Good Grades Date

Will's grade card came back with good marks this period.  So another celebratory date was in order!  This time it was daddy's turn.  They dressed up (matchy-matchy) and hit up Five Guys for lunch before catching a movie.  It can be assumed that this was a great afternoon for them both.  ;)

While the boys were out, Sophie set up another block castle on TOP of the dining room table.  Not my first choice, but she looked so cute up there working so intently.  

And then us girls had a little tea party lunch with passion fruit tea.

Hoping both kids took away great memories of this day.  It was a high point of the weekend for all four of us.  ;)

Cousins

Play date night with our cousins while their mom and dad were on a date.

First, attempted group pics.  Always an easy success.  Kidding.

After a dance party and dinner, the girls took a bubble bath together.

Bedtime reading.

And then some coloring before I drove Mya & Stella home for bed.

Stella was coloring Sophie a "surprise picture" so Sophie had to close her eyes... 

...for a really long time.  Haha!

Winomino & A Young Author

This game is awesome.  It just is.  Definitely one of our favorites.  Sophie is particularly in love with it and pretty good at it too!  So great for building math skills and problem solving.  I love playing with her.

It's kind of like Tetrus but without the falling pieces.  You're racing each other to fit a certain selection of pieces (defined by your card and then by each round winner's choices) into a small, measured area. 

You did it, Soph!  Way to go! 

Meanwhile, I finally let Will break out his "Create Your Own" blank, white books to write his own story.  I wanted him to wait long enough for his drawing and writing skills not to make a waste of these cute, little books.  He chose to write about Transformers and his book was titled Transformers Galore (after one of his favorites Dinosaurs Galore). 

Lots of focus.  He poured over this at length and immediately wanted to make a second book.  A set of these will be on his Christmas gift list if anyone is interested! 

I almost cried when I saw these next two pics.  His little profile and the way his mouth/lips look is just how he looked as a baby.  I can think of several pictures with that same little face/profile only five years younger. 

Basketball Camp

At the end of school year, Will's Comet folder was bombarded with papers about all the various summer and fall sports/clubs/camps available to elementary school aged children.  It's amazing how much a little person can be involved in this day in age.  Overwhelming to say the least. 

Craig and I always look at those decisions from the prospective of how much of a toll those commitments will have on our family - our evenings, our relax time together, our meals.  At this age (and for much longer!) those are the priorities we uphold.  The busy stuff will come.  The kids will choose to be involved in what interests them given the time and financial constraints we set.  But for now, we prefer to toss most of those extracurricular flyers.

 

There was one, however, that we hung on to.  A basketball camp given by the high school varsity basketball coach.  A Thursday and Friday morning from 9:00-noon in early June and then a Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week from 9:00-noon and 8:00-10:00 respectively.  The morning time and the fact that it was only a five-day camp were the selling points for us.  That, and the fact that basketball is about the only sport that Will talks about wanting to play when he's older.  Occasionally, he'll mention soccer when he knows his friends are playing, but not often.  For the first two days, they wanted strong parental involvement.  As in:  hands-on training for parent and child.  So Craig took off those mornings and joined Will for the camp (another reason this camp appealed to us).

 

A couple of funny stories:

 

1) At the end of one of the first mornings, Coach Diebler was answering questions for all the kids in attendance.  Basketball related questions.  So finally there was time for one more and Will raised his hand.  Coach called on him and their back and forth went something like this:

 

Will:  Do you get Gatorade?

Coach:  Well, yes, I've had it before.

Will:  No, I mean like during a game... when they call a time out... does someone hand you the Gatorade?

 

A couple of coaches helpers lost it with laughter, while coach tried to answer his question seriously.  So funny!  Clearly, our kids don't get the luxury of sweetened beverages on the regular.  Such a novelty!  The gist of Will's most important question at that moment was basically:  Just tell me what I gotta do to get some Gatorade.  LOL

 

2) And then driving home with Craig from camp one morning, Will asked Craig who the division 1 player of the year was (because the division 2 or 3 (?) player was one of the helpers during the camp).  Craig said it was Trey Burke who was from Columbus and played for Michigan.  Well, that's just a huge slap in the face for my Buckeye fans.  Will said "Aw, man!...(pause)... Well... at least he can pick berries."  A couple of the berry farms we patronize each summer are in Michigan so Will associates the state of Michigan with berry picking apparently.  Haha!!

 

For this week, we had to get a little creative with helpers to take Will to camp on Thursday & Friday.  Uncle Taylor & Uncle Wes each took a morning to take him and we really appreciated their help!  It was really nice for Will to have that special time with each of them too.  And then this morning, Craig, Sophie & I all came along to watch for the 8-10 a.m. final day.

 

You can see Will's basketball sitting beside him in the picture below.  Part of our attendance fee included a basketball, water bottle and t-shirt for each participant.  Will was to bring his ball each day to camp with him.

 

They also had a bunch of these Comet bags to give as rewards to the kids.  Will actually earned TWO of them!  The first one was for being nominated best shooting stance/form on one of the first two days.  And I can't remember why he got the second one.

 

Basketball skills were completely foreign to Will aside from a little bit of playing around here and there with Craig, but he got some great advice and practice these five days.  We've had a goal of getting a nice basketball hoop up on our driveway.  Hopefully we get to that yet this year.

Little sister required some entertaining after awhile...

They had the Kindergarten and 1st grade kids separate from the 2nd-5th graders, so it was nice for the younger/lesser skill levels.  This was like basketball Duck, Duck, Goose.  They had to dribble around the outside of the circle.  :)

It was a nice little camp that they put on and Will enjoyed it.  He's young yet for three whole hours of practice at a time (the K-1 group usually wrapped it up a little earlier than the older kids for this reason) but it was good exercise and great practice.