Orange fail

We've been looking for a color to paint the stairway and upstairs hallway for a while. According to Andy, I get the urge to paint every time I'm pregnant. Guess its all part of my nesting. We wanted a color that coordinated with the two colors we painted the downstairs-a dark brown called pumpernickel and a green called guacamole. I also have a picture with these colors on it and was kind of looking to that to guide our color choice.

I found a beautiful orange-y color called mango mania (yes, I realize there is a food theme going on). A nice , bold color that matched the colors we already had up. The sample spots were inconclusive and so we went ahead and bought a gallon of paint. I poured out a tray and got busy putting up a coat. Well, it is a very lovely color, but it does not behave well on our walls. It was a little too orange for our taste. It's back to the drawing board for us. Of course, now Andy tells me that if I take take my picture into lowes that they will match paint colors for me. Hmm. That advice would have been nice before I got this paint.

please let this be the last snow

Who would have thought that I would be posting about snow at the end of March?  I am thankful for all the moisture that this winter has provided, but I think I'm ready to move onto warmer spring days.

It snowed twice on Sunday.  The first round came in the early morning and created slushy roads and crummy driving conditions.  I should know, I was coming home from work.  When I woke up from my nap, all that snow was basically gone.  I thought that was a pretty weak winter storm, not like all the news folk were predicting.

Round 2 came in as we were coming home from scouts.  The roads were icky, driving was slow and I was so glad to be home (and that Andy tolerated my back seat driving comments).  That snow came down all night and into the next morning and allowed the boys one more snow day (hopefully) for the year.  It's  funny,  I bet we got 6-7 inches of snow, but with blowing winds, you can see the grass in some areas.  As I'm writing this the next day, the sun has come out and temps are warming up that the snow is quickly starting to melt.  It should be 50 degrees this weekend.  That's more my idea of spring.

Even Liam got to go out and enjoy the snow.

The day before, the boys had made a large mound of the snow.  It's still there and probably will be the last thing to melt.  

Liam with his snowball.

Cale liked to throw the snowballs at peoples' faces.  (you can imagine how well that went)

Ewan just loved the snow.

Then, I remembered that we had sleds in the garage.  They slid really well on this wet snow.

Exhausted boy=clearly, playing outside was a success.

scouting awards ceremony

The boys had their awards ceremony for Cub Scouts on Sunday.  True to form, we were a little late and got there just in time for Cale to run up on stage with Andy to receive his awards.  Cale earned his wolf badge, 2 arrow points and his table tennis belt loop.  His den leader was quite proud.  Oh wait, that's me.  And, I was proud.  My little scout dudes worked really hard to get their badges.

Marcus earned his Webelos I badge and a first aid pin.  It's fun to see him at scouts because he has a whole different group of scout friends than he has at school.

A few more weeks of scouting and then we are done until next year!

Pinewood Derby awesome-ness

Our Cub Scout pack Pinewood Derby was last weekend.  Needless to say, the boys were excited from the time they were handed their boxes with their car parts in them.  This year, we had to make 4 cars.  Marcus and Cale, of course, and then Ewan and Liam built cars, too.  After all the scouts race, the pack has a "big-kid" race for anyone else who built a car.

Here are the cars all lined up-from L to R: Marcus, Cale, Liam and Ewan

a close-up of Marcus and Cale's cars with all their fancy extra weights.

Liam wanted a semi-truck with all his brothers' and sister's names represented on it.

Ewan's car was called the "Atomic Wedgie".  It was the name of the design.

a pre-shot pic of all my kids actually sitting together

the pack got a new track this year, much to the delight of all the engineer-inclined fathers (this race shows Cale's blur of a car coming in 1st)

anticipation

Cale's car made it to the fastest car race-where it was the slowest fastest car.

poor Liam had to wait a long time for his turn.  that didn't stop him from trying to hand his car to the leader every chance he got.

contestants for the big kid race-yes, two of them are our cars.

Ewan's excited to race!

Cale got the biggest trophy-for best attitude!

Ewan won his race!  His car was the fastest of the three big kids and actually, during trials, his car kept up with the scouts' cars.

You can be sure, we are already thinking about designs for next year.

a name for our new little girl

After what seemed like a long time of looking at the same names over and over again, we have finally agreed on a name for our new little girl!  I have to say, this was a tough choice, and it was only after hearing the name being said out loud by one of the nurses I work with that I was sold on the name....

Kinley Esther

Kinley is Gaelic, meaning "fair-headed hero", so the name falls into our spectrum of warrior meaning names that all our other kids have.  Esther is my middle name (and the name of one of my great-aunts) and carries on the tradition of the kids having family names as their middle names. While we did not choose a name to fit into my bizarre rules of names not starting and ending with the same letter, the girls will have the same initials, and I thought that was nice.

Now, we just wait for her to come!  11-ish weeks to go!

the very last catch-up basketball post, I promise

Okay, this is it for basketball photos.  These are from one of Cale's basketball games.  The only reason I am sharing these is because I am excited that I actually got some action shots of Cale.  It's not everyday that I can figure out the best settings on the camera for taking pictures.  So, enjoy these last pics from basketball, until next year!

Of course, we have pictures of some of Cale's fans.

Cale, stealing the ball, one of his favorite things to do.

The team, getting instructions from the coach.

Dribbling in for a basket.

The boys asked for long socks for basketball.  Of course, they asked for them with, like, 3 games left in the season.  Their awesome mother went out and found some with the help of the sporting goods store man.  The boys loved the socks.  They still do.  Ewan, especially, wears his as often as he can. 

Kella the nurturer

It's fun to see how having a girl is different than how the boys have been.  Kella likes to play "rough" with her brothers, but she also likes to take care of her "friends".  I caught this pictures of Kella taking care of her bear, putting it in the highchair and offering it her water bottle.  Surprisingly, Kella likes to take care of her stuffed animals more than she likes to tend to any of her baby dolls.  I don't know why.  Rest assured, her animals are getting the best care. :-)

A Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!

(Oh yes, I went out and got everyone a green shirt to wear.  Look at how happy some of them are to have new clothes.  Liam was so excited, he didn't want to be in the picture.)

Junior Husky Night

Not quite done with catch-up post.  Here are some photos from way back in January at Junior Husky Night.  It's the night where the kiddos get to come out onto the court and be recognized before the start of the high school boys' game.  It's crazy and loud, and this year, they (whoever is in charge of the event) gave basketball shaped shakers (or rattles, if you will) to all the students.  You can imagine the sound of over 100 rattles being shaken all at once...or maybe you don't want to.

Here is Ewan's team.  I know it's like a "Where's Waldo" with all the kids in orange.  Ewan is standing in front of his coach.

Cale's team.  Cale is first on the left.

Andy and part of his team walking out.

a bunch of little basketball players

the view from Kella's seat

she had some fun and came away with with a lovely rattle!

our Ewan

I have two pictures to share of Ewan to show what a neat little guy he is.  The first is Ewan on career dress-up day.  Ewan wanted to be a "business man".  His choice surprised me.  I expected a more exotic career from Ewan, who has an incredible imagination.  We asked Ewan why he chose "business man" as his career.  Ewan said it was so that he could fire everyone!  That's my boy.  He spent the morning firing his brothers and then went to school and fired his teacher.  He had a good time.

Then, there is Ewan the pretzel boy.  He has always been very flexible and he was in gymnastics for a while. This is a picture that I took of Ewan while he was watching tv.  I don't even think he knew that he was folding himself into some intricate pretzel shape.  

basketball awards

 Ha! I finally found time to commandeer the computer to post some pictures to my poor blog.  Of course, I am doing this after a very long night of work when I should be sleeping, but with Andy's grad school work, I have to take every chance I get.  The good news is that we have ordered a new computer, so we will not have to share much longer and Andy will be able to free up lots of space deleting all the photos I've downloaded to his laptop.

Anyway, this is a very belated post from the end of basketball season.  The boys' teams all saw a little tournament action.  Ewan was first.  Since his team had the most wins, for kindergarten mind you, they automatically played in the "final" against the team with the next highest number of wins.  Ewan's team did not win.  The other coach, of the kindergarten team, got his players to double and triple team Ewan's team's best shooter.  That kept the score down.  That was okay for Ewan.  He got a trophy out of it.  Really, Ewan just needed a trophy so he could be more like his big brothers and have a trophy to display in their room.

Next was Cale's game.  Cale's team, who won one game the whole season, won their first playoff game.  Go figure.  The team was super-pumped with a win.  Unfortunately, they lost the next game.  I can't remember any stats in particular.  I know Cale scored most, if not all of the team's points and played an aggressive game.  You could tell he was upset that his team lost, he's already practicing for next year.

Marcus played at the same time Cale did, so I did not get to see his game.  They did not win.  I think it was hard for some of the boys who are used to winning.  But, the best thing is that they had fun and that their game improved throughout the season.  The team's trophies got handed out at the 4th/5th grade final game, so this photo is missing a few of the boys.  It does include Andy's assistant coach-a student from the school Andy works at that lives in the area.  He had a lot of fun helping coach the team.

a team photo of Ewan

and another

and one of Ewan in action

Basketball has been done for a while.  We have been enjoying the break.  This year, we are trying something new and playing spring sports.  Of course, everyone can't play the same sport-that would be too easy.  Ewan is signed up to play tee-ball and Marcus and Cale will play soccer.  The good news is that Marcus and  Cale should be on the same team because their ages are so close together.  Here's to hoping that everyone's practices to conflict and we can still make our commitment to scouts and karate.