We sure pack in a lot of fun in a short amount of time. At least it feels that way to me. I don't know how we manage to stay so busy, but it happens. Fortunately, my kids are used to not having giant activities to have fun. In the above photos, Miriam and John are showing the card that she made him for his birthday. That girl is so creative! In the next photo, we are playing the game Splendor. It is a family favorite, and our girls have really discovered games this last year. They want to play all the games, all the time. Sometimes John and I get a little gamed-out, but overall we really love playing these more interesting games with the girls. I am surprised how much Holland likes it when we play games. She is almost always happy to just sit and watch us play, while messing with different game pieces. She will tell one or two of us that she is on our team. It is a good time.
One day in September we went with the Davises and the Chandlers to the Children's Museum. It had been a little while since I had been there with the kids, and we had the best time. So much so that I was convinced to buy a year pass (it helped that it was 30% off right then, which made it more affordable). We need to use that pass more, but pregnancy sickness definitely got in the way of that for a while.
There are so many fun activities there. It was fun to spend some good time with Holland there.
Near the end of September I was able to go to the "Bring a Parent to PE Week" at the kids' school. I am really trying to do all the things with the kids this year because it is Ellie's last year in elementary. I am so glad I went to this one. It was a ton of fun, and we got to practice our jump rope skills. I went to Miriam's PE day as well. It was great.
It all started out fine. Friends were invited. People were cooking. Miriam was upset about something.
Everyone was helping out. and having a good time.
Until...Eliza picked up Holland and was being silly with her, giving her a piggy back ride around. She tripped on a rug and fell on her face in front of our coat closet. I was in the kitchen and heard a cry, which definitely sounded like something was wrong. I rushed over there, and Ellie was crying with a big piece of her right front tooth missing. In addition her lips were bleeding. Oh boy. It was rough. The tooth piece was actually stuck in her lip, and I had to pull it out. That was a crazy moment: I had about 15 extra people at my house with a sobbing child, my other children, an activity to run, and a broken tooth to figure out. I really wished I could just ask everyone to go home, but that couldn't really happen.
Fortunately the other leaders stepped in and helped with the other kids and the activity. I called the dentist and made an appointment for the next day and tried not to freak out about my kids perfect teeth being damaged. John got home and took over consoling her, and I helped finish off the activity.
The next day at the dentist I had to go out of my comfort zone to get her a repair that would look the most like normal teeth that I could. The dentist initially only wanted to kind of smooth off what was there already. Nope, that wasn't it. I (shakily) asked to speak with him in the hall and said that middle school is hard enough without missing half of one's front tooth and what could be done to make it more normal. Ugh, I hate confrontation, but at least he agreed to do a larger fake tooth area. It might chip regularly, but I would rather take her in for repairs, than to have her go around with half a tooth. It actually has held up pretty well over the last few months.
To make it at least a little fun, we went to Kneaders that day for lunch before going to get Holland from Erica's and getting Eliza back to school. Whew, you know when there is going to be some freak accident, but I do find it interesting that Eliza's most traumatic injuries have both happened at Activity Days. Honestly though, this could have happened any time--it was at our house, with our rug, carrying her little sister. It is just ironic that it was Activity Days again, like with the cut on her scalp that needed staples.
That was kind of a crazy week for me. I taught preschool, did that activity at my house, dealt with that injury, and had two class fall parties at school. Whew, I am feeling a little bit of stress just thinking about it all.
I am glad I could make it to the parties though. It is a lot of fun to see the kids in their school element, and I feel like it gives me a little insight into what they days at school are like, even though I know it isn't a party everyday. Plus, my kids are super sweet and make me feel so loved with their excitement to see me.
Swinging things from her head is always a fun game. :)
Eliza's party was the same day as her dentist appointment. You can see her lip was still swollen.
Right after the fall parties was fall break! We went to the the zoo with the Davises.
I love having a good friend down here that I feel like I can really depend on. I am going to be so sad when they move back to Utah, which we expect will really happen probably in the next year. But I guess I don't know, we just kind of expect it from how they are talking.
We tried something new this year and put all three girls in fall soccer. Holland has been so anxious to play, but as we expected she didn't really want to play. She wants to play for two minutes and be done. So there was a lot of bribery and such to get her to go out on the field and run around.
Not surprisingly, we decided not to sign her up again for winter session. She sure is cute though in her little shin guards.
