Mutual Fun

If only blog books could play video. At the Halloween Fear Factor activity, Bailey was quite the eater. He had sardines, cow tongue and all sorts of other nasty things. But, the grand finally was the balut eating competition. Balut is a food from the Philippines. It's a hard boiled duck egg that has a partially developed duck embryo in it-meaning feathers and a beak along other fun and gross things to think about. Bailey popped it in his mouth "like he was eating a potato" according to one of the kids there. No gag reflex, no expression but a faint Bailey smile as he ate it. Then, he ate another one. Why not, right?

 Sienna and Savannah at YW in Excellence, getting their awards.

 Megan and Carly

 Mackenzie and Hailey

 Kalie and Jessica- they put the whole thing together as a project.

 Riley showing off one of her projects

 Julia's first activity was this one.

 Noush and Sophie. How cute when your leader is the same height as you:)

 Olivia and Brinlee

 Noush and Catherine-Emma's future Behhive counselor and advisor

Just because we like to take selfies ;)

 We had a pumpkin bread making activity at my house. It ended up taking a back seat to playing a form of charades with an I phone app.

 One of the funniest activities we had was the Un Miss America pageant. The girls had an interview, fashion contest, talent portion and group improv dance number. Megan won the title, with Hailey as runner up. The twins thought this meant that I was no longer the Laurel adviser because Megan won my calling.

 December Gingerbread houses.

 Then, they started decorating themselves.

The older girls all had finals that week so I think they might have been a little delirious.

Goruck-ing

This was Ben's event. He will have to write the post on this one!

Running Wolves

 Bailey's medal for the Wildfire Invitational.

He was able to run in Varisty, JV and with Frosh/Soph throughout the season. At the end of the year, he was given the Wolf award from his coach. This was for being a great example, hard worker and never complaining. I don't think he has ever complained at a practice in 3 years. Bailey's motivation has always been so inspiring. He pushes himself each season to get better, no matter how hard he has to work.

Emma kept leaving us

 Just one of Emma's pictures from Sly Park. My little ham is quite the poser.

 Emma at sly park with her friend, Sydney. Her class went on almost back to back long field trips. She was so excited to be able to go one both of these trips and had a great time.

 She also went to Pigeon Point for a few days. She was so happy to be home because apparently she missed whole milk. Her siblings missed her even more being gone a second time and waited impatiently at the school for her bus to get back.

Later I found some lovely selfies she and Sydney took. She has become really good friends with her, and lucky us she not only lives a few minutes away but will be at Girl's camp with Emma next year. One major street separates them from being in the same ward.

Soccer, Soccer and More Soccer

Nathan had a great season of soccer this year. They started out in Division 6, and won all their games, some were even almost unfair. The other teams just weren't at the same level that they were. For the second half, they moved up two divisions and then it got interesting. They still came out tied for 2nd place in the new division, but they had to fight really hard and against kids that were twice their size. They didn't win every game, which is always good for kids to be able to understand that sometimes you don't always win. Nathan handled the times they lost so well. He would always say. "Well, we will beat them next time." It fueled him to practice harder and play more aggressively. He learned so much this season.

 Soccer clothes just might be his favorite thing to wear. Even his everyday clothes tend to mimic his soccer uniform. He would live in soccer socks (and does way too much).

 I love this picture of him.

 On days he doesn't have practice or games (and even on those days too) he is ALWAYS playing soccer in the house.

 This is the kid who knocked him over, stepped on his head and then kept going. Nothing really phases Nathan and he hopped right back up and kept playing.

 For his last game of the season, he wanted a mohawk.

 Nathan's coach. Anything coach says is important, according to Nathan.

 Just when we thought the season was over, the team was able to play in an all day (Saturday yay!) tournament. The boys had a great time and got to wear their new shirts. These were in lieu of a trophy for the end of the year.

Another season done! Now we wait for indoor to start...

What must be done now

I double checked and on the blog, I'm still at the beginning of the school year. A few months behind isn't so bad, but I know I have so many things to add. This post will just have to be out of order because it's way too precious. I don't even like the word precious (can't explain why), but I'm getting past that to describe something that is, well... just precious.

This is how I found Nathan, Kate and Addison this morning. He was brushing their hair. I don't know how this came to be, or why it was but it was happening. Now, as I type this they are all fighting over Eggo waffles in the kitchen- BUT the relationship these three have is so cute.

A few days ago, Nathan ran up to me, so excited that there was a last minute field trip that Thursday. I watched his little heart break when I told him I did have the day off, but it was to see the twins class play and be there for their birthday celebration. Both of the girls almost immediately told me it was OK if I missed their events to be with Nathan.  

The post of their play will come later. I was able to watch an earlier school performance since I would miss the parent one, but the girls didn't know that when they offered. 

I have no idea why he was brushing their hair, but I have a feeling it was because they have a hard time getting out their own tangles. Who better to lend a hand than your big brother? After all, he needs to know how to do girl hair at some point. Ben never had sisters to practice on, so he always had to wing it. 

Now, back to my regularly scheduled day!