Skit, Triathalon, and Humor

SKIT

Maddi is in the Character Counts club at school. They meet at 7:30 a.m. every other Tuesday. That is very early for Maddi to be up and at 'em and I was surprised she was excited to be part of the club knowing she'd have to wake up early for it. They did a skit for the school assembly Friday. Maddi was the teacher in the group wearing the pony tail and skirt on the far right and was about to pass out the students tests in this picture. It was cute to watch the skit. They made it up Tuesday, practiced it Friday morning and then performed it later that day.

TRIATHALON

Sunday was the Kids Triathalon. Last year Maddi and Abby did it as individuals. They decided to do it as a team this year. Abby swam 100 yards, Maddi biked 3 miles, and Olivia rana half mile.

Here she is stretching before the bike session.

Emalyn was clapping as she watched the people walk by.

Abby finished the swimming and she did great. She got first in her heat. She was in the same lane with a boy from her class and their teacher was timing them, so it was fun to watch! This is Abby, Maddi with Emma, Olivia, and Aly (Olivia's older sister).

Sisters! You can see Emalyn's eyes are green right now. They are probably changing to brown. Cade's eyes did the same thing. But....I had a dream before I knew she was a girl that I was holding a little girl with light brown hair with curls and green eyes. So far the dream has been right about the girl, the hair color, and curls....

Maddi and her friend Parker were wishing each other good luck before the bike race.

And they're off! Maddi was the only kid in a tank top and shorts. It was very windy and pretty chilly, but she's one tough cookie!

Concentration...

Cade was entertaining himself during the race.

Emalyn is quite the trooper attending all of her brother and sisters events!

Riding with her tongue out. It's a Stanley trait!

Coming in for the finish! She did great. I'm not sure where she placed, but somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Cade and Abby ran to congratulate her and she fell to the ground, exhausted, and needing her inhaler.

Olivia did well with her running portion and here are 3 happy and very tired girls at the end of it. We went to celebrate at Red Robin with all 3 families and didn't stick around for awards. It was a fun day and all of the kids did so well.

HUMOR
We all have our own little quirks.

This little boy started wanting his clothes very tight in the last year or so. I don't remember how or when it started, but he adjusts the buttons in the waist of his pants/shorts as tight as they'll go. If the pants/shorts tie, he pulls them as tight as he can and then puts his finger on the strings while I tie it to keep it as tight as possible. Apparently he thinks his pants are going to fall off. I told him there is no way in the world his pants will fall off given that he has a nice round bottom. He gets that roundness from me and pants have never fallen off of me. When the seasons change and he goes from shorts to pants or vice versa, he has real issues with how the clothes feel and nothing is comfortable. Well, it's gotten a bit chilly here lately so he has had to wear some new pants and jeans. Yesterday before school he was freaking out that he couldn't get his pants any tighter and that they were "slipping". I promised him his pants were so tight that they wouldn't move but he wasn't convinced. I told him if his pants fell down at school, I'd give him $20! I know how Cade loves money so I made sure to tell him that if they fall down he has to get a picture of it to prove it and get his $20. When he got home I asked if his pants fell down and he said yes, when he went to the bathroom. I asked for the picture and he didn't have one, so no money for him. I just had to write about this because I'm hoping (really hoping) one day he'll outgrow this stage and wear his clothes normal.

Some Fun at Home

Little Stinker loves to go in the laundry room because that's where Cocoa's food is. She will squeal like she's warning us that she's about to get into trouble. Silly girl!

She decided the camera was more exciting than the dog food and water this time. She saw me with the camera and started coming toward me.

She got me! Look at those big teeth.

Another thing Emalyn loves to do is push her baby stroller. She was wearing her Aggie cheerleader dress because the Dallas Cowboys were playing the Chicago Bears that day. Brett said we all had to wear our Cowboys gear to bring the Cowboys good luck. Emalyn doesn't have a Cowboys dress so we went with our other Texas team, the Aggies.

Peekaboo!

Such a big girl and so sweet!

We invited our neighbors over to watch the game. We bought a few extra Cowboys shirts when we went home for Easter. Grace wanted to be a Cowboys fan so we were happy to give her a shirt. Jack decided to root for the Cowboys too...until the Bears started to win and then he'd put on his Bears jersey. He would look at the score and then put on the shirt for the winning team. Such a fair weather fan! The kids made the banner for the fireplace too. I love the kids excitement for everything in life.

Grace and Maddi with their little sisters.

My sweet little girls. Love them!

Our Last Day in Boston

We kept seeing "Maddy's Car Wash" so on the last day we were going to take a picture of Madddi in front of it and take a picture of Cade in front of Bugaboo Creek restaraunt. You can see once Maddi got out of the car and realized people (who we will never see again) might see her getting her picture taken, she wanted no part of it. Silly, almost a teenager, girl!

Then we went to visit GG one last time. I love this picture how Todd and Maddi are hanging out, Emalyn is sleeping, Cade's zoning out in his own worl, and Becca is showing Grammy pictures from the wedding.

Cade was talking to GG here. I have no idea what he's telling her about, but she is listening very intently.

It's so sad that Becca was showing GG the pictures of GG's granddaughters wedding and GG had no idea who she was. However, she was very positive and said how beautiful she looked and that it looked like a nice time. I don't think I'll live to be 91 because of my family history, but I'm pretty sure I'll have no clue who or where I am either.

The kids chilled out watching a movie for mmmmmm 10 minutes maybe before they were back to their hyper selves.

GG and Emalyn sharing a moment.

GG with her daughter and grandkids.

Now with her great grand children too.

Now with her grand daughters in law too (is there such a thing as grand daughter in law?).

The kids playing the piano from the back.....

.....Now from the front.

Emalyn trying to rip the lollipop out of Cade's mouth. She hasn't had a sucker yet. I'm waiting for a time of desperate measures!

Everyone eating a lollipop with GG. GG used to LOVE candy. Now she didn't even know what to do with a lollipop. Sad, sad, sad....

Joel's family with GG.

Rebecca with her neices.

Will and Cade being boys, playing tackle.

Notice the girls were just sitting on the couch like little ladies. Ha ha!

Joel with his Mini Me, Will. Will was in time out in the corner for something he did to Cade. I think he hit Cade or something like that. I couldn't believe Will just stood in the corner for his time out.

After saying our goodbyes to GG, we went to a furniture store called Jordan's. Brett's cousins told us about it and it sounded like fun. They have a Jelly Belly store and all kinds of Jelly Belly creations.

They have the green monster (Red Sox mascot) eating a Yankee player as you go up the escalator to the furniture part of the store. We never actually went to see any furniture, but the kids rode the escalators a few times.

They even had a trapeze school!!! I sooooo wanted to go on the trapeze, but they were closed. Ugh....

The Jelly Belly store with Fudruckers in the background. We ate lunch at Fudruckers. Our Fudruckers by us closed so we were very happy to get to eat there.

We had ice cream at Richards after lunch. The whole ice cream sundae in the picture was made of Jelly Bellys!

They had a liquid fireworks show every half hour. We watched it before lunch and after lunch while we ate our ice cream. It was choreographed to fun music and was so pretty.

Of course Cade had to explain to me how they changed the color of the water with the lights. That boy is so much like his dad with his engineering mind.

The kiddos wanted to get a little wet from the spray. They also had an IMAX theater at this furniture store. Such a crazy concept to have all these things at a furniture store, but it was sure fun.

Then we went back to Amy's house and talked and the kids played for a while before our family headed back to the airport. The rest of the McDonalds stayed until Thursday. Our flight home was smooth and uneventful. Maddi and Cade sat by each other and watched the movie that was playing. Brett and I sat together with Emalyn and she slept the entire flight. We all had a great time in Boston!