Our winter so far

Just when I thought life couldn't get much busier, the Spanish teacher at our Catholic school broke her heel and has to take off about 3 months of work. Of course, I was happy to step in and cover for her classes 2 afternoons a week. It really has been a joy to teach the kids there, and our boys love having Mom for teacher (luckily!!) I never thought I would want to teach elementary, but the students at St. Ed's are all so eager to learn that my 2 hours with them fly by. 

On top of that Sam has been wrestling with both Varsity and Junior Varsity, which means a lot of meets. We go as much as we are able, but it's definitely a challenge to make it with the younger kids. It seems I always end up having to take Olivia to the bathroom or something right when Sam is up to wrestle. A few weeks ago, I was 10 minutes late for a tournament in Wabasso due to the challenge of getting the 3 youngest kids all packed up and ready in time, plus a dense fog on the drive. Of course, he wrestled almost immediately and I missed his first match.

Last night, we made sure to get to his meet on time in case he wrestled right away, which meant we had to bring the 3 youngest because Elena's robotics practice overlapped with his tournament and she wasn't home yet. After and hour and a half of waiting, I decided to bring the kids home so Elena could watch them and I could watch Sam without being distracted. In the 20 minutes I was gone, there were 2 successive 1st-period pins, which pushed Sam's match up and I missed it. To make matters worse, Seth went to get a drink at the same time and he only caught the tail end. I stayed awhile longer, but he didn't have a second match so in the end I sat 3 hours in the gym and didn't even get to see Sam wrestle. I have a long way to go in figuring this Wrestling Mom thing out. 

So once again, I'm behind on updating this thing. Highlights of the last couple of months have been Christmas and Charlie's birthday. Both went well. We made all the celebrations and Charlie had 8 friends over to celebrate his 10th birthday. I was a little nervous to have so many boys over, but they had a great time playing in the snow, doing a scavenger hunt and playing Telestrations together. 

Making Christmas cookies! The kids can really do a good job with helping now. Sam didn't help decorate, but he helped a lot with eating them!

One of the favorite gifts was a set of bubble guns. This was Frank's gift, but he was very good about sharing.  Our floor was a little sticky over Christmas!

Oh yeah! And I dug a maze in our yard. We had an evening warm enough that I didn't even need a coat, and the snow was perfect  (although heavy!) My body regretted it the next few days, but it was fun. Of course it's covered in snow again by now. 

I'll leave you with a couple of recent quotes:

Mom: Adios, amigos!  

Frank: Mom, did you even know that amigos means friends?

Mom:Yes. You know I teach Spanish for a living, right?

Charlie: I don't get it...Charlie Tuna. It's like he's selling his own kind....and he's happy about it!