Area Champs!

Pretty exciting weekend for these girls. Started bright and early with All Star semi-finals. They beat Saugus 2-0!

Warming up for game #2:

Finals vs. Valencia. It was a crazy nail-biter, both teams fought 'til the end, but we held our 1-0 lead and the girls are Area 1st place Champions! Undefeated and heading to Bakersfield in three weeks!! Audrey had another amazing block in goal against their strongest player, and has gotten more aggressive and physical as forward - it's really neat to watch. These girls are non-stop on the field and that's what won it for them - they never give up. So fun to cheer them on (even though it gives me minor heart attacks when Audrey's in goal.)

After party! Love the friendships Audrey makes in sports. Proud of these cute, strong, determined girls!

The Past Few Days

First off, Audrey is selling Girl Scout cookies! Who wants some? She delivers. 4th year in a row and going strong, even went out and canvased our street after school today.

Cole's Superstar of the Week poster! Love this boy.

We had a quiet night in and kids finally made their Christmas slime! Better late than never.

Pinkalicious soccer is done! Pizza party with the nicest team. Great girls and families, we even convinced a couple of them to run track this spring. Two great coaches, and a pretty nice trophy. Audrey had a wonderful season with them.

Ladybug holiday party happened post-New Year, and was so neat. Patricia treated the whole Ladybug crew to a cooking class at Hipcooks in Woodland Hills this weekend. We made Spanish tapas, learned so much, and ate a ton. I will now put EVOO (from California!), lemon juice, and good salt on everything! The hummus we made was amaaaazing and so easy - I'm making it this week. Not to mention a fun group. So lucky to work with such wonderful people.

The Week

MLK Jr. Day, was so nice to have a day off! Giant multi-family soccer game at the park. Love our ward family. Kids had a blast.

Tyler was awesome in goal actually - he must be taking pointers from Audrey.

Lazy boys watching Last Jedi. Love Cole in this pic.

Cole helped his teacher celebrate her birthday this week:

And he got to bring home Owlie!

Owlie came everywhere with us, including Audrey's super freezing cold soccer game yesterday:

Our #4:

Pinkalicious had a great playoff weekend even in the cold and awful winds for their first game. Tied 1-1 against Saugus, then lost to the #1 team, Valencia, 0-3. We are pretty sure that means they are done, but what a good run for this team!

Tyler's basketball team almost won yesterday! And he got a couple baskets. No pictures since I was with Pinkalicious and forgot to remind Adam. We were ultimate jugglers with two games for Audrey, pictures and game for Tyler, and Adam helped with baseball tryouts. Good thing we decided to skip basketball for Cole this year! Audrey went to so many soccer workouts this week, we let her pick the restaurant for dinner - Souplantation. Our little trooper, she's been exercising so much!

Spectator brothers. They're great cheerleaders to Audrey.

Undefeated All-Stars going to semi-finals. Beat Saugus today 4-2. Audrey had some great blocks on goal, and sooo close to scoring a few times. These girls work super hard, and they're really fun to watch.

Ready to start the week - Tyler has his priesthood preview meeting tonight (!!) Ladybug starts tomorrow, Cole is Super Star of the Week in Kindergarten, and Girl Scout cookies come in. It's our anniversary this week too, and this might be the least prepared we've ever been for one - no plan. Mostly I just wanna go out for a good meal, and luckily we now have Tyler to babysit.

Super Sports Weekend

Our next three weekends will look a lot like this.

First round of area playoffs - cheered on a Pinkalicious win! 3-0 against Castaic.

Ponytail check:

Audrey played great and scored a goal! 

Team captains Game #1:

This whole team has grown so much. Go Pink!

Tyler plays with the Spartans. They haven't won a game yet, but this last one was soooo much better than the first. Boys are getting more comfortable and playing harder, coach is super nice, and there are quite a few friends on the team.

And he still had time for Timmy's birthday party, and Audrey stole Ellie to play, too. A baseball player and a piñata:

Day Two, team two for Audrey. Canyon Country All-Stars. Can you tell she was excited for their first games today? Up bright and early, and her ponytail looks so intact:

 Audrey played forward and goalie today. Goalie quite a bit (which means more anxiety for me hahaha), with seriously the most amazing block like she grew ten inches and jumped for this super high ball and smacked it outta there! She might look small but don't underestimate her.

 Canyon beat Valencia 2-0 first game.

Maybe her favorite part - hangin' with the girls between games. They're a super cute group.

Second game they beat Castaic 4-3. More of a nail biter. Great showing for their first games. Ice-cream man was riiight at the exit. I haggled him what could I get for $3 since that's all I had. Tyler and Cole were great spectators. Perfect end to a hardworking morning. 

2018!

This post is almost two weeks old at this point, as its been hard finding computer time. Sometimes the New Year is more reflective and I've just been in more of a cocoon, in a good way - getting things done and organized (plus I had jury duty - good times!)

This is how you ring in a New Year for breakfast, especially if you're Tyler. His favorite lately.

We had a super nice New Year's Eve. Played a zillion games (with minimal fighting), ate yummy appetizers, made popcorn and hot chocolate from G-Mom. Watched a movie and kind of the countdown. Poppers at 11pm, and random caroling neighbors. It was pretty fun for a night in, just us. The next day Adam channeled my step-dad, Vernon, and made a southern dinner with black eyed peas that were soooo good. 2018 should be super lucky.

The last week of break I barely took pictures. We had a bunch of friends to play, or swapped houses with friends. Jake and Megan, Brody and Ava, Brandon, Frankie. Lots of friends, which was nice since that doesn't always happen when school's in. Ava slept over - so fun for these girls:

Tyler did cool STEAM projects at GATE camp. We said goodbye to Christmas, cleaned and organized for a fresh, new year start. Went to the park, library, basketball and soccer. Lots of soccer for this cute girl (she has two teams practicing right now.) It's really cool how much she's progressing in her sport - loving it more and more. 

Team captain in the pink socks:

Back as keeper with Coach Rick. She's not thrilled when it's her turn in goal, but she's sooo good at it. Playoff tournaments start this weekend.

2018 is off to an auspicious start with Adam's hiatus. So much uncertainty. Vernon had a health scare that kept us all on our toes, and some sadness living far away and feeling helpless when things like this happen. I just wanted to go clean my moms house and pack her fridge, not to mention give everyone giant hugs and just be there. But he's doing better and that is good. She has help and that is everything. So right now we are having lots of faith. Faith in the unknown, for our family and the future. Faith that this hiatus is a blessing in disguise and leads to steadier work, which is a family goal. Faith in all the opportunities that Adam has - pitching shows, meeting with Network. He works hard and I have to believe with his dedication and smarts, he's closer to his goals than ever. Just feeling sort of blind right now, and toeing the line of faith and freaking out (hahaha). Kids are doing great. Just got paperwork to register Tyler for jr. high!!! Ladybug is good, and there are work questions I'm figuring out for myself, too, now that my kids are getting older. I also have renewed energy in motherhood and mothering older children. Adam being unemployed, in some ways, helps define my role as mom even more, and it feels good. Excited for 2018 and all it has in store. Hoping to look back and see God's hand in it all - even if right now everything feels so week to week. "Leap and the net will appear" has been a magnet on my fridge forever, and that feels very real right now. So here we go 2018... ready or not.

First Tooth!

My baby lost his first tooth tonight! It's been wiggly foreverrrr and he was nervous, but it finally came out! Fun to make it exciting for the littlest one - tooth fairy's last round.