Captain Huggy Face to the Rescue!

This weekend has been productive but I wouldn't say it has been Lucy and Caroline's favorite. We have gotten a lot of work done outside, and our yard is finally starting to look presentable.

Friday night we had a fun playdate at another family's house, and Saturday was full of Lucy playing soccer, Steve taking the girls to go watch a boys lacrosse game, and lots of time spent outside.

This box and rake kept them busy for a long time.

Unfortunately, these two have had a TOUGH Sunday. There have been a lot of arguments and a lot of tears. We have decided to come inside and watch some Word Girl in hopes that a little down time on the couch will cure the grumpy attitude of all four Sodens. It seems to be working so far:

How could watching Captain Huggy Face make you sad?

Another weekend, another dumpster

Another weekend and another filled dumpster:

A HUGE thank you goes to Cookie and Grumps for all of their help this weekend. They got here extra early on Saturday morning to see Lucy play soccer, and then Cookie took the girls while the three of us attacked the yard.

We started by ripping out a gross wooden ramp on the side of our house. It was fairly big and was the main entrance we used to get into the house. Aside from being ugly, the ramp was actually incredibly slippery when wet. We tore it down with the hopes that the brick walkway that led up to it actually continued underneath the ramp. As it turns out, we were correct:

Note: this would be a great time to have a "before" shot of the ramp. As usual, I am not on top of things.

We are now in need of a couple of stairs to get into the house. As Steve and I have said many times since buying this house, completing one job just creates another.


Another project that we finished early in the week was our family room. You may remember from another post that the room had a great fireplace and built in bookcases but was painted an unfortunate shade of purple with horrific brown window treatments.

So we took everything off of the shelves and painted it a very boring (but much more palatable) shade of beige. We are very pleased with the results.

Overall, we are loving home ownership though it is certainly proving more costly than renting. We have rented some fantastic places, but there is something special about having a place that is truly yours and that you can change to suit your tastes (if, for example, you don't want your walls to be purple).

It's beginning to look like spring

We spent a fair amount of time in the yard this weekend. We planted grass seed, fertilized the lawn, weeded some gardens, ripped down a wooden ramp (see our next post), and planted some flowers. It was not fun exactly, but it is the kind of work that is very satisfying.

The grass looks like trash, but the garden beds are weed free!

Is there a way to make a downspout pretty? This one is gross.

This bed took a LOT of weeding and we put rocks around the
perimeter. There are many bulbs planted by the previous owner
and so it has been fun to watch what pops up.

First Tooth

For some reason I thought children were 6 or 7 when they started losing teeth. So when I looked at Lucy and saw one of her teeth was bent at an ugly angle, I assumed she had fallen or run into something. As it turns out, I just have a bad memory. Her teacher told me that there were several girls in Lucy's class who had recently lost teeth.

Given how "bendy" Lucy's tooth was, we figured it would come out within 24 hours. But Lucy was unwilling to pull on it and that thing stayed put.

We tried convincing her that with it so loosely attached that there was no way it would hurt if she yanked it out. She was not interested in taking our word for it, and thus it stayed in for at least 4 more days.

It eventually came out. She claims she pulled it out while at school, but my guess is that she was eating snack at school and it came out when she bit into the food.

Then the tooth fairy brought her M&Ms. (Clearly this tooth fairy isn't really interested in Lucy keeping her teeth in tip-top shape) Lucy thinks it's because the tooth fairy knows how much she loves M&Ms. In reality, the M&Ms were the only thing that the local convenience store had to offer - unless Lucy wanted a lighter or scratch off tickets.

Here she is proudly showing her gap:

Sparkly Civvies

A word that is very much a part of our family vernacular is the word "civvies." This refers to a day when we are allowed to be out of dress code at my school. Now that Lucy is going to school, she also has civvies days. Most recently, Lucy had "Sparkly Civvies." Lucy was very excited about it, and we even went to Target to pick out a few items to complete her outfit.

Shout out to Nana and Yoinkie for the sparkly shoes!

Today when I had civvies in the upper school, Lucy even offered to let me borrow her sparkly headband. I don't think I could pull it off like she does :-)

Soccer, take 3

Lucy started in a local soccer league last weekend. We are a little sad that her friends from school are not in the league, but it seems like a great set up. It is very affordable, and there are only 3 kids from each team on the field at one time (with only 6 or so kids on a team). So the kids get plenty of touches on the ball and plenty of time on the field, and everyone get something out of it.

Lucy's birthday misses the age cut off by one week, so she is definitely the oldest on the team. Steve and I could care less about ability, but Lucy is big for her age. She is one of the two biggest kids in the class, and she is one of the two youngest kids as well. When we asked about it, we got a very funny response. Very much a reflection of the crazy parent area we live in, the directors of the league assured us that if Lucy was clearly more talented than her peers then we could talk about moving her up.

Seriously? It's four year old soccer. How is a kid superior to her peers at that age? They all run around and have no idea what they are doing.

In any case, Lucy had a great time and scored a few goals. She is a giant compared to the other kids, but it was a lot of fun and she has been asking all week about when she has soccer again.

Scoring her first goal

Hanging out with her teammates

Probably questioning her coach's strategy

Side note: it was nice to see other parents dealing with children who cried at the idea of participating in organized sports. (Not that I wish that one anyone, of course.) You may recall our first experience with Lucy playing soccer. It was nice to not deal with a child throwing themselves on the ground.

The New Friday Afternoon

Things have been crazy around the house. A longer commute makes for a more hectic morning and less time for the girls to play once we get home. The end of a quarter means grades and comment writing. And the change in season means that there are a lot of things that Steve and I want to get done in the next few weeks. This is my feeble way of making excuses for not posting in a week!

Yesterday was gorgeous here, and when we finally got out of rush hour traffic there was just enough time to hang out in the backyard. This is our new Friday afternoon activity, and I think everyone is enjoying it.

Pretending to be witches (note that the giant hole from
the pool is now filled in and waiting for grass seed)

Witches often ride lacrosse sticks

This picture is certainly frightening

Pouting

Boog enjoying the great outdoors

Lucy and Boog bonding - I think Boog
is less thrilled with this arrangement

After playing in the backyard, we headed out to the front so that I could weed a few flower gardens while we waited for Steve to get home.

The sign by our front door - we're official!

My children are not perfect by any means, but one thing that I think they do particularly well is play independently and (most of the time) play together. Lucy asked to get "the guys" and they immediately plopped down by a garden and sat and played for 30 minutes uninterrupted.

Note that random piling of pavers/bricks/stones in a random corner of the house. This is project #28 on the list. The goal is that sometime in the next few weeks these stones will be ripped out, the ground will be leveled, new stones will be put back in, and there will be some potted plants and such to spruce it up.

And now we are off to Lucy's first soccer game of the spring. More pics to come :-)