A Shakespeare in the Making

Walking with my boys.

We (Landon, the little boys and I) went out for lunch on Landon and Finn's birthday.  They made short work of this birthday ice cream bomb.  

Chloe made cookie cakes for Daddy and Finn's birthday.

Dane enjoyed the Indianapolis Children's Museum this time, probably because I didn't lose him like last year.

Dane's really into sports cars right now, so he was excited to see a real race car at the museum.

Finn excavating dinosaur bones at the museum.  He was pretty good there, except for once when he took off running.  Before I could ditch the stroller and start after him, Dane sprinted in his wake and tackled him to the ground.  A museum worker nearby stared wide-eyed as the boys got up and I collected them.  "Well, it IS effective," I explained.  

Dane didn't want to sit with Santa, but he did it for a candy cane.

Finn was a bit bored with it all.

Logan just stood self-consciously in front of Santa, thinking that perhaps the candy wasn't worth it.  I begged him to just give me a straight face and we'd be done with it.

But things went down hill from there.

And I finally had to give up.  

Dad and daughter bond during our weekly Sam's Club adventure.  She has declared that Dad is the "cool" parent out of the two of us. (But it's ME she asks to tuck her in every night.  So there.)

I got bangs -- a fun mistake I make every couple of years.  

Tristan goofing around.  He's rocking 5th grade, especially social studies and reading.  He's my kid that gets all of his daily 5 done before he even goes to school in the morning (chore, piano, homework, make bed, put away clothes), which gives him free time after school to play with his neighborhood friends -- or just stay home and goof around like this.

Our ward was obliterated last week as boundaries were redrawn and 3 new wards were formed.  Landon calls it Ward-mageddon, as he lost a lot of friends to other congregations.  About 500 of us at the stake meeting were released from our callings all at once, so we're enjoying a short vacation before our nascent ward gets up and running.  I enjoyed being with the young women, but secretary work isn't really my forte. 

Chloe has been busy these last few weeks making presents and cards for her many friends and teachers.  This has involved lots of YouTube videos, hot glue, and glitter.  She and Logan have both  said, "I can't wait for Christmas!" with such fervor that I am half-surprised they didn't time-travel to the 25th through sheer will-power.  Every night we sing a Christmas song and get a candy from our Christmas countdown, after which the kids put a character up on Grandma's Nativity Advent.  We have all enjoyed this yearly tradition.  (Except the singing part -- that's purely for my benefit.)

After reading some of Logan's 3rd grade classwork, I shared it with Landon, who laughed until he was near tears at Logan's casual writing style.  I decided to include a couple of excerpts here so they can be preserved for future generations.  Here's one he wrote for someone in a nursing home:

Dear, Resident        

My name is Logan.My favorite things to do are:  Beyblades because well I mean I like them. I mean I like swimming, probably because I like water.Soccer.  Because I love running. SNOW. I LOVE snow because I can roll huge snowman.
Running. I love running because I get a lot  of exercise.

 I like a lot of food. In fact, my favorite food is a cheeseburger,and my favorite dessert is ice cream.  Well it is really hard to choose my favorite dessert, because their                                 

are a  bunch of deserts. 

Usually when I have free time I play beyblades because I love beyblades, oh I forgot to tell you what Beyblades are. So Beyblades are practically spinning tops but you launch them with something called a launcher. Anyway,I like running, but it is not my favorite thing to do. Speaking of that, I got 64 laps in the pacer test.the pacer test is where you run to one place and then run back and then one place  and then run back and so on. And then that brings me to soccer. Soccer is SO fun. Last year I had so much fun with my soccer team. We played so much stuff. And plus, we got to go to Chucky Cheese at the end of the season, which was the best, and I got 1,755 tickets. 

My least favorite thing to do is sing. But if I had to I would.

Well it is my dad and my baby brother's birthday.

I use to live in Louisiana. I mean, I loved Louisiana. I had so much fun there. We had a tire swing and a lot of other stuff.

My favorite candy is warheads, there so sour but then it is so sweet.             My favorite holiday Christmas. I love it because you can give and receive.Plus, you can get CANDY.

Sincerely, Logan

And here's the last chapter of a paper he wrote on soccer:

Penalties

A penalty is where someone hurts someone, whether it is on accident or on purpose.

These are some penalties. If you step on someone's shoe, that is a penalty. If you push somebody, it is a penalty. And if you are less than fourteen and you hit the ball with you head, that is a penalty.  

When your team gets a penalty, you get a penalty kick. A penalty kick is where depending on your age you step back and you kick  the ball in the goal. My teams age was eight so I think we would step eight meters away from the goal. My brother team is eleven, so I think he would step eleven meters away from the goal. 

I do not know that much about offsides, but I think you get a penalty.

There is also such a thing as a yellow card. A yellow card is a card you get if  you like takel someone or if you purposely punch someone or do other rough things. It is like a warning. 

Then there is such thing as a red card. A red card means you have to go and leave the game because you were doing really bad stuff, like well I don't know.

Another penalty is when you grab the ball and hold it or if you touch it with your hand, that is called a hand ball.

To be honest penalties don't really hurt, unless your my friend Leo. Leo was on my soccer team and once this guy kicked the soccer ball and it hit his face so Leo got the choose whether  he wanted to keep playing or not. He chose not to but I don't blame him because I probably would have done that to.

Well, I guess you now know how to play soccer.