Sunday - There was some snow in the morning - not enough to accumulate but it did snow some flakes off and on for several hours, exciting for all the kids. We had friends over for dinner who have recently moved into our neighborhood. Katsu made mabo dofu and they brought over some green beans and some really delicious homemade mochi. I was very impressed and want to try to make some. I think it would be really fun. It was nice to have people over - feels like it's been awhile, too long anyways and we need to do it again.
Monday - We went over to a friend's house after school. Seth was scared of a dog at his friend's house, so he came along with us and was probably bored. I picked up Andrew from running club about half way through and he would rather sit and talk to adults than go and play with the other kids, much to my chagrin. Much like me as a child. We had a family home evening lesson using a new video about the First Vision from the history part of the church and I really enjoyed it.
Tuesday - Noah and I stayed home in the morning after taking Logan to preschool and stopping at the grocery store. It's a lot of driving, but I think I am a little less stressed out by that. Andrew had his last Science Olympiad practice, so we went and helped get Andrew and his teammate ready for the Data Crunchers competition. The little boys were a good sport and are certainly glad for that to be done! I was looking on facebook and realized that it was pi day - oops - and so I hurried and made a pumpkin pie. I wasn't paying attention and burned the numbers to put on top, but Logan was happy since he can eat his weight in pumpkin pie. The boys watched "A Little Mermaid" the rest of the afternoon. Noah has been obsessed with the book and we borrowed the movie from our friend to watch and they loved it, of course. It was a busy evening. There was cub scouts and a committee meeting. Katsu spent a lot of time getting ready and it went well, but boy - the boys sure misbehaved. Seth ran around playing with other kids, but Logan and Noah were loud and climbing all over the chairs. It was awful! I was glad when that was done.
Wednesday - Katsu and I had a performance in the evening - the Marsalis quartet that was scheduled for October, but got cancelled due to the hurricane, so the boys had a babysitter. They love our babysitter (Katsu's PhD student who is in our ward and his wife) and so they were pretty happy about it. Katsu and I really enjoyed the performance, although I hadn't slept well the night before so I was exhausted. It was jazz and Katsu especially really enjoyed it. It brought me back to college days listening to concerts at Berklee.
Thursday - Noah wanted to watch a movie in the morning, so I let him watch Shrek while I tried to get some laundry done. Honestly, I am not sure how much he liked it, but it was a nice relaxing morning. Andrew had running club and then had a battle of the books practice at Barnes and Noble. I guess not a practice, but a mock competition. I managed to drag everyone there, though Seth was pretty mad and ran off and hid. Logan and Noah liked playing with the trains for awhile and looking at all the toys they needed (!) and I got to more or less hear the questions, at least when Andrew was up. They all did well - neither team missed any questions. We actually still got home before Katsu got home from work, so dinner wasn't ready and so Seth decided to skip soccer practice (which they didn't tell us about until almost 5 pm!)
Friday - St. Patrick's Day. I meant to plan out more fun things for it, but then ended up planning some lodging for our spring break trip and so I didn't. We had Lucky Charms for breakfast and some chocolates in our leprechaun hat, but that's about it. I did dye the toilet water green for fun and Noah's milk, but no one noticed either one. We had green pizza crust with some clover for dinner and me and Katsu had a rainbow pepper pizza which we both really liked! The boys had green things for snacks - kiwi (with Noah loved), green grapes, and chips with guacamole. They polished off the entire thing in like 2 minutes flat. Then, as a change of pace, I took the 3 older boys to see our last play of the season - "Just So Stories". I thought it was well done (except one characters mike kept going out) and really enjoyed it, as did the kids, though they were bickering up a storm before. Everyone has just had the worst attitudes lately and it is really driving me crazy. I think we need to clamp down on some behavior and attitude so it doesn't get worse. Then, we went to Sonic and got some shakes and milkshakes afterward before the boys went straight to bed.
Saturday - I have been missing runs (I did take one early Thursday morning), so I went on a quick 2 mile jog on Saturday and then cleaned up quick and took Andrew to his Science Olympiad tournament at a nearby high school. Katsu stayed home with the other boys - soccer games were cancelled, so they cleaned up the house really well, played some video games and had a home day. The tournament was SUPER crowded - with 18 teams all crowded into the cafeteria. Each time probably had about 18 kids plus another 10+ adults, so it was pretty crazy and hot. A little overwhelming for me with all the noise. They had an opening words and then off for the events. Andrew was competing in 2 events (like all the other kids in his team) with 18 events total. Some where events where you built something or did charades or something like that, the others are testing events. Andrew had two testing events, but he was off the first period so we went and saw the rockets shooting off. Then, the second period he had his event - Data Crunchers - the one I had been coaching. Apparently, it was really hard. Andrew said they had 23 stations (in under an hour, I think). They had to measure and calculate all kinds of things - using graduated cylinders, thermometers, calipers, triple beam balances, etc. and find areas, volumes, temperatures, weights, times, in all kinds of units and also do graphs, etc. It was basically the math event. Apparently there was a lot of percentages and probability which I didn't prep them on, oops. Andrew came out and said is was super hard, like a 10 out of 10. He didn't answer about a quarter or so of the questions. He had his next event in the 3rd and last time slot - which was Movers and Shakers. I was a little unsure on how that would go, seeing as he hadn't done much prep beyond the practices once a week after school and just on the computer. Turns out it was mostly vocabulary related to earthquakes and volcanoes. He came out and said it was super easy, he knew all of them, and they finished each question in like 20 second instead of the whole 2 minutes. I figured he was probably a little overly sure of himself and was curious to see how that turned out. After lunch and a long wait, they finally started the awards ceremony at 2:30. The kids were super hyper and pumped up and making all kinds of noise. His school came home with awards in 9 events and won 5th place overall. Andrew and his teammate came in 4th in Data Crunchers. I was pretty proud of him. He got a medal. Andrew and his teammate came in 1st in Movers and Shakers, so I guess he was doing as well as he thought. So much for getting a little humility. They figure out the overall winner by giving you a 1 for each event you get first in, 2 for second, etc, all the way to 18 for the last one. Then, you add them all together and the lowest score wins.
The boys finally got to watch a movie "night" in the afternoon - Noah woke up throwing a massive fit on Friday night because he didn't get to have movie night and ended up sleeping with me on the floor of the playroom because he wouldn't stop throwing a fit (he woke up and had another night fit because he wanted to eat pizza in the middle of the night! - am I the only person whose kids have fits in the middle of the night?). So, Seth insisted on "We're Back" which I just hate, so I made lemon bars for the ward chili cookoff as I had no idea what we were supposed to bring and didn't have time to make chili after 8 hours at the Science Olympiad. The boys were throwing fits about going to the chili cookoff, but ended up having fun. Another long and busy day.
Andrew and his teammate for Movers and Shakers
getting medals in the crowded gym
the team with the coaches and Ms. Stewart, the principal, whose daughter was also participating
the team without coaches
selfies at "Just So stories" before it devolved into fighting.
running around before the performance
Katsu and I had rainbow pizza - looked better in person. Also, hard to tell, but the crust is slightly green.
they were supposed to look like shamrocks ...
someone loves to take selfies with my phone. this was before he scratched his glasses all up while being naughty when picking kids up from school on Thursday. Still mad about that and still not sure what I'm going to do about his glasses.
Pi pumpkin pie with burnt letters
This is what family home evening looks like at our house.
Our names of Jesus rings.
Easter with the unliked banner
My new picture with the so-so frame
Easter on the piano
Our front St. Patrick's table.
Our Easter pictures from years past.
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