Soccer Clinic

Back in September, D and T did a soccer clinic at our YMCA.  T loved it, Drake hated it, and Eli was ticked he couldn't do it.  Turns out, he was better than his brother and sister put together.  Here are some pics from the first session.

Excuse my attire.  I'd just run an 8k that morning.  It was my last!

 Drake was so shy and wanted me to do the entire thing with him.

 First they learned to be goalies and catch the ball.

 Nothing shy about this one.

 The "coaches" were all super nice and patient.

 Learning to kick.

 Moving to the next station.

 And the happiest moment of the day:  When I told him he could stop playing and just go see his grandparents and aunts!

 He just wanted to play soccer with grandpa!

We will wait until next fall before we try that again.  All three kiddos got soccer balls for Christmas, so we can play around at home.

Birthday Party Fun!

Okay, so back over a month ago was Drake's party! Here are some pictures, although in reverse order.

After the party, all the cousins:

What's going through Tessa's head: "Crap, what have I gotten myself into! These people are crazy with a capital C!".
Opening presents at the party
Loving the ice-cream
Mommy and Daddy helped Drake blow out the candles. Turns out he didn't need us. (Sad face)
Obviously, she wanted more juice.

Oma and Opa were here from Buffalo!

Sweet lil' Baylor!
Tessa went down this slide no less than 20 times.
Our friends observing how times have changed;-)
Cheese pit! Drake was loving having his cousin to play with!
Oh, I heart this little face. My sweet baby.


And we marched!
And ran under the parachute...
And had an all around great time!

Birthday Celebrations

Two days, two birthdays. We started off Thursday morning with Drake's celebration! He was totally pumped and knew it was his special day. Remember, this is the kid who argued with me at Christmas, yelling it was HIS birthday, not Jesus! (Yes, we did some remediation of the Christmas story after that.) In any case, we did it up big!

His door had streamers across the bottom for him to break thru.

He had a balloon, and presents waiting at his seat for breakfast. And, his chair decorated!He was confused by the crepe paper, and wanted me to help bust through it.
The dogs were ready to bust in!
He did it!
His big present was a train set from Ikea, and it was a huge hit.

And later that night, time for cake and ice cream.

Blowing out candles!

And now for Friday...

Birthday Girl!!! She had no clue what all the fuss was about:-) Of course, she'd only been awake about 3 minutes.

Later that night, we had her own little celebration with cake and candles, and a joyous singing (shouting by Drake) of "Happy Birthday to You".