Meeting Great Grama and Great Grampa

Last Saturday was the kids'  last day of soccer games.  Paige was not too into soccer this year, and isn't sad it's over.  She was happy to get her trophy though.  Haha.  I won't be surprised if she never plays soccer again, but we'll see.  

Cason is a different story though.  He pretty much lives for soccer.  Jess walked him over to where his team was meeting for trophies, and the rest of us waited at the car with Grampa.  I figured they were just passing out the trophies.  When Jess showed me the pictures he took later, I wished I'd gone.  His coach made a little ceremony out of it, gave a speech and shook each kid's hand as they got their trophy.  Cason looks so cute in the pictures, taking it all serious, like a little man.  Makes me want to cry.  Jess said he commented on the firm handshake his coach gave him.  :)

After that we drove out so Reed could meet his great grandparents on daddy's side.  Before that someone had always been sick, so we hadn't made it out.  He was so sweet meeting great grampa, held his finger and immediately gave him smiles.  

Great Grama was napping, and Reed was hungry by the time he met her, so she met the crying, unhappy version.  I ended up feeding him in a chair in her room, and he was happier after that.  

Then we headed back to Grammy and Grampy's, and he had his first hammock experience.

Artists, Soccer, and a Non-Moving Day

We've had a pretty nice week.  Paige is still happy to be back to school.  We get lots of cute work sent home each day.  While she's gone, the other two have done lots of coloring.

Neely drew a rocket ship "bwasting off".   

Great Grama even joined in.

Saturday Cason had his first soccer game.  He did such a good job, hustling just like at practice.  He looked kind of upset/angry half the time though.  He did fall and get trampled once, so I'm sure that was part of it, but later he told me it was because the other team scored.  Ha!  Apparently he's got a competitive side.

 

He scored at least three goals that I know of.

We had a couple of hours before Paige's game, so she and I had a Starbucks date.  She got a chocolate milk, and I got a decaf pumpkin spice latte, which happily tastes exactly like the regular version.

Then we went home to get ready for her game.  Right before it started the ref informed us she'd have to take her earrings out.  She was freaked out.  She's not supposed to leave them out for a full six months, and she was also scared because at the six week mark we changed her earrings and it was a traumatic experience.  The new ones had shorter posts and a few days later I saw blood on her ear.  She told me it had been hurting for a couple of days, but she hadn't wanted to tell me.  We realized the posts were too short for her ears, and one of the earrings looked almost embedded in the back of her ear, and it was all red and puffy.  :(  It was a hard day of convincing her to let us get them out, clean them, and finally later that night, after lots of tears and a bit of yelling, we got the old pair back in.  Her ears look good again, but she thinks changing her earrings will always be that awful.  So she says she would rather never play soccer again than take her earrings out.  :/

So, her career may be over.  

We were supposed to be in our house this weekend.  The renters asked for an extra day, which we said was okay, since we still had Monday(Labor Day) to move.  So Monday rolls around, and our storage unit is closed for the holiday.  :(  You use a keypad to get in, it's not like they have to be there, but they had it set so the gates wouldn't open.  Lame.  Or I thought so at first.  THEN I realized we could just use the day for painting.  I figured our helpers would bail since we couldn't even move, but instead Chris, Sarah, and Uncle Tim all helped paint!  Not JUST paint, but paint popcorn ceilings.  Sarah painted the baby's room grey for me too! 

It look so good, and the ceilings looks SO much better and cleaner now.  They are awesome, and so is Grama, who watched our kids all day long, with only a few popins from me to check on everyone. 

We're having some carpet put in hopefully on Friday too!  I can't wait.  

Also, 5 weeks left, I was 35 weeks on Sunday.

"Cars Can Drive"

Aivree had a birthday party a couple of weekends ago, which Neely and I missed because Neely was sick.  Paige and Cason did cute Mickey and Minnie cards for her.  I can't find a picture of Cason's.  :(

Here's the one Paige did though.

We had a couple of weeks left of summer to just hang out together.

Grama came home the weekend before school started and they were SO happy to see her.  Cason had been asking daily how much longer until he'd see her.  

 Paige started back to school last week.  Since we moved home we decided to put her back in school.  I really liked homeschooling her and I still think it's awesome for lots of kids.  She just is such a social butterfly and gets a lot of enjoyment out of being at school with classmates that I felt like she was less excited to learn, which is most important to me.  Plus, what makes me think I'M qualified to teach her?  Haha.  She was VERY excited.  Especially when she found out she'd have daily math homework this year.  I notice she still wants some time to play before DOING that homework each night though.  :)

The other two are having fun together.

 Paige and Cason both started soccer practice.  They're both excited, but Cason is SOOOO excited.  He gets dressed about 4 hours before practice each day, cleats and shin guards and all.  Around 8:30 am he starts asking me "how many minutes 'til soccer practice?"  He has never (so far) cared much about sports-he's more of a robots and superheroes kinda guy.  Apparently soccer is his thing though.  He works SOOOO hard at practice.  He has a coach who takes it fairly seriously apparently, because they do way more running than I've ever seen kids that age have to do.  Including having to run when they aren't paying attention to the coach.  Ha.  Cason is always the one who IS paying attention, and he runs as hard as he possibly can the whole time.  It's so cute, he hustles harder than anyone in history. 

 His team is "The Hound Dogs".  

Neely has been doing lots of drawing.  Lots of "fwiends".  She likes to tell me who each one is and how they feel.  There's usually a "happy" guy, someone who's sad because they lost a toy, and sometimes a guy who "doesn't fink(think)".  Ha. 

She asked me to do a boat for her one day so she could put "fwiends" in it.  I love her little waves beneath it.

 One day while drawing she was having some tea.  Cason asked her if she wanted to come play with him and she asked him to let her finish her "coffee" first.  Ha. 

I've missed some belly pics, so here's two Sundays ago-32 weeks...

...aaaand this last Sunday, 33 weeks.

It's at the point now where I'm getting the twin comments or the "any day now huh?" from strangers.  Ha.  People who know me well claim I'm not very big.  Don't worry family-I'm not sensitive about having a big baby belly.  Kinda like it in fact.  At least now, while I still have 2 or 3 shirts that SEMI fit.   

I had a doctors appointment yesterday.  Grama kept Cason, but Neely wanted to come, so she and I met Jess at the office.  She made a friend in the waiting room, a little girl a bit younger than her.  The girl didn't talk, but managed to befriend Neely anyway, by approaching her with a big smile and handing her a Smurf toy.  Neely accepted it, smiled at the girl, and they stared for a few seconds.  I guess Neely wanted to make conversation, because she did this cute hand gesture like she was going to say something important and told the girl "Cars can drive."  Haha.  We were cracking up.  Now we like to randomly say it to each other the same way she did. 

Since Friday...

Paige had piano, which she loved as always.  Then Faith stayed with us for a few hours, and they asked to sew. 

They made little ghosties.   Paige drew a little ghost and cut it out, and she and Faith used it as their template.  Then Caso drew the little guy, and used his own drawing as HIS template.  The one on the left is Faith's, the middle is Caso's, and the one on the right is Paige's. 

Cason wanted to try sewing, but this is how that turned out:

So I pretty much sewed his for him, but it IS based off of his drawing.  :)

Veronica dropped off little gifts for the kids, including some colorful, softer, looser hairties for Neely to wear on her arms.  She wore all of them at once of course, and looked like Rainbow Brite all day.

 I was working on the first of some Halloween creatures, a bat.

I had a ridiculously hard time making this pattern, and didn't want to give up, so the house was a wreck for 2 days, felt and fabric scraps, thread, and stuffing all over the place.  On Saturday Jess took the kids with him to pick up some soup at Grampa and Grama Trudi's house, that they thought we would like.  So I got a couple of hours of uninterrupted sewing in, and finally figured out my batty pattern. 

Then I heard a knock at the door, and opened it up to this:

I think those were Colton's when he was little, and they told them they could borrow them for a few days.  Neely was wearing a superhero cape, and kept yelling "LOOK A' ME MOM!  I SUPERMAN!"  Don't know why I didn't get a picture of her.

Paige also had a soccer game Saturday morning.  It was super hot, so we sat out in the shade and couldn't see the field very well.  It was the wrong day to not have a good seat, because our little superstar scored 6 goals!  Now there are three weeks before her next game, so maybe it'll be cooler the next time she plays.

A Smorgasbord of Topics

Paige and Lily played against each other on Saturday, which was cool, we could watch both girls without sitting through TWO games in the heat.  :) 


They were cute, during a break Lily walked up and said "Good job Paige!" 

The other kids played and ate snacks and paid no attention to the game.

I took several pictures of the babies playing in the dirt together, until I realized they were pretty much sitting on an anthill. 

Other than that and the birthday party we've mostly hung out at home.  

Caso's been cuddly.

He's also very into his daddy lately, he tells me he misses him MANY times during the day, and asks how long until we pick him up.

I got him new AWESOME Halloween pajamas.  They're covered in cute bats and little stars, and I LOVE them.  I made him pose for me in them last night.

Neely's been playing with Gia a lot.  Here she was putting heroes on her back and telling her "Wahoo!  Gawwop!(Gallop, I think, although Jess said it might be an attempt at Giddeup too, so who knows)

 She's had a sudden explosion of her vocabulary.  She already knew the words, but now she's putting them together more often and speaking in sentences.  We're having full on conversations now.  One of my new favorites has been when she tells me "I RIIIIIIIIGHT back, mom!", and then she walks out of the room waving goodbye to me.

Whenever we see a picture of someone she tells me "AAAWWW!  So cute mom."

The one she probably says most often is "I wike...(insert any object)".  In church I gave her a sucker, which she calls "hot", and she started saying (loudly) "Wow!  I WIKE HOT!"

In the car yesterday there was a fly buzzing around the backseat.  She was looking up and said "Where you going bug?"

She sings to herself, just humming or saying "Dooodooodoooooooo".  Jess was pushing her around on her little tricycle in the backyard and he said she was singing "Irideabike, ride a bike....".

Today is Silly Sock Day for Paige, at school.  We tried like 5 stores before we found socks that were long enough to show above her shoes AND were her size.

Yesterday her friend Bella gave her a Best Friends bracelet.  :)

 

Today I let the other two sleep in a little longer, so Jess was taking Paige to school this morning.  Caso and Neely woke up right before they left.  Neely was in a good mood until Paige wouldn't let her use her lunchbox.  So I got her the one Grama gave to HER, and she carried it around happily.

Paige said goodbye, and it was time to go.

 Neely walked her to the car, lunchbox still in hand, and was NOT pleased when she found out she wasn't going with them.

We came inside and she yelled at me about it for a bit. I was asking them what they wanted for breakfast and Caso told me "All I like is quinoa."  Haha.

Soccer Season Begins

Paige started soccer practice.  She was really excited because Brooke is on her team.  

Cason and Neely were really excited because her practice is at the park I never want to take them to because it's always so crowded, and very often with the rudest of children and parents.  So now they get to play there and I don't have a choice to take them to a different park.  Ha.

Later that evening we played soccer out front, me and Caso against Jess and Paige.  Cason was really into it for the first time, and was really good.  Poor guy missed out on playing this year by just a few weeks.  He had to be 4 by the beginning of this month.  Oh well, Paige says he'll be "the star" next year.  :)