seagulls

Last week, Coleson had meetings in Nashville so the kids and I drove to Tampa to see Aunt Lolly and Uncle Brian.  Among other things, the Big Two did a word puzzle that announced Aunt Lolly's pregnancy!  Hooray for another cousin!! 

Other notable memories: 
*Abby, upon spotting a bunch of seagulls at the beach, "Chickens!!!!!"
*Whilst eating lunch at a beachside restaurant, a brave and obnoxious seagull swooped by and grabbed a chicken finger right off Abby's plate!  They proceeded to fight over it in mid-air.  The seagulls and pigeons were waayy too unafraid of people.  :)

Peppin and Joy

We have some crazy conversations around here.  To the best of my ability, here's the recreated version of our chat in the car this morning:

Abby is singing "peppin and joy" over and over in the backseat.  It sounds like it could be to the tune of "heaven and nature" so I ask her if that's what she means.  Ryan and I start singing "heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and heaven and nature sing."  Abby says with certainty that is not the song she is singing.  She is singing "peppin and joy."  Ryan asks her if she means "heaven and joy."  Abby is still adamant "PEPPIN and joy."  Ryan tells her that's not a real song.  They banter back and forth.  A minute or two later, Abby takes the conversation for a left turn and says "oh Heaven and Taylor in the morning?!"  We try to explain that it's Kevin, but it does rhyme with Heaven.  By now I'm feeling a little looney trying to keep up with what's going on.  Fortunately, Ryan and Abby start bickering over a water bottle and the craziness is over and my brain can rest for a quick moment.  But never for long.  We are pretty silly around here!

[If you don't know, Kevin and Taylor are the morning show hosts on the local radio station.]

Love

Last night I was driving the kids home from Jacksonville.  I stopped for gas and I passed a random, small, sketchy gas station.  I kept going and Ryan asked why.  I told him I liked the other gas station better - it's bigger, brighter, safer.  As we pulled up to the pump, he read the sign : Love's. 
"Oh, I know why you like this one.  It makes you think of Daddy!" 
:) :)

preschool bffs

Tomorrow is Abby's last day of 3yr old preschool, crazy!  Last night I sent an email to her class that we'd be at Burger King for lunch today if anyone wanted to play.  It worked out perfectly - all her bestest friends came.  Lyla was there and the twins, Larsen and Levi.  All three of them also play soccer with us.  Virgil came too; he's a super sweet little guy who was also in Shannon's 2s class with Abby and Lyla.  All four moms get along well and the kids played together great.  We had a blast!  I love our preschool, and we've made some wonderful friends there! 
[I wish I had thought to take a picture of all the kiddos, but I didn't, hence the desire to type up a short post]

go Raptors!

Ryan's been playing baseball this spring for the first time.  He's always been a soccer playing kind of guy.  But he knows that Mommy likes baseball and Grandpa does too.  I didn't want to push him into anything, but after he gave it some thought, he told me he'd try baseball this spring and then he could go back to soccer in the fall. 

The season started a little slow.  As in most things unfortunately, there are politics in his league.  He's new and the coaches didn't know him and the team mom didn't know him and he got stuck in the outfield.  Which is totally fine, he even likes it, please don't hear me wrong, if that's the best spot for him I'm all about that.  My concern was that he didn't get a chance and that there was so little time spent on fundamentals and the basics of baseball.  But he's a champ.  He liked the outfield and he gave baseball one hundred percent with his Ryan-like focus.  We play catch together in the afternoons and he has improved so much.  'Can we play catch' is usually asked before we even get inside from the bus stop.  And oh boy, does he hustle on the field.  He's the first one on the field every time.  And he backs up everybody.  If the ball's hit anywhere in the outfield, he's usually the one to get it, the other outfielders are too busy playing with the grass or sitting on their bottoms or don't even have their gloves on.  I saw an outfielder on an opposing team doing somersaults one time :)  He's also a very consistent hitter.  He doesn't appear to have the natural power that some of the boys do, but he seems to squeak out a single almost every at-bat.  He's worked his way up to 6th in the lineup [out of 11 or 12, everyone hits]. 

Tonight is his second game in the end-of-season tournament.  They won their first game on Saturday to continue on [single elimination].  What a game Saturday was!  The coach called him in during the second inning to play pitcher.  It's coaches' pitch, but they have a position player there for the fielding.  He rocked pitcher!!  He stopped almost all of them and threw out, I don't know, four or five kids?  That's saying a lot in 5/6 baseball, usually contact guarantees a hit!  But what I loved most was his excitement.  He was more alive during that game than all season.  He was punching his fists and jumping up and down.  He was involved and it was awesome.  I loved seeing him love it. 

Ryan gets the tournament style elimination, and he does not want his season to end.  He is excited for tonight, and so am I!  It's going to be a great game.  I sure hope he is the pitcher again.  I've never cared about wins and losses, but I'm really hoping for a win tonight!  I'm not ready for the season to be over!  Currently, Ryan says he likes baseball, but he still likes soccer too.  He even said a few days ago that maybe he'd play baseball this fall and wait until spring to do soccer again.  We told him to think on it over the summer; we don't have to decide right now. 

Thanks for always giving it your best and for the hustle and the energy and the enthusiasm.  I love you my little all-star!!

 

 

two things of note

I've been wanting to mention these for awhile now....

Chloe can get both shoes and her right sock off if she so desires [which is anytime we are in the car!].  She can't get her left sock off though.

Chloe loves raisins, anytime, anyplace!  And when you're as picky as she is, this is pretty impressive. 

Thing One & Thing Two at four

At their four year checkups:
Abby was 36lbs 3ozs and 39inches tall
Ryan was 37lbs and 40.5inches tall. 
Pretty similar!

Abby's stats

I don't have time for a nice, long, emotional, sweet blog post about Abby's 4th birthday right now.  But I am really, really tired of this huge stack of paperwork from her checkup that's been sitting on my kitchen counter for over a week.  So here are her stats so I can file away all the papers :)

She's 39inches, 36lbs 3oz.  Both are right smack in the middle of the charts, perfectly average. 

Phew, check that off my list, hehe!  I'll come back and compare to Ryan's 4yr because its interesting to me.  And hopefully I'll write something fun about her birthday and the party and all the wonderful things we've done the last couple of weeks.  But until then, off to dinner and baseball!  April is always soo crazy busy!  but lots of fun!  I love you Abby Girl!!

Happy Belated Birthday

Ryan was making paper airplanes today after school.  He came over to me at the kitchen table and handed me a simple little paper heart and said "Happy belated Birthday!"  What a great present!!!  I absolutely love it when he does thoughtful things like this without any prompting. 

 

Easter

Ryan pretty much gets Easter this year, at least the UpStreet version.  He'll tell you that Jesus died to be our Savior.  Abby, on the other hand, has some super cute, random thoughts about Easter.  She told us last week that Jesus "undied" on Easter.  True enough :)  Today she asked if Jesus lived on Earth and I told her he did 2,000 years ago.  When I asked her about Easter, she told me that "on Easter Jesus started growing again."  Gotta love my Abby Girl!