Lego Robotics Competition and Eleanor Gets Her Ears Pierced!

November 1st was the coldest day of fall - high of 42 degrees and rain in the forecast. Of course this meant Eleanor had an outdoor Girl Scout event all day! I had volunteered to go as an adult chaperone.

It's a really cute group of girls and we had a nice morning at Camp Tongawood. Eleanor is holding the sign for Turtle Rock on their little hike. 

Then it started raining a ton and we had to retreat to an indoor shelter. One of my sliding doors for the minivan broke and we had to drive 30 minutes home with a high pitched shrieking sound from the car because apparently the door was only 99% closed. Eleanor and the two friends I was driving home were not amused. We blasted loud tunes to try to drown out the noise. And now I have a new car! We call it future car because it's a 2022 Honda Odyssey. I like all the new features but I mostly care that the engine works and the doors work. Eleanor is the only child that is really excited about all the shiny, fancy things on the car. She better work hard and get a good job when she grows up, Eleanor is all about the finer things in life. 

Then we were back to life as usual, which is a lot of Tuesday gymnastics for Juliet. 

This is still a picture of old car, we had to wait a day to pick up new car because they had to detail it and finish up paperwork or some such nonsense. Juliet was really upset that her door was broken and I heard a LOT about it. 

My recipe for success with a whiny child is outdoor time. Fortunately, the weather had improved dramatically from the day before and we had a fabulous time catching leaves in the park. 

She had originally wanted to catch fish, but the leaves were much more plentiful. 

I was informed that digging in the mulch by our neighbor's tree was "her job" on the walk back home. 

Back out to the creek with enthusiastic siblings that afternoon. I talked Juliet into going home with me to make dinner and left Patrick and Eleanor at the park on their own, because surely with Eleanor in charge only responsible decisions would be made. Nope. When they got home in time for dinner I was regaled with tales of Eleanor forcing Patrick to climb a giant fallen tree limb. Patrick said, "I was so scared! But she told me I had to if I wanted to hear more stories." Sighhhhhh. We talked about good decision making and I'm sure they will only make logical decisions forever and ever. 

Speaking of naughty, when I leave Juliet alone in our bathtub for a minute she likes to climb out and grab more toys out of the nearby laundry basket. Caught in the act!

Here she is with her lasso. She created the lasso herself (out of yarn) and she dragged the little panda ottoman around on her own. Such self-sufficiency. 

Back to the park on another day. It has been an amazing fall. 

It's really good I always bring the wagon along. Sometimes a girl just needs to relax. 

Friday dinner at my parents' house! Juliet likes to run over and cuddle with Grandma during dessert time. 

The kids are big fans of Grandpa during dessert time. I always have commentary about the portion size of what they are given but I think it just encourages him to add more ice cream the next time. 

Patrick talked his way into a Jinkies coffee date with me and Eleanor one weekend. 

He ... might not get to come the next time. He was very enthusiastic about everything but knocked over a table display when he got excited during a game of Spot it! and in general it felt like we had brought a puppy along with us. A very cute puppy! But oh my. 

Layla has this thing where she likes to cuddle underneath you if you're laying on your stomach and reading. I love it a lot. 

Juliet has this thing where she sticks a leg over you if you're trying to get out of her bed after reading at bedtime and she thinks that she deserves a little more chat time before bedtime. 

Nathan tried to do the steal your nose magic trick on Juliet and it turns out it doesn't work on her.

How cute is Patrick? In other news, they demolished this playground about a week and a half ago. We knew they were replacing the other one in our park but hadn't heard about this one. It was quite the surprise, we really hope they put in new equipment soon. 

Nathan has been playing Truth or Dare with the kids when he takes them to the park and apparently he dared them to crab walk a very long distance and they went with it. I'm impressed even Juliet got in on the action.

And it sounds like a cute activity, truth or dare with your kids! But it was terrible the next few times I took the kids to the park because they just dared each other to do increasingly dangerous things. 

This wasn't even a dare, Patrick got it into his head that he wanted to stand on the swing and then not use his hands and he took a hard fall. I'm proud that I got a picture of it. He was fine. Please not the older two adorably fussing over Juliet while Patrick pulls a Patrick right beside them. 

More gymnastics. Juliet counts down to this every week. 

And then we got to have lunch at the school with Bradley! Fun story - I thought his lunch was supposed to be the next day and I got a phone call from him this morning saying, no, it was today, please come. I told him the Mrs. Brewer had emailed and specifically said it was the next day. He said, "She was my teacher last year, I'm in 4th grade now." Oops. Look, Halloween was a LOT and I was very tired at this point. So ... many ... events. 

Here we were the next day at lunches for Patrick and Eleanor. 

None of the kids particularly cared that I showed up and were very excited to show off Juliet to all of their friends. 

This was the scene when it was time for Eleanor to go back in to her class after lunch. I had to pry Juliet off of her and she literally screamed the entire way home. She took an amazing nap that day, apparently school lunches have their merits. 

It was 70 degrees (in November!) so we played at the school playground after school got out. Juliet spent some time yelling at all the boys who were trying to play football together so I grabbed her and handed her off to Mabel's big brother, Andrew. They were best buds for the rest of the time we were there. Juliet's pretty irresistible when she's being sweet and Andrew is a very nice kid, it was lovely. 

Some girl tablet time before bed. 

The boys checking out Onitama together. We love this game, it's like a very lightweight alternative to Chess. 

The next day we were back at Jinkies for a coffee date with friends. I remembered to bring a coloring book for Juliet as she somehow doesn't care about any of the treats at the cafe. 

Park time that afternoon. I love dressing up little girls. 

We went to Wonderscope again and had a great time.

Juliet still loves driving the bus.

I couldn't quite handle how cute she was playing in the restaurant area with a little apron on. 

And then we built stuff to end our time at the museum. 

Juliet has been practicing going potty on her own here and there. 

She's already learning that I love booty pictures while toddlers wash their hands. 

The older three kids got their first Covid shot! Nathan took them to Jinkies to celebrate, which was nice because I had been talking about it a lot and he hadn't been yet. 

I love taking the kids on solo walks and Eleanor was very proud to climb this tree. 

We watched Murder on the Orient Express together later that evening, which upon reflection was a lot more boring than I remembered. Eleanor was a champ though. We're doing a musical the next time we have a girls' movie night. 

Juliet had been talking about roller skates in the garage for a few days and so finally I put them on her and we tested them out. 

I held onto her except pausing for a couple photos, we will put a helmet on her if this becomes a regular thing. 

Binoculars are for the cool kids at the park. 

I know. She's so cute. It's a little ridiculous. 

She's a bit of an imp though.

We're working on our ladder strategy, it's tough when you start on the wrong side. 

She's climbing everything these days. 

She fell asleep for her nap while I was reading to her, which never happens. I love a good romp in the park. 

My dad came over to drop something off so we made sure he got to test out Onitama with Bradley. I'm just happy Bradley is playing something besides Unmatched sometimes, it's good to have a little variety. 

And big news, I made the Blue Valley Rec activities magazine this time for my board game camps! I already have a few sign-ups, I'm really excited to get to do more of these classes!

Layla helped me celebrate. 

She's kind of a puddle when she does this in the evening. It's embarrassing and adorable at the same time. 

Juliet really likes shoes, even if they aren't her own. She has soooo many pairs of shoes. She inherited a bunch and then I still had to go out and buy a couple pairs for her because she had outgrown her fluffy warm boots and needed sparkly shoes for church. She wears them all the time, little girls are so fun to dress up, it was worth it!

First wear of sparkly shoes to go to gymnastics class!

I ended up taking all the kids to the library after school this day. They hadn't been since the summer, I had just been putting things on hold and checking them out for them, and Bradley had a series of books he wanted to check out. We ended up with 98 books checked out (the limit is 100). Finding and returning library books is a weekly task around here. It's so fun that even Juliet is in on the reading. 

This is the night that I put Juliet in jammies and then walked off to help another child with something else. When I came back her pants were on inside out so I asked her why. She said, "Underwear!!" She had put underwear on over her diaper and then put the pants back on over them. 

Meanwhile, the boys cuddled up and read through the new pile of books. 

This is the picture I'm required to look at every time I want to buy Juliet a new toy. She was thrilled to death to be poking a stick into a bucket of really old, mucky water. Better than a Barbie by far. 

We took Juliet in to get her teeth cleaned for the first time! She was a champ. 

Honestly, I didn't even need to go back to hang out with her during the cleaning. Eleanor got her up on the chair, informed Juliet that yes, she would want sunglasses while her teeth were being brushed, informed the hygienist that Juliet shouldn't have toothpaste with fluoride because she would swallow it, and cheerleaded Juliet through the entire cleaning. 

We also discovered that despite still not having lost any teeth, Patrick has his first adult tooth coming in! It's very exciting, especially since he's my only child who shows any interest in my deal of paying a dollar to yank a tooth out via the string and door technique. He has a couple of very loose teeth, he's going to make some good money very soon!

We did a final run-through of our Lego robotics project and did a presentation for parents. It went well, although it was more nerve-wracking for me to have them present to the parents than to the judges at the presentation. I really wanted the parents to be happy about what we had been doing at robotics practices. 

And we went home and the girls went upstairs to play tea party in Eleanor's room. Apparently Juliet wasn't very careful with the porcelain set, because after not too long Eleanor marched her downstairs to write a letter to Santa asking him for her very own tea set. I heard her lecturing Juliet about not touching something and didn't realize what was happening until I came over and saw that the elf on the shelf doll was holding Juliet's note. Can't touch the elf or it doesn't work or something. I don't know how Eleanor knows this, we've never done elf on the shelf.

Patrick also decided to write a note to Santa, and asked for things like "one $10,000 bucks" and "a real monster." He was delighted when he discovered a mysterious note on the train table about five minutes later!

It was so good of Santa to say yes to all the Christmas wishes ... Eleanor and I had a little talk about how she better start saving up a few thousand dollars before Christmas. 

Daniel and Stephanie came to visit with Katie and little baby Ethan. But Grandma still got in reading time with Patrick and Juliet. 

Everyone was very excited about holding baby Ethan. He is only one month old. 

He was perhaps not as thrilled with the honor, even though the kids were very good and very careful with him. 

He is so tiny, it's been so long since I've been around a baby this little. 

And the next morning we were up bright and early for a full day of Lego robotics competition!

We were the only team of 4th graders (plus our one 6th grader) amidst about 17 other teams, all of whom were middle schoolers. 

It was funny to see the height differences during the competition. 

But the kids hung in there and did so well! Here's our official team pic from the day!

We ended up placing 5th overall for the robot game portion of the competition. No small feat!

The high scoring run:

Posing beneath the scoreboard when we got up to 5th place. 

We had a moment of terror during the awards ceremony when the judges pulled out six big banners for the teams moving on to the next round of competition in January. We had promised parents that Lego robotics would be over in November and we very much did not want to move on. Fortunately, other teams scored a little better in their oral presentation to the judges for another portion of the event so we didn't move on. We did win the Breakthrough Award though, which I equate to being the rookie of the year. 

We took it easy the rest of the weekend. Well, I went to a holiday boutique with my mom and Stephanie and we spent the next afternoon playing board games at a friend's house. But overall, fairly mellow. 

Juliet spent Monday morning over at my parents' house while I went in for a dentist appointment and she was beyond delighted to get to hold baby Ethan for a bit. 

This is a brief moment where he took a break from fussing. Sweet guy. It's tough to be passed around so much. 

Later that morning I was working on things in the kitchen and Juliet was happily raiding siblings rooms for toys. She came downstairs and said, "Mom! I LOVE you!" Then there was a long pause and she said, "Don't look in my backpack."

Gymnastics. She looks pretty impressive these days! 

We went out to the park after school this past week because it was so nice out, I couldn't stand to be inside. Patrick found a giant stick and insisted I take a picture and send it to his teacher. She responded to my email almost instantly saying how excellent and impressive Patrick was and I can see why he's such a big fan of Ms. Sturm. 

The kids ended up going home to get rakes so they could better play with all the leaves at the park and Nathan practically had a heart attack when I sent him this picture, Apparently there are plenty of opportunities to play with our own leaves at our house if they want to rake something. 

Nathan worked from home one morning because I had another appointment to go to. I told him that I could probably have my parents watch Juliet while I was gone but he was insistent that he would stay home for the day, no matter how many cats and toddlers he had to cuddle. 

Came home the day before Thanksgiving to find that Eleanor had decided to create some rather fabulous chalk art!

She's quite the artist! No one helped her with any of this or even gave her the idea to draw any of it. 

Bradley is working on his winter strategy of books and blankets in order to snag kitty cuddles. 

And my turn on Thanksgiving for Ethan cuddles! I started to remember how to hold a newborn - I was very out of practice. 

The best child photo I could get on Thanksgiving. 

My parents with all the grandkids that were in attendance. 

And even a cute one with Katie and Ethan!

Juliet and Eleanor had a sleepover that night. 

Bradley helped Juliet put up the Christmas decals on the window the next morning. 

And we got out all the Christmas books and Eleanor grabbed one and read it to Juliet. 

I put the kids in their official Christmas outfits so I could take a picture but they were all excited about their stockings so they grabbed them for the picture, which I loved. 

Then we went on the Luminary Walk at the arboretum with my parents! 

I picked the warmest night to go, I was rather proud of myself. 

This was our most fun year ever, because of Covid you had to book a specific time to come in advance and they limited how many people could come at once. So it wasn't crowded at all when we showed up. 

They had adorable tech-savvy teenagers there to take family pictures for you at scenic spots. Thank you, teenagers!

And there was no line to see Santa and no one behind us to see him so we got to hang out and chat for a while. 

Patrick was shocked by what Santa had to say about magic food with fairy dust to make reindeer fly and whatever he said about magic in your heart means Frosty the Snowman is alive.

Juliet just wanted to look at Santa instead of take a picture. 

I kind of love the new setup - I'm not a big fan of the lap sitting on Santa. This was very nice. 

Then we had a really relaxed rest of our time at the walk. We already had a nice family photo or two and had seen Santa. Everything else was a bonus!

The kids love running through this light tube.

Cuties!

We got apple cider and sang Christmas songs by the camp fire. 

And even got a picture of all of together! Thank you, friendly teenagers!

Fairy garden to end our walk. Nathan was a genius and got some popcorn for the children who were starting to get tired and hungry. 

The next day Eleanor and I went to see a Christmas Carol so Nathan took the rest of the crew out for a fancy lunch at Jersey Boyz. 

Our Christmas Carol group!

Eleanor was a very good sport - A Christmas Carol can be really cute and sweet or it can be a bit dry and adult and serious and this production seemed a bit more serious than I had anticipated. But it was still very fun and we had a good time!

She came home to a delighted Juliet. 

And then today ... we pierced her ears as a Christmas gift!! Juliet was adamant that she should come along with us and told Eleanor in the car that she would hold her hands while she got her ears pierced. Eleanor and I both said, "Awww!!"

It looks so fun and sparkly, Eleanor is over the moon because she has been asking for this off and on for a couple years now, but she's been talking about it a lot ever since this past summer. We decided if she was that serious about it, she could do it. She chose cute green sparkly earrings to start with. So fancy and exciting!! Christmas dreams do come true!