house building

katelyn is really into building "houses" these days. she wants to do it by herself, with her friends and her siblings. when she does it with her siblings she builds a house for each of them separately.  then they all get in their houses and work on their different activities inside their houses.  katelyn mainly gathers drawing materials and brings them in her house.  when she's done, she always comes out with a pretty picture for someone in the family.

soccer season has begun

tanner is starting his second season of soccer.  last year it was so funny to watch him play.  he really didn't have an interest in the game and was very distracted.  actually, that was pretty much his whole team.  they were all a young team mainly consisting of three year olds.  most would burn out halfway through the game and almost the whole team stopped going to the games by the end of the season.  but when all was said and done, tanner said he wanted to do it again the next year, so we signed him up again.

 

this year is looking like it is going to be a great year.  tanner has three other friends on his team.  he also actually stayed focused the whole time and stayed with his ball.  i'm pretty sure this is because he has an amazing coach this year.  one of our friend's dad is the coach, and after just one practice, he has already made soccer tons of fun for the kids.  as we walked to the car after practice tanner said, i love soccer!  i called that a success!

the mirror

brynn's favorite toy right now is this mirror.  if i pull it out she will play with it for a looooong time.  it's so entertaining for her and me as well (i love watching her play with it).  she's trying to figure out how the mirror works, so she gets her face close, then pulls it away, then gets it close again.  sometimes she even goes in for a kiss or two.  we love this little girl.

katelyn's note

 

i was looking for something to write on the other day and came across this old, cute note that kateyln had written to tanner.  it says:

 

dear tanner,

i love you so much, and i hope you love me too. do you?

that was a yes, right?  i hope it was. 

i love you more than i love myself.

love,

katelyn

spelling bee

katelyn's teacher put together a class spelling bee for her class for fun.  katelyn worked hard and practiced her words and was ready to go that day.  all of the parents were invited to watch, which probably made it more intimidating for some of the kids. 

 

as they got started all of the parents starting pulling out their phones, cameras and video recorders, which i totally forgot at home.  luckily my friend came to the rescue and took some pictures for me.

 

katelyn did really, really well.  she was one of the last three left up front out of the whole class.  her turn came up again and she was given the word "catch".  she started to spell it and said, c-a-t-h, then realized her mistake and quickly said, c-h!  but the teacher didn't realize she was fixing her mistake and only heard it as c-a-t-h-c-h, so she was out.  katelyn was pretty disappointed that she got out.  in her mind she had fixed her mistake and had spelled the word right, so there were some tears.  but it was a good time to talk to katelyn and tell her that she did really great and to also say that life isn't always going to feel fair and there will be disappointments.  so we worked through this particular disappointment, and she was fine by the time we got to the car.

these boys

these boys could play outside together all day if we allowed them to.  they run around pretending to be in hot lava, shooting each other with water guns, riding their bikes, jumping on the tramp and doing other things they generally shouldn't be doing. 

 

i think every time these boys make their way to the trampoline they end up in trouble.  just recently they were all jumping completely naked on the tramp.  yesterday they had picked and picked grass from the lawn and dumped it all over the tramp.  that was not an easy clean up.  i don't know why it's taken me so long, but i've finally asked myself the question, why do i keep letting tanner on the trampoline?

 

i can't help but look at these pictures and hope that tanner remembers his childhood friends and all of the good times he had with them.

tanner and his friend

tanner really lucked out that we ended up in a neighborhood where he is surrounded by little boys his age.  there are four them that play outside together when the weather is warm.  when these boys are together they are mischievous, all over the place and rowdy little things.  but really, they are fun to watch and i'm so grateful that tanner has them.