School year ends and Mother's Day

I can't believe Taylor is done with the 1st grade.  I still have her little fox hat from her first day of kindergarten.  Where does the time go?

She is on the swim team, and after time trials she's 8th out of 25 kids in her bracket.  She was ready to give up, so I took her over to see the ribbons you get for racing, and that changed her whole outlook.  She was eager to race, and took 2nd in her backstroke heat.

We went to visit my mom, and it was funny seeing Taylor experience the living conditions of people who don't have much money.  She actually opted to play outside instead of stay inside the trailer my mom lives in. My mom loved seeing them, and once we got outside, the kids were super happy to spend time with her.

AJ is finishing up another year of preschool, and he's growing so fast.  He can do the monkey bars at the playground, and he recently went with his grandpa to the train museum.  He enjoyed all the fun things there are to do there, and I think Pops liked it too.  He loves playing zombieville with me, and he's such a fun kid.

Recently he had a swim lesson and he's finally getting comfortable dipping his face into the water.  He's proud of himself when coach Brian asks how he's doing.

Pictures next time.

Witch's Soup!

Some quick notes before the pics -

• AJ was sitting next to me on the couch, and sneezed.  When he did it, he said "Sorry daddy, I god-bless-you'd all over you"
• Recently I was playing on AJ's DS, and was trying to beat the high score.  AJ actually started trash talking just a bit "Dad you can't beat my score, you're too slow"
• While playing Gulo Gulo with Taylor she said "Dad, you'll never get that egg with those hot-dog fingers"
• Tonight, we were playing the new Witches' Soup game, and in this game, you have to try to be sneaky, and try to slide mismatched mushrooms in other player's cauldrons.  When it was Taylor's turn to be sneaky, she got all nervous and felt bad about being a "Bad witch".  So cute, we had to explain to her, for this game, it was ok to lie, and try to be sneaky.  She has as bad a poker face as I do!

On to the pics

Last week we went to the Jelly Belly factory.  The kids had a ton of fun, and got to buy lots of jelly beans.  I was pretty impressed to hear how far back the company had been around, and I didn't know so much work went into each jelly belly.

Lots of fun, and I recommend anyone who lives nearby check it out sometime.

We got in some good board gaming time, both myself at Sac Conquest and with the kids.

Taylor has been doing swim clinics in preparation for swim team

 We had a 4-kid playdate with Linda and Aaron

 And Grandma Evelyn gave Taylor a new hat!

See ya next time!

SacConquest

So last weekend was SacConquest.  Board gamer convention.  I had a lot of fun, but mostly because I was gaming with Travis, Ian, Dan and Josh most of the weekend.  Got in good games of Cosmic, Rex, Memoir 44 overlord.  The unexpected hit was Battlestar galactica.  I had never heard of the series really but the game pulled me in.  I've now watched the entire mini-series, and am going to start watching the seasons.

Good times!

Also, we had our 3rd family meeting week, and it's very interesting.  The kids are involved and we're seeing improvements in what they do.  More cleaning of the house than before and working toward filling their jars. Taylor is excited for Incredible John's Pizza!

Happy Easter 2013!

Just a quick update.  Easter with the Woods and then at Meme's house.  The kids loved hunting for eggs (What kids don't?).

Also, Taylor had spring break this week, so she went to the zoo and saw lots of cool Peacocks!

Agile Family Meeting

Inspired by a recent TED talk, we decided to try out "Agile" family meetings. Not being familiar with it in software development sense, I had no idea what to expect.  We sat down with the kids and explained that we would be meeting weekly to discuss ways our family can adapt to our growing, changing kids.

We threw out a few ideas that we each wanted to try. Setting the table for meals, a reward jar, cleaning up dirty laundry and things like that. Ultimately we decided on two things: setting the table and reward jars. Then we decided on the rewards to work toward- zoo trip, food delivered, setting off fireworks, ears pierced.

After that, we ended the meeting and the kids set about earning their first marbles. They were super eager to help, and the house was cleaned in record time. We'll see how this goes but we're off to a great start.

PunchKickRun

So not too long ago, we took Taylor and AJ to Burger King, and they start showing us their Karate moves on one of pillars in the kid-play area...  I feel sorry for the pillar, it was not prepared for the beatdown it received.

Also, this week Taylor did the FoxTrot, a fund-raiser for her school, and she ran a full 8 laps.  I realize I have no perspective on whether that's a lot or not, but since it's MY kid, I'm gonna go ahead and declare it the greatest thing ever on the earth.   Yay Taylor, congratulations :)

AJ has learned to do the monkey bars, and we're going to take a video and post it here soon, but apparently he decided he's able to do it, and he just swings from one end to the other.  I know, lots of kids end up doing it, but it's new for him.

That's it for now!

Learning to play the Piano

Short update today: Both Taylor and AJ are getting pretty good at playing the piano. They love to sit down and start banging away at the keys. Taylor can play London Bridge, Happy Birthday, the Taylor Swift "We're never getting back together" song, a piece of Lady Gaga Paparazzi.

AJ can play London Bridge and the same piece of the Taylor Swift song.  Its not a huge selection but he's not even 5.  I've been thinking about getting them into lessons but we'll have to see if they keep an interest in playing.