Wrapping up the year at St. Edward's

 

The boys finished the school year with a bang this May. All 3 boys had field trips (highlights below) and Sam passed 8th grade (with better than average grades!) so he will be moving onto the high school in the fall.

Charlie' class had an overnight field trip to Lake Shetek. Seth was a chaperone and everyone had a blast - even if they didn't sleep much.  When they were gathered around the campfire, Charlie led everyone in the song I Have an Aunt, which is loads of fun. Seth captured the tail end of it on video. 

Frank's class took a trip to the children's museum in Brookings and Sam's class went to Sioux Falls for various adventures. We weren't able to chaperone these field trips, but everyone came home completely exhausted so they must have enjoyed themselves to the fullest. 

The evening of the last day of school, we had Mass and a reception for the 3 graduates. Sam, Ian and Elizabeth have been quite the trio at St. Edward's and they will be greatly missed! The picture on the left was the one chosen for the school bulletin board featuring the graduates. 

To celebrate the end of school, the boys destroyed their workbooks. I think 3 workbooks kept these 7 boys (4 cousins included) busy for about 2 hours as they hit them with baseball bats, had snowball fights and jumped amid the pile of paper on the trampoline. (And they did clean up the mess, in case you're wondering.)

Spring Highlights

First of all, Elena had her Sweet 16! The driving school had her file in the wrong pile and never called to arrange behind the wheel so no license yet, but she's getting close!

It's probably a good thing she'll have the extra time to drive as she recently had a minor car crash. We have much to be thankful for, though!  Namely, that it happened on our property, no one was hurt and Seth was able to repair the damage fairly quickly. As Elena was pulling into the garage, she accidentally hit the gas instead of the brakes and drove into the back wall. She pushed the wall out quite a bit, but fortunately didn't go all the way through. And there were just a few minor scratches to the vehicle.  Here's the back of the garage afterwards. 

Two of our neighbors heard the crash and came running in a panic. The youngest 3 kids were in the car and completely unfazed. Olivia was just mad that she dropped her toy, and Charlie was fixated on a car sticker he was trying to attach to the back of our car. Our neighbor was in a panic, asking if we're ok and then he sees the kids just walk all "la-dee-da" into the house - with the exception of Charlie who was not to be distracted by the state of our garage or car. The whole time I was trying to check out the damage and attempting to get ahold of Seth (who was out of town), Charlie was chirping in the background, "Mom! Mom! Mom! How do I put this sticker on the car?"  (The sticker did not get put on the car, for the record.)

Sam kept busy with baseball - he had a great season and has started up with summer rec baseball right on the heels of the school season ending. Below is a picture of his team after taking first place at a tournament. Also pictured: Sam's winnings in a poker match while up in the cities for state basketball. They used plastic silverware for chips.

Olivia has been busy this spring stacking towers out of cups, playing hide-and-seek (in which she will ask for your help in hiding her and then tell you to go look for her) and taking care of her dolls & animals. Our big goal for now is to get her to stop taking naps. She still can't quite make it through the day without a nap, but if she naps at all she can easily stay awake until 11:00 or 12:00 at night. And I really mean at all. Today she fell asleep in the 1 minute it took me to go upstairs for her pajamas. I immediately woke her up and that 1.5 minute nap kept her going long past bedtime. All of our kids went through this phase, but she's holding on way longer than the rest. 

Charlie stays very busy running around the the pack of local boys. One of the big highlights of this spring for him was going to a graduation party featuring several very nice cars. Charlie is a car guy. I can't tell you anything about these cars, but he made sure to get several pictures of all of them and was excited the rest of the night.

Frank finished up a successful year as a first grader. He was the first of our kids to ever be genuinely sad on the last day of school! He loves learning and spending time with his classmates every day. Below are a few pictures from his Spanish/Science teacher. One is of Frank and Sam on "Market Day" in Spanish class. The others are from when his class released a butterflies. Frank was deemed the "Butterfly Whisperer" as one butterfly seemed to really like Frank. 

 

Recent quotes from Livi

Olivia: I'm an Achoo.

Frank and me: An Achoo?

Olivia: No! I'm an at-choo.

Me: An "At you?"

Olivia: No!

Elena: (noticing she was standing very still) A statue?

Olivia: Yes!

Me: Livi, do you need to poop?

Olivia: No. I'm empty of poop.

Olivia (looking at some horses): Look, mom! They're not eating us!!! 

She seemed really amazed by this. If she actually expected them to eat us, she was shockingly brave with how close she got.

Olivia's version of Jingle Bells: "Jingle bells, jingle all the way! Having fun! And then you say...Hey!"

More Quotes & Anecdotes

Spring has been busy around here! I've had less time for updating this so for now, here are a few more quotes.

Recently, Seth came home shortly after the boys went to bed so he went up to say good night to them before they fell asleep. He happened to be wearing his Knights of Columbus regalia, which includes a sword. When he entered the room, he came in with some dramatic sword moves. 

To which Charlie said, "Dad! That was your best entrance ever!!"

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Olivia: "Sgabetti....Sgabett...I can't say that right."

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Frank and Charlie put together a "Spa" up in their bedroom one evening so Seth, Elena and I each got to go through a series of spa services. They put quite a bit of work into it. It started with lying down on a bed of pillows and being carefully covered with strips of toilet paper. The room had low lighting and "meditation" music playing on the Alexa. (During Charlie's treatment he wasn't able to find cucumbers to put on his eyes and he substituted with salami slices. Seth and I did not get the salami eye treatment - fortunately.)

As I got a foot rub, the boys did their best to help put us into a relaxed state. These were a few of my favorite lines:

Frank: "Just relax and try to think of things that make you happy. Like...ligers...and unicorns...."

Charlie: "And try to imagine yourself somewhere where you're totally relaxed. Personally, I would imagine myself on a tropical beach......drinking 1919 root beer and lemonade, surrounded by dolphins, flamingos and cats."

I don't have a picture of the spa, but I do have another recent picture of a project they did together. They can still fight like cats and dogs, but once in awhile they get an idea and really work well together. This past week, they spent an afternoon making this American flag out of legos:

Recent Quotes and other happenings

Charlie recently overheard someone mention the TV show The Bachelor. He asked me what that was so I tried to explain. 

Me: It's a show with one single guy and there's something like 15 women that he has to choose from. And then that each week he eliminates another girl until there's only one left. 

Charlie: What do you mean he eliminates them? Like he kills them?

As the president of the Education Committee, I am technically supposed to head up the Fish Fry every lent and I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to fish fries. Fortunately one of our fellow parishioners always steps up and pretty much takes over, and I was telling Seth how much I appreciate all of his work. And Frank overheard.

Me: I'm so thankful that Mike will be manning the fish-fry coming up. 

Frank: Who's Manny the Fish-Fry?

Olivia has been getting better and better at expressing herself. Although, she recently started getting self-conscious when people laugh after she says something, which is tough because she says stuff that makes us laugh all the time. Here are a few recent examples:

Olivia: Mom, look! It's a Paw-catrol sticker! 

Sam: I love how Olivia says Paw Patrol.

Olivia: I say Paw-catrol because I just can't say it right!...Don't laugh!

Olivia: Frank ripped this. And I'm not happy about it!

I often get comments from others that our kids are so creative. Well, one draw-back to having creative kids is that they come up with creative ways to torment one another.

Sam & Elena: (trying to trick Charlie) You're in big trouble, Charlie! Mom knows what you did!

Charlie: What are you talking about?

Sam: She found the marijuana hidden in your bed! 

Charlie: Why would I steal that???

Sam & Elena: You didn't steal it! You bought it. Why would you do that, Charlie? Mom's going to be so mad!

Charlie: (not knowing what marijuana is, his mind went on a totally different track) How on earth could I afford to buy the Mona Lisa?? That would be so expensive!

In other news, Sam hurt his knee wrestling again this year. The trainer and AD were pretty convinced he had torn his meniscus and his MCL. From the sounds of it the MCL can heal with therapy, but the meniscus would likely have required surgery. Sam got to have his first ever MRI, which is fun to hear him explain ("They put you in a big white donut and then it makes these sounds...."). We were incredibly thankful to learn that the meniscus is fine so he will just need to do rehab for his MCL. 

And last time I posted the dance videos, I missed one! This was one Seth got of the kids dancing along to the pep band during their cousin Alex's basketball game. 

Dance Mania

"There are shortcuts to happiness and dancing is one of them." 

The last few weeks have provided us with more than the usual amount of dancing. We celebrated our 40th birthdays up at the local bar and grill. Our friends Steve and Mel came down to play music and a wonderful time was had by all. 

Our good friend Adam and Frank won the prize for best dancing that night:

The next week was Catholic Schools Week. Since I am subbing, I got to be there for the dance, and it was a blast watching all the kids. I got a few shots of the boys and their cousins crushing it on the dance floor :) Apologies for the poor camera quality - it might be time to upgrade my phone!

Friday night Elena went to her high school dance. I didn't get any pictures myself but I was able to swipe this one off of Facebook. It's been great to see our high school holding dances again. They stopped having dances for a few years (even before COVID) because of low interest, which majorly bums me out. Fortunately, the kids seem to be getting into the idea again after a break.

And last night, most of the family went to the Moonlight Serenade (which has replaced the Chocolate Affair). This is another dance that hasn't happened for a few years so everyone in attendance was happy to be back. The dance floor was well used. Seth and I were able to swing dance again for the first time in quite awhile. We might be 40, but we haven't slowed down (much)! Sam was the only one who missed it because he was at the Junior High dance - so still dancing! 

Never Gonna Give You Up

I managed to capture this moment of Charlie dancing in front of his reflection in the oven. It's even better because he's dressed for 1920s Day at school. He had no idea I was taping him.

He's being a good sport and said I can post it here. 

1920s Day! (In honor of the school having no phones for a day while the new system is installed) 

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!

Wizard of Oz!

Our high school put on The Wizard of Oz for their musical this year. Elena was a very animated crow, a poppy and a citizen of Oz. Charlie was a munchkin (in the lollipop guild). Every time I watched the show, Olivia was sitting on my lap so between her squirming and my poor quality phone camera, all the pictures I took turned out blurry. I do have a shot of Charlie in the lollipop guild.

Sam helped with sets and stage-crew this year. The set builder was very impressed with his ability to create and build sets. His favorite part was building a bed that would spin for the tornado. 
Here is Sam testing out the initial construction of the bed. 

These pictures are once again thanks to Reba, a local mom who takes lots of pictures and is kind enough to share them with the world, which comes in handy for moms like me who are usually holding a toddler and can't manage a good picture. A few are from the receiving line after the show.

Here's a link to the entire show: