Opening Day

Last weekend, the kids had this opening day parades--Ethan for baseball and Alaina for softball.   They were supposed to be the previous weekend, but rain cancelled them (It has been a super rainy spring!).

As luck would have it, I was out of town last weekend, on a work trip to Houston.   (Houston was really quite forgettable, other than a delicious barbecue lunch that truly put Jason's grilling to shame).  Check out this shot from a run I took in Houston downtown--yes, that is trash!

I did get this funny picture, though.

In any event, that left Jason to shuffle between the two parades and try to catch both--which is probably why we don't have such great pictures.   But both kids really had fun.  And, Ethan's basketball season ended early so we don't have overlapping sports--always a plus!  Let the games begin!

Alaina's New Accomplishments

Alaina has been really growing in strides these days.   A few new things:

-Being able to cross the monkey bars, by herself.   She has developed quite the set of blisters on her hands but she is getting quite strong!

-Joining a softball team--like her big brother, she wanted to play baseball this spring.   There is a girl's softball league in town, and she has joined with a bunch of her kindergarten friends.   Jason can't believe how many uniform accessories a girls team has--there is the uniform (complete with her name), a purple undershirt, and purple socks, a windbreaker, and of course a hair bow.   It is very cute!  They haven't had a game yet, but hopefully I will be able to share an action shot soon.

-Gymnastics.   For the longest time Alaina refused to do gymnastics.   She finally expressed interest, and I signed her up for a kindergarten class.  She loves it.   As an added bonus one of my work colleagues game me a bunch of hand me down leotards!

So, yes, she is busy!

Ethan's First Slumber Party

Last weekend, we hosted Ethan's 10th birthday party.   He really wanted to have a slumber party, and we begrudgingly agreed.   

Three boys came over around 5pm.   We ordered pizza for dinner.   

As an activity, I designed a treasure hunt, which involved the boys solving riddles to find 21 clues.  

An example: If you pull my plug out, I will drain, but I don't run on electricity.   They would then have to figure out that meant the bathtub, go to the bathtub and find the next clue.   They really enjoyed the activity, and a couple of clues stumped them.   At the end was hidden a cache of candies and sundae toppings--Ethan asked for ice cream sundaes instead of cake.

They all had huge sundaes to celebrate the birthday boy followed by some night time hot tub time!   

Afterwards, they came in and watched the old movie classic "The Goonies".  But the end of the movie it was almost 11pm--far after a normal bedtime--so time for lights out--and miraculously, they did sleep until 6am.   This was much better than anticipated, but likely due to the fact that we told Ethan that if he didn't sleep he would not be having another sleepover anytime soon.   So happy that worked!

The following morning we served the boys blueberry pancakes and bacon before they all left at 9am.   

Afterwards, Ethan told us it was the best birthday party ever.  Glad he enjoyed it!