Update

We had our last soccer games for the season yesterday. It's always so much fun, but I am also always grateful to have our Saturdays back when the season is over. Anna, Abby and Nate all played this last year and all of them played their guts out and loved it.

Not this weekend, but the one before that we got to have John and Jamie, (Brennan's step-dad and Mom) come stay with us. Everything is always more exciting and fun with Grandparents around. We loved having them for a visit and look forward to the next one.

Anna is still on a high from the fact that due to some logistical mishap she and several other students and parents got a ride back to school from their field trip on one bus while all of the teachers and most of the students got stuck waiting for another 2 hours for the other 2 buses. Anna and her friends were teacher-less for 2 happy hours. She still lights up when she talks about it. She's been working so hard lately with lots of school projects and end of level testing, I'm really proud of her. I think too, these last few days she's kind of tuned into the fact that I am lacking energy and so sweetly made extra efforts to be helpful. We love Anna.


Abigail, the girl who hates having her hair done, begged me to curl it the other morning before school. When I asked what prompted this change in behavior she replied frankly, "Paige and I decided we would look really cute so we could be popular." "Hmmn, aren't you already pretty popular?" "Yeah, but not as popular as Samantha or ______, but ______ is mean popular and we don't want to be like that." When she got home that day I asked her if their plan had worked and she said, "Well, everyone told us how much they liked our hair, but we just couldn't act popular, mostly we just act weird." I guess they have resigned themselves to being their goofy selves and mid-level popularity. She was in the room yesterday while one of the other kids was listing to me all the reasons they shouldn't have to do their Saturday chores. Abby sincerely and sweetly interjected, "_____, I've found that if I'm happy I can do my chores a lot quicker." We love Abby.


Nate was with my Mom the other day and she took him and Ben to a little boutique type store. Evidently it was kind of a significant eye-opening experience. When I asked them what they had done Nate said, "Grandma took us to this store and it was NOT at ALL like Wal-mart!" He was seriously impressed. One of my favorite things about Natey is how transparent he is. When he is happy it's written all over him, his smile, his eyes, his whole body. That's what he's like when he's playing T-ball and soccer, you can see it in the way he runs even. It's so much fun to watch. We love Nathan.

Yesterday I sort of unconsciously rolled through a stop sign when Ben piped up with, "Mom, the sign says STOP!" Whoa, busted by my 3 year old. Poor little Ben's been sick this week too with allergies and then an eye infection. Unfortunately he HATED the eye drops we had to give him. It was so sad to pin him down and pry his little eyes open while he screamed bloody murder. Whenever I said, "Ben, it's time to do your eye drops." He would stop and look at me with total exasperation and say, "WHAT? Againnnnn?!!!" We're definitely noticing a change since he turned 3, he has even more opinions and is a little less patient with us when we don't live up to his expectations. It's a tough job to be the boss of the world when you're 3. We love Benny.