Saturday started off in grand fashion with ROCKAPALOOZA 2009 at Heidi and Dan's house.
We gathered with the Evanses, and Jay B., Chandra, and family for an afternoon of Guitar Hero heroics. We rocked for a good 5 hours! We also enjoyed some pizza and Mason was introduced to Krispie Kream's, which he called bagels. According to him, he ate 5 of them. Clearly we weren't doing much parenting in this regard since we were busy rocking. We did let the kids on the Wii for a spell though. Below is a clip of us trying to help the kids row the canoe on some new resort game Heidi and Dan just got. Note Chandra in the background with frozen peas on her face after her loving husband accidently clocked her with a Wii controller helping Ellia paddle.
Speaking of domestic violence, after Rockapalooza, we headed to Mississippi Pizza in N. Portland for a PWCL board fundraiser. Pizza #2 for the day! There was lots of pizza and some live acoustic music as well as some good mojo for PWCL. In all, over $500 was raised which was good. I also want to thank the many family members that have donated to PWCL in recent weeks. It will do a lot of good things.
Speaking of charity stuff, Sunday morning I took the kids with me to Fred Meyer to pick out some shoes for needy kids, the names of which I pulled off of our work's giving tree earlier in the week. This effort to teach them the value of giving may have been somewhat lost on them but they did do a good job of helping me pick out shoes for the kids, even if they didn't completely understand what was being done with them. Following that up with a trip to Trader Joes and PWCL for check signing, it was on to soccer!
There's soccer star #1...isn't she intimidating in her cute little uniform...she played a good game though and ran hard.
Mason was so active that this was the best still pic I could get of him (Mason's the little guy in the red shorts). We got some good video footage. I've tasked Luis with splicing together a kids soccer greatest hits clip, something akin to Sportcenter top 10 and set to a Queen song. So, footage to come. Mason probably played his best game to date. Its exciting for us to see how far he's come. He's running and playing with a lot of confidence these days.
From soccer it was on to Yaya and Papa Ron's house for cookie decorating, dinner, and watching of our favorite holiday movie - Christmas Vacation.The kids whipped through the cookies and had them decorated in no time. They also managed to sneak their fair share of bites.
Daddy got into the mix as well, though that doesn't look so good...
Here's Mason's decorated candy cane...have a little cookie with that frosting Mason...
Luis shows off his sheep with a, uh, yellow crotch stain. Remind me not to let him near the frosting next year.
Even Papa Ron joined in the cookie decorating festivities. He and Siena had some nice cookie concoctions.
We are also pleased to announce that Siena is officially BINKIE FREE! She had been binkie free during the day for a long time now but we'd not make the nighttime binkie eradication. This was due to both her adament refusal to get rid of it and our lack of desire to engage in the battle that we were certain would ensue. Needless to say, this was about 2 years overdue.I went to my usual resource for all parenting issues...Google...for some best practice ideas. I say that so you don't think this was all due to my brilliance. I just happen to follow instructions well.
1) Thursday night we informed Siena that on Sunday night, we were going to gather all of her binkies, put them in the mailbox, and Santa's elves would come and pick them up to give to needy babies. We didn't about it for a long time. We just informed her that this is what would happen.
2) Friday and Saturday we reminded her of what would happen but again tried not to make it seem like a big deal.
3) Sunday night after returning home from Yaya and Papa Ron's, I got a bag from the kitchen and Siena placed each of her binkies in the bag.
4) Siena and I both walked outside (Mason too because he wanted to watch), put the binkies in the mailbox, and flipped up the red flag so the elves would know the binkies were gone.
When we got inside, I asked Siena if she wanted me to get her blankie because she could still have that. She promptly stated that "blankies are for babies" and proceeded to bed without either.
I should mention that I was expecting quite the rough first night with Siena going binkie less. In reality, it was anything but. She went to bed great and hasn't expressed any remorse yet at the loss of her binkies. I guess the key is treating them as the people they are and letting them be a part of the separation of something that is important to them.
3 comments:
Congrats to Siena! In the event that the elves somehow missed it, did the mail person take the binkie baggie on Monday?
Regarding the video, Ellia is a bit young to be learning how to strip tease on camera. Fortunately for her, your video's kind of dark. This is your new camera? Better go back to your old one.
Someone was stripping in the video? I can't make out anything. I thought I saw a tree, and a bright yellow blotch of some sort. Anytime you guys want to learn how to use that new camera feel free. Preferably before you produce the soccer video set to music by Queen. An ironically appropriate musical choice for any soccer montage by the way.
The bad contrast is due to pointing the camera at the window; and it was bright outside.
On a direct note, I must thank JB for wanting to play ping pong. This required that the camera be relocated and subsequently prevented it from filming ANY of the *cough* singing that ensued.
Post a Comment