Weekly Wind Down {Dart Battle, Co-op, Violin, Fit Checks, Ambidextrous Preschooler?, Basketball} Jan 22-28

Sunday brought loads of excitement for the oldest two, especially Xavier.  The church planned a dart gun war for the 6th-8th graders and Xabe could hardly restrain his excitement all week.  After church we reset for a new week.  

The kids + Jace played outside for an hour or so, I prepped co-op lunches, Mike ran to Newton with my dad to carry in a new washer/dryer for Aunt Annette for a small bathroom remodel that's happening there, and then we packed and I got my lessons ready for Monday co-op.  I had quite a bit of lesson prep to do for my music class, but I paused long enough to pop popcorn on the stovetop and drizzle warm butter over it and make some hot chocolate to warm the chilly kiddos back up when they came in.

The kids played dart guns in the basement play area for awhile, until it was time for the oldest three to go to the church with Mike for games + pizza.

Natalee's reviews were mixed, but the night was as fun as Xavier had anticipated and he had an absolute blast.

Monday came too early for some of us.  Others (mom) were up at 4:30 and had sausage and coffee cake ready for everyone when they emerged from their sleeping cocoons.

The music and art class went very well - though the time seems to fly - and it's time to set my vision on what we will do for our final performance of the year in May.

In preschool we did more work with teddy bears, a continuation from last session.  A graham cracker, chocolate frosting, Trader Joe candy gems, banana slices, and a chocolate chip to make a teddy bear snack...

Then we used brown paint and a fork to lay out a nice bear face and built it up from there.  The fork gave a really nice "furry" look to our art. 

We sang our teddy bear song several times and then I released the littles back to play.  This class is only supposed to be 30 minutes long, but usually I bring a sensory bin and they adore it so much that my time with them stretches to closer to an hour - I truly don't mind, but I was feeling like I just needed the break and connection with some of the other moms so I purposefully didn't bring the sensory bin and we were done right at 35 minutes.  My sweeties did ask where it was, though. 

Mia and Zayden had show and tell in one of their classes....here Mia is showing her twisty petz that she brought to some of her other friends who weren't in that class (and a couple that were!).

After co-op and lunch we went over to visit with Aunt Annette.  The kids had lots to fill her in on and we were all very glad to see her.  She was getting a new stove delivered when we arrived and so we got to check that out and her new bathroom remodel.  

Little miss couldn't be bothered to eat at lunch time......so she ate her lunch at 3:30 when we got home.

Monday evening was filled with wrestling and swim.

Natalee had early morning OT/PT Tuesday morning and then we jumped into morning time and school.  Mia had OT mid afternoon at Mike's lunch.

(Natalee's enjoying this reverse coloring book my sister, Andrea, gave her at Christmas.)

I taught Evalynn to peel her own clementines and at first she was very frumpy about it and then she was very proud.  So pleased that she peeled 4 to show off her skills....and ate them!

Zayden got a fun package in the mail....a violin!  The one he got from grandma and papa for his birthday broke in the first few days of having it so I mailed it back and Papa replaced it with this one.  He's having so much fun with it!

Tuesday was make your own pizza and game night.  Evalynn didn't want pizza and requested fried eggs instead....

The rest were very happy to make their pizzas.

First Evie's games...

And then while she had a bit of iPad time, the rest of us played Dutch Blitz!

Wednesday morning started like this...

And then Evalynn went to all the kids and told them to get ready to go play outside and they all listened to her.  LOL.  And so that worked for her, because who am I to argue?

The rest of Wednesday passed with school, the sounds of a violin, and playing, until it was time for Awana and Youth Group.

I did feed the kids lunch and put Ev down for her nap and Mike and I slipped over to eat lunch at a nearby restaurant, just the two of us.  The kids were doing well with their independent reading when I got back 45 minutes later and said all had gone smoothly.

Youth group was at the Christian school and the kids got to play dodgeball.  Natalee was very excited for this fun night and reported that it was a blast!

All of the children have been getting awards for verse memorization in their respective groups.  I haven't snagged photos of the older two in their shirts, but Ev and Zayden both got an award this week so I got their picture! Only a couple more months and Awana will be done for the year - hard to believe.

We didn't have hippotherapy scheduled this week because of a miscommunication between the scheduler and I, so we were home Thursday.

My day again started loud and sweet.

We are praying to find instrument instructors that work well for our children....if you'd want to pray that for us, too.

Evalynn is very into vests.....love her.

She and I got her Cubbie book done so we would have all week to work on her new Bible verse.

Thursday evening Papa stopped by to say hello.  Zayden's wrestling practice got moved to an earlier slot and I didn't have his supper ready before so the rest of us ate and I made plates for him and Mike...

Evalynn cried and cried for her daddy so much that he came back after she ate supper and let her go over to wrestling.  She's been struggling a bit with strong emotions - probably playing us some, too, and so we're working through it with her.

I took Xavier to basketball and ran to grab myself some books at the library before coming back to watch his practice and read.

Friday fit check....

I adore her in these overalls.  Except it ended up that the straps rub on her neck and shoulders where her skin is just still so tender and healing from burns, so we took them off in favor of sweat pants.

Morning time vibe....

Evalynn's loving working on her name during her preschool.  At this time she seems still fully ambidextrous, sometimes a bit more steady in her left hand than right, but I just keep letting her use both.

After table work we moved on to some sensory play.  I wanted my play sink to sit down inside my kitchen sink like my sister, Lauren's, does, but it was like an 1/8" too big.  So we improvised and this set up still kept my floors dryer overall than having the sink on the floor.  She played for a long long time (I put warm water in her little sink), with varying siblings stopping by to play with her off and on.

The kitchen play allowed me time to work through some of my Bible study!

I did an early supper Friday evening because the kids were all vying to go to open gym while Natalee was at swim.  Mike agreed to take them because he's the nicest, and I had an evening of quiet with my book.

Saturday started slow.  We had a grocery pick up and some of the children's attitudes during putting away the groceries halted cartoons and sent everyone to do their chores.  Xavier had a basketball scrimmage Saturday smack in the middle of the day.  Mike took him and Zayden went to cheer him on.

Mike took the boys for a treat after basketball, then collected everyone for a quick library run, before coming back for the day.

We've been trying to use more of her wardrobe instead of just our comfy favs.  I mean it's all comfy, but some are favs.  She's growing so quickly that some of these won't last into next winter. 

She's just too much.

By Saturday evening Mike and I were exhausted from a hard day of parenting and we sent everyone to bed a bit early.

How quickly the last full week of January came up on us, when at times we thought the month wasn't moving at all!