Tennis x2 and Birthdays

Saturday was the start of tennis again.  Caden asked to switch to Saturdays because a couple of his friends were moving to Saturday practice.  At the last minute Paige asked if she could try tennis also.  Sure!  Unfortunately she is in the class before Caden which means we have to be at practice at 8:30 on a Saturday!  Boo!  But they enjoy it so I guess it is worth giving up our Saturday mornings.  Lol

After practice Paige went to Amy's while I took Caden to Brayden's 11th birthday party.  Tami needed help driving all those boys around so I said I would go.  They played and had pizza and cake at Tami's before we headed to Jumping World.  Once we got there we were left with a pile of shoes while the boys scattered and we didn't see them again for two hours.  Lol. They had a blast.  All I can say is next time I will not sit so close to a pile of 10 and 11 year old boys shoes.  Stinky!  We had a great time celebrating with Brayden.  Can't believe he is 11!

Start of a new year

It is crazy to think we are already a couple of weeks into 2016.  We have had a bit of a rocky start to the new year, especially Caden.  Since January 1st the poor guy has had a stomach bug, pink eye, and pulled a muscle in his neck of all things.  It wasn't all bad though.  While pink eye kept him out of school for two days he was not really feeling sick.  That meant we had the opportunity to spend some time together.  We went for breakfast one morning and the rest of the time he entertained himself by making a giant hammer with my broom and working on a project for GT.  I just love this kid.

Paige and I LOVE watching the Food Network channel.  The last few weeks we have been watching Chopped Junior and the Kids Baking Championship.  The other morning she asked me to give her 5 ingredients to make something with.  Lol.  She really is becoming the little chef.  She has mastered using the stove and loves making breakfast for us. 

Last weekend Caden also went to the area Robotics competition.  The teams that qualified from his school competed against all the other elementaries in our area.  During the first round Caden's teams robot malfunctioned and it wouldn't start.  The next round they were doing better but the spotter stopped their time too early.  They were able to restart but the robot started to have issues again.  The last round they did great but it was not enough to allow them to qualify to move on.  Before the compitition began they explained to us what the program was all about.  It was so interesting learning about the technology and what the kids were learning.  They also explained that this program was about more than just the robots.  It is to put the kids in real life situations.  You have to learn to work as a team, problem solve, and work under pressure.  I have seen Caden really grow in these areas. His team has not always agreed or gotten along.  They had to work thru their issues to get the job done.  I felt so bad for one of the boys during the competition.  He was so upset they were not doing well that he even started crying.  I was so proud of Caden.  I could see him trying to comfort and encourage his teammate.  Even though they didn't win it was a great experience and one of our really good friends on another team from our school got 2nd place.  Plus our school got overall high score.  The kids were so proud.  Caden has already asked to do the robotics camp this summer so he can be ready for next year! 

Santa's Wonderland

I was able to take a few days off this week and Jimmy is off as well. This meant we were able to spend some fun family time together.  We decided to drive to College Station and visit Sant's Wonderland.  It ended up being perfect winter weather and since it was after Christmas the crowds were not bad at all.  We didn't have to wait in line for anything.  

I splurged on tickets to do a horse and carriage ride to see the lights.  It was a fun experience.  The kids loved the horses and of course the lights were beautiful. 

They had all kinds of activities like bull riding, live singing, a petting zoo and roasting marshmallows.

 

It was a great time and we will defiantly do it again next year!

Christmas 2015

I didn't want to skip a post about Christmas this year but to be honest I didn't really get many pictures.  We had a candlelight service at church Christmas Eve that was beautiful.  I always love starting off the festivities focusing on the real meaning of Christmas.  Afterwards we went to Amy's for dinner with family.  The kids exchanged gifts and we had a wonderful dinner.  I found some gag gift boxes and it was hilarious to watch Brayden open his gift.  No one knew I did it and I could see the poor guy look at the box and politely push it to the side confused.  The box said it was an earwax candle kit.  Lol!  It was actually very real looking.  It had everyone fooled.  Ha!  I had to convince him to open it to get the real gift inside.  The kids out out cookies for Santa before going to bed.  They could not pick their favorite so needless to say he had a lot of cookies to eat!

The next morning we opened gifts as a family and later that day went to my mom and dads for dinner.  It was a wonderful day. I can't believe it is over already!  Usually I keep my decorations up until after New Years but today Jimmyand I were both off so the kids and Jimmy worked on the yard and I took the tree and decorations down.  It feels nice to have the house back in order.  Here at a few pics from Christmas including the kids parties at school.

Random acts of kindness

I wasn't sure what to title this post.  But I didn't want to skip this one!  Several months ago I started reading a book called Cleaning House : Putting an end to childhood entitlement.  Since then I have been trying to implement a few of the things in the book into our lives. That has included giving the kids more responsibilities at home and since it is December we have been working on small acts of kindness.  Nothing big just trying to make it a point to think of others first.  And to be honest I am usually the one who forgets we are working on these things first.  To say the last few months have been overwhelming is an understatement.  Long story short after a busy day I slammed a basket of laundry on the bed and told the kids I had to hurry and take a shower before we moved on to whatever else it was we needed to do that evening.  Can I just say I was brought to tears when I walked out after getting dressed to find Paige doing this. 

She had folded the entire basket while I was taking a shower.  I let her know how much her small act of kindness meant to me.  She was so proud of her work and I was so proud of her.  

Ugly sweater girls night

Tonight I went with my sister and cousins to The Melting Pot.  All I can say is yum!  It was ugly sweater night so we all dressed the part. the food was wonderful but the company was even better.  It was just what I needed.  Some time of laughter and support from people I love.  It was a great night.  

Robotics

Today was the last official day of robotics this year for Caden.  There are 11 teams of fourth and fifth graders and they are only taking 5 of them to area competition.  So today they had a mini competition to decide which teams would go.  To be honest Caden has tried to explain to me what they do there but I still did not fully understand it.  Today I got a close up look.  I have to admit it was really impressive to see the kids robots and know that they programmed them to do certain commands.  There were three rounds to the competition.  They have been working on programming the "cars" to move certain ways to manuvor different objects into certain markers on their board.  For each successful move they received points. After each round they were allowed to make adjustments to correct mistakes.  It was actually pretty intense.  Lol. It was fun to watch each team strategize and work together.  Caden and his team ended up 3rd overall.  That means he will be going to compete against other schools in our area and he couldn't be happier.  Way to go guys!