Braces, Basketball, and Birthdays

You know those projects that seem to grow and become more intimidating the longer you put them off?  You think to yourself, "I just have to get to that today!"  Then, the day ends with the promise, "I'll definitely start that in the morning."  The morning arrives with other, seemingly more important activities, and you tell yourself, "This is the kind of project that won't fit into a short 20 minute block of time.  I promise it will be the first thing I get to when I find I have an hour to focus on it."

Laundry is like this for me.  I don't like tackling the laundry unless I think I can finish it in one day.  Piles of clean clothes waiting to be folded bother me just as much as piles of dirty clothes.  I like the clothes clean, folded, and put away at the end of the day.  As you can imagine our family is big enough and busy enough that "one-day laundry" is rarely a reality.  I would even venture to say that it is never completely done.  Usually the day ends with still another load in the dryer or a pile of dirty clothes waiting its turn.  Still, I try to put it off with the hope that I will find the time to get to it--all at once or not at all.  Inevitably, the piles of dirty laundry become larger and more intimidating and I find it impossible to find the time to get it finished.

What does all this blabber have to do with braces, basketball, and birthdays?  Absolutely nothing--except this:  keeping the blog up to date has become like laundry to me.  There is always a funny story or cute picture to share, but I am finding less and less time to upload pictures and write narratives.  I don't want the stories or pictures to go unshared, so I make a note of them and tell myself, "tomorrow."  Like laundry, the pile grows until it is too overwhelming and there is no possible way to to find the time to write or upload it all.  Unfortunately, my faithful readers (all three of them) suffer from my lack of time.  However, like the laundry, getting to some is better than none at all.  Let's see how much I can get to today.

A few days after the new year, Emily got braces.  She looks really cute, but she didn't want me taking her picture, so you get to see this . . .

OK, that part of the post was easy . . . .on to basketball.  In my last post, I promised some pictures.  I can't say I didn't try to get a few good shots.  I took the camera to every game (and we had 3-6 games a week for a while there).  But, unfortunately, getting good pictures while making sure the two little ones didn't run onto the court or fall down the bleacher stairs was nearly impossible.

Ricky's rec team has been a waste of time for Rick's coaching abilities.  Ricky learns a ton more playing with Makayla's team every Monday and Saturday.  Nevertheless, we have gone each Saturday and will continue to go for a few more.  In the following picture, Ricky is Number 8.  He's calling to his friend, Luke, for a pass.  I wonder if the guy sitting in front of me knows that his hair is thinning in the back.  Sorry guy, I didn't realize you were in the picture, and I didn't mean to get such a bad shot of your hair (or the lack thereof).

Rick has had a great experience coaching Makayla's team with his friend, Eric.  The girls are good, hard workers and they are learning fast.  They got third place in their most recent tournament, and they are getting better each game.

Emily's junior high team also had cause for celebration.  They had an undefeated season.  Most games, they completely swept the other team off the court with scores like 40 to 4.  I think their closest game was in Cedar Rapids when they won by 10 points.  Emily chose to be Number 33.  She is in the front on the right.

 

Sean and Andrew are pretty good through all the games and practices.  Once, at Makayla's practice, Sean climbed into a locked ball bin and couldn't get out.  I don't think I uploaded the right picture from my phone because it's kind of small, but you get the idea.

That's basketball.  The kids will still have games into March and some of April, so I will try to get some better pictures.

OK, now for birthdays.  February is so busy for us!  Outside of the fact that it is basketball season, we celebrate 3 birthdays in our family.  With Valentine's Day right in there, that's a lot of celebrating!!  The week of Makayla's and Sean's birthdays was especially busy, but we managed to find a night to have a combined family party.  Part of the fun of the party was opening Grandma Mergenthaler's Valentine's Day package which arrived just in time.  Makayla's biggest present was a two-person blow up sled.  It is awesome!!  But guess what?  It is now three past her birthday, and we haven't been able to try it out.  Warm temperatures means no snow.  No snow means no sledding.  It has been very weird--especially after our first two winters here.

One thing that is tricky about combining birthdays is catering to each child's interests.  Since Makayla and Sean are 8 years apart and a girl and a boy, their interests are very different.  Luckily, Sean isn't too particular.  He was just as happy as could be about anything, really.  He sang "Happy birthday to Sean," all day.  I think his favorite part of the party was the cake and blowing out the candles.

Sean loved eating the cake.  On the night of the party, we only ate Sean's cake and saved Makayla's for the next day.  Sean, knew Makayla's cake was sitting on the counter.  Shame on me for not putting it up higher because guess what happened while the big kids were at school?  I was in the next room when I heard Sean singing, "Happy birthday to Sean!  Happy birthday to Sean!"  I came around the corner to find our little 2-year old with his face in the cake.

When I told Makayla the story, and showed her the pictures, she wasn't too upset.

This year, Makayla also got to have a party with friends.  We took them to the ice skating rink.  She invited 7 friends as well as our new neighbors, who are just about the closest thing we have to family here.  This is Makayla and her friend Kimball.

I know these are cheesy pictures, but I just want you to see that we really did have a good time.  Planning parties is stressful for me, but if I have to do it again, this is the way to go.

Reyes' birthday is on Valentine's Day.  Once again, we were faced with a very busy week, so we decided to plan a surprise party for him on Sunday.  We invited the Henstroms again (see, they are like family), as well as his mom and a couple of other friends.  He would have been surprised too if Emily hadn't given him a big clue about the party at church earlier that day.  Oh, well.  It was fun.  The pictures are bad quality from my phone.  My camera battery was dead from all my attempts at getting some good video at basketball games.

I guess that's about it for tonight.  Unfortunately, I won't be able to get to Valentine's Day or Sean's recent obsession with stickers.  I have some cute pictures from Andrew's preschool and some funny videos of Andrew and Sean doing Just Dance 3, but there's only so much laundry a girl can do in one day.  In the meantime, have a good laugh at this sign that the kids made and posted on the garage door . . .