The Season Ends

You didn't even know it had begun, right? Crazy. 

I like this picture of Lutece listening to her coach.

Spring soccer was an eventful season nonetheless. Stayc coached Lutece's team again, with many of the same girls from the fall. They had a good season.

They won some tough games; they lost some they shouldn't have. They were an erratic bunch of girls . . . but good kids :). Lutece just keeps getting better and better, and it's fun to watch her play.*

Sadly, Lutece was sick with the flu (the REAL flu) the same weekend as double header day. She insisted Stayc play her, but she was really sick. Not a good soccer day for her.

It also happened to be picture day. You can't tell from this picture, but she's normally one of the sillier, happier girls on the team. Oh, the flu.

Phoenix also played soccer this season . . . his first time in 3-4 years. Stayc acted as one of the assistant coaches, but missed nearly half of Phoenix's games since Lutece's games were often scheduled at the same time (twice across town on different fields).**

 It was, shall we say, an *interesting* season for Phoenix. There was a little of this . . .

But much more of this. He was a good sport about it, and didn't whine or fuss about practices and games. Still, when the season was over, he very clearly told me that he was NOT playing soccer again. "I won't see any of them again [the other players on his team], because I'm playing baseball next fall." I hear ya kid.

* Phoenix took all the pictures of Lutece's games. I'd hand him the camera and let him go for it. There were not a ton of action shots :).

** Which, of course, means that I missed nearly half of Lutece's games.

Sybil Ludington

Sybil Ludington is, as Lutece would put it, "the female Paul Revere." When the fifth-graders were expected to research a famous person from American history, Lutece chose Ms. Luddington because, according to her:

"Sybil Ludington played an important role in American history. I feel like women are overlooked, and that men are thought of as the only great American heroes. . . She was truly a woman that will inspire many kids and promote women and encourage them to be just as good as men."

From the mouths of babes.

Phoenix Revisits Thailand

Phoenix had to do a "country report" this year in school. He was torn between China, Thailand, and Mexico (all places we've been together), but in the end he chose Thailand (since two other kids in his class did China). The kids were give six different visual options for their projects, and Phoenix chose to do a diorama of a Thai rainforest. We had a fun time putting it together.

Every day for nearly two weeks he worked for about an hour on a different portion of the project. One day he painted the background forest on paper that we then glued into the diorama box (see top picture).

Another day he created Thai ruins (modeled on Sukhothai) with salt dough, which he then painted "ancient ruin brown" on a different day.

He spent a couple of days creating trees out of paper and then gluing them into the diorama. On a different day, he sifted through his and Lutece's collection of plastic animals to select those ones appropriate for a Thai forest.

He also had a to write a description of the scene, which took him another couple of days. In the end, it turned out fabulous.

When I asked him how his presentation to the class went, he told me that everyone else's descriptions were much shorter than his, so when it came to his turn, he just read the first paragraph and cut out everything else. Everything else? You didn't talk about the elephants or the king cobra or the Buddhist ruins? Nope.

 

However, in addition to the diorama, Phoenix decided early on that he ALSO wanted to do a poster, which turned out to be fun too and hopefully made up for his lack of diorama description (since most of that information was also on the poster). We looked through all of the pictures from our trip to Thailand, and Phoenix chose the ones he wanted to use on his poster. He grouped them into categories about food, animals and nature, religion and Buddhism, and government.

It's so much more fun to do a project on something you've actually experienced for yourself. And seriously, how awesome is it to show off a picture of yourself bathing an elephant in the Mae Ping River or visiting an ancient Buddhist ruin in Si Satchalanai. SO COOL!

p.s. Please do not waste your time telling me that you like Phoenix's hair long. He begged for a haircut for weeks (specifically, a crew cut). It may look cute long, but it is a lot of thick, unruly hair to manage, and he prefers it short.

Easter: Little Effort, Big Returns

I actually don't feel like I put a ton of effort into Easter this year. Despite its being in mid-April, it crept up on me without warning. Perhaps I was too engrossed in pulling off a last minute Spring Break vacation to Florida to plan for Easter.*

Nevertheless, I couldn't let the holiday pass with making some little handmade item to put in the kids' baskets (see here for past years). Since my sewing machine is currently broken, I came up with something that didn't require sewing, just some yarn and felt and a glue gun.

I made the pom-poms with some plastic pom-pom makers (did you even know they existed?) that I bought many years ago and have used a handful of times. These were so easy; I whipped them up in a couple of hours.

I almost just glued two little white store-bought pom-poms on for their tails, but then my dignity got the best of me. I just wrapped the yarn around one of my fingers to make the pom-poms small enough for tails. I was pleased with the end result.

Saturday night, I put the baskets together, which was mostly just candy this year, with a couple of nic-nacs tucked in for good measure.

I almost just left it at that, but then I remembered that Lutece had hinted ALL WEEK LONG that she loves it when we have a treasure hunt for the Easter baskets on Easter morning. Sigh. So instead of working on my Sunday School lesson, I made up a treasure hunt for the kids.

It started out like this.

This year, I tried to give them something with each clue. I figured that way they might take the time to appreciate each item instead of just noticing the candy.

I'm not sure if it worked out that way, but it was worth a try. They also got a year's subscription to Ranger Rick (something I had been planning to buy anyway), and a new book each (in the pictures below).

So maybe I did put a little effort into Easter after all.

 It IS still fun for me when all is said and done.

* When I say "Easter" here, I mean, of course, the worldly trimmings and trappings of the holiday. I hope I am never too busy to think about the religious significance of it, something for which I am daily grateful.

The Fluff of Easter

I don't know why I still care so much about Easter clothes for the kids.* No one else at Church seems to care much about it. Still and all, it became something of an obsession for me this year. Cute (modest) dresses for girls are not easy to come by, especially if your daughter has very definite opinions, which mine happens to have. I justified my obsession by telling myself that the kids needed some new Church clothes for the summer anyway.

Lutece picked out this very lovely dress (of which I approved), and I bought her the capri tights from another online store to match. You can't see her cute new GOLD Saltwater sandals in the picture (again, she chose the color). Then I dressed up Phoenix to (kind-of) match. So cute!

p.s. Can you believe he's taller than she is now? Oh, my. This is the first year he's passed her up. Not here. Or here.

* Maybe part of me knows that this tradition isn't going to last. Let's face it, the kids are not going to want to match for much longer. This may be my last year.

A Rainbow of Eggs

So, yes, I'm finally getting around to posting about Easter. As per tradition, we dyed eggs in a rainbow of colors. Nothing fancy. Just dye and crayons.

We didn't get around to dyeing the eggs until the Saturday before Easter. The kids were still in their soccer clothes from the morning's games.

 

I boiled up 20 eggs the day before, so they each had 10 to work with.

They enjoyed collaborating though.

 

I wonder when they'll get too old to care about dyeing Easter eggs? Hopefully not for a while.

This one may still be small, but she just keeps looking older and older to me.

Conference Bingo

The day after returning home from Spring Break (Sunday) we settled back into life at home by watching General Conference on BYU-TV. The kids made their own Conference Bingo boards. All I had to do was supply the M&Ms (which, luckily, I had on hand).

We were sad to miss the Saturday sessions due to driving, but happy to hear the Sunday sessions, on our own TV, no less.

p.s. I have tons of photos and all sorts of things to blog about, but I've been hindered in my normal routines by a very sick child. Lutece got the flu a week and a half ago and missed nearly an entire week of school. It was a nasty business, but I'm happy to report that life is finally getting back to normal.