I'm not saying that Juliet likes to stir things up but the other day she came up to me and asked me, "Who is your favorite girl in the family?" I said, "Hmm, should it be Meg or Layla?" I was informed that I had to choose among the humans but I said I loved all the girls. Oh Juliet.
She says she doesn't ever want to get married or leave the house and like a responsible parent I said, "Okay! Can you live with me forever?" She said yes and we decided to have a lot of cats. I asked if she would have a job and she said, "No, I will play tennis and go on walks with you." I was delighted by this answer as well. Later she told my mom about our plans and my mom said, "Oh, you guys are so funny" and Juliet had to inform her that we were not in fact joking, this was a real plan. It sure is! Independence is overrated, I'll take as much time with these kiddos as I can get.
Although Juliet is not to be trifled with, on the same trip with my mom she told her to watch out as she backed out of the driveway and not knock over the garbage and recycling bins left out for pickup or, "my mom will kill you." Grandma thought that sounded a bit severe and Juliet replied with a shrug, "I'm just saying!"
She also keeps telling me and Nathan that we're the best parents ever, but she does it in such a way that implies she will have other parents in the future. "You're the best dad I will ever have!" "You're the best mom I will ever have" We have discussed stepmothers as a result of this and I thought I was very kind when I informed her she was allowed to love a future mother but I must remain #1. She fervently agreed. One must have the foresight to plan ahead in all circumstances.
Juliet's 5th birthday was on the 1st! She got to bring in donut holes to her class as a snack and the nice man at Daylight Donuts gave her a free pink sprinkle donut when he found out it was her birthday.
She talked about it a LOT, turns out getting free things for your birthday is a big deal!
Getting donuts took barely any time at all so we ended up being the very first car in car line with some time to kill. Juliet climbed into the front seat with Callie and the poor dog didn't exactly know what to do about it.
Head out the sunroof shouting that she was first in line to everyone. It was a very happy day.
In other news, Meg is pretty.
I was reading in the bed for a chunk of the day and had a happy buddy.
However, Layla is a killer.
Patrick and Juliet had a dance party when he got home from school.
Poor Juliet had to wait through a distressing number of child activities and sports before we were going to open her presents and have cake, but at least she had a shiny crown from school!
She cuddled a very tired Bradley on the couch. We finally figured Bradley had been getting up in the night again to play games on his computer. It's too temptation for pretty much any 6th grader so we have since moved the computer upstairs to charge. Oh Bradley.
But then finally it was celebration time! It's key to give Juliet cupcakes every year until she gets better at candles.
Then she had just a few presents to open, but there was great excitement and joy at being the center of attention.
I think Bradley gave her a gift certificate to play games together.
Magic Mixies were the big hit of the 5th birthday!
Meg and Sookie have been getting more adventurous about coming downstairs despite the lovable puppy menace.
Sookie is just giving a little meow here but it's still a great moment to have caught. She loves bathing in the sunshine and usually Callie settles in and lays down near here after a minute or two of devoted bum sniffing.
Post school smoothies for Patrick and Eleanor. Callie is a hit at pick-up every day.
Eleanor had a couple cookie booths and they were cold. But they kept their spirits up!
I very much preferred it when we got to drive to deliver cookies to Callie's foster parents and the kids got to play with their new foster puppies for a few minutes. That was fun cookie times!
Lord of Life has a daddy daughter dance every year and Eleanor opted out this time because it does seem to be primarily for preschoolers. But Juliet went with her daddy and had a blast!
Her friend Carmen was there. And a ton of school friends. Juliet had about the best night ever.
The theme was Under the Sea, hence Nathan's jellyfish shirt.
It was an action packed weekend for a little 5 year old because her birthday party was the next day. In the morning she made cupcakes with her grandma for the party!
And it was party time in the evening! It was a gymnastics party at the rec center.
Grandma and Grandpa came by to say hello and drop off pizza for the party.
We kept on inviting more people to the party and kids brought siblings so I'm not exactly sure how many people were there. Maybe 20 kids? We had fun activities for the party room, including a unicorn ring toss game that we had gotten about four years ago. It comes in handy to hold onto these things!
Cake time!
The whole crew.
We had time for stick the horn on the unicorn, which was surprisingly popular.
And the kids were playing a game of duck duck goose when they finally came to get us to go into the gymnastics studio.
The party room time was great, which is not the norm for these kinds of parties!
Then it was time for running around the gymnastics studio.
And a group picture at the end! I had everyone point at the birthday girl. It's really good Juliet doesn't mind some attention.
I had her open just a couple presents when she got home. It was late and I think Patrick was gone at a basketball game.
And he was excited to see the presents in the morning. Isn't it more fun to spread out the fun anyway?
Juliet wore a dress to church that my mom made for my older sister at least 40 years ago.
It's gotten a little sheer on the bottom but it's held up amazingly well! And Juliet is so goofy.
Oh these two girls. They can get away with murder when they're playing adorably together.
It was a church event and they were supposed to be learning about God. But look at this.
Juliet got to open more of the presents from her party after church. Great joy.
Juliet managed to smear a bunch of peanut butter all over her face at lunch the next day and was so proud of herself.
Eleanor and I thought maybe this photo prop was for younger kids at her swim school but we still wanted to do it.
We got some red hair spray in anticipation of the Chiefs being in the Super Bowl but it turns out it was industrial strength and Patrick's hair was red and then a little pink for about a week. So everyone is afraid to use it now. But it was cute for a little bit!
Callie lives a life of reasonable ease and comfort.
We left Callie with my folks and went on a trip to Texas during the break from school for winter conferences!
First stop was fast food in some place in southern Kansas.
We made it to Dallas by about 1 PM the next day and Juliet is getting way too used to birthday celebrations at Great Wolf Lodge.
The outdoor climbing area was neat and the kids actually got to go up to the third level this time, the previous time it had been closed due to high winds.
Juliet was still too little for the upper area but had a lot of good fun in the kiddie area at the bottom.
Victorious on the way down. The kids hit up the water park after this.
I met up with a college friend for a very surprise and last minute drink at the Great Wolf Lodge bar and then raced back to rejoin family for Juliet's third and final time having happy birthday sung to her as we ate cake. This girl gets a lot of birthday celebrations.
Arcade time with a kid from Oklahoma that Bradley befriended in the water park.
Patrick was so happy because he and Nathan won the jackpot at this game and got 700 tickets. And then the next morning Nathan won while playing with the girls.
It was weird to go into the prize area and be rich. We got a lot of items.
Juliet enjoyed her bunk bed but is still looking forward to getting the upper bunk someday.
Birthday balloons!
One last arcade game before we left.
A perk of talking to my college friend was she reminded me about Meow Wolf, a nearby attraction, so we went there the next morning.
It's a weird museum/mystery experience where you're supposed to solve the mystery of a boy lost in space and time.
The kids loved it and ran around the place discovering secret passages and rooms. It was very difficult to keep everyone together.
One would have had to sit still for more than thirty seconds to go through clues in order to solve the mystery.
So we were interested - but ditched out in favor of fun and exploration.
We were still there about an hour and a half and had a blast so it was a great time regardless.
Juliet got a bit creeped out by some of the weird art. Poor kiddo. She relaxed after a bit but I got a lot of clingy cuddles. Poor me!
Then we went and saw my cousin Kate and bought some of her art for our house!
Long car rides are welcome if it means you actually get tablet time.
This is a very accurate picture of our time visiting my cousin Stephen's house.
Juliet really loves their oldest daughter!
Cousins!
Then we continued down to Austin and ate dinner at our hotel with Uncle Thomas. Fun story - we were supposed to stay with our friends the Schneekloths but they caught covid. We were really hoping they would be better so we still went down. They did not get better. But it's okay because we got a lot of Uncle Thomas time.
We also had Terry Black BBQ for dinner and I'm sorry Kansas City but this was the best barbecue I've ever had.
Juliet proved that she is the master of making her own fun because she invented a game of upside down catch to play in the hotel room.
This was our third night in a row in hotels. I was a bit tired of tip toeing around kids and trying to keep things quiet so six people could go to sleep in a small amount of space. The girls were at least tired enough to zonk out hard at bed time but I see we could cut back on the number of pillows we have around our house.
The next morning we went to Cidercade, upon Uncle Thomas' suggestion. The kids had an amazing time and I think they would happily drive all the way back to Austin just in order to go to this place again. You just had to pay an entrance fee to enter and then it was unlimited play on all the machines.
Bradley and I defeated the Terminator game.
Juliet played some pinball
It was difficult to get Patrick to leave the pop a shot area.
There were so many cool classic games.
This was Eleanor's favorite by far. It generally had a line of people waiting to play it.
It was a really pretty, we were on the waterfront with a nice view. It was also really rainy for a good chunk of the morning so it was good we had an indoor activity.
We talked about leaving and going somewhere else for lunch but the kids were so happy and having so much fun so we decided to eat at the Cidercade. We stayed for a little over three hours, it was quite impressive.
They had the best game of all time, Crazy Taxi!
Juliet really loved this racing game and played it a lot.
Group photos with Uncle Thomas as we left!
Uncle Thomas is so loved
Brother sister picture!
And then we did get to see the Schneekloths on our way north, heading back home.
We met at a nice playground and the kids got to run around and we gave them the special Super Bowl Taylor Swift shirts we had printed.
It was a little ridiculous that it didn't work out, but such is life sometimes.
Jason and Christine were the only ones who had covid so we had a socially distanced picture together.
We decided to drive all the way home in a straight shot from Austin. I was tired of hotels and just wanted to sleep in my own bed. And on the way back we stopped at Buc-ee's, which was probably Patrick's favorite part of the entire trip. His teacher is from Texas and had told him he needed to stop there while we were visiting. The place is crazy, it's sort of a gas station/Walmart/fun food court combo. We loved it!
There was fashion!
Juliets face when she saw the baked goods.
The trip was a huge love fest for Juliet and Eleanor but Patrick had his moments as well. Who wouldn't love this face?
We had a very late night stop at another gas station a few hours later. Juliet is so courteous and helps with doors.
And then it was Super Bowl Sunday! We had gotten home at about 2AM so everyone slept in, napped a bit in the afternoon, and then went to the store to get a few party supplies. Nathan couldn't believe that Patrick chose his Taylor Swift shirt to wear for the game instead of a Chief's jersey but I was very proud of the cool kid.
Jersey dudes.
The other Swifties.
It was just our crew for the game, which was pretty nice actually.
I had Bradley take a picture of the Taylor Swift shirt crew. Poor Nathan is cleaning up from dinner in the background. He was the one who most cared about watching the game.
And to be fair, the first half was pretty boring and we were all getting a little stir crazy by the second half. So when Juliet started dancing and putting on a show we all got really into it. Nathan wondered later why he had missed so many of the funny commercials. This was why.
I couldn't believe it when the game went into overtime. It was crazy late, I had to put Juliet to bed. So these were the people around to watch the game when it went into a last second victory for the Chiefs!
I came down and hung out with Bradley for a little bit before bed. With Callie, who is always watching me.
I took Juliet to the library the next day and told her she could get up to ten books. And then we discovered that she is really bad at counting. Oopsie!! Is there such a thing as too many books?
Occasionally I'm out past Juliet's bedtime and I get messages like this:
Patrick and Callie are adorable playing tug of war together.
We had a rare evening at home with no activities and Nathan and I were exhausted so we put on a nature documentary in our bedroom and just had the kids do whatever they wanted as long as they didn't require parental supervision. We kept on having kids coming in and out of our room to check on the documentary and Bradley ending up hanging out with us and got to experience watching a show while being covered in cats. It was a very nice evening for all involved.
Juliet had a new friend over for a play date - Lilah lives just up the street from us and she's really sweet and fun. Juliet is so lucky to have so many little girls all within walking distance from our house. School was canceled because of the Chief's parade so they got to have a mid week play date on Valentine's Day!
I fed them lunch outside because it was a warm day in February! You have to take advantage!
And for Valentines Day Nathan and I decided to have a date night at home and eat a fancy dinner and split a bottle of wine and play pool in the basement, which I hadn't done even though we've been in the house for a while now! The kids did end up joining us but I think that just made it even more fun. The girls were playing bumper pool at the little table next to us while Nathan and I played on the regular table. I think the boys both made an appearance at one point as well. And I still have some pool skills - got a solid behind the back shot going here! And Nathan won best two out of three but I still got a game on him, which I feel very good about because I am very rusty.
Juliet had her Valentines party the next day at school and we think the best thing she got was a pair of heart sunglasses from her buddy Luke.
She wore them for school pickup for the big kids. How cool is Juliet? So so cool.
Lilah has a bouncy house permanently inflated in one of the rooms of her house, we are really happy to have such a fancy friend!
Game time with Juliet!
I went shopping with Juliet and my mom and then we came back to her house for a bit and chatted on the couch and Callie cuddled up next to me in a rather desperate manner.
It got more desperate a few minutes later. Juliet enjoyed it!
Juliet and I made Bradley walk home from school so we could make it to the Valentine's Day parties at the elementary school which ended up being on a Friday because of the Chief's parade.
Both kids barely cared that Juliet and I showed up but they were very nice and said hi to us. I'm not sure I'm going to bother going to class parties in the future.
However, Eleanor's friend Ellie was thrilled that Juliet was there and added her to her child collection for the class party. Bo is Juliet's buddy too, he ditched out on his sister Maggie to be with Ellie. So it's not just my kid this happens with!
The cats think Nathan and I should watch more shows together.
Bradley had some of his final basketball games of the season. He played well but he hates the contact part of the sport and I'm so glad he's switching to tennis.
Juliet got a giant chocolate covered strawberry at our church baptism celebration for Zoey Cloud and her reaction was correct.
I left the kids at home on their day off from school for president's day to take Bradley to the eye doctor. Patrick was left with the home phone and he sent me a number of fancy pictures of his favorite subject.
I was really excited about the comic book photo filter and had him show me how to do it once I got home.
But it's kind of hilarious what you get from an 8 year old following his dog around and playing with a phone.
When we got back I dragged everyone out to the Wilderness Science Center trails to take them to the secret path to the big field.
They loved the big rocky hill and Patrick and Eleanor had no problem scampering up.
Bradley and Juliet and I scoped it out but chose the long way around with an easy ascent.
We packed a picnic lunch and ate at the top of the hill!
The kids and Callie had a lovely time exploring. I'm hoping we can go back but it might not be for a while. You have to have perfect dry conditions and we can't go at all when the ticks come back, apparently they're all over the place out here.
Juliet's preschool takes the cutest pictures of her. Also, please note how much fun I have doing her hair each morning.
The braids are the standard though. Learning about teeth!
And doing a variety of fun crafts I'm relieved I don't have to try to do at home. This is Juliet with her best friend Abigail, they are virtually inseparable at school. However they won't ever be in school together after this so it will probably be goodbye forever. So sad!
We want to take some comic book style pictures of the animals and frame them. Here are my first attempts to take fancy pics of our cute kitties and puppy!
We gave a lecture about responsibility to the kids because I was having to wake kids up for school and remind them to do chores so kids have actually been using their alarms and waking up on their own in the morning, which means there is sometimes an opportunity for ping pong before school!
Bradley had his final basketball practice and it was a big deal because the guy who scored the game winning touchdown for the Chiefs came and played around with them.
He passed a ball to Bradley during a scrimmage so Bradley could shoot a basket. It was very nice of him to attend.
Eleanor had her quarterly swim meat at Goldfish Swim School and has assembled quite the squad of girls she's friends with there. They have given each other nicknames and Eleanor's is Oreo.
Makena is probably her best friend of the bunch. She's a lot of fun and really nice. It's nice that Eleanor is making friends at all her sports because she isn't on any teams with any of the girls from her school.
She won three first place ribbons in her events even though they accidentally put her in 25 Breast stroke and 50 Free and she had signed up for different events!
Quite the swimmer these days! We're so happy she's doing well and enjoying it so much.
Patrick had a play date with his friend Collin in between games for his final weekend of basketball. I adore Collin, he was begging to play board games the entire time he was at our house.
They had a really tough loss for their final game of the season but they played well, Patrick had a wonderful time with this team.
And Juliet had a wonderful time hanging out with Ava Farley and taking selfies on the sideline.
Bradley's final game was an opportunity for me to use special filters on my phone again. Fancy!
And then Nathan had to miss a couple of Patrick's evening club games in order to attend another special event - Eleanor's school had a Daddy Daughter dance. This one she deemed worthy of her time. It was Taylor Swift themed so she got an appropriately pretty dress and Nathan got to put on a Chief's jersey. Patrick Mahomes, not Travis Kelce. We thought that was perhaps more appropriate than dressing up like Taylor's boyfriend.
They went to Costa Vida for dinner, which was perhaps half the fun for both of them.
It is some delicious food!
And the dance was great fun too. This is Eleanor's final daddy daughter dance! 5th grade!
Meanwhile, Grandpa took Patrick to his games and I sat down with these two for some Murder She Wrote! Best Saturday night ever.
End of evening hug for the daddy daughter duo. These activities are so neat. I will not end up with a picture like this at the end of the mother son nights that are coming up!
And I got to take Patrick to his final basketball game of the season on Sunday morning. They won! It was a happy end to a really good season and we're really happy that his club team turned out to be so nice.
So now we have a bit more time on our hands, at least for the next month or two.
Patrick is gearing up for lacrosse and Juliet and her friend Lilah are helping him practice!
Juliet is living her best life with all these neighborhood buddies.
And it was nice enough outside that we got to read library books in the backyard the other day.
We had a bit of a rough go towards the end of the month. Juliet caught a stomach bug and had a rough time of it for a day.
But she got lots of shows and only threw up twice so it wasn't too bad for her.
And she made it back to school in time for the muffins with mom morning! Here she is with her two best buddies from her class, Olivia and Abigail!
I made sure I got a photo with her too.
I was pretty tired after I got home because it had been an eventful couple of days tending to Juliet and Nathan had hurt his back. So I ate a bunch of chocolate after lunch and wrapped myself up in a couple blankets on the couch while I planned on sorting through photos on my phone for this blog post. Meg climbed up onto my shoulder and I fell asleep about five minutes later. Then I woke up a little bit when I felt a puppy climb up to join us but I fell back asleep again after that. I woke up to this, couldn't figure out how to get a picture of both the cat and the dog on me. But it was glorious and I feel like an achievement has been unlocked with the cat/dog nap combo!
And it was also nice when I got this from Juliet after picking her up that afternoon from school. Here's what it says:
My mom's name is - Anne
My mom is - 23 - years old
My mom loves - me!
My mom can't stand - when we fight
My mom always says - stop that & I love you!
My mom's favorite thing to do is - play board games
My mom loves when I - play with her
My mom's favorite food and drink is - potatoes and water
My mom is great at - drawing
I like it when my mom - plays with Patrick
What I love most about my mom is - her
And the best gift of all, here is Juliet singing her ABC's. Is it an impediment to her education when I refuse to correct her when I think she's cute?
