Henry's Basketball Skills

Thursday was Henry's last day of basketball. He loved every minute of it except for the one day he threw a big fit about going (but was fine once we got there, go figure).

And a big shout-out to his coach, Brother Collett. He wore orange every game so he matched his team and always did all the warm-ups with them.

He was so patient with 10 first-grade boys.

This is his wife Amberly, in the back with some of their 5 kids. Sometimes she would fill in for Bro. Collett and she did a great job too even though I don't think sports are really her thing. I am grateful for people who volunteer their time to wrangle and teach my kids.

Henry said his favorite things about basketball was running the 2 laps around the gym at the beginning and stealing the ball.

He loved bringing the ball down the court (I don't know what that position is called. John Stockton's job). I don't think I ever saw him shoot it during their practice games. He loved getting in players' faces and stealing it though.

 He's having fun. He would get so pumped, almost hyper, every time.

  He made it! This was during drills.

Here's his awesome pass.

It was only an hour long each time but I had a really hard time paying attention. My mind just cannot follow sports. I wish they would have spent more time practicing drills, especially dribbling. They let them play a game for too long the last few sessions. But Henry loved it. He's definitely a scrappy player. 

All the rest

This little lady. I'm beginning to wonder if she'll clean anything without having to sit in time-out first.

The kids got some surprise Valentines in the mail from their aunt Lisa. (I didn't get the mail for a few days so they were late getting them. Oops. I'd like to think that made them more special.)

Sunday the 18th was my nephew Tyler's farewell (in the suit). I really don't know how I feel about these kids growing up but I do love seeing cousins become true friends. (I need to photoshop Jaana in since she's in DC for the semester).

My niece Kyra graduates this spring. She's pretty much Erica's favorite (especially when Jaana is across the country. Sorry Jaana).

 Isaac is coincidentally sitting right below his picture when he was like 5. How do these kids get so big? I love seeing the adults they've grown into. Henry was really sad about Tyler leaving for the UK this week so he made him a bookmark to take with him. I forgot to take a picture of the bookmark but he drew a picture of himself and James on one side and Erica and Sarah on the other side.

 There is finally snow in our backyard but for some reason it's been undisturbed for like 3 days now. I thought the shadow of the tree looked super creepy and cool.

James continues to love his blanket. He insists on having it in his highchair most of the time. If I can give him something to eat that he likes enough, he'll tolerate me tossing the blanket into the other room. He's getting attached to this jacket too. He doesn't want me to take it off when we come back inside.

I don't know what Erica is doing here but I wanted to get a picture of this dress. It reminds me of Neapolitan ice cream.

I found another use for James's suction cup toothbrush. Hands-free brushing.

Most days I think about how helpful a leaf rake would be in cleaning my house.

James surprises me by what he's easy-going about. Walking into the chapel=fits. Buzzing his hair with clippers=couldn't care less. Sitting in his highchair instead of standing=won't have it. All my kids have freaked out when I put snow pants on them when they were 1 but for James he didn't mind one bit. He had a little trouble getting used to walking in snow boots but after a couple of minutes he did fine.

 Cutest little snow baby. His thumbs aren't in the thumb part so he had a hard time grabbing snow. He wanted to eat the snow so badly he would lay down on his tummy and eat it right off the sidewalk. Finally he took off his gloves and picked up snow to eat but then his little hands got so cold he was done.

 Justin hit Henry (softly) in the face with a snowball.

Erica ate snow and tried to make snowballs to throw at Justin. A couple of neighbor kids came to play too. (Sarah was at the Hobbs' house sledding in their yard with Emily and Nora.)

I thought we were going to get off easy this winter with little snow but this last week we've been dumped on!

And then we went inside. Henry and Erica made themselves hot chocolate which for some aggravating reason involves cinnamon sugar. James pulled the container of cinnamon sugar off the table and spread it all around the kitchen floor, all over himself and then kamikazed face first into the couch. I was not pleased but that's what I get for leaving him unattended for 8 minutes.

Erica took this before he wiped it all off on the couch cushions.

I have 12 of these on my phone.

I found this on the living room floor after church. How did Adam and Eve feel about fruit? Were they forever wary? Did they feel untrusting toward all fruit?

This is the actual question, which I guess leads to a better discussion in primary.

James at 15 Months

His favorite song is "Happy Birthday." He was crying pretty hard in the night and the only thing that would calm him down was my singing of the song. I stopped because I could hear him singing it back to me so softly. He didn't pronounce any of the words fully but it was clearly the song. It brought tears to my eyes. Those are precious little moments only moms get.

He says no, mom, hi, nana, and just started saying "uh-oh." He jabbers all the time.

He loves his shoes. He gets so excited to put the on because it means we're going somewhere.

He likes to spit like this and thinks it's way funny.

Okay, maybe it's my reaction that he finds funny. Why do boys think grossing out their moms or scaring them is so funny?

He pretty much just stands in his highchair now. He only sits if he's really into what he's eating.

He is 30.5 inches tall. He's grown a half inch since his birthday. I'm not used to a child of mine being tall enough to look out the window at this age. I had to put a stack of blankets for my other one-year-olds. How is he so tall?

He loves to be outside. I've let him walk to the mailbox with me instead of pushing him in the stroller. He picks up rocks and sticks and then drops them a few houses later when he finds better rocks and sticks. I feel like you never truly know your child until you've watched them explore outdoors.

When he finds something interesting around the house, like a toy car or a toothbrush, he lies down on his back to play with it.

The only thing he likes about church is running and shouting in the gym. Three more months until nursery (if he'll go).

He does not handle being tired well.

He loves books but only has a 3 second attention span per book. It's annoying.

He likes to climb on the back of the couch and then fall on whoever is sitting there.

He's our cute little grump.

February Fun

I've been loving the outfits Erica has been putting together lately. She just wears what she likes and takes no thought to how they look or function together. 

On the other hand, I expect more from my 9-year-old headed to school. This was Sarah's outfit this morning and I held my tongue on the too-small lavender shirt with the peach pants with brown dots but when she put on black socks that were totally visible I had to say something. (She decided to put on long jeans and that solved all the problems)

Last week my kids had their artist in residence performances. Henry's grade did a storytelling thing. He's shouting something the bear said.

Sarah was some sort of undersea creature? I don't remember. I spent half the performance not knowing it was her class because I didn't recognize the shirt she was wearing. Erica kept asking if that was Sarah and I was occupied with James and kept telling her this wasn't her class until I noticed her when she was right in front of us. Oops.

 Some mornings I have to wake James up because it seems like he'll sleep forever (while other days he's up before the sun). Usually just opening the door wakes him up but this day he was totally out.

Oh my goodness he's like the sweetest thing ever. Ever since he would rather be put down than rocked so sleep, I haven't seen him asleep! I didn't even know he was a tummy sleeper.

*Sidenote: I've decided to this morning to see how long he'll sleep. It's nearly 11 am! He must be in a growth spurt!

This is Erica watching the piano tuner tune our piano last Friday. She came into the kitchen a few minutes before this and asked when she grows up, if she can marry him.

He reminded me of a young Russ, in case you were wondering Erica's type.

I explained to her that he was already married and when she was grown up, he'd be pretty old. So she went back into the living room and continued to stare at him for another 30 minutes and then tried to get his attention by hopping on one foot. "Look what I can do."

We talked bribed Henry into getting a haircut last Saturday and gave one to James as well. This was his second buzzing and he acted like he couldn't care less. It tickled but he was like "whatever guys".  He's mad in this photo because he wants to get out and I just kept snapping pictures.

His buzzed head makes his eyes look so big.

Sarah's class was making Valentine envelopes in class but she still wanted to make her own at home. This was pretty simple so I let her. I think it turned out so cute! We used it as our centerpiece at our family Valentine's dinner. We filled it with cards we made for each other at family home evening. 

This was my Valentine to Henry. He thinks I made it up and thought it was so lame but funny.

This is Sarah's to me. "I love your smile. I love your laugh. When we fight over a candy bar, you split it in half." For the record, she and I have never fought over a candy bar.

Here are my Valentines. We had steak tacos and rice and beans for dinner then watched the Olympics.

 Every winter our neighborhood looks like a scene from the birds. This was yesterday. This is like a third of them.

 Ugh I hate the sound. The chirping and flapping of their wings.

 James is going to be my kid that escapes out of the house without anyone knowing and neighbors will find him a block away. Until then, he will do this because he's not big enough to pull open this door any wider.

 He acts like he's going to die without outside air. He's his father's son.

*****

I was talking with Henry about Europe and what countries our ancestors were from. He was getting so confused by the whole concept.

Me: Grandma's grandpa came from Denmark when he was a teenager. That's in Europe, across the ocean. He's your ancestor---your great-great-grandpa.

Henry: I thought ancestors were girls. And sisters.