The Young and the Restless

Valentine's day and etc.

Sheesh, this post is long over due. With so many little things filling our days, it's just one of those posts where I spew out a bunch of random pictures while paying homage to "remembering the little things". We'll start with Valentine's day. I'm not a huge fan of the shoe box creations, so gratefully Kylie and Jayden were excited to jump in and help. 

Unfortunately Jayden wasn't with us to celebrate Valentine's Day, but he was busy having fun at the 6th grade science camp. Where he showed off his hidden talent of holding his hands behind his back and flipping them over his head. He is now a science camp legend. He also earned $5 for going to sleep first.

On Valentine's Day we had the traditional crepe breakfast, I was even up with Kylie at 5:45 am so that she didn't miss out on it. She looks forward to that pink hot chocolate all year long. I had fun going in to help out with Maddox and Ryder's class parties later that day. It was as chaotic as you can imagine having 25 five year olds hopped up on sugar, but it was fun.

Fondue dinner that night, not necessarily Jason's favorite, but the kids love it. And Kylie has made it her mission to ruin every picture I try to take of her. Stinker.

And that was Valentine's Day. As for the rest of the month...Ryder has found Jayden's old roller blades. They're about 3 sizes too big but he has mastered them and loves skating all over the place and showing off to his friends.

He also learned to tie his shoes. Apparently his friend at school taught him. He came home one day and just started tying everything in sight, it was pretty cute. 

The boys had the boosterthon fun run. Ryder was hesitant to wear his shirt to school, he thought he looked like the cheerleaders. The 6th graders had a color run and Jayden was blowing out blue snot for a week, but he had fun.

So Jason has become a runner. I always thought it would be cute to be a running couple and now my dream has come true. Except that I've been running for years and after a month he's already faster than me.

Maddox has been so excited about the pinewood derby. Jason takes this seriously too, ordering $30 weights on Amazon and the whole nine yards. They had high hopes but their dreams were shattered when he placed like 27th. But his car looked cool and they had fun making it together.

I was sad that I couldn't be there to cheer him on, but Ryder had his heart set on going to the STEM night at school. Pipe cleaner towers and cotton candy, this boy was in heaven.

We got hit with a nasty stomach flu. It started with Maddox, and after the second day of staying home he was feeling much better and insisted that we watch hours of how-to origami videos on youtube. The kitchen table was filled with 27 different versions of the paper crane. He also wanted to help make the after school snack, of course every thing he does turns into quite the production (which is one of the many things I love about him). A plate of cookies on the bar just wouldn't do, instead they needed a shrine set up to greet them as they walked in the front door.

But my favorite part of all was his note. Despite allegedly using gloves while man handling the cookies, we all were wiped out one by one by the nasty virus. Except for Jason who was snowboarding in Idaho all weekend. Lucky son of a gun. After Maddox, I was up all night with Ryder who was throwing up, then got a text early in the morning from Jayden's scout master who said that Jayden had been throwing up all night at their camp out. And then a few hours later it hit me. I started feeling it standing in line stocking up on Gatorade and saltine's, then it hit with full fury when I was sitting in the car waiting to pick Kylie up from dance. Poor Circle K next door got the brunt of it as I did the Hershey squirt shuffle in my house slippers all the way to the bathroom. It was bad. Kylie was so worried about getting sick because she had her competition coming up and couldn't miss any practices. Lucky for her she got sick Sunday morning (which she said she prayed would happen. She's convinced she says the most holy prayers, that every prayer she says gets answered, whether it's that the missing videos on the go pro will show up or that she'll roll a 6 in Aggravation. That girl is something else. Ha!). I got the last of the toilets and door handles sanitized right as Jason waltzed in the door, avoiding the plague and quite possibly the worst weekend in the history of forever. And now you know.

We missed out on bowling on Martin Luther day so we promised the boys we would come back on Presidents day, because $40 for 90 minutes of bowling for 6, 2 pizzas and unlimited soda is a deal too good to miss. Ryder beat us all the first game and Maddox was threatening to win the second one, but Jason's competitive nature wouldn't allow him the glory. I gave him a hard time about that one, but I hope he feels good about beating his 8 year old son and robbing him of the moment he had spent the last 90 minutes dreaming of. Haha! Third refills on the soda was a good consolation prize.

We had a cute Wizard of Oz themed New Beginnings night for YW. The skit was darling and Kylie made for a cute flying monkey. I love working with these amazing girls and leaders.

I was helping out at the school and popped in to say hi to Ryder at recess. He was surrounded by a whole entourage of girls. That kid has so much swagger, he struts around like he owns the school. It's pretty comical.

Being ever the gentleman, he offered to tie her shoe. Or he just wanted to show off his new found tying skills. Either way, it's easy to see why the girls love him. That, and his irresistible freckled face smile.

He is so cute with Claire too, I love that they get to grow up living close to cousins, I always wanted that when I was young.

For the 6th grade dodge ball tournament Jayden and his friends formed the "paralyzed pigeons" team, complete with matching t-shirts.  They were close in the finals but couldn't pull through, but still had fun playing and looked good doing it.

12 year old boys are so awkward and endearing.

I feel like I gave birth to these pointe shoes. Kylie has worked so hard and fulfilled her dream of getting on pointe. I am going to do a proper photo shoot one of these days, but I'm too scared for her to put them on. When we went in for the scheduled fitting they told me to bring paper to take notes, I kind of chuckled but spent the entire HOUR scribbling down instructions. Everything from the proper way to put them on to not eating salt and vinegar chips before using them because her feet will swell. Fun fact, I spent $129 and the life expectancy of pointe shoes is 24 DANCE HOURS! I feel inclined to swaddle them and sing them lullabies each night. She is not allowed on them outside of dance but I did sneak a quick picture at the fitting and that will have to suffice for now, but I'm dying for a proper shoot because this really is such a big deal and I'm so proud of her for working hard to get to this point. I mean pointe. Ha.

The GoPro will go down in history of the first gift I've ever gotten Jason that he hasn't returned or left collecting dust on the top shelf. It's been fun using it on his (many) snowboarding trips, but the boys also had fun testing it out on the tramp one day. And that ties up all the odds and ends that have been going down around here. I can't believe we're heading into the last quarter of school until summer!