So Kelly had a busy last week. Last Friday she had her 5 year old birthday party. Her venue of choice... Chuck E. Cheese of course. As crazy as things were with the normal crowd plus two other birthday parties and the slightly disturbing animated Chuck E Cheese band, it was a great time. They really do a good job there. The kids of course liked the game tokens, but Kelly also got a crown, a special show from Chuck E. and a trip into the Ticket Blaster to grab for tickets. She really just spent all of her time in there laughing rather than grabbing tickets, but no problem. The girl who was helping gave her a handful of tickets and everybody was happy. As a bonus for us, we even had the girl helping us serve all the pizza and cake... and the pizza has much improved in quality since our last visit.
Thursday Kelly had her "graduation" from pre-school. Lots of dancing, singing, and much fun for the kids. She is funny because she will do all the dances and songs for us at home, but she is too shy to do them in front of the other parents at school. Her teacher gave each of the kids an award and Kelly received a prize for being full of peace and not having a mean bone in her body. Very nice, but not quite sure her brother would agree as one of her favorite past times is finding new and unique ways of torturing him :) Sadly for her, she has now lost one of her most useful excuses for getting things she wanted of "My teacher told me I had to do ____ for homework..."
We've also been working on Russian. She has been doing great at understanding it, but hasn't wanted to speak it very much, but I think I have found the key. I told her that she could understand it better than me, but if she didn't practice I was going to be able to speak it better. This seemed to convince her at the time and she worked on a few phrases. The next morning she had been eating breakfast with her mom and came running into the bedroom to wake me up saying, "Maslo". Confused from waking up I asked what she was saying and she responds, "Maslo...that means butter...I'm better than you dad!" and runs away laughing.
Today was still quite busy for her. She went to the 93rd birthday party for one of the ladies at our church at which she had, "Cake for lunch and macaroni 'n cheese for dessert!" Then it was off for another attempt at riding a two wheeler. Today was much better (i.e. much less back ache for me holding on to the handle bars) and after a few short attempts on the baseball field (thanks for the tip Chris) she was riding fine and we rode around the asphalt track for awhile. Our little girl did about 5 laps (over a mile) and is proudly showing off to anyone who is willing to watch (hopefully Allison will soon upload some videos/pictures to Facebook).
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
If only...
If only it was the thought that counted then I would have posted on this at least every couple weeks, if not every week. Instead we're looking at five plus months of no posts. Oh well, I will try to be better. Also, at some point I think we may be switching to doing some more updates by email, so if you are interested in getting those my wife (the more reliable one) will be putting together a list, so let her know.
Alright, so what has gone on this semester. Wow, so much (sorry if this is long). In terms of the fam, everyone is doing real well. Kel still loves school and is eagerly looking forward to her birthday party tomorrow, girls (princesses) only, but Bri and I are allowed in on the fun as well. It is a bit late as we wanted to wait until things freed up after the kids ended soccer. Her team of 4/5 year olds is, of course, hilarious to watch as the mass moves around the field. She is really funny as she will run all the way to whoever has the ball, but is not aggressive enough to take it from them. My sister tried to give her the advice to imagine the person was her brother (whom she has no trouble tormenting), but the advice did not seem to work. She had a blast though, which is great. She is already becoming quite the girly girl as she loves clothes, dolls, anything pink (which according to her, Uncle Will, is a color boys should not wear), shoes, and talking on the phone. Most of her phone time is still limited to her play phone though, on which she is constantly calling her friend Edessa, whom she is sure is in every white mini-van which we see on the road.
Bri played soccer and from watching some pros play he figured out the cool move of slide tackling... had to have a talk and let him know that might be a bit too much for his age group. But he had a blast and we just finished our second trip to Cici's Pizza in as many weeks for end-of-the-year parties. He's doing well in school, but is looking forward to the summer when he has more free time for his three favorite past times: video games, Legos, and watch TV... little does he know that we get to be the evil parents and just make him go outside and play more :)
Allie is steadily plugging away at her schooling, just two classes left! She will likely finish up this fall or next winter depending on how our plans work out. Schooling for me is winding down. I have an internship left this summer, but I walked this past weekend. A lot of my family made it down so it was great to see everyone... and we had some great food as well, at my graduation party... but especially in some trips to Waffle House and Inakaya for sushi. We miss them all a lot (Kel especially misses having my sister's dog to boss around... although he never listens to her), but we will see them again soon as they will be back down soon for some stuff at our church.
Many ask what our plans are now. We are not really sure. We still are looking to go overseas and are all working on our Russian, but past that we need to get a lot of plans in order. That is the main goal for the summer. But things are winding down here. We finished Bible Clubs with the kids from the church and neighborhood. It was difficult at times, but we have had some very encouraging talks with parents and kids lately. One in particular was great. It was with one of the kids who has caused us the most problems and we felt his grandparents were always frustrated that we kept bringing him home. However, they let us know how much they and he appreciated what we have done. Also, we talked awhile and it was great to look back and see that although he has caused some problems, he has been getting a lot better over these years. This was especially encouraging as we have seen some other kids starting to get caught up in other issues; this kid has been improving and it was a real encouragement to see God working in his life, and some others whom we have talked with recently.
Alright, that's about it for now... a little long, but wanted to catch people up. I'll try to be more diligent, but I'll leave you with a funny quote from Bri. He was telling us about something from school and Kel wanted to add her thoughts. He looked at her and said very seriously (stressing the last word), "Kel, you won't understand, this is SCIENCE." Speaking of Kel, she just came wandering out of bedroom... her excuse this time is she's looking for her stuffed animal, Hippo. Time to be off to solve the world problems... of a 5 year old.
Alright, so what has gone on this semester. Wow, so much (sorry if this is long). In terms of the fam, everyone is doing real well. Kel still loves school and is eagerly looking forward to her birthday party tomorrow, girls (princesses) only, but Bri and I are allowed in on the fun as well. It is a bit late as we wanted to wait until things freed up after the kids ended soccer. Her team of 4/5 year olds is, of course, hilarious to watch as the mass moves around the field. She is really funny as she will run all the way to whoever has the ball, but is not aggressive enough to take it from them. My sister tried to give her the advice to imagine the person was her brother (whom she has no trouble tormenting), but the advice did not seem to work. She had a blast though, which is great. She is already becoming quite the girly girl as she loves clothes, dolls, anything pink (which according to her, Uncle Will, is a color boys should not wear), shoes, and talking on the phone. Most of her phone time is still limited to her play phone though, on which she is constantly calling her friend Edessa, whom she is sure is in every white mini-van which we see on the road.
Bri played soccer and from watching some pros play he figured out the cool move of slide tackling... had to have a talk and let him know that might be a bit too much for his age group. But he had a blast and we just finished our second trip to Cici's Pizza in as many weeks for end-of-the-year parties. He's doing well in school, but is looking forward to the summer when he has more free time for his three favorite past times: video games, Legos, and watch TV... little does he know that we get to be the evil parents and just make him go outside and play more :)
Allie is steadily plugging away at her schooling, just two classes left! She will likely finish up this fall or next winter depending on how our plans work out. Schooling for me is winding down. I have an internship left this summer, but I walked this past weekend. A lot of my family made it down so it was great to see everyone... and we had some great food as well, at my graduation party... but especially in some trips to Waffle House and Inakaya for sushi. We miss them all a lot (Kel especially misses having my sister's dog to boss around... although he never listens to her), but we will see them again soon as they will be back down soon for some stuff at our church.
Many ask what our plans are now. We are not really sure. We still are looking to go overseas and are all working on our Russian, but past that we need to get a lot of plans in order. That is the main goal for the summer. But things are winding down here. We finished Bible Clubs with the kids from the church and neighborhood. It was difficult at times, but we have had some very encouraging talks with parents and kids lately. One in particular was great. It was with one of the kids who has caused us the most problems and we felt his grandparents were always frustrated that we kept bringing him home. However, they let us know how much they and he appreciated what we have done. Also, we talked awhile and it was great to look back and see that although he has caused some problems, he has been getting a lot better over these years. This was especially encouraging as we have seen some other kids starting to get caught up in other issues; this kid has been improving and it was a real encouragement to see God working in his life, and some others whom we have talked with recently.
Alright, that's about it for now... a little long, but wanted to catch people up. I'll try to be more diligent, but I'll leave you with a funny quote from Bri. He was telling us about something from school and Kel wanted to add her thoughts. He looked at her and said very seriously (stressing the last word), "Kel, you won't understand, this is SCIENCE." Speaking of Kel, she just came wandering out of bedroom... her excuse this time is she's looking for her stuffed animal, Hippo. Time to be off to solve the world problems... of a 5 year old.
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