Grandma Colleen got a taste for a typical weekend around the Scott household. There was a Friday night play performance, basketball tournaments the rest of the weekend, and Juliet even had a make up ballet class.
Juliet deeply enjoyed having two grandmas to cuddle during the basketball games.
And Bradley has gotten tall! He has Grandma Kathy beat.
And it's a toss-up between him and Grandma Colleen.
Bradley also had a busy Saturday, he went with me to visit his Sunday School teacher's house and visited his favorite kiddos, their baby Ambrose and toddler Edmund.
He tried to play games with Edmund who was a very good sport about the nuances of rules he was expected to get down in short order.
Juliet's ballet class was adorable. Juliet keeps complaining about going but then has a huge smile on her face the entire time she's dancing around.
Juliet got a bit of outdoor rumpus time with Callie and Remy.
The little tree in the front is so fun.
And I accompanied Patrick on a weekend full of basketball games. There were only 5 kids for his final couple of games for his club team, which was a bit ridiculous, and one of the games went into double overtime and there was some dubious scorekeeping but the boys overcame it all and won first place.
Patrick was beyond thrilled.
Nathan got to take him to his final game for his rec team later that day because I had a Girl Scout event to take the girls to. Bradley brought his table to the game and soon had a fan club.
It was a close game and Patrick should have been wrecked from his morning games but he just kept on going and they won first place. He was over the moon.
It was a big trophy and it has been living on his bedside table ever since it came home.
Meanwhile, I got to take this to the Girl Scout World Thinking Day event. Eleanor went too but she refused to dress up.
Even though our troop wasn't presenting on a country they still made me pick one when we registered, so I picked St. Lucia. I thought no one else would be upset that we took that one and it would be easy to have the girls dress up if they wanted to. One mom brought leis for all the little girls, which made it extra fun and fancy!
We had a pretty good turnout! 13 girls out of a troop of 21.
They had so much fun. It was a great success.
Limbo!
Getting to tour with Eleanor for a little bit. Eleanor rather enjoys her cool older sister status whenever Juliet's troop is around.
The next morning I took the oldest two for some special mardi gras treat at McClains. They had to get up early for this but they were so ready for it!
My girls like climbing trees. Juliet would be great at rock climbing.
Adventure walk with Eleanor. We found a swing.
Callie looking majestic with a stick. She's so pretty.
Nathan took Eleanor to a band concert while I ran around to some other kid event. I think I made it to Bradley's concert but I didn't take any pictures. Flutes are in the front, tubas are further back. Eleanor has actually switched to the bassoon recently, which is really neat but requires private lessons and the instrument weighs a shocking amount for the size of it (I think it's made of solid metal) so I now get to make the house presentable for a music teacher on Fridays and drive Eleanor and her bassoon to and from school each day.
I love that she's back at rock climbing! She's a champ! And I get to get a run in and then eat pizza and have a beer whenever I take her.
Juliet had her first soccer game! It was adorable and she played so well. Well, I don't really know or care how she played. She ran around outside and was smiling and almost scored a goal. We're just biding time until she can play tennis with me.
Grandma got to come and watch the game!
Patrick helped out at a work morning at the church, I was so proud of him.
And Nathan is the baby whisperer and the middle school Sunday school teachers' child who mostly doesn't like other people cuddled up on him and fell asleep during the service so they got to actually sit and have a nice time listening to the sermon.
By the time we got in to the eye doctor to make sure that she wasn't blind and that was why she couldn't see letters, she had already learned all the letters and seemed to be just fine. But I figured it was already scheduled and we would go ahead with it and project torture the 6 year old commenced. They got Juliet's appointment mixed up with Nathan's and tried to take some close up pictures of each eye to start the appointment, which involved having to wait with your eye wide open and not blinking while they tried to zoom in on the correct place and then having a super loud noise go off at the same time as your eye got blinded by a flash. I was trying to help at first but gave up with the lady seemed to be incompetent and finally asked if we could skip it and discovered it wasn't necessary in the first place. Juliet was a little rattled after this but was still in reasonable spirits for the initial exam. Then they told me they would have to dilate her eyes if they really wanted to know exactly how her vision was doing. Thanks to Bradley, I knew how this would go and I strongly advocated for not doing that and asked to see my friend, the eye doctor. My friend came in and assured me it was definitely necessary and it would not be too tough. Juliet made it for one eye and then freaked out and there was no way she was going to allow the second eye to happen without physical force. To be fair, if the beginning of the visit hadn't been a bit traumatic she probably could have hung in there. So it turned out we could in fact determine if her vision was okay without having both eyes dilated. She's fine. And if she had just listened in school and not made us think she was dyslexic or possibly vision impaired she could have avoided all this. It turns out she just didn't give a hoot about letters until she was forced to. Now she is quite good and knows all of her letters and is reading simple books. Poor Juliet.
The next day was a lot happier. We had Girl Scouts! Juliet is silly but cute.
It was perhaps our best meeting yet because it was warm enough for us to go play outside for the end of the meeting! We played What Time is It Mr. Fox and it sort of works except all the girls want to be it and so we're going to have to find some new games to work into the rotation.
That evening Juliet went out to play with friends and ended up at a friend's house I didn't know lived so close to us - her backyard lines up to the backyard of some neighborhood boys a few doors down. Annabelle is adorable and Juliet has been over the moon about all of her play dates. A few days ago she walked in the door after soccer practiced and complained that she hadn't even had a play date yet today - she's certainly been living the good life.
Annabelle has a trampoline, small friendly dogs, a slide on her stairs, and a ridiculous amount of toys. Juliet is in heaven. They also feed her over there if she's hungry and she tried to skip our gross dinner of soup and sandwiches one evening because she told me "I can eat whatever I want over at Annabelle's house." Poor thing was still forced to have soup and a grilled cheese sandwich because a childhood has to have at least a little suffering.
Sookie likes it when Bradley does his homework in our room.
The playground has been a lot of fun after soccer practices!
Iowa State was a hot team for March Madness this year and Nathan and my dad took the two boys out of school the Thursday before spring break so they could see a couple games for the Big 12 tournament that is hosted in downtown Kansas City.
Iowa State won and they all had a blast.
Apparently there was a second game that they got to go to as well and it wasn't as exciting but it was still a very good time. So neat to be able to go and do these things!
I got a new chair off of Facebook marketplace for the corner of the living room. Callie likes her new $150 doggy bed.
And after having a very nice run at the gym during one of Patrick's basketball practices, he and I discussed running on the ride home and decided to do a 5K together. There was a St. Patrick's Day themed one over Spring Break so Patrick and I geared up and decided to run it together!
I messaged friends and borrowed some extra green necklaces and got my awesome tutu.
We won a couple prizes in the costume contest! $20 in store credit which we put towards a cool golf type shirt for Patrick.
We had a fan club who came out to watch us run. I think the older two kids were still asleep when we got home.
So green and ready to go!
Cold but festive.
They had official race photos that I could download from their website, which was really neat. I made Patrick start behind a bunch of people because our goal was some steady 9 minute miles because I wasn't even sure Patrick could run a 5K without having to walk a bit.
I was chatty and trying to pep talk Patrick through the first mile and talk to him and random things but he just kept asking me what our pace was. We did an 8:35 first mile and I said a lot of good things about how we were ahead of the pace and we just needed to keep steady. Then the next mile was 8:05. I was thrilled and told Patrick I loved running with him and we could just go as hard as we liked for the final mile and change. We ran that in around 7:35 and I was dying at the end. No more pep talk. The stupid tutu was giant and swishing around and I had left on the Mardi Gras beads and they were banging on my chest the entire race, you could certainly hear us coming because we kept passing everyone.
We ended up finishing at about 25:05 (we started way back from the starting line because I thought everyone else would be faster than us). Patrick got 3rd in the age group 14 and under. I didn't even ask if I had won anything until we got home and we saw that I was 2nd in the 40-44 women age group. Whoops!
Patrick was very tired and very proud afterwards.
Post race snacks and cuddles!
I was feeling jazzed up and danced around with Nathan until it was time for us to leave. I love having a little running buddy! Although he wanted to know what his mile time was after this if he ran just one mile so he had me take him out for a run for that a few days later. We did a 6:53 mile together and I almost died. I won't be keeping up with Patrick for much longer.
Later that day we had a little Girl Scout event because in theory we were doing Girl Scout week, although I think Juliet was the only girl in our troop who did all the activities they were supposed to do. I'm glad we're a pretty relaxed group, makes things easier on me as a leader!
One little girl came and they had a blast.
Spring break sleepover for Juliet and Patrick.
I love a spring break where we just stay home and play around. It's much needed rest and relaxation and friend time for everyone. And I can make the kids go on lots of walks with me!
Juliet insisted she was strong enough to pull Bradley. She was!
It was still pretty chilly, the kitties continue to adore their electric blanket.
St Patrick's Day crew! Juliet ran over to Stella's to play for most of this day.
And the next day we had a long play date with her friend Addie. We took her to the school playground for a couple hours and then to our house for a few more hours. Long, easy play date days are so much fun.
Addie had some fancy kite toys that she brought along for the two of them.
We brought Callie with us.
It was just a bit breezy at the park.
Eleanor and Patrick were there too and hung out with buddies. I made Bradley walk from our house to say hi to me so he could play Pokemon Go on the home phone. Outside time is so important!
But so is inside time if there is Mario Kart for some kiddos a bit tired out from being blown around by the wind for a few hours.
We were very impressed that Juliet's friend Addie knew how to play Mario Kart and could hang with the big kids!
She and Juliet play so well together, she could have stayed all day but we did send her home in time for dinner.
The next day was rock climbing with friends!
We took all three of the Reasoner kids, they live three doors down. Bradley didn't want to go so he got to stay home and take care of Callie. Bradley had a pretty quiet spring break until we went for a walk and he complained about me not playing Pokemon Go with him so I hunted down a new friend to come over for some Pokemon walks with him. His name is Haskell and he is one of two other tuba players in the band and they're in a couple clubs together and I can't believe I had to be the one to initiate this.
I didn't rock climb, I just took a bunch of pictures and got to hang out with cute kids.
Juliet climbed a lot higher than she has on previous trips. She still refuses to trust the belay and climbs down instead of rapelling.
The best picture I could get of her and her friend Stella. Juliet is naughty.
Patrick climbs very high.
And clearly so does Eleanor, our rock climbing pro.
Juliet also got to have a play date with her friend Caroline and my god daughter Abigail. Abigail is so cute and smiley and I'm less afraid of her now that she isn't a baby, some things never change.
Juliet wanted to play a bunch of games with me when we got home. I love our board game collection, we had a blast playing Ice Cool.
And it was free ice cream cone day at Dairy Queen! All the other kids ended up opting for convenient ice cream at home so Eleanor and her dad got to have a fun little outing for the two of them.
March madness games and cuddles with Callie.
We were delighted that Lilah came over to play one afternoon! Juliet caught her getting out of her car on the way home from a trip to Florida. She came over to our house before even walking back into her own.
Fun story - the girls ended up walking in on our neighbor Jaclyn when she was fresh out of the shower. Completely naked. Oopsie. It was a series of unfortunate events that led to this and it wasn't the girls fault. They were looking for their friend Cleo who lives at the house, the door to the house was open, there was a work team who didn't really speak English but told the girls to go upstairs, all the doors were open upstairs and the neighbor lady had just stepped out of the shower. Whoopsie! Jaclyn was a bit surprised and told the girls that she was going to tell their mothers and the girls ran out of the house in hysterics. Jaclyn called me and told me what happened, she was more amused than mad by that point, and I was able to calm the girls down and I had them sit on the couch and watch Bluey. Callie was very worried about them and cuddled by Lilah, which is when I took this picture. Poor girls. Luckily Lilah's mom wasn't mad either but oh trauma. While writing this blog I recounted the story to Eleanor and Juliet overheard and she is perhaps not over this just yet.
We've had more free weekends now that club basketball is over and Nathan got to take Eleanor down for a solo day at the lake lot, which was great fun. Apparently it's nicer to practice driving the golf cart when your siblings aren't commenting on your every move.
They also got out the BB gun
And played mini golf! It was very fun.
They came home in time for dinner and then family games with my folks. Although Eleanor had missed out on down time and reading so we let her skip the games this one time.
It was a very cuddly bunch. We played Qwixx with Juliet then Gudetama, Dixit, and more Gudetama.
It was a lot of fun, can't wait to do it again!
It was Nathan's weekend of quality time with children, on Sunday he and Bradley spent the day at Planet Comicon.
They got there when it opened and closed the place down, it was a great success.
Bradley got to battle a bunch of gym leaders for some type of Pokemon game event I don't understand. I was so glad Nathan was the parent who went to this, although I was the one who scoped it out and got them the tickets.
Everyone was really nice to Bradley. I love the nerd crowd.
Meanwhile I took Juliet to another soccer game.
They don't keep score but this team was annoyingly good and they got slaughtered. Juliet noticed and was a bit annoyed but she still had fun with friends and got treats at the end so she did okay.
Notice Juliet's fancy green hair that I did up in honor of her soccer game! Here she is giving Callie some rare Juliet attention besides when Callie gives her kisses on the couch in the morning and Juliet tries to hide her face and yells "No, Callie!" It's every morning. Callie is so devoted.
Patrick was supposed to be studying math for a math test he's taking to skip a year and I gave Juliet a math book to keep her occupied while Patrick studied. He ended up ignoring his material in order to help Juliet, which was cute and annoying. We're still waiting back to hear how he and Eleanor did on their math tests. Bradley is perhaps the best at math but doesn't care about going ahead, they asked if Eleanor wanted to go ahead and I said "Yes, of course," but then we realized it was a lot of work to do that when you're skipping 7th grade math and it's a lot easier to do it at a younger grade. So I asked and we got permission for Patrick to give it a try. We'll see how it goes!
Juliet playing with puzzles in the evening. She is rather vain about her hair and I guess she has a fair amount of reason for this. So pretty!
Meg enjoyed the amount of time Eleanor spent reading over break. Eleanor thought maybe she could have read more had it not been for Meg's devotion.
Sookie also liked child reading time.
Smoochies for Meg!
I told Patrick to go put on a collared shirt and make himself look nice for church and this is what walked into my bathroom a couple minutes later.
Meg also visited Bradley, even when Callie was around. Bradley was so proud.
Meanwhile, Juliet had taken up residence at Annabelle's and I don't know which girl was happier about this.
Back to school! Juliet and Lilah won for the dress up day at school. Juliet was all in for this one, it was great that she won.
Beautiful Meg! She's such a pretty kitty.
One morning I left the back door open to let in some cool air and Meg decided to wander out and eat some grass. She has been yowling at the door the next few days after this and I've let her out each time, much to Callie's delight. She seems to be slowing in her devotion to the grass though. I got the kitties new gravy kitty food and she and Sookie come down each morning and harass me until I bring it up to the master bathroom for them. Cats are so wonderful, except on the weekends when Meg will harass me when I'm trying to sleep in because she's accustomed to fresh water at 6:30 AM typically.
Nathan and I were supposed to play tennis on his Friday off the other week, but it was too windy. So we went to a driving range and I complained about how terrible I was and mentioned I would probably be a lot better if I had a beer. He happily ran off and got me one and honestly I think it helped, I got a lot better after that. Or maybe I just swing better when I'm in a better mood.
I messaged a friend and called the sport glorified bowling, which I stand by, but it felt pretty good to get a few good swings in. Nathan was much more impressive. Then we had a nice lunch together, it was a very nice day date.
Which was good, because I left that afternoon to help chaperone a middle school youth retreat in Oklahoma. It was a 3 hour ride in a van full of kids, it's just nice I didn't have to drive this time. Here's Bradley playing a fun fancy version of ping pong with buddies.
I had to institute a rule about not picking up Eleanor at camp. This rule got broken quite a bit.
Some 8th grade boys tested my statements about how much I enjoy middle schoolers (skibidi rizz pizz what) and we had to shut down a came of charades when the youth pastor let the kids create their own items to act out and I couldn't tell if one of the cards was racist or a reference to a meme or something, so we switched to a premade version of charades and most of the boys went and played something else and Eleanor had a fabulous time with a few other people playing the much more appropriate version of the game.
Ziplining! Bradley went first and I missed getting a picture of him.
I had to do it again. I don't think it was quite as bad as the first time but it was still a way higher starting point than I liked.
It was nice to have more chaperones this time, the youth pastor went along with me to chaperone 6th graders at a low ropes course.
I've decided I loath low ropes courses, they're usually a bunch of challenge activities that are supposed to build teamwork but just leave everyone frustrated. And there's too much touching. But the kids seemed okay with the activities and I kept my whiny thoughts to myself.
We went on a nice walk, Eleanor appreciates Annabeth as the only other 6th grade girl on the trip.
I got to go with Bradley when his group went horseback riding! I didn't actually get to ride with him, I got a call from Juliet's friend Annabelle who was having a 7 hour play date with Juliet while I was gone. The mom wanted to take Juliet out to McDonalds after a birthday party. I said yes. We are relieved we have a pool and Juliet's favorite stuffed toy so there is at least some reason for her to come home to us eventually and not stay with Annabelle forever.
Great success! Only one child fell off a horse on this trip and it was Eleanor's friend Annabeth. Apparently another horse ran away from the leaders with that group as well, I missed the exciting horseback riding session.
We had a nice evening when we got back, Eleanor played beach volleyball with Lucy, one of the other girls. Eleanor is rather beloved by the middle school girls and got tired out on people by about 9 PM and wanted a reading break in her bunk and they had a really hard time leaving her alone. It was sweet but I did get to remind them several times that she was reading and to just let her read for a minute. Popularity is both a blessing and a curse it seems.
I took a group picture on our way out.
Meanwhile, Nathan had tended to lonely pets while I was away.
Taken Patrick to a few lacrosse games and then to a birthday party at a gymnastics gym where the boys mostly tried to play flag football.
And then went to a very cold flag football game on Sunday morning with Juliet in tow.
Nathan left for a work trip before I got back with the big kids from their retreat, we just left the younger two at home with a show for the couple of hours they were on their own until I got back. Things are so much easier now than they were a couple years ago. And it was Bradley's birthday! I asked him what he wanted for a birthday cake and he said he wanted us all to go out for blizzards. Only 13 years old and already a genius.
Then we took the kids to Walmart to buy Bradley Pokemon and Yu-gi-o cards. That was easy and fun, especially when a little sister is calling you "Bra bra" and cuddling you a bunch. Bradley was so happy.
Cozy reading time in the library space that evening.
Me and Eleanor having cozy reading time with a sweet kitty.
Here's a picture of Nathan on his work trip.
And Patrick from spring break on a play date with three friends from his class. All girls! There was also an older sister and a younger brother in attendance, the younger brother is in kindergarten and he told us he likes to chase Juliet around at recess.
And the flag football practices have been a wee bit windy upon times
But sometimes the weather is nice and Bradley gets to tag along and play catch with Nathan or Juliet gets to bring her soccer ball and practice. Yay Juliet!
