We had three Daisy Girl Scout meetings this month! We started out with a fancy meeting when I scheduled a police officer visit. They were amazing with the girls and the highlight of the visit was getting to check out a stealth police cruiser. The girls were so happy, it was very sweet.
Bradley getting in on some dancing with Juliet.
I'm begrudgingly a fan of the flag football, although I didn't make it to watch a game until the end of the month.
In other news, Eleanor and her friend Faith were hanging out the other day while Juliet was working on her career project and they were very interested in the googly eyes Juliet got to use and so I gave them the giant ones my Aunt Diana had sent me in the original package. I lost track of them and wasn't sure what had happened to the googly eyes until Juliet informed me.
Then the next day - half marathon day! So - after our success running a 5K and having Patrick run faster the longer we ran, I figured he was ready for more. And I ran 6 miles on a treadmill one day and felt pretty good so why not run 13.1 miles? Rock the Parkway was a week and a half away at that point and I checked Patrick's calendar and miracles of miracles, he didn't have any Saturday games for either lacrosse or football on this day! Done and done! I asked Patrick if he wanted to do a half marathon and he immediately said yes. He definitely didn't know how far 13.1 miles actually was, but he said yes. I figured we could walk if we needed to and just take it easy. So we signed up!
Spoiler: we did not walk at all and Patrick tried to kill me. Part of why I didn't want to wait on doing a half marathon with him another year is he's just getting faster and faster and I actually ran through the winter this year and felt like I was in good enough shape to keep up.
We started with the 2 hour pacers and we got a lot of looks when we showed up at the start line. A few people checked with us to make sure we didn't actually mean to do the 5K. Nope!
Every sign that said "hit for extra speed" he would run up and whack much to the delight of the sign holder. And loads of people we were running with asked him his age and I told him he was the most popular runner on the course. He also hammed it up for the pictures, like this one.
I kept checking on him and he was doing fine, he just wanted to know our pace.
Victorious!
Chocolate milk celebration!
We were both so sore. Patrick got 2nd place in his age group, he was very proud, and rightfully so. And his age group was the 14 and under group, he was 1 of only 6 boys who ran who were under 14.
Then we went home and Patrick opened some early birthday presents from Grandpa Dan!
There were mostly boys there from her class and they all loved Juliet. No surprises, Juliet spent most of her year focusing on social priorities over academics.
And we're happy for warmer weather and an open pool!
Aunt Diana sent us some puzzles and Eleanor was really happy about her cat themed one that had a lot of cat shaped pieces. It was quite the challenge to put together, I helped her a tiny bit and Nathan did too but Eleanor put a lot of work into finishing this up.
Like Bradley, Patrick chose Dairy Queen instead of a birthday cake.
Everyone loved this choice!
Nathan took them shopping afterwards and I said no to Cadbury eggs, even though they were so cute. I had a bunch stashed away for Easter already.
And I was thrilled to get to stay home and read a book while Nathan took them to the Minecraft Movie in the afternoon. Patrick had a very nice birthday.
I chaperoned another field trip that week. Recorders at the Kauffman - it sounds terrible but it was actually a lot of fun. And Patrick couldn't smooch on me too much, he was busy. (This keeps coming up because as of the time I'm actually writing this blog post I am recently returned from a field trip to a stage coach museum where Patrick was incredibly bored and just followed me around shouting "Mommypoo!" and giving me nonstop kisses. It was a 6 hour field trip. I like kisses, but it was a lot even for me.)
Patrick's buddy was really excited to photobomb us. Patrick is friends with everyone, the year at Blue River has been so great for him.
And Bradley with buddies at a track meet! It's been a beast getting to go and watch Bradley at his meets, usually I'm at elementary school pickup or driving kids to a practice somewhere so I'm really grateful for friends who sent me pics and videos.
He looks great on hurdles!
Discus is trickier but he's still doing just fine.
And there are some insane people running the 200 m dash but Bradley is reasonably speedy. And I talked to him after he ran a 6:56 mile in PE and we both agree he probably ran faster for the 200 m finish of that than he runs for track meets. Honestly, this is all just for fun and he just needs to do a bunch of racket sports, that's much more in his wheelhouse. But I'm really glad he's doing track, it's fun to do it while it's still pretty relaxed.
Juliet and cute Stella playing together!
Eleanor practicing bassoon! She's making great progress.
I chaperoned a Bradley band outing and we go out to lunch as part of it. Do you know that Panera is ridiculously expensive now? It was $40 for the two of us. Insane.
Callie was limping a bunch and I was worried about her so we took her into the vet. They gave us better anti-inflammatory pills for her and instructions for her to rest. Also, we were given the news that she had somehow gained 10 lbs over the course of the winter! Which was quite impressive as that was a quarter of her body weight previously, she went from 40 to 50. Turns out that when I told Patrick he didn't have to bother putting up her food bowl in the evening anymore she would have an extra meal every night and that adds up. Oops! So now she is on low calorie food and the food bowl gets put up again. And her limp went away after some rest and meds. Poor chunky puppy!
Patrick is a horrible influence and is teaching Juliet to climb on top of swing sets.
She's very proud.
Juliet helping Eleanor text her friends. Juliet is so so helpful.
Lollipops with Addie after practice!
We got to Urgent Care and did all the tests and had him get x-rays. No broken bones, not even a sprain. He bruised a bone on the top of his foot when he landed on the ground. They almost gave us crutches because he was so pathetic about walking but he just needed rest and a foot compress and some ibuprofen to make the swelling go down.
He missed a lacrosse game because of it and Meg had to nurse him back to health.
Meanwhile, Juliet cried on Friday afternoon because it turns out she wasn't really all that sick and when I had to email her teacher for something we discovered that the class was doing something really fun while Juliet wasn't there. Poor little Juliet. I'm just glad she likes school now.
Patrick and I were very tired and we watched a movie with Eleanor while Nathan took Juliet to a birthday party.
On Sunday morning a still sore Patrick went to his flag football game. He did just fine, although he was a tired boy the rest of the day. And he is birthday buddies with my friend Sheena!
His events ended up being 75 hurdles, discus, and 200 m dash. He only wanted to do two events but at the first meet I told him I didn't come to watch him just do two events, he needed to do a third or he would get salmon for dinner. If he did a third he didn't have to eat the salmon. Bradley hates salmon, it was well worth it to him to compete in the 200 m dash.
And Nathan took him out for celebratory ice cream after his first meet and brought Patrick along so they could play Pokemon Go together.
Eleanor finished her puzzle and Juliet jumped in on the celebratory photo despite doing absolutely none of the work.
Dance class! Juliet keeps insisting that she hates it but she smiles the entire time she's in there.
This is the dance routine she's supposed to practice for the recital in May
Patrick made some impressive choices and tried to tackle one of his lacrosse coaches during the end of practice sprints one day. He bounced off the giant lacrosse man and landed on the ground on his foot and according to Nathan he seemed fine but by the time he got home he was a wreck and insisted he couldn't put any weight on it. We thought he was overreacting (because that is often the case) and made him go take his shower and get ready for bed but then he was an absolutely train wreck and kept insisting he couldn't go to sleep because of the excruciating pain. We iced it, gave him some ibuprofen, and set up a bed for him on the floor of his room so he didn't have to climb up to his loft using only one foot. He still made me come in to cuddle him to sleep at midnight and then we kept him home from school so I could take him to urgent care so he could get the medical attention he clearly needed. Juliet was a whiny mess about a cold in the morning so we also kept her home. They got to play Minecraft together while waiting for his appointment, they were very happy.
She's also so-so on soccer, even though she seems to have a blast at every game. I took her to an early morning game on Saturday and she scored two goals! Champ!
Then we watched a nature documentary in the afternoon, which Callie thinks is highly engaging tv.
She also did this during the movie Flow, which did not have a happy ending and Juliet cried a bunch. Oops!
Nathan and I played a game of Railroad Ink and tied! Ewwww.
Easter Sunday was cute, the girls were extra cuddly with me in church.
And Bradley and Nathan volunteered in the nursery, which was lovely.
It was a cold, wet Easter so we're really grateful the Easter bunny hid eggs in our basement.
Our best Easter treat was a carrot cake from McLains. It was pretty incredible!
We've been all in on Dixit lately. It's so perfect for our crew.
Group Easter photo!
Addie lives just down the street from another Girl Scout Amelia, who came out and joined them for the end of one of their play dates.
We talked Finn into joining Eleanor for a class at ROKC.
Uncle Thomas visited too, much to everyone's delight.
Bradley tackled Emmett and put his glasses on him one day as a token of love we think.
We took the entire crew to go swimming at the Lenexa pool, per Eleanor's recommendation.
More Bradley affection for Emmett
Fancy poses with Grandma!
Juliet helping show Emmett affection
It was a really neat pool. Eleanor gives good recommendations.
We had a blast!
The next day was take your child to work day and Patrick and Juliet got to go to Nathan's office for the morning.
They had fun with Charlie Rutherford.
And Patrick got to talk running with two adults and was very pleased that he beat their half marathon times. We're telling him to cool it on sharing his time so much, it seems sad to tell all these people that they got beat by a 9 year old.
The kids had a really nice time in the office. Got tons of treats. It was a good day!
And I let Bradley play hooky from school that day to spend the day with cousins. Riley was ecstatic.
We spent the morning playing pickleball and then Bradley played video games with them all afternoon. I'm told it was the best day ever.
I tried to get some work done on my computer. Easy peasy!
We had a day hot enough to use our pool so everyone came over one afternoon. Thomas opted out of pool but opted in for Meg cuddles.
And there was lots of cousin ping pong for the trip.
I chaperoned a Girl Scout overnight camp out at our lake lot in Linn Valley.
The golf cart was a big part of the experience. I gave a lot of first time driving lessons to 11 and 12 year olds. I do not recommend it. One girl got in the front seat and had no idea which pedal was the break and which was the gas. A few really wanted to use both feet for the pedals. We only had one close call and one time that I had to grab the steering wheel away from a kid and shove her over so I could push on the break. Fun times!
Beach time was popular! Thank goodness I brought a couple blankets, two crazy girls got in the very cold water.
Evening camp fire
Putt putt
Another camp fire
All six girls fit in the loft space of the skid shed, which was quite impressive. I am not great at camping and brought a fold out twin mattress and standard bedding and still was awake for an hour between 3 and 4 AM because a bug was on my face and then I was very awake for a while. Hurray for camping!
The next morning the girls all set out on kayaks. They did a lot in the short amount of time we were there!
Group pic at the end. It's been really fun now that Eleanor's troop is a bit smaller. Although Eleanor is standing next to Evie Gifford in the middle, she lives nearby and we talked her into joining the troop. But six girl camp outs are way more fun than the ones that have a ton of girls. It was a very good time.
We made it home and took Eleanor for a bang trim and checked out the fancy Pan-Asia grocery store and got a bunch of treats. Best shopping trip ever!
Nathan took Juliet to her soccer game later in the day and then got her to our church in time for the She & Me Tea event for Girl Scouts. It was a very Girl Scout weekend for us.
Eleanor sat at another table and I went over and made sure she got a picture with me.
Me and Juliet fancy together!
The actual etiquette lesson was quite long and a bit boring. Juliet and her friend Elsie played medium quiet together when the boredom became too much to bear. But Juliet remembered a fair number of rules after the event, I was impressed!
And we have something going on with Patrick where he has really high cholesterol and we have no idea why. Especially because he's so athletic and healthy. He had to go get a blood test and they had trouble with the needle, he ended up having three tries to get his blood sample taken. I told him he could have a treat per attempt or we could just go to McLains afterwards because he hadn't gotten to eat breakfast, it was a fasting blood test. He chose McLains, smart boy!
We had a Girl Scout meeting at the Wilderness Science Center so we could make bird feeders and go geocaching. The girls were very hyped up and it was fun but it was also kind of a lot!
But they had a really good time and we didn't lose anyone, that's what matters.
We found the geocache! Juliet recently had a school field trip back at this location and she and a couple other Girl Scouts ran over and found the geocache, which apparently the guy who works at the science center hadn't known about. The girls were very proud.
Bradley has perfected the art of procrastination and was really proud that he finished a thick book trilogy even though he was supposed to be finishing confirmation homework. He finished it only a few days late and with a medium amount of threats.
Juliet has a standing Monday play date with Addie these days, which is pretty adorable. She'll walk home with her and then play for an hour or two.
Meanwhile, a much anticipated cousin visit happened!
Pool in use! It felt so right.
I called this the merry-go-round of death and all the girls were desperate to ride on it. Lots of questions about how many people had actually died on it. I said no one on this particular one as far as I knew but kids had definitely died on these types of toys in the past and the girls were all very impressed.
I finally made it to one of Patrick's flag football games the next day. It was very cold and rainy. But Patrick scored once and got an interception. I took the credit because it was the first game I had made it to, clearly that was the difference!
And this from another meeting - I've recruited some 4th grade girls to volunteer and they are awesome at teaching the girls fun games.
Patrick had a weird Tuesday afternoon birthday party after school one day that a parent managed to squeeze in around a bunch of other events. He had a blast and I finally figured out that he really likes Luke, who's in the picture here playing a game with him. They match up well and Luke lives really close to us. They've been hanging out a bunch ever since. It's so nice to have good buddies to hang out with! It's been a really nice spring for the entire Scott crew.
