Seahawks Pep Rally

Today was Blue Friday!  And this wasn't just any Blue Friday...it was the Friday before the Superbowl!!  The Seahawks play the New England Patriots on Sunday.  We are headed to back-to-back Superbowls!

At school almost every kid was wearing Seahawk gear.  It was great.  We had an awesome pep rally at the end of the day where the kids did some chants, watched some short videos and sang some Seahawk songs.  Fun times and a great memory for all!  Many parents attended and were just as wild and crazy as the kids!

My crazy class.  (Notice my one Patriots fan...number 12!)  

Again, my wild class ready for the Pep Rally.

Cannon with his buddies.  

The back half of the gym. 

Me with a few of my students. 

Cannon and I....and Cannon's friend. 

What a great way to end our week.  Here's to a good game on Sunday and hopefully a Seahawk win!

Enjoying every moment!

A Few Things To Remember....

Here are some more "things" that I'll be glad I wrote down!

*Colson is slowly growing out of naps.  He still kind of needs them, but is starting to be able to make it through the day without losing it if he doesn't nap!
*Cannon is big enough that he doesn't want kisses from me in front of others any more.  Boo!
*Chris and I are watching two great shows on TV currently.  State of Affairs and The Blacklist.  So good!
*Report card time is totally exhausting.
*We are still looking for the "right" house plan, after finding two others that we were sure were "the ones."  Keep searching.
*Coach K from Duke won his 1,000 game last weekend.
*The Seahawks are going to the Superbowl.  It's this weekend, February 1st in Arizona!
*Colson is the pickiest eater right now.  Terribly frustrating, but he'll eat if he gets hungry enough!
*The boys LOVE their tablets, however they have limits on playing time and they HATE that.
*Chris and I never (almost never) make our bed.  Shhhhhh!
*DC wants to sleep with one of the boys each night.  Too bad we kick him out of their room!
*There are two loads of laundry done and have been waiting to be folded for three days now.
*Colson enjoys school so much even though he says he doesn't want to go.
*Cannon is currently reading a Magic Tree House book in his reading group.


Enjoying every moment!

Gymnastics

It's Colson's turn to sign up for an activity!  We've been talking about getting him into gymnastics and we finally found a class that fit with our schedule!

Colson was very excited and could barely control his excitement.  He was shy at first and didn't want to go out on the floor, but once he did, he was fine.  It's amazing to watch him follow directions and listen to the coach.  (I'm so glad he listens to his teachers and coach, since he doesn't listen very well at home!)

The class stretched--which was so cute!  Then they worked on the small balance beams.  They had to balance walking forward and stepping over foam blocks.  They walked backwards, which was very hard.  Next, they had to side step the length of another beam.   Good challenges for all of them!

The class also got to work on their forward rolls, jump and swing on the bar and practice how to do a cartwheel (hilarious!).

It was so great to watch!  Hooray to Colson! Proud of him!

Enjoying every moment!

A Little Riding

We had a beautiful Sunday.  The sun was shining and the temperature got up to the mid 60's.  It was wonderful!

Chris had planned to take Cannon up to the property to go riding on their motorcycles.  Cannon was very excited, even though he hasn't been riding in months.  I was planning on staying home with Colson, but ended up going at the last minute because Colson wanted to go.  I'm glad we did.

Colson loved riding his bike and big wheel up and down the street there.  Not one car came by.  I enjoyed walking (and running trying to keep up) with him.  He played the entire time.  Cannon struggled some with his motorcycle.  It had been sitting all winter and really needed some TLC before riding.  But he was able to get on and ride up and down the rode a bunch of times.  It was good for him to practice doing something simple, before riding on the rough ground.

Chris rode a few different times around the property and then out under the power lines.  I'm sure he will be sore from using muscles he hasn't used in a long time.

Chris and Cannon came home and worked on Cannon's carburetor, changed the oil and tried to work on making it shift easier.  Chris ended up making another shifter that he welded on.  Now Cannon can not only shift up, but back down.  Cannon rode around the yard and the neighbors yard for quite awhile today.

Enjoying every moment!

A Few Random Shots

Random shots from the last week or so.  That seems to be how things are going....kind of random. Not in a bad way.  But it just is.  The days are sneaking away and they are good days, but I'm finding pictures and blogging are at the bottom of the list.  I'm not sure if that is something I am okay with or not.  At least for now, it's just the way it is.

So...

Cannon and Colson having pillow fights.  This happens more and more.  My poor pillows won't last long.  

The closer DC is to you, the better.  He wants to be sleeping ON you and will stay all night if allowed.   

Our recent sing and read.  Cannon is up front...in gray.  

My class, taking pictures and making a video for their classmate Ava (picture of her on the Smartboard) who is battling cancer.  This was their funny faces!

Our awesome music teacher decorated our hallway to celebrate the Seahawks heading back to the Superbowl.  

Enjoying every moment of this randomness right now.

Husky Basketball

We were again blessed with tickets to the Husky Men's basketball game from the Jet boys at Jet Chevrolet.  When Chris called to ask if we wanted the tickets, the answer was of course, Yes!

We headed to the stadium after the Seahawks unbelievable comeback win.  The boys were excited to go to the game, too.  We were looking forward to spending a night out as a family.  We enjoyed a great walk to the area.  All of us loved looking around the team store.  We followed around Harry, the Husky mascot until the boys could say hi and get a picture.  We had dinner, which was not healthy at all, sitting in our seats, passing back and forth the hotdog, pretzel, and water.  We munched on Kettle Corn the rest of the night.  We cheered on the team to a victory, after being down by 10 points at halftime.  It was a great night for us all.    

Enjoying every moment.

Silly

7:30 pm and we are up in the boys room reading.  Tonight, there were some impromptu photos taken before we started our books.  Too funny!

Love our family!  Love my Ross boys!  The three CR's.
Enjoying every moment!

Happy

Happy that it's Friday.
Happy the week was a good one.
Happy there was less fighting and more getting along from Cannon and Colson.
Happy to watch college basketball.
Happy boys, who love to play Mine Craft together.
Happy that we have a three day weekend coming up.
Happy the Seahawks are playing this weekend.
Happy to sit and relax.
Happy to catch up on DVR'd TV shows.
Happy to have Talia pick up the kids two days a week and feed them dinner.
Happy to read lots of books with the boys.
Happy to surf Pinterest for things I may never use.
Happy that Cannon read 111 words per minute on his fluency assessment.  (1st grade goal: 30)
Happy that Colson loves to write his name, numbers and letters.
Happy for recorded movies to watch.
Happy that I have a great team at school to work with.
Happy to go to the Husky vs Oregon basketball game Sunday night.  (Thanks Jet boys!)
Happy to read a new magazine.
Happy to all sit together for dinner.
Happy for laughter.
Happy that the boys love to draw.
Happy for pictures to look at.
Happy for friendships.
Happy.

Enjoying every moment.

New!

New toys for the boys.  (like they need more after Christmas!)

They had a gift card from Aunt Evelyn to Toys R Us and wanted to go pick something out today.  So we did.

The boys wandered through the store, starting on one side and made their way to the other side and then back again.  It's funny to watch them wander the isles, looking and touching things. It's interesting to see which isles they skip and which toys they spend more time 'playing' with.

Finally, they chose a Lego set that was a truck, trailer and boat.  They also got to pick another item and chose what I call, "marble roll-a-way."  Those two things kept them busy for the rest of the day and evening.  They spent time putting together the Lego sets.  They both worked on the truck. Cannon put together the trailer on his own and Colson put together the boat by himself.  All of us have worked on building interesting contraptions to roll the marbles down.  Great creative work!

Thanks Aunt Evelyn for thinking of the kids and making their day!

Enjoying every moment.  

It's A New Year!

Happy 2015!

It's a new year.  It always seems a bit surreal on January 1st thinking that we are starting another year. 2014 was a good year, full of ups and downs...just like every other year before that.  I am confident 2015 will be just as good.  We are looking forward to all of the ups, and even the downs, because we know that we learn and grow from challenges.

As for now, here are a few things that are happening in our lives:

The boys got tablets for Christmas and they want to play them all day every day!  I know (I hope) the newness and excitement will wear off.  But we have to set time limits and get them to do other things rather than play on their tablet every moment.  They both like to play Minecraft and have down-loaded a couple other games, too.

I'm working on renewing my National Board certificate.  It's been eight years since I certified and this year is the first year we can attempt to renew.  It's another daunting process, but not nearly as consuming as the process to certify the first time.  I'm about half way done now and have until April to finish.

Currently, Colson has quite a cold, with a cough and runny nose.  But he's in good spirits for the most part.  I am hoping he doesn't pass it on to the rest of us.

Cannon is enjoying hearing us read the book, Henry Huggins.  We just finished the fourth book of the Little House series this weekend and started the new book.  He also has the Borrows set that he is looking forward to reading, too.

Chris fixed the jets in our jetted tub!  They haven't worked for years. (Like 12 years.)  I have no idea why he felt inclined to fix them, but who cares!  They are fixed!

The new neighbors, behind our house, have offered to finish building our back fence.  We had most of the supplies so they went to town and have all of the posts up.  They are ready to put up the boards next.

I have been reading like crazy over break and am finishing up the second book in the Divergent series.  I LOVE reading and getting lost in a good book!

Colson has been doing some more drawing and number writing lately.  He continues to make progress every time he writes.  I can't believe how far he can count already....in the 40's with only a tiny bit of help.  He recognizes many 2 digit numbers and wants to learn to write the numbers.  He can write 0-4, 10-11 on his own and then needs a model for the rest.  We wrote numbers to 30 last night!

Enjoying every moment.

Winter Break

Winter Break is always much needed.  I look forward to two weeks off after a long, busy start to the school year.  The boys are tired, too...from the hustle and bustle of our routine.  They look forward to staying home, not getting out of their pajamas and playing all day.

We've enjoyed being in the Christmas spirit, loved having the house all 'Christmasy' with decorations and smells.  Having family here made it even more special and we had a good time cooking, baking, watching Christmas movies, shopping and hanging out.

It's been great to complete some projects around here, like cleaning out some cupboards, sorting through toys and clothes and doing some other major cleaning.  I also use this break to work on finishing up our 2014 Scrapbook album and prepare the 2015 one.  I finished that today!  The boys school albums are also all caught up as I have added things from the first part of this school year.

Basketball and football games have been on the TV for the last couple of days and it's always fun to watch some great college games.  There have been a number of close finishes and it's nice to see close games, especially when they come down to the last few seconds.

Break is winding down and I'm sad because it's always hard to get back into the routine after having a couple of weeks off.  But I know it will be nice to get back into a routine again...nice to see my students and teacher colleagues....nice for the boys to get back to learning.

Enjoying every moment.

More Photos From Sunday

Mindy sent me some more photos from our time at their house on Sunday.  Some of the pictures are from her phone and some are from Sebastian's mom's phone.  I'm glad to have more photos!

Enjoying every moment.