All for a good cause...

We participated in a fundraiser at Mike's school, and here's what the girls chose....

Now next time I feel myself losing patience with the kids I need to take a deep breath, pull up these photos, and have a good laugh!  What trick does it for you?

Go Green Lightning Bolts!

So the Green Lightning Bolts had their first game yesterday. The girls wanted to be the Fire Dragons, but when there are two girls and eight boys on the team, it's hard to outnumber the boy vote. Regardless, the team played tough, and we won everyone had fun.

Unfortunately my camera kept getting stuck as I was downloading the photos and video, so I had to delete some to get it to work. However, I think you can get the idea of how much fun they were having, and how entertaining the game was. Since there are ten kids on the team, the coaches put in a  fresh five players every five minutes, for a 40 minute game. The girls were plenty sweaty after running up and down the court each for 20 minutes, but they never let it slow them down during the game.

Jaelyn's good buddy Gage is on the team too.

Kaia....

Jaelyn....

Team Lightning Bolts!

First Place Finish...

Josh has had six matches in the last 48 hours, and won them all! Thursday night he pinned his opponent when the team faced of with 7th ranked Everett HS. Last night he won both his matches at a double duel at Hazen HS, where one of Mike's old wrestlers is the head coach. The evening was a special fundraiser for pancreatic cancer. Today he topped it off with a first place finish at the Mercer Island HS tournament. Way to go Josh! Your hard work is paying off.

Sorry for the poor quality, but Mike text me this photo.

I was not at the tournament, as the girls had their first basketball game today. I was hoping to post some video tonight, but I am having some difficulty getting it to work. Will write about that excitement when I get things working.

Happy Birthday Mom, Happy Birthday Insulin!

Two great things happened today in history; my mother was born (I won't divulge the year), and on this day 90 years ago, the first human received an experimental extract called insulin. Without either, I would not be here today! Happy birthday to both:-)

B and B...

That's Birthday party and basketball! Sunday Jaelyn finally got to celebrate her birthday with friends at the swimming pool, and had a blast. It wasn't too crowded, and the kids are at the age where we don't have to be in the pool with them anymore:) 

The other highlight of the week so far was the girls first basketball practice. It is supposed to be co-ed, but the girls are the only two females out of eight on the team, but I think they will hold their own just fine. Three of the kids played last year, but the girls didn't show their inexperience at practice. This Saturday will be their first game, after just one practice, so should be quite entertaining!

Happy New 8th Birthday...

So many reasons to celebrate today, but the first that comes to mind is our sweet Jaelyn's birthday! The girls actually went to their first birthday slumber party last night, New Year's Eve, for a friend whose birthday is also today. When I picked them up shortly before church, they looked like robotic-like zombies stuffing donuts into their mouth. I can't believe they actually made the whole day without napping or falling apart! And we didn't have any difficulty putting them down early, to start back into the school routine tomorrow. Well that is, everyone except me:) I whined two weeks ago as everyone was out of school days before me, but now that we are on the back end of vacation, I'm happy to have a day of rest to myself. Did I say rest? What I really meant was a day to catch up on all the little things I have neglected and procrastinated on completing earlier!

But I digress; back to Jaelyn's birthday....after I picked them up from their robotic state, Jaelyn was shaken back to reality by opening one gift before church. Little did she know that it contained two things that she would use at church today (which by the way, was the most empty I had ever seen it today. Let's not do New Year's on a Sunday again for awhile!). It was a shoo-in that she would love the new dress, since it had a doggy on the back. And she had asked for a new Bible that she could read, but wasn't too babyish, so she was thrilled by that too.

Look how tired she looks!

But not 15 minutes later, all spoofed up and ready to head to church!

Thank goodness for the beautiful weather today, so my loud children could go outside to play fight. Poor Kellen was trapped inside his car, as the girls had their swords drawn (Josh's Christmas present to his sisters) as he pulled up, waiting to pounce the moment he opened the car door. This photo is blurry, but that's because none of them would stand still long enough during the battle. This one has all four in one photo, with Jaelyn's shot ready to penetrate Josh. When it's your birthday, it doesn't matter if someone claims to be impervious to nerf guns, so I think the girls won!

After everyone settled down, we played Uno, ate Jaelyn's birthday choice of pasta dinner, followed by some delicious cake, to top off a wonderful day of celebrating. Kaia requested to say the prayer at dinner tonight, and I couldn't help but grin as she said "Thank you God for choosing Mom and Dad to be Jaelyn and my parents." It doesn't get much better than that!

Next weekend will be the birthday party, when life after the holidays slows down just a bit....

Seven Years...

While in Portland we celebrated seven years since bringing Kaia into our family. Since we are usually traveling this time of year, part of the annual celebration usually has us eating at Essence of China, where Kaia was honing her chopstick skills this time.

Notice two new lost teeth in the past week!

Was a lot of work to get those last noodles picked up!

This year we may have inadvertently started a new tradition. Following dinner, Josh talked me into taking him to Voodoo Doughnuts, which is well known around the country, and we have seen on the Travel Channel's "No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain."  Once there we selected unique donuts to take back to the celebration, such as the Bacon Maple Bar, No Name (doughnut with chocolate frosting, rice krispies and peanut butter), and Miami Vice Berry, to name a few. Guess which one of those the girls ate???  I have a feeling this wasn't our last trip to Voodoo!