Exciting Opportunity

Addison recently received an exciting offer, which she gladly jumped on. She'll be a regular blogger over at Hearts of Hockey.

She is beyond excited and her first post is up here. Go check it out. I'm sure she'd love it!

When girls get bored...

You never know what you might find when girls, who are super fans of hockey, get bored. Dax and I came home the other night to find these all around the house.

That was on the front of the dishwasher.

This was at the light switch.

In the spice cabinet.

On the shower door,

And many other places in the house. 

These kids are too funny and we never know what they're going to come up next. Being their parents is such a blessing!

The days of our lives

Schedules continue to be busy. Obviously very busy since it takes so long for me to update this blog. Even as I type this, I am sitting in the bleachers waiting for a soccer game to start. Gotta grab the chances when I have them!!

Kirsten was in an art competition last weekend. She scored four points out of four possible. She was very excited about it and we're quite proud of her. She was not selected to advance to State, but she did great, especially for a first time.

Abigail continues with hockey classes. As she advances it gets more difficult. At the moment she and Kirsten are both sick so Abigail had to miss practice last weekend. 

Wyatt is struggling to decide whether to play goalie or not. I'm not sure if he really wants to be goalie or if he just knows he looks cool in the gear! 

Addison is on the bench for soccer right now.

We thought it was a very minor injury, but the trainer told her today that she needs to see the doctor. He says it shouldn't still be swollen at this point.

Off to a busy start.........

Our year is off to a busy start.....as we've come to expect.


This year we let the kids toast with actual champagne.

It was NOT a hit. lol

(Addison may have enjoyed it a little too much)

The kids went back to school and back to new schedules. Classes that they were signed up for weren't available anymore, changes for sports, and whatever else came along. It seems that circumstances are always forcing them to learn to deal with new (sometimes crazy) situations. But that's not always a bad thing.

Addison is playing soccer on the high school team so we've been seeing a lot of this....

They played in a tournament and finished in second place.

 

Abigail has been working on playing hockey. It's a long road to get there, but she's been dedicated.

She's about 5'3" and weighs about 80 pounds. I don't know if she's going to scare anyone out on the ice, but we'll see. Wyatt has also decided to give hockey another try, but he's thinking goalie this time. We'll see where that goes.

Kirsten is staying busy with all of her activities. She has Show Choir practice a couple of days each week and Business Professionals of America meetings once a week.

Last week Abigail and Addison both entered items in the County Fair. Abigail entered a photograph (she won a white ribbon) and a painting (blue ribbon). Addison entered some bar cookies and regular cookies and got blue ribbons with both. I think they were pleased with how they did.

Today I've been busy filling out paperwork so that they can start Early Start College classes in the fall. WHAT?! This all happens so much more quickly than you can even imagine.

Sweet 16

The kids turned 16!! How in the world did that happen? Times goes by so fast, but it's been a blast this far. We're so fortunate!

The day started with balloons. Lots and lots of balloons.

Before:

During:

And after:

Now that was a lot of balloons! Dax and I used little hand held pumps to blow them all up, but our fingers were sore for days afterwards from tieing all those knots.

We let the kids skip school that day so we could spend it having fun. We took them to do a little shopping, then to a favorite Chinese food buffet.

Then we followed that up with a hockey game to see the Texas Stars play. It was great. Our seats were close to where the players came out of the locker rooms so the kids got to give them high fives. They loved it!!

It was teddy bear day, so after the first goal by the home team everyone throws stuffed animals out into the ice. They are gathered up to be donated to charities for children. They collected over 3,000 animals!! Awesome!

Then they had the kids names on the jumbo-tron announcing their birthday. They thought that was pretty cool too.

All in all it was a great day.

More summer fun

The girls are still happy with their new glasses, but because of soccer (and already being hit in the face with the ball) I encouraged Addison to get contacts. She had her appointment and fitting last week and is still working on getting comfortable with putting them in and taking them out. She may decide that it's more trouble than it's worth. They've only given her a temporary set because they didn't have her prescription in stock.

We have reaped the benefits of the bounty of a friend's garden. He asked Dax if we would like some peaches, and then showed up with this!

That's a lot of peaches!! And he also brought us some giant tomatoes.

Kirsten spent the week in Houston visiting her grandparents. Everyone else had things going on, so she went by herself to play only child for the week. While she was gone, we volunteered the others to help with a search and rescue kind of camp at the college. They were volunteering to be victims. On the second day, a little while after Dax dropped them off, Addison sent me this picture and told me that she had twisted her ankle on the steps on the way into the building.

Scared me to death!!

It wasn't true. They had a professional costume makeup artist there and it was part of her trauma for the camp. Little Turkey!! After she twisted her ankle which caused her to injure her knee and spent most of the school year in physical therapy that scared me even more than it would have on it's own.

Over the weekend Addison had a pageant in Dallas. We headed out early Friday morning. Along the way I needed to stop and get gas and find some cold medicine. I pulled into a gas station in a small town right off the interstate. This was next door to the gas station.

Maybe they needed gas too? Or perhaps the Elvis impersonator that was performing at the gas station arrived in that. It was quite the interesting stop, that's for sure!

Abigail has become a huge fan of the Dallas Stars hockey team and took advantage of the trip up there. She has a friend that she met online that lives in Dallas so the two arranged to meet and take a tour of the American Airlines Center. It was a great tour. They took us all around the building, into the suites, into some of the clubs, and into the locker rooms. This thrilled the fans to no end.

After we left there, we had lunch with her friend (and her family) and then headed on to Denton where Addison's pageant was.

She didn't place in this pageant, but we all had a good time anyway. We headed home on Saturday night and got home pretty late. Dax was concerned about us getting home safely because he had had a terrible day. He tried to cut the grass (I use that term loosely) but the lawnmower broke down. Unfortunately it didn't break down until after it threw a huge rock through our bedroom window. Still waiting for the estimate to get that fixed.

Today we got our last child into braces. Don't think she'll be eating hamburgers and hot dogs for the 4th!

 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

When the cat's away.....

Tax season is over, but we're so busy that there's little time to relax. But, I knew I HAD to post something new when even my own children started telling me it had been too long since I had updated the blog.

Between late nights at the office and soccer practice which runs until late in the evenings, the 'cats' have been away quite a lot lately, which leaves the mice plenty of time to play.

This is what they were doing when I got home the other night.....

I just never know what I'll find when I get home. That's why we're so thankful that they're good kids!!

Hockey Mom

I guess it's official.


I'm a hockey mom now.


Do you think that means I look like a pit bull with lipstick?


Anyway, Wyatt played in his first actual hockey game on Sunday.


It's just a house summer league meant for fun and learning. His team lost 16 - 11.

He's number 5 in the picture.


A lot of those boys are much better than him but he's working hard at getting better.


It was fun watching him play and Addison was yelling and cheering for him up in the stands (even if there were only about 15 people up there--and we accounted for 5 of them.)

Hounded by the Paparazzi

Evidently the paparazzi followed Wyatt to his hockey practice.

It's been reported that someone heard him say "Mom!!! Quit!" (Whatever that means.)

He really enjoys doing this. (The hockey, I mean. Not the pictures.)

Gear Up

Someone has been shopping and getting all geared up.

He had his first learn to play practice yesterday and absolutely LOVED it.

I'm not sure that once a week is going to be enough for him though.

Saturday silly-ness

We went to another hockey game last night.


But this time Dax's parents and little sister came to the game too.



Poppey has been complaining about being out  in the cold so for Christmas we gave him a scarf and some gloves. He later said something about his ears being cold when he rides his bike.


It didn't go unnoticed..........



Since we all LOVE 'Christmas Vacation' and usually watch it together as a family I ran into my sewing room before we were to meet up and made him his very own Cousin Eddie Cap!

Dax's mother was horrified when he snuck it on once we were inside. (She's leaning away from him in the picture.)

See, ear flaps and all.


We had a really good time. Even if our team lost.



The only really scary thing is that now Abigail is wanting to play hockey.



I'm really not sure how intimidating all 56 pounds of her will be out on the ice.



We're still trying to talk her into something else, but the whole mind control thing isn't really working.

Crazy Busy

We've been so busy. I only wish I could say that when this week is over and the kids are out of school that it will get better, but it really won't.


Oh well, as the saying goes......keep calm and carry on.


On Sunday Addison's soccer team had their end-of-season party. (There's much drama on that front, but I'm trying to just stay out of it.) The girls had decided that they wanted to go ice skating. I'm glad they had the party when they did, because it happened to be at the same rink and right before Wyatt's skating class. Woohoo! I'm all for things coming together like that.


Addison had a great time even though she wound up with a big bruise on her knee from someone else knocking her down. Wyatt.....not so much.

It's hard to see in this picture (he wouldn't let me get a good one) but he fell and banged the side of his face up pretty good. There was some missing skin (I'm assuming it stuck to the ice) and some bruising. He was working on sliding to a side-ways stop and lost his balance. And this was before his class even started, he was skating earlier to practice.


On Monday night Addison, Abigail, and  Wyatt had their first band concert. The band did a really good job. I know they were nervous, but it all worked out. The band is pretty big and none of my kids were in a spot where we could see them so I didn't get any pictures. Oh, well.


Today they start taking their mid-term exams. This is a first for them so I guess we'll see how it goes. Just this morning they were complaining that there aren't Christmas parties anymore, just finals. Welcome to growing up!

Catching up again.....

Wow!! Time flies by, doesn't it?


I can't believe a whole nother week went by without getting anything posted. I'll try to catch things up now.



On the 6th, we went to another hockey game.


Now, I'm not saying we had bad seats, but look how tiny those players look from where we are.

Just kidding.


During one of the breaks they had these little kids (I think they're 4 & 5 year olds) come out and play an exhibition game. It was so cute!!!


Anyway, we had a good time.

Even though our team lost.


The week was busy as usual. School and soccer practices take up a lot of time.


This past Saturday, Addison had her final soccer game for the season. Her team was on the line for the play-offs. A win on Saturday meant they advanced and a loss put them out of the play-offs. Unfortunately they lost. All of the girls were really upset about it. We reminded them that last season they only won one game and this season they almost made the play-offs. That's huge improvement.


They really didn't care about that at all. lol


Then on Sunday, the girls and I volunteered at the village thrift store. The proceeds from the thrift store go to seven different local charities. We spent several hours cleaning and sorting at the store. It was good for them to go do.


Addison was thrilled when we first started and wanted to go do it every weekend. By the time we were done, though, some of the excitement had worn off.


Okay, all of the excitement had worn off. She just wanted to go home and eat. But they worked hard anyway.

Weekend Update

I have bad news, and I have good news....

That bad news first....

I can't seem to get Kirsten's recorder concert uploaded. (Sorry)

And now the good news....

I can't seem to get the recorder concert uploaded.

Awww, come on.

You know you at least grinned.

We did lots of this over the weekend.

Saturday, Addison played in San Marcos. (They lost 4-0)



After her game we picked Dad up at the office. He had gotten tickets to take the kids to watch some of this.

They loved it!!!

Although I'm a little worried now.

My sweet little girls just wanted to see them fight.

They wanted blood, people!!

Addison had to get a shirt with the goalies name on the back. As soon as we got home she put it on a hanger and hung it on the wall by her bed. (If you know Addison at all, you know what a stretch that is for her, too!)

She says that she's now his biggest fan.

Sunday, she had another soccer game. It was on the south east side of San Antonio. They tied 2-2.

I feel like I spent most of the weekend in the car.

After her game we were all starving so we stopped at I-HOP to eat.

It must have been brand new because there was almost nobody there.

Yes, I'm serious!!!

I know that's hard to believe, so I took a picture as proof.

See, no line!

It was like a lunch time miracle.

But, all in all, it was a great weekend.

I just wish someone had come and cleaned the house while we were out running around. HA!