We’re finally back to an allowance system, and with that the kids have a little money to donate to a charity. I ran across this cause yesterday and all three kids have agreed that this is what the first $10 will be going to:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci3nK0R0rk0]
Christian and Brandon attended the Spring Fling chess tournament on Saturday and had a great day. Brandon finally got to compete in a Kindergarten division. In a tournament of 400 kids, 50 were Kindergarteners. I didn’t get any good pictures of Christian at the tournament, but here is Brandon in Round 2, deep in thought…
And with his participant trophy (all Kindergarteners get trophies at tournaments):
Brandon finally got his first tournament win, along with 2 draws! Not enough to qualify for state, but a fantastic improvement. Christian ended the day with two wins and a draw. We’re looking forward to one more tournament before state.
On a side note, Christian’s baseball schedule has been posted, and Bill will keep baseball updates on his blog.
Christmas was a wonderful, lengthy event for us again this year. It started with our church’s Christmas program. Christian had an important split-role this year. He was one of the cousins as well as one of the shepherds. He had a lot more lines and movement to memorize this year, and he did great! Brandon did great as a shepherd this year as well. He’s the BEST at speaking loudly into the microphone. Alyson chose not to say any lines this year (neither did her buddy Madeline), but she was a beautiful angel.
Next we had Christmas dinner (a few days early) with Bill’s side of the family. The kids’ gifts from Grandma were the biggest hits. The boys each got a Rip-Stick (this is a crazy skateboard-like contraption that only has two wheels and probably says Age 10 and Up on the box, definitely requiring pads and helmets). I like this picture because this is the only way I’d ever be able to balance on the thing 🙂 Christian’s starting to get the hang of his now.
Grandma found Alyson this fantastic Dora jacket – she LOVES it.
Next in our Christmas tradition was Bake Day. We always enjoy the opportunity to spend more time with our Arlington family, and it’s a great warm-up to Christmas Eve. Alyson was a great sprinkler this year. She jumped up, ran over, and sprinkled cookies with great enthusiasm every time a pan was ready to sprinkle. The boys helped make peanut-butter balls (and by the end, Alyson had them making squares and pyramids instead of the boring balls). Here are the silly kids taking a break from all of the cookie-making.
Christmas Eve was next, where the kids were surprised with a fooz ball, pool, air hockey, table tennis, etc etc etc table that they have been playing nearly nonstop since we got it home! Alyson also got a really cute white soft fuzzy bear that lights up. It’s been a great nightlight for her. We made it to the 11pm candlelight service at church, and all three kids managed to stay awake. This is the first year Brandon was awake to hold a candle, and I think he enjoyed it.
Bill and I were up L-A-T-E getting the last Christmas morning surprises ready to go. We now have a band in our house! Here is the drummer:
And the guitarist and vocalist:
And here is the tired princess after a busy few days of Christmas.
We really enjoyed having Mom join us for Christmas this year. I think my favorite gift was my most surprising. Brandon chose to buy me the Mac game Lego Star Wars 🙂 I’m sure I missed some important highlights – feel free to comment on anything I missed. It was such a nice Christmas. I’m actually sad it’s over, but I’m very busy getting ready for another tax season.
Happy New Year to all!
So I have several posts to get written and pictures to upload 🙂
The month started with a joint family birthday party for both winter kids. We ended up accusing Brandon of wishing for snow, because not only did it snow on the 1st during the family party, it also snowed on the 9th, his actual birthday and kid party date.
Here are the birthday kids… I can’t believe Alyson is 3 and Brandon is 6 already. She’s become quite the naughty little child, both at home and at daycare. She’s also getting very complex in her sentences (lots of sentences connected by words like so and ‘cuz). And she’s very very loud when we say it’s bedtime. She still really loves to go play with her friends at daycare the two days a week she’s there. She is potty trained, but wears a pull up at night.
Brandon is really enjoying Kindergarten and seems to be very popular. He had a massive 18 kids at his birthday party at the Lynnwood Pool. It was a blast. The only thing that made me cringe was his method of attacking gifts… shred one open, throw it on the floor and race to the next one. In fact, at the family party he demanded to know where his gift was before he’d let anyone in the door.
Dad and Karen brought one of the best treasures… a gingerbread house to make with the kids. They had the best time decorating it with the gazillion (ok, I exaggerate a little) candies, and eating their fair share too. Here it is, in all its glory. I was really surprised at how precisely Alyson lined up the gumdrops on her tree and the roof 🙂
Brandon had his first chess tournament today, at Terrace Park K-8 school. Unfortunately, there were only 3 Kindergarteners registered, so they had to play up in the 1-3 (U800) division. That was tough, and Brandon did his best. He came away with 4 losses and a bye (which gave him 1 point for the day). He seemed to have a great time, and now he really wants to win some games and qualify for state. I think he’s getting addicted. He got a trophy for attending, as did the other 2 Kindergarteners.
Speaking of chess-addicts, our big-kid Christian got his wish and qualified for state today (3 wins in one tournament qualifies you for the state tournament in April). He lost to two tough opponents (rated 796 and 599), but he won over three opponents that were new to tournaments. He was SO excited. His friend Jordan qualified today too, and several other Seaview kids have already qualified, so they’ll have a good-sized team. Christian received a medal for earning 3 points today.
Speaking of teams, the Seaview grades 1-3 team won 1st place today, too, so they have another nice big trophy to display in the library.
It was a great competition, and I’m very proud of both of the boys. I’ll put up a picture or two if I can get them off of my phone.
Saturday, we participated in the Seattle Kids’ Marathon. This was a really great event. The kids were challenged to walk/run 25 miles, read 13 books, and do 13 do-rights (good deeds), in the weeks prior to the final marathon.
Saturday, we reported to Memorial Stadium beneath the Space Needle, got our numbers, ran around a little, and settled in to watch entertainment by Radio Disney until it was time for the walk to start.
Christian was really excited to be doing another walk.
Brandon was not so excited.
We finished the last 1.2 miles in about 20 minutes. The longest part of the morning was standing in line forever to get the kids’ shirts and goody-bags. They thought it was fun to go around to the vendor booths and get milk, yogurt, bananas, and other food. They were even happier when I promised a trip to the top of the space needle. I hadn’t been up in YEARS.
We had lunch at the observation deck, but none of my pictures picked up the view of Seattle. 🙁
I’m on an ‘experience’ gift phase at the moment. For Alyson it was getting nails done. For Brandon it was a few martial arts lessons. He got to go to the first one last night, and Christian got to participate as well. It was really fun to watch them learn some moves and have some fun.
Now we have to figure out if we’re going to let Brandon continue. There’s no way we can afford for both to continue. It’d be $400 a month! They’re running some big specials on Friday, so the boys will go for another lesson and we’ll revisit the pricing issue again then.
I don’t have a picture of Christian in his costume yet, but here are a few pictures from a Halloween party we went to over the weekend.
Princess Alyson and her bodyguard recon commando BJ (he’s decided recently he’s BJ, not Brandon, go figure).
The boys carving their pumpkins. All. By. Themselves. (Can you tell I’m excited I didn’t have to scrape goop this year?) 🙂
Here’s Christian’s two faced pumpkin. Brandon ran out of time to finish carving his… he was having too much fun running around with all of the kids.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
Brandon’s soccer game last Saturday was a little closer than the last two had been. The first quarter I thought we were in trouble, but the House Wreckers came through and won 5-2.
Conferences were this week. When we got home from meeting with both of the boys’ teachers we told the boys they were in BIG trouble. Then we took them out for dinner… their conferences were fantastic! Christian is right where he should be and doing well socially and academically. His handwriting (when he’s trying) is astounding. He tends to rush through his work, but he’s very easy-going about re-doing it when asked. He’s easily redirected when he gets distracted, but she said that isn’t a frequent occurence (Yay!). The things he picked up last year in a 2/3 classroom are really helping him this year, I think.
Brandon is also doing very well in school. His time in preschool last year served him well. He knows most of the numbers and many of the letters/sounds he needs to know. He is compliant and a joy to have in class. His teacher said he’s quite the actor. She said she was really surprised to see the dramatic side of him. (We asked him later and he said he showed everyone how his army guys dance. Incidentally, I didn’t even realize he HAD army guys and had NEVER seen him play with before show and tell day). Too funny.
The boys are participating in the Seattle Kids’ Marathon this year. We have until 11/24 to walk 25 miles. We got 4 miles in so far this week and 4 more weeks left… wish us luck!
Hmmm… what can I say about Princess Alyson? Well, she wants EVERYTHING that Toys R Us is advertising on Nick Jr. Her potty training is going well. She wore underwear the last two days and had few accidents. Today she’s back in a pull-up (stubborn child). And she cut her hair, but I already said that. I guess that’s her update for now 🙂
Christian loves to get into the fun days at school, and I think Crazy Hair Day is his favorite. That lovely day was today, so here are a few pics of the boys’ spiky red hair. Alyson, although not a Seaview kid yet, had to participate as well 🙂
It’s a little hard to see the red, so here’s a closer pic:
Perhaps I should have mentioned that Alyson took it upon herself to cut her own hair this week (just days after we went to the salon for haircuts). She got a nice chunk cut out one side. Thankfully, it’s difficult to tell, but it was definitely harder to put the pigtails in one side than the other!
Not perfect, but they made her happy 🙂
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