It was Bradley's birthday month! It's crazy to have a ten year old now but here's proof he's not too big to be picked up by his Grandpa.
In an example of normal, standard behavior, Eleanor and I decided to take a cat for a walk with us in a baby carrier. Meg did not approve and we will not be replicating the experiment. Fortunately we didn't run into any dogs but we did take her to see a group of neighbor friends who screamed with excitement and pet her a bunch so perhaps that was not ideal for a sweet little kitty.
Patrick's basketball season finished strong. He had a really sweet group of kids on the team. Many thanks to Nathan for coaching!
And I got to run a World Thinking Day activity for Eleanor's Girl Scout troop. They studied and presented on the country Australia.
It got a little exciting towards the end when Eleanor decided she felt woozy and her friend Cate suddenly started feeling sick too. Eleanor just had a little fever that went away after she took a long nap at home but Cate had a stomach bug - winter activities can be exciting!
Juliet had perhaps the best day ever the next day when Eleanor had to stay home sick from school because of the fever from the day before but was in fact not at all sick. So the girls watched a few shows and cuddled kitties and played together all day.
Please note that we're so used to kitties that a Layla coming to keep Juliet company during lunch doesn't phase her at all. I have these kids raised with malt-o-meal being their meal they're used to getting whenever they feel a little under the weather.
Juliet has loved gymnastics so much. Her teacher helped her learn how to do a flip and I got this adorable picture of the two of them.
The flip!
I never would have done any of the things my children do on a regular basis.
We were very excited to have Daniel and Stephanie visit and get to see baby Ethan now that he's a couple months older.
Bradley read while Ethan held his hand. Buddies!
Meanwhile, Katie was way too relaxed while Juliet drove a toy car like an absolute maniac.
Bradley jammed his finger into a toy at my parents' house and we weren't sure how we were going to get it off. Nathan sawed at it for a while and finally soap and water did the trick. It was a bit traumatizing for all involved.
Juliet and Katie were amazing buddies ... for the first half of the trip. Katie got a bit competitive about toys and life in general by the end and the love fest halted. But the beginning of the visit was beyond adorable!
Yes, I bribed them for this picture. Worth it!
I took Katie on a library outing with Juliet one morning. They had a blast together.
Katie saw Juliet peeking over the top of a book and had to copy her.
Believe it or not, this photo was NOT staged. I didn't even pick out the Best Friends Forever book.
Katie got a bit antsy at the library so we moved on to a park. The girls held hands as they ran over the bridge!
Climbing up on a dock together.
Climbing up the slides. Naughty cute!
Then Juliet, who pays attention, showed me how she was being just like Bradley who likes to stick toys on his fingers at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Grandma reading time.
Took Eleanor to get her bangs trimmed and any uneven business sorted out from her self-done haircut. Horrible news, Eleanor did such a good job that there was basically nothing to fix. The only thing worse than a child giving themselves a haircut and having it turn out horribly is having a child cut their own hair and having them get loads of compliments on how well it turned out.
Fancy picture after the bangs got trimmed up.
Meanwhile, Nathan had Patrick read to Juliet at bedtime. Turns out she was very tired.
We took Katie to the Museum at Prairiefire the next day.
Everything you need to know about Juliet is this picture. So much spunk and silliness.
Katie had been pretty quiet until this point - mostly observing and taking things in. But then there was a discussion about whose dinosaur was on the big screen.
Juliet cheerily announced it was hers and definitely not Katie's! (This was false). The level of indignation Katie felt at this blatant falsehood ... it was great.
Katie went home sputtering about Juliet's betrayal and Juliet came home and happily demanded a picnic lunch and then wanted to have us pose for pictures for each other.
Juliet took these of me. There were about 100 more but mostly my entire head wasn't in the photos.
And then Juliet showed me her good poses.
We're at the level of parenting where I let the 8 year old take a 3 year old to the creek on her own. They had a great time. Juliet fell in shallow water a few times and both kids definitely needed a bath after this adventure.
I tried to take a picture of the duo after creek time. Only one cooperated.
The Juliet and Patrick duo has been adorable lately. Although it's terrifying to see how readily she picks up wild habits.
Standard bedtime chaos.
Sometimes Juliet pulls out a game and tells me it is time for us to play. Invariably she picks a big kid game. Still, very very cute.
We got a new Encanto board game! Worth it just for the novelty factor.
Yet more game time with Bradley. Mystic Market was leant to us by the school nurse.
Even Juliet and Katie got in some board game time! It was a little tricky to play with the two of them together but apparently Katie had a very good time with the games when we left them with her and grandparents.
I got a cute picture of my mom with baby Ethan!
And a selfie with me and Ethan! He's a cutie patootie.
Juliet loves babies and was very excited to have her own cute baby cousin to love on.
Smooches!
She read books to Ethan and sang him songs. It was rather adorable.
Many thanks to my parents who ran out and got a foosball table after I told them how much Patrick liked the one at our vacation house in Texas.
Grandma lost in an embarrassing manner despite having two excellent teammates helping her take on Patrick.
Ethan got very excited while watching them play. A foosball player in the making!
I got a board game night in with friends, which was great fun. Here we are playing So Clover.
A very proud Juliet at the end of her gymnastics class. We'll definitely sign her up again in the fall!
Taking Eleanor to the doctor to try to figure out how she managed to get poison ivy or something similar during winter. This is what I get for telling her to go play with a friend at the creek two days after it was 80 degrees.
And spring break started a day early because of snow. 80 degrees and then snow a few days later, doesn't get much more midwest than that!
We still made it to our Museum of Prairiefire Little Explorers class with Katie because we don't let a little snow stop our fun!
It was very much not busy at the museum which made it fun to do things like watch the bearded dragon catch grasshoppers for a meal.
It's nice that Bradley hasn't aged out of museum fun.
Katie was so happy and told me she wanted to pet the nice ladybugs! (They were cockroaches).
More digging in the sand. Busy times, lots of fun.
The kids played out in the snow a little at least. They were definitely not as excited about snow by this point of the year.
And the next day I took the crew to a morning library outing.
It's so fun to have kids who love books so much.
And games! Bradley is my trusty sidekick when it comes to testing out games like Kingdomino Age of Giants.
Kingdomino Origins was the runaway favorite though.
And he helped me test out Kraken Attack.
Lucky Eleanor got a lot of help playing the Encanto game.
A Saturday morning game of Push. A big hit among the family!
Daniel and Stephanie came over with the kids and we had a fun morning hanging out and playing a bunch of games. Patrick introduced Daniel to Similo.
Then he and Bradley took a baby Ethan break. Ethan was basically a living doll, everyone wanted a turn playing with him or holding him.
We ended up having lunch together. Lots of yummy apples for cousins to share!
Playing with the adorable baby!
And then I bribed Eleanor into playing a family game of Push with us, which is probably the first time we've had five of us play a game together that wasn't something like Charades. It was so much fun! She's gotten a lot better about trying new games even if they're mildly competitive which has been so great for family games.
And we had free time on a Sunday afternoon so Nathan and the boys joined the cub scout event where they got to pass out candy at a St. Patrick's Day parade over in Martin City.
I'm told it was a lot of fun, although they did run out of candy before the end of the parade.
Eleanor has been scoring Meg time in her room lately. She's so proud to have kitty powers!
And big news - Juliet is potty trained! We decided it was high time and took advantage of a spring break with no big plans to get her trained up. She did great. Quite a few accidents the first day but after that she pretty much had it down.
It was nice to have easy play time around the house for the kids. They played with play dough and did a lot of art projects and played around outside once it got warm enough.
Patrick signed up for a basketball camp.
His buddy Carter needed a friend to go with him so we signed up last minute. It was an ages 7+ camp and Patrick was probably the youngest kid there because he's just shy of his 7th birthday. They were a good duo and I heard it was a lot of fun!
Family reading time. Oh Juliet.
Then Juliet and Eleanor went on more park adventures together.
Layla has been in full escape mode lately with all the outdoor time.
I hired the boys to clear sticker vines off the path while the girls played at the creek.
It was fun for them to do and they were so excited to earn seventy-five cents each for their labors.
Popsicles for the creek crew. They were so so dirty.
And for the boys! I was just proud to have any popsicles at all for the warm weather.
Nathan and Patrick got in some evening basketball. It was a rather fabulous day.
We went to Ironwoods Park the next day and Eleanor terrified all the moms there by climbing this tree. I never did anything like this, I have no idea how my children ended up like this.
We had an outdoor Girl Scouts meeting and Juliet demanded to be in on my dad working on yard work.
Her facial expressions are just the best.
More yard work! This time at our Linn Valley lot. We aren't going down a lot just yet, it's definitely still a little chilly.
Juliet got a lot of emotional wounds at my parents' house which required three of the Band-Aids she really likes being put on a single finger.
Then I lost sight of her at a playground for a little bit the next day and discovered she had climbed the thing I told her she was too young to do just yet. It involved climbing up a ten-foot ladder and walking along a high walkway and then going down a very tall covered slide. The girl is a maniac and I love it. She did this at least ten more times after going through the first time until I bribed her to stop so we could go home when it was time to leave.
Caroline was her buddy she was there with. Sweet Caroline is much more cautious. She loves being around Juliet though and had a great time at a museum play date with her later that week.
All this work does tucker a girl out though. That and stupid daylight savings. The time change was tough on Juliet this year, especially when combined with her dropping her nap. On most days at least.
Meanwhile, I went to an overnight Girl Scout camp with Eleanor!
Eleanor has such an active Girl Scout troop and gets to do so many fun activities, which she loves.
She also loves climbing. Everywhere we went Eleanor was climbing up boulders or trees.
She got in trouble for climbing too high on the climbing wall. We're starting her up at ROKC, a climbing gym in Olathe. Apparently the girl has a need to climb that needs to be satiated.
The girls did a lot of cute outdoor activities. They had amazing weather for the overnight stay.
Eleanor was in charge of chopping up onions to be cooked with our dinner. Sunglasses were a must so she didn't have to cry!
Eleanor's leader must have power over the weather because we had perfect weather for the campout and then it started raining like crazy about twenty minutes before it was time for us to leave. Juliet was very happy about this and we had a fabulous time playing in puddles the next day when the kids went back to school.
There was a whirl pool at the creek where the water went into one of the pipes that go under the pathway. Very exciting to throw sticks and leaves in it and see them disappear.
Once again, she didn't quite make it without a nap that afternoon. Too much exciting outside play time, too much time change.
Eleanor reading in front of a cozy fire that evening. With popcorn. Bliss!
Eleanor insisted on drawing an entry for a Girl Scout contest for their summer camp t-shirt and badge. I said medium crabby things about it being a waste of time and submitted it at the last possible moment ... and she won. For the badge design, her friend Olivia Rutherford won for t-shirt design. So fun! Eleanor was absolutely thrilled.
Back to the creek for me and Juliet. She hunted down and saved a leaf from the current and was very proud of herself. I love where we live. Kind of amazing to get to play at the creek as part of your childhood.
And then we went to a giant party at Urban Air. Our very nice neighbors invited all four of our kids.
It was a very fancy, very exciting party.
All four kids loved it and I'm really glad Juliet got a nap this day because even with that, she went hard at the party the entire evening and when it was time to go we couldn't find her and Eleanor anywhere. Finally I walked near the entrance to find a child and a worker standing over a screaming, tantruming toddler. "Oh yay, that's mine!" I said to the worker who looked relieved to have found a responsible parent and promptly got out of the way of the carnage. Turns out Juliet really did NOT want to leave the best party she had ever been at and she screamed "You're the worst!" and "You're ruining my life!" even as we tried to bribe her with a goody bag and a fruit snack in order to get out to the car. It was actually rather funny, we're at that stage when it comes to these things, and the kids thought it was hilarious that Juliet loved Urban Air so so much that she couldn't stand it when it was time to leave. I don't know where Juliet picks up these phrases, none of the other kids has had so much drama within their soul at such a young age.
The bereft child after we finally hustled her out to the car.
Sweet Patrick was amazing with Juliet and made sure to share some key items from his own goody bag when she realized he had a light up bracelet that was basically the coolest thing ever.
And the next morning I took Eleanor's Lego Robotics team to their competition! They did really well, although it was rather anti-climactic compared to Bradley's competition in the fall. The judges came up to the girls and chatted with them for a bit but it didn't feel like that big of a deal. It was fun but we'r'e very excited for Eleanor to join Bradley's team in the fall.
And while we were gone Bradley embarked on a birthday cake building morning with my mom.
His vision of a dinosaur cake with a volcano on the top came to life quite impressively! Many thanks to my mom for doing this with him!
Eleanor and I enjoyed a fancy lunch out at McClain's on our way back home.
And we got back just in time for Bradley's big birthday party! We had decided to do a swim party followed by a movie, dinner, and video games at our house for Bradley's 10th birthday. It was supposed to be for just a few kids but we ended up having ten come over and the party lasted seven hours. It was a lot but it was so fun.
Singing happy birthday. The candles on top of the volcano were so perfect!
It's funny, I thought the swimming part of the party would tire kids out and they would be happy to sit still for a movie but I was incredibly wrong. Only Bradley and my children and maybe two or three of the party kids wanted to sit and watch the movie. The rest ran around the house and played outside.
The impressive layers to the volcano part of the cake. Eleanor approved - it was beautiful and delicious!
Opening presents
And then back outside for running around and carnage!
I did not think there would be any outside time at the party but the kids definitely needed to run around and it was barely warm enough for it so it worked out!
Video game time to close out the evening.
Xavier got to stay late because his parents were getting back from a soccer game. Both boys seemed pretty happy about some bonus video game time together. Meanwhile, Luca was upstairs playing catch with a delighted Juliet and she's been asking about him a lot ever since.
Bradley was tuckered out but Patrick stayed up a bit to watch some basketball with Nathan.
Juliet has been really into brushing her own hair. Time to be fancy with Eleanor!
And then we went to Disney on Ice the next day!
It turned out to be cheaper to buy ten tickets at a group ticket rate than to get eight tickets without a special rate so we got a couple extra tickets and took the kids' friends Cael and Lorelei with us.
They're both very sweet and Lorelei went with us a few years back when we had an extra ticket so they are now our go-to Disney on Ice buddies!
Juliet had an absolute blast at the event.
We had prepped her by catching her up on the Disney movies she hadn't seen yet which would be featured at the event. We don't watch a lot of movies and she had only seen Frozen so she had to watch Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and Moana in order to be prepared to actually appreciate the characters. We did this over the course of two weeks and Juliet was very fortunate that it was Spring Break for much of this time and she had an older sister who was willing and helpful to train her up on Disney movies.
Ah cotton candy. Half the reason the kids want to go to Disney on Ice.
And the swords. We got both of the young boys swords which were used for many sword fights, especially once we got home and they played around in the backyard.
Me with my cotton candy girl.
We also had popcorn but all the kids ditched it pretty much immediately once they saw the cotton candy.
Fun story about the little stuffed toy my mom is holding: We were standing in line to buy swords for the boys because that's what you do at these things when Juliet started begging for the stuffed toy puppy on display. I rolled my eyes and said sure, fine, if your grandparents want to get you a new stuffed toy (she has so many!) then you can get it. It was determined that Eleanor needed the coordinating kitty stuffed toy and the grandparents who are way too kind got the much desired puppy and kitty once we finally got to the front of the very long line. Juliet promptly began to cry and say she didn't want THAT puppy! Fortunately, I was able to cut through the confusion regarding the three year old crying about getting the item she had been begging for because I realized this was just like the unicorn stuffed toy at Great Wolf Lodge and Juliet had wanted a highly specific stuffed toy dog, the one she saw on display. So - I am not one for lying to my children. But my parents distracted Juliet as I pretended to swap the stuffed toy they got with the identical one that was on display and then I handed Juliet the "new" and correct stuffed toy dog and she was delighted. It was a whole thing, life with Juliet is so fun and it is never boring.
Cotton candy face.
Bradley got to cuddle up by his grandpa for the show!
Cael and Patrick get along far too well.
A picture of the crew after the show! We had a fabulous time, it was really neat to go again after a three year break from the last time we saw one of these shows.
And then we had a rather lovely, relaxed evening where the older two kids played with Legos together after we watched a nature documentary called Serengeti.
And the younger two ran laps in the hallway. This is the norm around here.
They begged for a sleepover together.
Juliet is always very lovey around whichever siblings has most recently been spending time with her and she was so happy to have Patrick read to her when I finally got them to settle down and get ready for bed.
Patrick teaches Juliet lots of things - like cool kid ways to ride on our platform swing.
We went out for a family dinner to Red Robin again. We're so fancy these days! This was the closest we could get to a family picture, Juliet decided she needed to hide when we told her to smile.
Cute boys!
And Juliet and I were delighted to find a Kirby decoration covering one of the iconic Target balls on the way into a store. Adorable and fun!
I realized now that Juliet is three we have so many new games available for us to play so we tried out a couple one morning. She's a champ at Candyland but seems to prefer Happy Bunny. She's very good at it, I need to make sure I get in more regular game time with this cutie!
Juliet had a lot of opinions about decorating a new cake for Bradley for his official birthday day.
And that evening we celebrated Bradley on his actual official birthday. Once again we cleaned off some dinosaurs and this time we had him decorate a cookie cake with them, which was the purpose of our trip to Target.
Ten years old! He's so big but still so little. We were walking out to the car a couple nights after this and he asked me if I thought his voice sounded funny. Patrick has been fighting a cold and I though Bradley was worried he was getting sick and I assured him that he sounded fine. Bradley was a little disappointed though and told me that he heard when his voice changed then he would be able to grow a beard and a mustache. They had a puberty talk with the 4th graders at his school and apparently the ability to grow facial hair is the big thing he took away from the conversation.
Opening presents. A new stuffed toy was the favorite!
And I got him a couple new board games. Surprise! It's been a lot of fun playing them with him. He's such a sweet boy and he's getting more and more fun every year!
