finishing up 4H shooting

 As I've mentioned a few times this year, Noah and Evie were both involved in 4H shooting sports spring of 2018. 

In order to help them both improve we actually invested in our own gun this year. It seemed like they were both having a difficult time with their accuracy and consistency so I was hoping this would help. Maybe it did, I'm not sure. It took nearly two months to arrive so that did not help...

 It was funny how Abigail and Evie shot with their opposite eyes. Abigail was right handed and shot with her left eye. Evie is left handed and shot with her right eye. Therefore when they sat next to each other, they were always facing opposite ways like below. Or maybe Evie just liked to lean on Abigail for support... 😂

Evie had a coupe fluke nights where she shot 250 and qualified for State like it was nothing. But just like when Noah was a beginner, it's easier to shoot those scores than now that he's intermediate. Noah was having a very difficult year getting his scores up to 300 so he could qualify for State (and next year is 325!). The harder he tried and the more he practiced, the worse he seemed to do. He's such a head case, just like his dad. Terry used to get very nervous before performing for track meets and I think Noah is the same way. He did much better if he just tried to relax, have fun, and not let himself get disappointed. One night later in the season he did finally qualify for State. That's Alicia the coach counting his targets. Unfortunately, just like last year, they ran out of space and we couldn't go to State. We were busy that weekend anyway, but it was a bummer. Noah handled it pretty well though. 

Towards the end of the season Noah and Evie participated in a weekend shootout. It was April 7th. It was fun, especially since it was so empty in their later time slot. They both shot okay. Here are all four positions they learned, beginning with Prone.

This is Standing, which is the hardest, but somehow Noah occasionally shot very well at. 

Sitting was usually Noah's best position. 

And Kneeling. Evie was a mixed bag of scores.

On the second to last night, since all our kids were on the end of the line I took some pictures of everyone. Smiley Evie 😁 

Time to shoot. They had a consistently large number of shooters every week.  

The final night a week into May was a pizza party and fun night of shooting targets with animal crackers or sideways cards or miniature animals. This year was a struggle for me to get through for some reason. Perhaps because Noah had such a hard time, I don't know. And I'm not sure if we'll do it again next year. I really really want to get Noah into Cross Country in the fall. We'll see about Track after that... But it was definitely fun to do something with friends. And a good lesson for disappointment and determination. 

swimming, booking, shopping, eating

On March 9, two months after we had last done it, we went swimming for the homeschool swim day once again.

Splashing Samuel like that was a new trick. :D

I don't often get such good smiles from Dwidgie.

Samuel and Ezra spent some time jumping into the water, prepping for later cliff jumping I'm sure.

Splast!

Splish splash they were taking a bath

Meanwhile and for the first time, Evie and Noah were playing in adjacent the lap pool. I had gone over there to swim some laps after getting bored. Terry and Noah joined me after a while for some basketball and jumping off the diving board. Then I came over and did some diving too, but dude, that board was so springy that all I did was belly flop. Ha ha

Getting her back for those bunny ears.

Rewind to the beginning of that week. Terry was going to go for a run with Luna one morning and I thought it would be a good time to cut her overlong toenails so her running stride could grind down the rough edges. But in my hurry I cut too deep and she bled a lot.

Sadly I had to keep that washcloth bandaid on her foot all day. Three weeks later her nails need clipped again but I'm so scared to do it!

That evening Noah's BB gun finally came in the mail!

A couple days later I felt quite adventurous and decided to take all the kids to the library and then the grocery store. Usually the library is no problem but spending an hour in Safeway with four kids was not fun. We did get 68 books that day!

I think the littles had a good time "driving" their car cart, but the rest of us did not enjoy ourselves. Evie's face says it all. She makes me laugh a lot!

We go through so much fruit every week.

I made an incredibly healthy meal that evening so my veggies didn't go bad but I just knew my kids wouldn't even like it.

And they certainly didn't care for it. But I did. I had such healthy lunches for a week.

I feel like yelling this at the kids all the time. :D

Feb. pets, play date, Grace overnight, Luna haircut

 It's time for another random picture post. 

During the Super Bowl I got bored so I started taking pictures of me and Evie with the pets. The cat was passed out on someone nearly half the game.

Evie's turn with the lump. Also, fun fact, she's wearing my glasses since we hadn't got her new ones yet.

And that reminds me, after Evie and Noah got glasses, we went down to Who's Toy Shop to hang out. All the kids were making up plays with this little puppet stage. They were all adorable, but here is Evie's.

The following day, Monday February 5th, during the middle of school, the dog and cat sat next to me like this...

I believe one of the boys plopped the cat down next to me and then Luna joined us, as she often does. We found her head placement amusing. Can't get too much cat crotch smell. Ha! 

For several weeks now we've been taking Evie's 4H BB gun home for her to practice with. Just this last week she scored just enough to go to state (250 out of a possible 400). The rule is that the boys can only be down there to watch if they stay on the guest bed and wear sunglasses.

On Wednesday we had Abigail and Moses over for a play date.

Evie and Abigail added to Evie's snow cakes that she had begun a few days before. They eventually melted into little ice mounds, were snowed over twice, and then daddy finally scraped them off the deck. I think they're finally gone.

Moses and the boys jumping and chucking ice chunks, aka snow balls, at each other.  

By Friday the 9th that week Evie spiked a fever and was down for the count. We had planned a sleepover for Grace the weekend before that had to be moved to this weekend and didn't really want to move it again. Evie wasn't fevering by Saturday night so we let Grace come and spend the night, but not sleep in the same bed.

Of course by Saturday Ezra had a fever... We found on the following Tuesday when Samuel got sick, that they had all had influenza B and we didn't know it! Samuel was much, much worse than Evie and  Ezra so thankfully Grace never got sick. 

We also gave Luna a bath that night, which was coincidentally the beginning of the Winter Olympics in South Korea. Luna's hair was nearly four inches long and no matter how careful we were with washing and brushing her, she kept getting these thicks knotted matts in her fur. You can see on on her right shoulder. 

Luna hadn't had a haircut since the very end of July and was way overdue for one. Terry had started calling her a sheep because of the way her hair parted along her shoulders due to the curls. I looked up sheep pictures and she really did have a coat similar to their fleece. But I loved her fluff!

 It was a lot of work though and that following weekend, after more matts surfaced as a result of a careful bath, I cut all her fur off. She looks so poodle-y!

I scissored all her fur off instead of using the razor as I have always done previously, so that's why she looks uneven. It's very uneven! But at least we have no more matts or piles of Luna fluff everywhere. 

Terry said he much prefers her to look this way. When she's long and she looks like a sheep he thinks she's as dumb as sheep, though of course she isn't. He just doesn't like sheep since they had some when they were young and they were unbelievably difficult. 

Samuel and Ezra put on the cat the remains of Luna's rabbit's head. Hilarious. 

One more photo of Luna's haircut from this last week when both pets joined us for Samuel's reading lesson.

January shooting, teeth, chess, pizza, old pics

Time for a blog picture dump!

On Monday, January 8th, the kids once again began 4H shooting sports, otherwise known as B.B. gun shooting. This is Noah's third year and Evie's first, which is mostly due to Moses' sister and her friend Abigail also taking part. This photo is from the second week with Moses modeling the standing position. 

A couple nights later on January 17th, Samuel finally lost his second loose tooth. A week before he had been yanking and pulling with all his might to pull it out, but it just wasn't ready. 

So after later inspecting it and discovering it was hanging on by a thread, I insisted he pull it out. It came out incredibly easy.

The tooth fairy left him this note and a dollar!

The following weekend brought another pizza movie night, which we do every week. Have I talked about this before? Probably. But this night Terry was teaching Samuel and Ezra to play chess while I was busy in the kitchen. 

Since Samuel and Ezra have been gluten free for a couple months, I've been making Bob's gluten free pizza crusts. I discovered that night that the boys like the crust better if it's thin like this.

They found a more comfortable location to continue another game.

The boys' first thin crust pizza. 

And our pan fried pizza. DROOL. It never gets old. I do hope I don't have to go gluten free. Pizza night would be the only hard part. 

A selfie with Samuel during school the next week.

Evie shooting animal crackers January 22. She's actually doing very well. 

And Noah. Sitting is his best position.

We went on a walk every day during the second to last week of January since it was actually pretty nice and sunny. This the kids' favorite path to take, the "secret way."

I thought Ezra was just so darn cute skip counting by tens on January 25.




After lunch that day we drove down the road to the nearby park because I didn't have time to walk and go to Sams afterwards. The kids love going there with Luna because she's the Lava Monster they all run from. I think it's funny that she runs up the stairs and then down the slides.

Luna won't go down the spiral slide so that's why they're all huddled together on that one while she's on the landing sniffing around.

That Lava Monster is scary.




That night I kept running in and outside to watch the sunset. First it was all golden light...

...and then beautiful pink.

The following day, January 26, was a Friday and we sort of sat around after breakfast and the Price Is Right. Daddy went through the box of old childhood things that his parents gave him while cleaning up their basement and storage room. Here's his college full marathon medals! He's even bought a metal engraver to put his times on the backs. :D

Also some adorable early elementary school class photos. He's SO cute!

I think he was able an eighth or ninth grader here...

High school basketball. 

A few weeks before we had gone through a box of old things in our closet and came up with a few oldies. My parents at Spearfish Falls after tree hunting when we were dating or engaged; so around 2002 or 2003

We couldn't even read the letters that we had written each other back then; they were way too mushy and gross, like this photo. When we visited me at SDSU in 2003 we went to a garden and took pictures with each other. Boy I was young though.

This was the day after we got engaged, April 20, 2003.

And finally, I have several videos, the dates of which I cannot remember, but are cute and fun.

Ezra wanted to make a video with me and surprised me with what he wanted to say.

Luna has been learning to do tricks each night with Daddy. This is actually the pinnacle of her training thus far. At first she could only roll one way. She was an ambi-turner like on Zoolander. HA! But now she can go both ways.

Evie pushes and spins those littles with what seems endless patience.

Staying and Shaking were two of Luna's first tricks.

Next came Lay Down, which seemed to take forever for her to figure out.