Sportsworld 2015

The big kids wrapped up a week long camp at Denton Bible this week: Sportsworld. Shawn dropped them off on Monday and told me it was cray cray!!

After the first day, Jase was already losing his voice from yelling so much. There was a spirit competition between the red and blue teams, and thankfully both of my kids were on the blue team!

Here is what each day looked like for them this week:

8:45 - Campers arrive

9:00 - Warm-ups and Daily Lessons

9:30 - Sports

12:00 - Lunch

12:30 - Devotional Time

1:00 - Games

2:30 - Review of the Day

3:00 - Dismissal

It was a full week to say the least. When signing up, you picked two sports you were interested in. They contacted me a couple of weeks before the camp to let me know which sport my kids would be playing during Sportsworld. Both kids got their top pick: Jase with baseball and Ally with dance. I think Jase was expecting a full fledge baseball camp. Ha! After some long conversations at the dinner table, he finally understood that was not the focus of the camp. I think it helped, because after that he had a shift in his attitude and his expectations were lowered in regards to baseball. What can I say, he loves baseball and is competitive. I'm not sure where he gets that from?!

One day during their Sports time, they had "Ya-Ya in the Wa-Wa", which basically means Water Day! Ally had her Ya-Ya day on Wednesday and Jase had his today. They loved all of the water games that was set-up for them. And I'm pretty sure this was their favorite part of the week.

The theme was ALIENS. I know, sounds different, but think about it. This is not our home here on Earth. If you are a believer in Christ, then we long to be with Him in Heaven. The kids memorized the bible verse of the week: "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" Philippians 3:20. Amen and Amen.

Since Jase and Ally were gone all week long, I had some special time with Finn and Mae. It was nice to sit down and play with them. We got in plenty of Legos, Baseball and Little People. Sweet time with my babies. And one day I treated Finn to a special lunch.

 Maebry was asleep, so we found a country road and enjoyed our lunch together.

We haven't ate Whataburger in well over a month and man, we both were reminded why. Before Finn could even finish eating his food he stopped eating and told me "my tummy hurts". He never says this. And my stomach acted up that afternoon too. It was a good reminder that this should not be in the food rotation very often.

It was nice seeing familiar faces while dropping and picking up kids each day. Every morning when dropping the kids off, the junior high kids would be standing on both sides of the entrance, cheering you on as you walked in. Poor Finn was not a fan, he would cry every time. The noise startled him. Two girls from our home group would leave the rally line and come over, pick him up and comfort him. It was super sweet of them to do that. One of the girls was Hannah {below}. And as you can see, Finn isn't quite sure about it all.

The place erupted when it was announced that the BLUE team won! They tossed out ring pops to the blue team for winning, and then 10 seconds later the red team was tossed ring pops too! Ha! So, they basically won bragging rights. The kids enjoyed the friendly banter all week.

Ally's dance group performed their routine up on stage during the closing ceremonies today. There was probably 75 girls in dance, with 25 of them on stage at a time. I got video of it, but it is hard to see. She is on stage when the video starts and is in the very back, on the far left. She is wearing a turquoise tank top and blue/black zebra shorts.

The kids had a blast this week. I'm glad they had fun and heard The Word each day. They are already talking about next year!

Playroom Baseball

So the boys are pretty close to obsessed with baseball. They love to watch and play it. Finn could hit balls all. day. long. Not even kidding. Jase and Finn have started playing baseball indoors {with all the rain} and it has become quite the game lately. Usually Shawn is the one who is upstairs with the boys playing, but yesterday it was my turn to pitch and I was bringing the heat!

This has got to be one of my favorites below. Finn is the catcher and squats right behind you. It was cracking me up!!

Ok, so here is some video of us playing. It was a little loud at times and extend me some grace on the video footage: I was holding the phone with one hand, pitching with the other and trying to make sure Mae was in plain sight.

So if you just watch one video, this the one to watch. Both of the boys get to bat and you even get to see Finn play catcher!

No matter if Finn made contact or not, his response was "foul ball".

Finn made good contact on this one below.

Finn is still two {for one more month}, so we are still working on the concept of sharing {and potty training}. Jase finally got to bat and had a good little rip.

And I guess I was saying "bad pitch" so much that he changed his tune from "foul ball" to "bad pitch". He was cracking me up and calling me out on my bad pitches!

It was a fun afternoon!

Summer Dance Camp

This week Allyson has been participating in a mini summer dance camp. She was so excited to get back in her ballet shoes! The camp was Monday - Thursday for 35-40 minutes each day. She looked forward to getting ready each afternoon and going to dance.

Today at the end of class we got to go in the room and watch her dance. She was a little embarrassed at first, but quickly warmed up. She really enjoyed the class all week. We are super proud of her.

They showed us all they had learned this week and it was so cute to watch. Here is the last routine they performed for us.

Date Night

While my mom was in town, we took advantage of having a babysitter and we hit to the town for a little date night! But that morning I had a previous engagement to take care of. Time for a trim! My hair had gotten so long for me, it was probably the middle of my back. It had been well over a year the last time I had got it cut and it really needed a trim. I ended up cutting 6-7 inches off. It is so light now and looks so much healthier.

I had to document the straight hair, because this will probably won't happen again anytime soon.

We went to The Square in Denton for our date. It is a cool location, with tons of good food and a neat atmosphere and good for people watching. ;-) Not people judging, just watching. We ate at J&J's Pizza on the Square, which was good. We haven't ate pizza in well over a month since we have been avoiding dairy at home with Jase. It was tasty and we'd go back.

The Denton County Courthouse was cool. I really love historic places and reading about them. I think homeschooling has really sparked my interest in History and I am thankful for that.

After dinner, we took a stroll on the square and let our food digest a bit. It was so nice to talk to one another without being interrupted. I love my kiddos, but it was nice and very relaxing evening.

We stopped in Beth Marie's Old Fashioned Ice Cream for dessert. It is an old school ice cream parlor. I can't wait to take the kids back here...they will love it. And there are so so many flavors to choose from. I could not make up my mind, so I went with a chocolate malt and a scoop of ice cream. Ha! I would highly recommend going here if you're in Denton.

Before heading out we stopped and listened to some live music on the square. One of our favorite past times for sure. I love this man and am thankful for him.

 

Great Wolf Lodge

Last week we went to Great Wolf Lodge for 3 days and 2 nights. Even though we were only 45 minutes from the house, it felt like we were hours away. So I'm not going to lie, pulling up felt just a little like I was pulling up at Disney World. I was all sorts of excited!! And we stayed in a Kid Cabin Suite, which was pretty cool. The kids loved it! They even had a TV in the Kid Cabin.

After a little water fun the first day, we ate on-site. It was a buffet. The food was not bad, but a little pricey.

The kids gathered around for story time after dinner. It was ok, and the kids seemed entertained. 

We posed for a picture afterwards.

We hit up the gift shop and Finn had a hard time picking out on animal. It was cute.

After story time, it was dance party time!! They played some lively music and we shook our tail feathers!

Just stop and look how big they all are. They have my heart.

This was in the middle of the indoor section. They had quite a bit going on inside from these slides, to a toddler section, wave pool, lazy river, 5 big kid tube rides and several platforms connected to the slides below.

Toddler area, which Finn and even Mae loved. They had some little slides in this section and we took Mae down them a few times!

Our first full day there {Monday}, we rented an outdoor cabana. I would so recommend this. It was so nice to have a designated spot to call your own for the day. We didn't have to worry about our stuff being taken. Plus there was a safe inside our cabana, so we locked up any valuables each time we ventured off. And they also had a mini fridge stocked full of waters, soft drinks, powerade, which was included with your rental. We enjoyed it so much that we rented it the next day as well. And it was pretty affordable to rent one, so definitely check it out if you stay there.

Below is the outdoor area. In the back are two fun tube rides {the indoor tube rides are a little more adventurous}. Big beach entry area and then a pool that winds a little with some water basketball goals. The beach entry area went to about 2.5 feet and was perfect for Finn and Ally.

On our last night there, we ventured downstairs to the arcade area and played some games. Nanny loves her some arcade games! ;-) And for the record, I did win a Darth Vader from the machine on my 4th try or so. I wish I would have stopped playing it after winning! Ha!

We had a super fun time. What a way to kick off our summer!

 

Mae is 7 months!

Today our sweet Maebry turned 7 months. Hard to believe she is 5 months away from being a year old!

She is everywhere these days. She has been crawling for over a month now and she is quick. Lately she has been fascinated with our little rat terrier, Hank, and will follow him around. Hank on the other hand is 12 years old and doesn't want much to do with her. Haha! She has been pulling herself up and standing up on her own. And even a few times she has let go and stood on her own for a few seconds.

She still has the two bottom teeth and has been teething like crazy. I have started giving her some teething tablets and they've seemed to help. This week her babbling has really taken off. And she has said her first word, are you ready for it?? Mama!! Bye-bye quickly followed. She is now waving hi/bye and it is the cutest thing.

She has been eating like a champ. She has had apples, bananas, cinnamon pears, avocado, peas, broccoli, sweet potato, mashed potatoes, and carrots. She takes both: a formula bottle and nurses.

She is really a happy baby most of the time. She has found a little whine lately, and it is almost cute!! We are still fighting the car seat at times, but there is not much I can do about it. I know she will grow out of it.

Mae is constantly on the move. We love you to bits sweet Maebry. Happy 7 months!!

And big brother Finn had to get in on the action!! He is getting too big himself. He is talking so much and we love his own dialect he speaks. He makes us smile.

Game Ball

We are nearing the end of our baseball season with our last two games tomorrow. We have played more rescheduled rainout games than regular scheduled games. As everyone in Texas knows, we have had so much rain lately.

Jase has been playing shortstop this season, but last night our first baseman was out and will be tomorrow too, so Jase filled in. He really enjoys playing first base and does well there. He made a few outs and went 3-3 at the plate. The boys ended up winning 14-0.

At the end of each game Coach Doug hands out a game ball. Jase was awarded the game ball this time, which was his first one this season. He was pretty happy and we were happy for him! I know we are hard on him at times, but Jase always has a great attitude on the field, hustles on offense and defense and thoroughly enjoys the game.