and the other time just needs her binkie to go back to sleep.  I don't know what we did without her, and I am pretty sure I have said that in the past few months too.

As far as the swimming goes, the big kids have made it into the pool several times already this summer, but this week was Elsie's first time.  She enjoyed it for about an hour before she decided she was done.  I just wasn't crazy about the fact that she kept dipping her hand in the pool and then sucking on it.  Hopefully we will work out the kinks and have a long summer full of pool time fun.

And as for the blackmail portion of the title, this week both Merrick and Carrigan were at sports camps.  Carrigan was at multi-sport camp with basketball, baseball, and soccer and Merrick was at tennis camp.  For Merrick's camp, they had Wacky Wednesday where they were encouraged to dress as wacky as possible and the wackiest dresser won a candy bar.  Merrick decided to go all out in my old cheerleader outfit and a bright red wig.  The picture is just too good not to share.  In the end he won the contest and provided us with some great blackmail material in the process.

 

End of the Road-2nd Grade and Baseball

I feel like I am day late and dollar short here as I didn't get a chance to write up the blog yesterday, but I would be remiss if I didn't take the time to share with you last week's exciting wrap up of 2nd grade and the baseball season.  In a lot of ways 2nd grade was a tough one for Merrick.  He didn't get the teacher he wanted and, while I think the teacher he got was the right one for him in the end, he had a rough start feeling bad that he wasn't in the class he wanted.  He also had some rough times with friends this year.  In the end though, he made it through another year.  I am seriously so proud of the young man he is turning into.  On the last day of school a teacher's aide stopped me to tell me that Merrick was one of the all time kindest children she had ever met.  It is not unusual for people to tell me things like that about him and I always say that I can't take any credit for it.  That is just who he is.  So we wrapped up the year on a high note, both socially and academically.

The other wrap up we had this week was baseball.  The regular season actually ended the week before with a round robin tournament with all the teams in the league.  Merrick's team won that tournament with just one loss in all the games.  This past week though we decided to extend the season with a pay to play tournament.  We played all-star teams from around Oregon and Washington and were told to expect to get crushed.  While we did lose all three games Merrick played in (we didn't let him play the Sunday games so I am not sure how those went), we held our own and didn't get crushed.  The highlight of it all was a three run triple that Merrick hit.  He ended up being voted MVP of the game by the other team.  He was beyond excited.  It was a great end to a great baseball season.

 
Now I am ready for a little down time off the baseball diamond and a slower start to the summer.  We will see...

Bye-Bye Preschool

This was a big week for our C.C. girl.  After three (sometimes long) years, she is officially a preschool graduate.  Let me tell you, this girl is ready to move on to bigger and better things in the worst way.  Over the last few weeks she has been getting a bit of "senoritis" but she stuck it out until the end and I am really proud of her for that.  Now she is on to kindergarten and, after six years, I am facing my first year of preschool without one of my children in attendence.  I think I am probably more nervous about this change than she is but who knows once the big day actually arrives.  Right now I am just looking forward to spending the summer with all my kids and soaking up all these sweet memories before they are gone.

And to Carrigan I want to say, congratulations sweet girl.  I am so proud of your hard work these past three years.  Your future is brighter than you know.

Summer Sneak Peak

This was a super fun week.  Well, it should have been a super fun week, but part of our Friday plans got squashed because I came down with an infection, but I digress, and in any case it was still a fun week if not a super fun week.  Monday was Memorial Day and, aside from the true meaning of the day, it meant that the kids were off of school and Jeremy was home from work.

We started celebrating on Sunday at Nana and Papa's house with a paintball fight.  The kids had all gotten throwable (and washable) paintballs from the Easter Bunny and we had been waiting for the perfect chance to use them.  This seemed liked it!  In addition to just throwing the paintballs at each other (which the big kids were really into) we had a big piece of wood with targets for them to throw at (which the little kids were really into).  Everyone had a blast and everything washed out surprisingly well.  Carrgian had one spot on her wrist that was orange for a couple of days but I don't think any of the clothes got ruined.

On Monday we took advantage of the day off to get a few things done around the house but still made sure we had time to visit the pool for the first time this year, go miniature golfing and go to dinner.  I know Memorial Day is about so much more than just having a day off from school and work, but I feel like it was just what my family needed to recharge.

Tuesday it was back to the routine, but only for a few days because Merrick had Friday off school this week as well.  He and I were able to spend a little bit of time together in the morning while Carrigan was at school and then we all went to the bounce house with our Brown cousins.  We had planned to go swimming after that but, like I mentioned in the beginning, I started getting really sick  so we had to call things off.

I have to say though it still sounds like a pretty fun week all in all and just a preview of the fun ahead.  This week is Carrigan's last week of preschool and Merrick has one more week after that.  It is getting so close! 

Growing and Changing

Last week I hinted at a big change for Carrigan.  The big news is that she got GLASSES!  She is super excited about her new look and look so adorable.  Right now the correction she needs is very small so she is supposed to wear them for six months and then we will recheck and see if she needs to continue to wear them.  We will see, but if she inherited my vision then her life with glasses is just getting started.  It is a good thing she looks so darn cute in them.

This was a big week for Elsie too.  This week she hit the 3 month mark.  She has become such a chatter box, she loves to smile and has started to laugh but is a bit stingy with them.  She also loves to chew and will often chew on her thumb, her hand, her clothes, her binkie, or whatever else she can get into her mouth.  We are still trying to decide what color her eyes and her hair are going to be.  She may end up as a blonde or a ginger or somewhere in between.  She is such a people person and especially loves when Merrick and Carrigan pay attention to her.  I can't believe it has been three months already.  She is such a joy and perfectly fills a hole in our family we didn't even know we had.

Kindergarten Round-Up

This week we had Carrigan's kindergarten round-up.  We got to go down to the school where she got to meet the kindergarten teachers, spend some time in one of the classrooms, read a story, do a craft, and, best of all, take a ride on a school bus.  This is getting really real.  I swear that Carrigan was just Elsie's size and now inexplicably we are headed to kindergarten in just a few months.  When we arrived at the school she was a little nervous but got over it pretty quickly and marched off like a big, brave girl when it was time.

At the end of the afternoon we left with some sunflower seeds to plant and know that when they are grown it is time to go to kindergarten.  We also left with a whole lot of excitement and anticipation for the real thing.  She is so ready.  I am on the fence.

Carrigan also had something else life changing happen this week, but we will keep that under wraps for a week or two.  You will just have to check back.