Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Soccer?!

We signed Ally up for soccer a couple of weeks ago. That's right. Ally's playing a team sport. She's on the team with 8 other kids in the ward. They play at the indoor field in Lindon (there is no way in the world I would sit out in the cold). They've played two games and have seven to go. Guess where you'll find us every Saturday for the next seven weeks...

Ally's a great runner and is really excited to play (we got her new pink shoes, pink soccer socks, and pink shin guards), but once she's on the field we don't know what happens to the girl. She is in her own little world world out there. She runs and runs, but usually makes laps around the field. She has a great time and cheers for her friends, and has no idea about the score at the end of the game, so we're trying not to get too uptight about it.

My favorite is when Ally's in the game and runs past us. Then she'll come back, stand right in front of us and say, "Don't forget to cheer for me, okay?"

They play a 15-minute half, have a 5 minute half-time, and then the second 15-minute half. Crit loves going too and watches the games without a single complaint.

I'm excited that she's old enough to do things like this and feels comfortable out there without us, but it makes me feel really old! The coach told me that she told him "Winning is not the most important thing... having fun is." When he told them if they scored two more goals they'd win the game. Only she would say something like that.

They play without goalies in the kids' league, so after the other team scores, they line up to kick it off. I'll have to remember to take our other camera next week to get better action shots. (Ally's in the red shorts.)

Their shirts are navy blue, and yes, she was a little peeved that she couldn't be on the red team.


International Upgrade

I finally remembered to get the camera from Mike's briefcase this morning, so I can catch up a little bit...
Mike went back to Prague on Saturday January 9th and came home on Friday the 15th. In his words, it was "the best trip ever!" Especially compared to last year when his luggage was lost on the way there and he got the flu the last couple of days. This time he was upgraded to business class from Salt Lake to Newark, NJ and again from Newark to Paris. He didn't check any bags, so Delta didn't even have a chance to lose anything. His trip went really well and they got everything done that they had planned.

We missed Daddy a lot, but survived on too much fast food and lots of TV. Ally made him a sign for the garage door. All of the letters are there, but the spaces-between-words idea hasn't quite sunk in yet. (It says "WELCOME HOME DADDY.")

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Fractions... by a Four Year Old

This was my conversation with Ally yesterday:

Ally: "Mommy, could you please get me some chocolate milk?"
Me: "You have some in the fridge from yesterday."
She went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, looked inside, and closed it again without getting the cup out.
Ally: "That cup of chocolate milk is only half full. So I will drink that one and then you need to make me another cup of chocolate milk that is half full. Then after I drink that half a cup of chocolate milk I won't need anymore because I will have drinken a whole cup of chocolate milk because a one-half and one-half make a whole."
Me: "What?"
Ally: While rolling her eyes, "A half and a half make a whole, so I will need another half full cup of chocolate milk. Okay?"

Where in the world did I get her?

Monday, January 4, 2010

Lovin' the Oven

The day after the "tree incident" (see last month's post) I heard a weird sound from the kitchen. I had chicken nuggets and fries in the oven that were almost done. I went into the kitchen and noticed the oven was off. It wasn't the breaker. The oven went out. So we went to the store and bought a new one a couple of days later, but it wasn't in stock. Fortunately, the burners still worked so we were able to cook. So we've been waiting for two weeks and today was finally the big day! The delivery guys came at 8:30 this morning and were gone just after 9. The plugged it in and pushed it into the right spot and leveled it and-- the best part-- they even took the old one away! It was a really good morning.

The before. Is it bad that I don't even miss it?
The after. Can you see that my son immediately rubbed his fingers all over the glass? The light works (the old one never did), and yes, there are 39 cookies baking at the same time in there. Does it get any better?

Christmas

We had a really fun Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve at parents' and opened their presents that night. My son loves to eat, but is a little bit picky. So instead of pork, salads, rolls, and pie, he ate Lucky Charms for dinner. No, scratch that. He ate all the marshmallows out a bowl of Lucky Charms.

My parents gave Ally an MP3 player which she loves. When did I get old enough to have a daughter who wears headphones when she walks around the house?
We had to wake the kids up at 8:00 so we would have time to open presents at our house and get to Grammy's in time for breakfast and more presents. Ally got a whole lot of books from Santa and Crit got some trucks and balls. He's been playing with pink toys for his whole life, so Santa must have known he wanted some boy toys.

We went to Grammy's where Ally and Cousin Jack got new Utah pajamas. Ally also got a new pink scooter that she's a lot better at now than she was a couple of weeks ago. She can't wait to ride it to kindergarten with all the kids in the neighborhood.

We enjoyed having Daddy home for a couple of long weekends and spending extra time together (but it was so nice to send Ally back to preschool today). He got an electronic book and I got new dishes and a beautiful jewelery box.