Football Bet Days

So back (VERY back) when the Packers played the Cowboys (which doesn't happen very often, but is an exciting day in our home), Larry thought it would be fun to make a bet out of it. I don't particularly like betting, but he assured me we could make it a fun one (Packers normally beat the Cowboys so I felt it was more in my favor, however, they've been a bit iffy this season so I was worried about jinxing it) and after MUCH discussion I finally agreed, we decided whoever won got another "day to do whatever they want" sort of thing. Then game day came and it was SO intense and ended...in a tie. I felt it meant we both lost, but he thought it meant we both won, so we both got a day of whatever we wanted. 

Ignore my typo...whoops!

Larry got to have his back on the 8th and he chose a trip to Malad for lottery ticket, of course. We were planning on leaving early in the day, but then I found out there was sports place opening up nearby that was throwing a "Kpop Demon Hunters camp" thing and he was nice enough to push his drive up till after that. The came was supposed to last 2 hours, but it ended up taking me an hour to find the dang place, but they still had fun and the place credited me with $20 to use towards a future class, so that was nice! I also had planned to let him sleep in that morning, but he ended up waking up before me (saying he had a dream that woke him up early and he just couldn't get back to sleep). I was able to let him relax while I had a very productive morning, I fully did dishes, took down and organized our Halloween decorations, I organized and put up our Fall and Thanksgiving stuff. My computer had a nervy b and he was updating it so I was able to let him game and do that and I took care of the kids. They really wanted to play in our crunchy leaves out front, so I was able to let them do that while I put up our front porch blow up turkey and, while I was at it, I swept up all the dust and dirt off our porch...it's amazing how much better it looks with that cleaned up. Because of the late start, by the time we picked up the girls (who had to show me their cute routine they learned at the camp), Malad ended up being a quick up, grab tickets, eat dinner (at a very disappointing restaurant), and head home sort of thing. We wanted to let the kids play on the playground, but it was all blocked off, so they could only stretch their legs at dinner (the next day they told me they only wanted to go places if it wasn't a long ride to it, haha). So the day didn't go perfect (we didn't win any big lottery jackpot or anything), I think he still had fun, and I sure got a lot done, haha.

For my day, I got to do it today (we've had a VERY busy couple of weeks, so this was the first chance I got) and I chose Kneaders for breakfast, then I went out and did BIG christmas shopping (almost all completely done within a couple hours), followed by a yummy Zupas for lunch and then head home to eat and relax for a minute. We then headed to the mall to walk around before we went to (the part I was really excited to try out) our Immersive Game Box reserved time slot. I had heard about this forever ago and I had been DYING to try it out, so I figured it would be so fun to do it today. We had so much fun doing that, Pierce was a sour puss and just sat in the corner, but we just let someone else use his hat/marker thing to do his turn so everyone would get an extra turn here and there. It was a bit different than I was expecting, but we chose two of the games (one treasure hunt one and one floor is lava one...which we kept running into each other during...the rooms feel pretty small with that one, but the treasure one was fun...pretty classic). I had heard about the Christmas Tree lighting at Traverse while I was out shopping, so I decided we should hit that up. It was so cute, they had a Gingerbread Village up to walk through, the kids got a candy cane treat, they sang some songs (basically like caroling, but it was sing-a-long style) and then a countdown to the tree lighting. We rushed out of there after that to go to Golden Corral for dinner (a family favorite), which had some of their best food this time!

I tricked Pierce to get a full family shot haha

Both days ended up being a hit, so I guess I'm glad Larry convinced me to do the bet and that it was a win-win. However, it sure made the game a lot more stressful, so I doubt I'd bet on that one again (maybe a different game that doesn't have my team in it, haha).

Gwen is Seven

Our Gwen is now 7 and we've been making a lot of 6-7 jokes a lot this week (I sure hope we get that reference in the future). For her party, which we did on the 15th, she decided she wanted to go to the Airborne that she went to for a birthday party earlier this year. We let her invite 7 friends and most of them actually showed up (5 out of 7 isn't too shabby!). 

I accidentally smudged the B when lifting the
Hat spinner toy :(

We had a good plan for the day, we got there, started with some play, ate some REALLY yummy pizza, did the Happy Birthday song and ate cake, and then opened presents. Then we had more time for even more play. The only issue for the day was the cake we ordered is not what we got, we ordered from the new Wal Mart, closest to our house, but when Larry went to pick it up they didn't have the order, but they offered us a white cake (just white, not anything else) with some decorations and the Harry Potter hat toy they were supposed to have on the original cake. It wasn't great, but as far as hiccups go, it could've been worse. 

She had so much fun with all her friends and we realized this was her first friend party she's ever had, so I'm glad it was such a hit for her, because she very much deserves such a happy day for her birthday.

Cara and Lucy even wrapped up some
"presents" for her to open haha

This past Monday she had her checkup, which went really smooth and she passed everything with flying colors. She had a guy doctor and afterwards I asked her if she was okay with that and she told me she didn't care and that it was up to me if we should switch to a girl doctor, haha (she's just so low key and chill!).

For her actual Birthday day, she chose donut holes, tapioca pudding, and OJ for breakfast. The school did a birthday lunch earlier this month, on the 10th, so I brought her a McD's happy meal for that. Her teacher was out on her actual day, but assured me she'd leave notes for the sub because apparently she likes to decorate their chair and give them a special birthday hat and really make them feel special. She loved that. She brought some unicorn cake sticks for her treat to school and had dance that night that she brought candy canes in for. We did her height check that night and found that she's practically where Cara was at 8 already!

Since she had dance on her birthday day, we had to move her dinner to tonight. She chose McDonald's, again (which Larry hated so he grabbed himself some Betos, which he was able to drop us off, go get his food, come back and eat it all before we even got ours...so much for fast food!). We made sure to get our ice cream there and did our "reasons why we love Gwen" as well. I think she felt very special (she practically got a whole week of celebrations, haha).

____________________________________

My special and amazing Gwen! 

You are officially SEVEN and though I know that is your chronological age, you are very wise beyond your years. You are such an observant intellectual young lady. You are always watching things and telling us when you've figured out how and why things work. You love to be so silly and make silly faces for no reason at all. You love to tell jokes and make us laugh.

You still have the most amazing hair and are so freaking friendly, nothing seems to bother you (for the most part, you might get a little worked up when you can't do something like open a bottle, but you're learning you just need to ask and then that problem is solved). Speaking of learning, you seem to like learning things all the time. I think people underestimate you and I think that will prove to be such a strong trait as you grow up, you'll constantly be surprising people with your whit.

I also love how much you love to come up with your own jokes. They are always such goofy jokes. You are so funny when you come up with names for new animals or things you want to keep. A monster will be "Monstie". The stuffed Christmas Trees will be "Chrissy" or "Christmassy". And you seem to LOVE coming up with names for things, haha. 

You are such an easy going person. I joke that's why you get the middle child treatment, you don't have strong opinions about things, you're not a picky eater (in fact, you seem to love trying new things), you don't get overly emotional. I do my best to still make sure to find stuff that will make you happy and feel loved because you are, loved, very very much!

I hope you always stay confident and goofy. I hope you make friends just by being you forever and never let anyone dim your silliness. Always find the light side of life! And I very much hope you always feel loved and special from your dad and me, forever and a day. No one could every replace our sweet Gwen Gwen.

Lucy's First Field Trip

I cannot say enough how much I absolutely love being able to go on field trips with my kids. My mom never got a chance to do that (not that I think it was an option, but if it were, she couldn't do it) so for me to have the option is one of my favorite things!

So when Lucy's teacher sent an email saying they were planning a field trip to the aquarium and asked if anyone would come along to chaperone, I immediately responded (just in case she went with "first come, first serve" choosing method) and told Lucy I was going to try and come along, which made her excited.

Today, she loved when I went to drop them off, but walked to the play area with her and stayed with her. Going into the class, I was happy I got a group of girls (girls tend to be easier) and one of the girls had a mom and older sister who came with so I kind of had a backup chaperone with my group. This ended up being nice, because it turned out one of the girls was a bit of a wanderer and kept walking off, so she made it harder to keep track of all of them. 

The bus ride over was funny, a lot of the kids were nervous since it was their first bus ride and they weren't sure how to feel about no seat belts (it's kind of nice to see so many parents push safety in cars on their kids). One boy, sitting behind me, kept yelling out "oh shoot" when we first started leaving, haha. And one of the girls in my group asked that I send a picture of her on the bus to her mom (turns out the girl asked how the mom would know if she was safe on the bus and the mom told her if she needed she could have her adult send a picture of her).  It was sweet when everyone started singing "The Wheels on the Bus" so loud and then at one point I heard a good amount of them singing "Golden," haha.

One thing that made me nervous was when one of the other chaperone's mentioned her son was just out the day before with strep and there were A LOT of wet coughs all over the bus (including one girl who was obsessed with Lucy and kept grabbing her hand and wrapping herself around Lucy so I figure we're for sure bringing something home!)

This trip to the aquarium (because you may recall, I previously did an aquarium field trip with Cara last year) was a bit more chaotic. Instead of us just eating lunch whenever, they had a set time. Most of the kids are used to a morning snack that they didn't get this time, so the kids were all very hungry and didn't love having to wait. Luckily, we were able to distract them enough to last until the lunch time (we were able to cross off 3 areas before lunch). After eating it got crazy. There was another field trip there and their lunch was right after ours, but we couldn't leave the lunch area without a worker walking us to the building and so we had to all wait in one area while the other group went to their lunch and then a worker could escort us over, but it got SUPER messy (even the employees seemed stressed out). BUT after all that, we got to go back to finish our last two areas.

The last two areas were really exciting for the kids because they kept asking where the sting rays were and so we hit that right before the sharks (which is my favorite part). I think seeing the rays was the favorite part of all the kids, even though they couldn't really reach them, haha. Another mom of one of my kids showed up right before we left so that was nice for her (also gave me the idea I could always use PTO and show up at the field trip spot on my own in the future if I didn't want to chaperone or if I wanted to bring other kids with me). I'm glad I got to go and be with Lucy (I hope she liked it, but I was quite distracted). 

The bus ride home was a bit more calm, I sat with one of the quieter girls in my group and her and I played A LOT of Rock, Paper, Scissors (to a point where I forgot what my options were, the words weren't fully making sense anymore haha). I was bummed I couldn't check Lucy out of school at that point, but the teacher mentioned they were going to go do computers so I figured she should stay. Luckily, she seemed excited about that so she wasn't too bummed out to stay. 

I still look forward to more of these in the future! I think Lucy might have another one this year, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to go with on that, I only plan enough PTO to go on one field trip per kid, so we'll see if that happens or not. (Now that Gwen has had her field trip, I just saved enough for Cara, if she has one this year).