Thursday, January 27, 2011

Molly Turns 4

It's hard to believe, but we celebrated Molly's 4th birthday last week. Time has certainly flown by! We began the festivities with a cake (her request was a colorful cat cake) with our church small group, and Molly was so thrilled that she danced around the cake several times while blowing out the candles.

Molly is sitting with our friend Joy while we got the cake ready. She could barely contain herself!

The next day, we celebrated with a cookie cake at preschool with Molly's friends. Her teacher keeps a tight rein on this class, so it was a very quiet event!

On Saturday, Molly, Emily, Vivy and I went bowling, ate cupcakes and played arcade games. Molly got her own bowling shoes for Christmas, so hopefully this will the first of many games in 2011! The giant purple hair flower was what Molly chose for her birthday present.

Annual birthday morning photo

Monday, January 10, 2011

Snowmagedden, part I

We woke up this morning to several inches of snow, which got deeper as it kept snowing through the day. Of course, around here that means everything shuts down, including schools, stores and most offices. We drug out our snow gear after lunch, very thankful that we had something that fit everyone, and took a walk through the neighborhood.

The snow was too dry to make a snowman or snowballs, so we tried sledding on a piece of cardboard. Our neighbors took pity on us and let the kids have a few turns on their sleds.

Because we own nothing snow-related (sled, shovels, etc.), Chris and Molly swept off the cars and the driveway with outdoor brooms. This is why we live in the South--the weather is supposed to be mild here!

We're expecting more snow tomorrow, which means likely another snow day. I certainly didn't plan to spend my birthday trapped in the house with everyone all day in freezing weather. Here's to hoping that the weather forecast is wrong!

Traveling Man

Josh has joined a YMCA basketball team for 6 and 7 year olds this season, and their first game was Saturday. They've practiced a few times, but we had no idea what to expect.

Josh was VERY excited to play. We soon realized, though, that the team has not learned about traveling yet. Josh made the first basket of the game, but it didn't count because he held the ball and ran about 10 feet before shooting it. This soon became a pattern with Josh, who I think got so excited when he got the ball that he forgot to dribble.

Josh is #10 in the picture above. Number 3 had the opposite problem: he's a chronic dribbler. His teammates had to steal the ball from him at times so they could play too!

This picture is blurry, but it illustrates the second issue Josh had in the game, and the coaches' reaction (the cop is our head coach). Josh would throw inbound passes across the court, not at a teammate. He eventually had to sit out for a few minutes after multiple crazy passes, but we're confident he can get it together with a little more practice!

We learned late in the game that they don't keep score in this league, but of course every kid and parent knew that the score was 8-12 in favor of Josh's team. I asked him later what his favorite part of the game was, and Josh said it was beating the other team. So much for delaying competitiveness! He might get that from his mom. . .

Chris took Josh to get a haircut immediately after the game!