Absolutely Awesome Eight: Play-offs, Parties and Programs

Anna's first experience with city rec basketball ended this weekend with the "play-offs".

It's been a positive learning experience for her and the other five girls on her team.

A small team meant plenty of playing time for Anna.
(Jantzen's team has the opposite problem).

She made her share of baskets and rebounds and steals.

In the final game of the season, Anna really impressed us with her guarding skills.

Her stick-like-glue abilities probably annoyed her opponents, but she got the job done!

The games were held at either 9:00am or 10:00am at the local junior high on Saturday mornings with one practice during the week. The "mellow-ness" of this all-girls league was a welcomed contrast to the rigors of Jantzen's more intense and on-going basketball experience.

Quinn managed to keep himself entertained during Anna's games.

Because I spent the first part of December visiting China last year, we skipped doing our "12 Days of Christmas" gig. The kids missed participating in our little tradition. This year I made the effort to get everything purchased and prepared ahead of time. The thrill of ringing and running is contagious and has been a highlight for the little ones each evening as they deliver the secret gifts.

Though it's a no-friend party this year for Anna, somehow I managed to be in charge of the Team 5-3 birthday party (for December/June b-day kids) at the middle school on Monday morning. Truthfully, I do not get excited about such things so I wasn't exactly thrilled when the teacher emailed asking me to spearhead this one. I did make a lot of phone calls and it took some coordinating but was super relieved to get a few willing parents to help out.

After singing Happy Birthday, we had three 15-minute rotations of different activities - reverse charades, a play-dough station and a balloon popping game which the kids loved. As the children returned to their classrooms, we handed out capri-suns and popcorn balls and called it good.

Of course, in the end it all came together nicely and the students had a great time (so why did I feel a bit anxious about entertaining 90 children for 45 minutes?).

"To the best mom in the world! --Tanner"

I came home from errands one day to find a muffin with this note on the counter. Pretty sweet, eh?

Tanner celebrated his 17th birthday on Tuesday.

After all the junk food we've had circulating, I was happy to oblige his birthday dinner request - a salad bar.

Tanner likes banana bread, pumpkin bread and zucchini bread and didn't care what kind we had for his birthday treat. When I spotted a recipe online for pumpkin-zucchini chocolate chip bread and had the ingredients on-hand, I decided to give it a try.

The general consensus was that we prefer one or the other rather than the combination.

All three full-size loaves were quickly consumed nonetheless:).

With early morning seminary, Tanner thought having a birthday lunch at Costa Vida (rather than breakfast another day) would be swell. With Quinn in afternoon kindergarten, it worked out for me to join Aaron and Tanner this year. Thanks to his grandparents and siblings, he had a few things to open. He opened all of his other gifts in June:).

He loved the new yellow tie and itunes gift card from G-ma and G-pa P along with the cash from G-ma and G-pa M.

The kids gave him a Subway gift card and a few packs of gum.

This one was a surprise bonus.
Happy 17th Tanner!
We are so grateful you joined our family 17 years ago!

The elementary school hosted "Christmas Around the World" on December 17th.

The children presented information about their host country. Mrs. Bates taught her 2nd graders to sing three verses of "Silent Night" in German for us!

Elsie learned all about Christmas traditions in Germany and gave us delicious cookies she helped make in class the day before.

We headed down the hallway to the kindergarten classroom.

Quinn's class learned all about the country Bolivia.

Yeah, they were pretty darn cute singing in Spanish.

Quinn and Kamay

(his friend that's a girl)

The refreshments the children served us were interesting. I'm not sure what the drink was called but it was thick-ish and purple-ish and reeked of burnt something-or-other. It smelled worse than it tasted but I laughed as the teacher actually encouraged us to throw it out.

(all while describing this authentic drink of choice for the Bolivians)

For Anna's birthday dinner, she chose raviolis and sour cream & green onion potato chips (random). We also had a green salad, steamed broccoli and fruit.

It happened to be pajama day for Anna at school so she never did get dressed on her birthday. Because she has 6:30am piano lessons on Wednesdays, she took a rain-check on her actual birthday breakfast and decided to do lunch with Brinley and Aaron on Saturday at....Costa Vida.

Perma-grin for this girl after opening her gift from G-ma and G-pa P - a day early.

Anna loved the fun socks & Skittles Tanner gave her - florescent stuff is popular (again) for tweens.

Little Debbie snack cakes and gum from her other siblings.

So the chevron skirt wasn't exactly a surprise since she was with me when we bought it and begged to wear it for her piano recital a few weeks earlier:).