First Football Game

Bryson was super excited to bring home his football jersey the night before his first game so he could wear it to school the next day!

The next morning, he was super diligent and practiced his piano before school so it w as out of the way...

never mind the train tracks... just keepin' it real *wink*

On the field at last!

They lost.  

Bryson was pretty discouraged by the loss, and that he only played 3 downs.  It was hard for me to watch because he so obviously wanted more playing time.  From hearing him talk to his brothers after practices, he was rather confident that he'd get lots of action at the game.  We talked about it afterwards, and it took a while, but eventually he felt better.  It's so hard to see him hurt and be 'brought down a peg or two'.  He's paradoxical at times- tends to be prideful, but also has a very fragile self-esteem.  I wish it was easier to teach and be 'humbly confident'.

Fascination

My little girl sure gets hooked on things-  her class is learning about insects right now, so most days she comes home pretending to be a new bug.  After pretending to be a dung beetle (seriously?!?) for a few days, I was relieved when she came home as a preying mantis instead *grin*

The pillows were the insects she was attacking...

A few days later, the school had an assembly with some faloneers who brought in their falcons and taught all about them...

So naturally, now she's a peregrine falcon.

She loves to draw and was super excited to show me her picture of a peregrine falcon:

Rockford Fair + Field Trip

 Jace and I chaperoned on Eli's 3rd grade field trip to Rockford and the Rockford Fair.  What a fun day!  The highlight of the day was, of course, the fire station- never mind that it was ELI'S field trip and most of my pictures are of Jace... I swear I got some pics of Eli but now they're gone *sigh*  Sorry buddy.  Jace was in and out of that fire truck no less than 6 times- he was in h.e.a.v.e.n.

All the third graders:

We headed to the Rockford Fair afterwards- it's a fun little community fair.  A few rides, the basics of fair food, livestock, etc.

My little group of kids and I had fun exploring and finding all the items on our scavenger hunt.

I had promised the rest of the kids that we'd go to the fair after school.  A promise I was regretting by the end of the field trip!  We'd walked at least a mile that day and were on our feet almost the whole time- I was exhausted... and I had to work at 3am the next day.  But, a promise is a promise...

The kids and the artwork they submitted for the fair:

Two spots they loved the most- the fire station booth and the lego booth.

We wandered through the barns and saw the stinky animals.  I gave the kids each $5 to either spend or keep.  Not surprisingly, most of them spent it... on ice cream.  before dinner. and it was cold and starting to drizzle.  what evs.  I was a little shocked that Bryson bought a hot cocoa instead and then saved the rest- my little spender is growing up!  The kids really wanted to stay longer (to play on the playground...) but I was exhausted and it was cold.  So I promised them tech time and cereal for dinner.  They happily piled in the car *wink*

Date with Dallin

It's definitely a bittersweet adjustment to having a few hours a day with all my kids in school... On the bright side, I can take just *one* kid to the many doctor appointments that we always seem to have.  I scheduled Dallins yearly heme/onc checkup so we could have a little one on one date *grin*.

I picked him up from school when I dropped Jace off and we went to his favorite place- d'Lish!  He was much more excited than this picture shows:

and a little less excited than this picture shows:

 He's so chill about blood draws these days:

He was hoping that he'd get to see his friend Cam while we were in the clinic, but he'd been released the day before- which is good for Cam- his battle with leukemia has been a rough one.

I thoroughly enjoyed my one on one time with Dallin.  I love the questions that he comes up with- since his blood disorder was the reason for our date, he had lots of really good questions regarding that- and his MD was pretty impressed with his level of understanding.  His labs looked great and his spleen was almost unpalpable- which surprised Dr. F since she's been able to feel a little more each year.  So happy for a great check up and healthy boy!