Easter Train

The parents aren't the only ones who enjoy a fun train ride - the boys love the Christmas train so much that I thought we would give the Easter train a chance. I was imagining it would be almost identical, but with an Easter theme for the crafts and such. (I was 100% right)

We planned this train trip with a friend that has 3 kids, so Matt was generous enough to bow out and let us take up two tables without him. Ha! He's got a limited tolerance for the amount of noise this many kids generate, so I think he is more than happy to stick to one kid event train a year. ;)

But in a stroke of "luck", he ended up having to work incredibly late the night before and didn't get home until the wee hours of the morning. Bad for Matt, but good for us because he bought us donuts for breakfast! Best hubby / dad ever!

Made it on the train with plenty of time to spare. It helped that I was caravanning with my friends... Since I bought the tickets all together, we had to arrive together. We gave them our little cup of crayons because we are all about bringing our own giant tin of crayons with us for coloring. Thomas seemed super excited about coloring and I thought he might actually get the whole thing colored (haha - nope!).

Henry did not even pretend to be interested in coloring. But he sure was enjoying watching the scenery as we chugged by. 

These two were not too sure about the Easter Bunny at first. Thomas warmed up pretty quickly though and gave the bunny a high-five. Henry only warmed up once he realized the bunny was carrying a bucket of candy. Then he was all about the Easter Bunny!

There was a table at the end that didn't have seats on one side and any time the other side's occupants went to get a snack, these two would run over and stand there to look out the window. 

It looks like the ice is starting to break up finally! There were massive chunks of super dirty ice scattered all along the Turnagain Arm. Come on, spring!

This activity was challenging for me, I can't imagine that many kids got this completed without help. You had to string them with one side, then string the other side through the beads. And unsurprisngly, they fell apart shortly after we got home. Don't tell the boys their super-awesome carrots ended up in the trash... "/

The train stopped so everyone could get a glimpse of the sheep on the side of the mountain. Thomas spotted it right away, but Henry needed some help finding. Thomas was being a very good big brother and pointing the sheep out to Henry. (And can you tell the lady with the basket of snacks just stopped by??)

Jellybean Bingo! Thomas ended up winning because they just kept playing until everyone won. Henry would have one, but he just kept eating his jellybean markers. But that was probably "winning" to Henry, so it works! :)

We were back in Anchorage before the balloonists made it to our car. They were working from both sides and my boys were getting worried they weren't going to get balloons. Turns out, we got back to the station before their balloons got made, but they patiently waited on the train for their turn. And Henry really wanted a black flower. Bold choice, son!

We tried to get a photo of all of the kids once we got off the train, but it was impossible. It was too bright for Thomas, Henry was pretending to shoot his flower at me and one of my friend's kids was just wandering off. Oh well, we tried!

Our family photo wasn't much better, but I'll take it. :)

See you again soon, Alaska Railroad! 

March on the iPhone

Since I didn't do a great job of taking photos this month, I figured I'd add some more insight into the month with a random assortment of what my phone captured this month!

These kids can make anything seem more exciting. Thomas noticed that the cheese in his pizza roll stretched when he took a bite and the two of the were both trying to make the longest "cheese bridge" they could. Henry clearly won...!

Also this kid has my genes when it comes to keeping his eyes open for photos. Sigh.

We haven't built a couch cushion in forever and the boys loved it just as much as all the other times. Though one of them was a bit more into knocking them down than I recall from last time. Eliza was not as keen on the chaos, but (of course) had to be in the middle of it. Crazy dog!

Lunch date with the boys to the food court at the mall. Thomas and Matt both went for Subway, but Henry and I went from the grill. We were waiting patiently for both our food and the other two members of our lunch date. Also, check out this cool small tables for kids - perfect addition to the food court! 

As promised, a pie with the crust made out of the pork fat from our butchery class. It was as amazing as I thought it would be. It might be the flakiest and tenderest pie crust I ever made!

My coloring buddy! Kathryn picked up on my love of coloring things and bought me a new coloring book. I am never going to get any of these books finished, but it's nice to have so many options!

I moved offices at work and the cart loaded up with all of my shoes cracked me up. I wear my snow boots in to work and change there, so I have to have enough options to match any given outfit! :)

Best part about travelling up to the North Slope? *So* *many* *donuts*! The boys were duly impressed with this particular selfie I sent them!

I was more impressed with the rig move that was going on at the morning's first stop. That's not my rig, but this one is so impressively mobile compared to the one I am currently working with.

One of the arctic foxes stopped by to say hi. The people who work up there guess it's "probably rabid" since he didn't seem to scared of us. Well luckily for me, I'm currently immune to rabies - picture time!

(Slightly kidding - I still have no desire to get bit...!)

Oh man, we must be overdue for a trip to Texas. Why is my son eating tacos like this?? I swear, I have taught him better than this... Henry did the same thing with a hot dog the other day. Kids are cray-cray.

Also nothing I taught them - their dad made them peanut butter & banana sandwiches. Why they would like anything with banana that isn't banana bread is beyond my comprehension... Gross!

This is the cutting board and knife set I bought Thomas once he started doing cooking classes at school and he seemed interested in helping more. Of course my youngest wants to do anything his big brother does, so he got to help cut up strawberries for breakfast this morning!

This guy somehow managed to talk me into buying ice cream cones at the store for them. I found a package of the smallest sized cones and filled them with some leftover sherbet we had. You have any idea how excited they were??

Soooooo excited!!

I think the astronaut outfit might be my favorite one. Especially with such a serious space traveller inside of it! 

Thomas has been doing more art that actually looks like something instead of just scribbles and "treasure maps". This one is me and 3 of my friends. I've forgotten already who is who, but I know I am one of the ones with short legs. Guess we'll work on dimensions soon... :)

Playhouse

I would like to claim I am not an impulse shopper, but I think that would be a lie. In my defense, my worst moments are when it is something I think the boys would love and that pretty much is my doom. Luckily, Matt is the least impulsive shopper ever, so if I can call and convince him it's awesome, I don't feel bad at all. 

Which is how we ended up with another cardboard structure! The space shuttle and space pod both proved that they love playing with these things as long as we all accept that they have a limited life span... Plus they seemed more into coloring now, so I thought they might actually color on it. And they did!

Of course, it looked like so much fun that I decided to paint a big swath of it for them that night so they would be all excited about the tree in the morning. And they were! They got to work on coloring in more while I made breakfast. 

Thomas is getting awesome at staying inside of the lines, but Henry is definitely still working on it...

Look at that fantastic coloring behind Thomas! He ended up coloring one "X" red and one green and he told me it was the bathroom door. It took me much too long to realize he was talking about the ones on the airplane and how the lights show you if they are open or occupied. Observant little guy!

Also, look at that fantastic bed head! Ha!

Thomas was getting upset at his brother for "scribbling", but I managed to convince Thomas that Henry and I together would make it look awesome. So I just worked around Henry's scribbles o various parts and incorporated them into other spots. I think the play house is quite the hit and hopefully we get it mostly colored before it inevitably bites the dust. : )

Ski Train!

One activity we definitely didn't want to miss is the Ski Train! Heather wasn't scared off by a long weekend with the kids and watched them so we could go hang out with our friends in the middle of nowhere, Alaska! (Technically, Curry, but the description is accurate)

We had a super small crowd last year because of all the uncertainty with layoffs last year, not very many people wanted to sign up for an event months away. But we have a whole bunch of new people in Alaska and we had gotten most of them excited about the fun times to be had on Ski Train!

Some people were so excited, they climbed the first hill them could find and slid / tumbled down. It always take a while to get everyone geared up and ready to hike, so the faster ones usually get antsy waiting for the slower ones. And yes, that is a pea-in-a-pod outfit on the right. Some people take their ski train outfits very seriously!

The long walk up has not changed from last year. And the weather was remarkably nice again this year. Not sure how we lucked out again!

Part of the group! It's hard to keep everyone together, but Matt was nice enough to take a photo of those of us that made it up in this cluster. Clearly we lost the skiiers, this is just a subset of the snow-showing contingent. :)

And someone was also nice enough to take a photo of Matt and I! Matt looks like he is ready to go out hunting - I am much too bright in comparison for that. ;)

Several people hiked sleds up to have an easier way on the downward part. Except that at least one of the sledders was a little wild and crazy and may have almost taken out several people - ha! I got in front of her to take photos a few times, but very safely off the trail!

Our ever beautiful Alaska colors were waiting for us to return and head back home! But this was the first time I have ever seen that door at the front of the engine open! I wanted so badly to snuck up there and peek inside, but I didn't want anyone getting mad at me and leaving me there... Curry is a long ride from home!

Safe and sound, back in Anchorage. There was so much tasty food this year that we were all quite stuffed by the time we got home. And unlike most year, all of our namesake (the cheesy poofs) were eaten. I think it may have to do with one of the guys tossing them at anyone who walked by to catch in their mouths. And most everyone who walked by tried it - the camraderie on this train is hard to beat! 

Until next year, Ski Train!

Portland Anniversary Trip

I bought Matt a dual present for Valentine's Day because it was actually tickets for a trip to Portland for our anniversary. Heather has been offering to watch the kids for a long weekend for months (years?) now and I finally decided to take her up on it for our 13th (!) anniversary this year. 

Of course, I had to take a ton of selfies to send back to the boys! We did a lot of walking around because it was a long weekend and the only activity I booked was on the last day for only a few hours. So we went exploring!

Of course, since we were in Portland, I had to make a stop at the donut shop I narrowly missed the last time I was in Portland years ago. Everyone had talked up these donuts and by the time I dragged my friends there, they were out of all of the donuts! I mean, it was 2am, but still - heartbreaking!

Oh Voodoo Doughnuts, I have been imagining you for years! We almost didn't get them this trip because every time we walked by the long was ridiculously long. Luckily, I picked our hotel in close proximity to their store, so we managed to beat the rush on Sunday morning!

The other thing we were dangerously close to was a completely lucky find. We picked a spot to eat dinner based on the menu for the Portland Restaurant week. (We used to do these in Houston, a 3 course meal for cheap and the proceeds go to charity.) We randomly saw them making their signature beverage for someone else and had to order one. This is a Spanish Coffee at Huber's, my friends, and it was amazing! We may have come back for brunch just to get another one!

But why did we go to Portland? Matt has really gotten into hunting since we moved to Alaska and apart from the deer on his first trip, they have been doing their own butchering. And after the 3-day bison butchering event, we all decided maybe we could use some lessons. The soonest butchering class I could find was in Portland and technically for pig. But I figured some of the lessons learned would be useful no matter the exact animal. 

The Portland Meat Collective teaches the classes and I thought it was great! The space they held the class was pretty awesome and we all got a ton of pork to take home. Look at that chunk of leaf fat on the cutting board on the right. That will make some fantastic pie crusts soon!

Matt really seemed to enjoy the class too! I never managed to drag him to a cooking class, but a butchering class? No problem! Also, we were the only couple... Apparently not everyone thinks of it as an anniversary activity!

We had a long trip home for our pork, so I decided to ship coolers and ice packs to the hotel before we got there. We ended up fitting most of it into our cooler and it all made it home safely. There was a random assortment of cuts since the class had 12 people and 3 pig "halves", but I'm a little confused on what to do with this particular one. All the recipes I can find call for more than one tail. Guess we'll have to butcher a few more pigs...! ;)

Fur Rondy

We missed Fur Rondy last year, but since Thomas has been learning about Balto (the most famous sled dog from Alaska) in class - we certainly had to go this year. Fur Rondy stretches over several days and there are all kinds of activities in Anchorage apart from the ceremonial start to the Iditarod!

It was a chilly day, so we bundled up and headed downtown. And unlike the last time we went, everyone was capable of walking around without being carried or pushed in a stroller. A win for the parents! : )

But we missed the dogs running today, so that was a fail for the parents. By the time we got there, they had moved on to "Outhouse Races". It was quite entertaining to watch, but the boys were not nearly as impressed. I was also really confused as to how these contraptions were outhouses. They all did have a toilet seat and roll of toilet paper hanging on them somewhere, but that was it for authenticity!

But the boys favorite part is really the carnival that is a street down from the main drag anyhow. And guess who is big enough to ride the helicopters with his brother now?!? Thomas maintained his usual stoic expression while "flying" through the air, but Henry threw us a few grins. 

On to the construction truck ride. It's hard to tell, but the two of them were trying to give me a thumbs up. They picked out their truck and got in it all by themselves. What big boys we suddenly have! 

Since Thomas was super bummed about not seeing the dogs on Saturday, we decided to try again on Sunday. We were running later than I wanted, but I figured we still had plenty of time. Unfortunately, we were at least a block or two away when I heard them announce "And our last rider for the day is..."

I picked up my eldest and booked it down the sidewalk as fast as one can in a down skirt and snow boots. We didn't make it to the starting line, but we did make it to a point where I could lean him over the fence so he could see. I made a big deal about how we managed to see the last one! 

Henry didn't seem to care at all that he missed the dogs running, he was just concerned about when we were going to eat...!

We opted to avoid going to the carnival again, so we walked back to the car. Thomas had tons of questions about this dog transport truck, so his daddy explained all about the kennels and why the exhaust pipe looks so weird and long (to keep the fumes away from the dogs!)

It was clearly not our best planned Fur Rondy visit, but the boys had fun and I'm pretty sure the one rider we got to see take off was the one who won the Anchorage part of the race. So there's that! :)

Henry Turns 3!

I feel like every birthday keeps coming faster and faster... How is my youngest turning 3?!?

As usual, there was no snoozing once they were both up in the morning. This morning was extra special fun because we bought Henry a new bed! He hasn't slept in his current "Big Boy Bed" for months - he much prefers the Elmo couch on the floor. We figured part of the reason might be because his mom and dad can't hang out with him on his bed, so we decided to buy him a twin sized bed like his brother.

But we couldn't get him a boring bed while his brother has a super awesome Lightning McQueen bed...

So we got him an equally cool super awesome Jeep bed! We convinced the boys to have a sleep over in Thomas' room and installed the Jeep bed in Henry's room after they were asleep. Then we decided to be brave and move both of the sleeping boys into the Jeep bed. Amazingly, they stayed asleep and were super excited when they woke up in Henry's new bed!

First order of the day was donuts for breakfast! Henry went straight for the sprinkled donut and immediately started eating the icing off the top. When I pointed out to Henry that he was only eating the icing he looked at me and said "Well... Yeah!"

How does one argue with that?

We decided to have a party around lunch this time since it was Sunday and I might need the afternoon to recover. Since it wasn't an all afternoon affair, I even managed to talk some of my new friends at work to come join us. There may have been some cajoling involved because Kathryn made the mistake of mentioning that Ben has a hidden talent of making balloon animals! The kids were obviously entranced by his skills!

Look at Henry's monkey in a tree! Way better than some of the more recent balloon creations we've received. Ben did an amazing job with only some minor technical difficulties with his balloon pump, so I offered to give him my balloon pump. Everyone was confused as to why I even had a balloon pump, but it saved the day! :)

This Spiderman might have been my favorite. Look at the "webbing" balloon coming out of his hand - such attention to detail! 

Lunchtime was tasty, but the real excitement came when it was finally cake time! The boys were helping me scroll through Pinterest one day and Henry saw a Donut Cake, which he decided wanted for his birthday. Shortly after that, it morphed into him wanting a Ninja Turtles Donut cake. At some point we realized he had changed it slightly to be Minion Turtles Donut cake. I told him that he had reached the end of his options, but he would definitely get a Minion Ninja Turtles Cake.

I think I pulled it off quite well!

Everybody is ready to get singing! Matt lit the candle and Henry let out a very excited "Ooooooooooh". Remind me to keep an eye on this kid around matches in the future...

This guy was super excited about his cake and first taste of rainbow sherbert, but probably ate the least amount of cake among everyone at the table. He is unpredictable with his eating habits.

Then it was piñata time! I didn't intend to buy one, but there was kinda a Ninja Turtles theme going and Henry and I have been arguing about whether or not he likes pizza - he doesn't! But he insists he likes pizza - especially once I said he couldn't be a Ninja Turtle because they like pizza. So it not only fit the theme, it made me laugh to buy my pizza-hating son a pizza piñata. ;)

Everyone got a turn at the pinata! I don't think some of them had ever whacked a pinata before, so we weren't making much progress! But they were happily cheering for each other anyhow.

Thomas clearly knows what he is doing, but even he didn't put a dent in it...

Abby certainly was hitting it the hardest, but it mostly just flew in magnificent circles on it's string...

Finally Matt decided to help the kids out. Turns out this piñata was made with some pretty sturdy cardboard. Henry was still *technically* hitting the piñata, but he obviously has a lot of help...

We finally got that darn thing open and the kids were running around getting all the goodies. My last minute addition of these tiny foam rockets was their favorite part. 

Once the kids kinda moved on to other things, the adults may have grabbed the rockets and starting hit each other across the room. Apparently we grow older, but we don't grow up.

On an unrelated note, there is all kinds of drama in the kids clothing world these days (drama everywhere these days, honestly). Anyhow, some retailers have been very responsive to the parent's complaints about clothing options (mostly for girls clothes, but some for boys.) Target just started selling these "Strong Like Mom" shirts in the boys department and I definitely had to show my approval by buying them both one. :)

Present time! Henry was definitely excited about presents all day. I let him open his presents from the Larson's early to keep him from ripping into all of them, but he finally got to go crazy! He got quite the haul - Legos (a family favorite), Superhero sheets, a TMNT dvd for the original show (not the new weird looking turtles) and more Star Wars toys.

Thomas seemed to be a little confused who the presents belonged to, but given they share all of their toys, he's not completely wrong. ;)

When the kids convinced Ben to go for round 2 on the balloons, I asked for one too! I didn't even know what to ask for, so Ben made me a butterfly. Matt decided that my awesome butterfly needed to fly and tried attaching one of his paper airplane motors to it. Shortly after he told me his plan, I heard a loud pop... Turns out the prop on the motor popped my magnificent balloon.

But you can clearly see who was most upset about Matt's miscalculation. Thomas stared at his dada with disapproval for the longest time... I'm pretty sure there was even a disappointed head shake.

Ben made me a new balloon that was pink and gold and just as awesome as the first. :)

After the party and much needed naptime, Henry woke up and wanted to watch a movie with his Nonni. And you can see one of his new presents - a big eyed sea turtle to make up for the fact that Thomas and Henry have been fighting over from a big eyed wolf that Thomas got as a baby. Since Wolfie was causing so many fights, Nonni bought Henry this cute little guy. 

Henry promptly named him Wolfie... Ha!

Happy Birthday Henry, can't believe we've had your awesome little self in our life for 3 years already! Love you whole bunches!

So Much Soccer...

Do you feel like I have posted a lot of soccer posts recently? It's probably because soccer takes up a good portion of my Saturdays. And since I had the fancy camera to play with, I had to take photos of what I could! 

I may complain a little bit about how much time I spend with soccer, but at least the boys really seem to like it. Though if I had to be 100% honest, I think Henry likes the fact he gets some iPad playtime when he's not actively playing soccer. (He's no fool!)

When I posted a photo of the new dome last time, I realized the 80mm lens didn't let me show much of the space. So I brought along the 20mm today to show you the arena. It's clearly much smaller than the old dome, but we like it! Also, you can see the dark blue on the back side that loves to make my photos challenging...

Fortunately for me, this time when we were in the wrong spot and got to move to the front of the dome for practice. I think there is an app you can actually check the spot you are playing in ahead of time, but I have never remembered. In my defense, our coach was gone this week and none of us knew where we were supposed to be. We finally found the right spot - the blue "candy canes" were letting us join in with them. Thomas seems very confused as to why they are sitting down listening instead of kicking the ball. 

This coach definitely had a different style of practice than Thomas' usual coach. The kids all went along with the new "techniques" he had them try out. Not really sure what pushing the ball with your head is supposed to teach them, but it sure was fun to watch!

The crab walking the ball backwards to the coach might have been my favorite though!

Thomas was pretty excited about being asked to help make a tunnel for all of the other players to kick their ball through. 

The Candy Canes have always had a blue Candy Cane on their team since the first day, so the red & white stripes were severely outnumbered by the blue striped shirts. So instead, everyone got mesh jerseys to wear over their normal kit. I was muttering "not yellow, not yellow" under my breath when they were handing them out and mom thought it was hysterical Thomas got yellow. It's not my favorite color in photographs, ok??

Also, why is he doing his hand on the hip thing again? The last few weeks he has been running with his hand on his hip. He doesn't seem to realize he is doing it, so he can't explain why this is a new thing. A mystery!

Not really sure what this kid is doing, but I am 100% sure that is not a legal move. And way to turn on a fellow Candy Cane just because they are wearing a different color today! ;)

Also notice Thomas' yellow jersey is nicely tucked in now. At his first water break, he asked me to tuck the yellow jersey in because he didn't like the way it felt on his arm. I guess the mesh is a little scratchy. 

Look at him scoring a goal! Go Thomas! I may have missed the first goal he scored because I was looking something up on my phone for my mom. And she got a video where you can see him score the goal and his mom clearly not noticing. Thanks Nonni...

But I got this one! :)

Finally it was time for Kiddie Soccer! I tried to get a few good photos of Henry before it actually started because lugging the lens around while chasing him was not going to be very fun...

Lucky for me, Nonni stepped in and offered to help. Henry, of course, immediately darted across the stadium and she had to chase him down. He clearly thought this was the best game ever!

He did eventually get interested in kicking the ball. I'll give him this - he does love kicking into the goal. And while he looks like he isn't paying attention to the coach 75% of the time, he usually does exactly what the coach told them to do. Sneaky, Henry...

This is the second time I bought him this style of shoe because it is so easy to put on his slightly pudgy feet. But I obviously forgot they didn't always stay fastened. Kiddie Soccer has definitely reminded me of that flaw. Thankfully he's pretty good at fixing them!

Look at that intensity! We spend so much time telling them not to use their hands while playing soccer that they all get super excited when the coach tells them to pick up their ball and run with it. :)

Since they changed the time of the practices by an hour, Henry always starts to get tired before it is actually over. Usually he gets a little crazy when he is tired, but sometimes he just wants hugs. Nonni was more than happy to give him hugs. Pretty much the most adorable photo from the whole day too, huh?  

Overall the fancy camera did pretty good in the dome, but it's just too dark in there for amazing photos. I just have to get used to struggling with the ISO for photos until soccer moves back outside. Then I just have to worry about *too* much light! :)

The Rental and The Robot

The last time I got to rent a camera was when Theresa and I were on our girl's trip in Fredericksburg and I didn't really put it through the paces as much as I probably should have. Though in my defense, I was hanging out with one of my favorite people and was a teensy bit distracted. :)

Since I've been debating upgrading to a full frame camera at some point, I thought I should give it another try and decided to rent the Nikon D810 to test out. And Henry's birthday was coming up, so it was the perfect excuse! And because paying the shipping is a large part of the bill, I decided to add on a lens to play with. The 70-200mm lens was waaaaaay bigger than I thought it would be, but I guess the fixed aperture zoom lenses have to be bigger than their cheaper counterparts who can't maintain a constant aperture. Look at that amazing bokeh at a fully zoomed 200mm!

The general rule of thumb is that if I really need to get good photos (for "science"), my kids will not cooperate...

For some reason, Thomas looks much younger with this cheesy smile. In playing with all of the camera settings, I messed this one completely and it was almost fully black. Turns out - this camera can basically see in the dark and I recovered it in post processing. Wow!

Eliza was the only one of my babies being cooperative. Plus she looks so cozy in her sweater - I may have snapped quite a few good ones of Eliza today. Love you sweetie! 

Natalie was less cooperative, but I was determined to get a photo at the ultra low 64 setting. Clearly I had to use a super wide aperture, but when I zoomed in to 400%, her eye is still super clear and not at all pixelated. I was a little sad that the higher ISO photos didn't look as good as I expected, but this one blew me away. I was going to try to zoom in and post a photo, but I degrade the resolution so much for the blog that it wouldn't wow anyone.

Instead you get the full "Mom, why are you doing this to me?" image. 

Thomas was too intent on his kitchen helper duties to pay any attention to his momma when she asked for a photo. Henry was more than happy to ham it up for me though. In Thomas' defense, cutting potatoes requires much more focus than whisking eggs. 

On a related note - Thomas is doing awesome at helping me in the kitchen. He cut up a bunch of strawberries for our pancakes last weekend and all of the potatoes for breakfast tacos this morning. I let him take one cooking class at school and he's suddenly ready for his own knife and cutting board. I love it! :)

This kid... I took 6 photos and each one was completely different, but this one was by far my favorite - especially compared to the super smiley first photo. ;) 

Thomas looks pretty much the same. Cutting takes concentration!

I tried again when we were all playing on the floor. I managed to get smiles out of one of them, but not so much with the eldest. So serious, my little man!

I would also like to provide this as proof of the conditions I am forced to work with. I seriously doubt anyone was trying to pull off Ansel Adam's socks as he was learning the in's and out's of his cameras. The little toots ran off with both of mine. And it's a little chilly in Alaska right now!

But as much as they may not worry about me, these two are still a little unsure about the new robot! I've been threatening to buy some robotic help for the housework recently and finally bought myself a Roomba. The first time I went to use it, I had to pick up the mountain of couch cushions that were on the floor and the boys were pretty upset I was taking apart their "boat". I explained the Roomba needed the floor clear to be effective and that somehow led to them referring to it as a Shark.

So now, they run the other way when Sharkie comes after them. I love Sharkie!

Natalie was not impressed by or running from Sharkie. Unfortunately for her, the little robot seemed to want to go wherever she decided to lay down. Natalie would be excellent at playing "chicken" because she would not get out of it's way until it actually ran into her several times. There was one time I think Sharkie did a full pass on her side and she refused to budge. As the largest contributor to carpet pollution in this house, she apparently does not care if it gets cleaned up...!

It may be too early to say for sure, but I think Sharkie is going to be a welcome addition to the house. (Plus we are just one step closer to being the Jetsons!)

Soccer in the Dome (Take 2!)

Shortly after this soccer season started, a bit of tragedy struck... We got a lot of snow over a few days and it ended up leading to the collapse of The Dome! I didn't notice anything amiss during Thomas' practice, but Matt said the ceiling was definitely sagging during Henry's practice. They ended up closing the Dome around noon as a precaution and were frantically trying to fix the dome all afternoon until the snow won around midnight. 

Thankfully no one was hurt, so the biggest issue was the loss of a huge indoor practice facility in the dead of winter. They are estimating it will take about a year to get the Dome back up and functional. Luckily for us, the soccer club was able to get soccer time booked inside the other inflatable dome in town. (Is it now the biggest inflatable indoor space in Alaska until the other one is repaired??)

The Fox Hollow dome is quite a bit smaller and is mostly used as an indoor driving range. (There is obviously no golfing while the soccer practice is going on.) In my mind, the smaller footprint means it is less likely to collapse? Matt and I discussed where we would run in case of a collapse with the kids many times in the previous Dome, so it was pretty much always on our mind. (Except for me when it actually started sagging - ha!)

I was pretty excited about testing out the camera in the smaller dome because the lighting seemed to be a little better the first time we were in there. Of course, the time I bring the camera is the time that they schedule the Candy Canes in the back of the dome where it is much darker. The front part of the dome is white, but the back is dark blue - I think it's so the golfers can see their golf balls after they hit them?

Anyhow, you can see the field and location changes didn't faze the kiddos at all - they are just pumped to be playing some soccer! My favorite is the only (tiny!) girl on the team - she is so excited, she's not even touching the ground. :) Also, the little guy with the blue & black jersey is also a Candy Cane, there was a reshuffle of teams after they handed out the jerseys. 

For the first part of each session, they do practice and drills - the favorite of which is Sharks & Minnows. Thomas got chosen  to be a Shark first and he was pumped! Look how intensely he is staring down all those minnows.

The camera was clearly struggling a little bit with the dark blue background, so this shot was not in focus at all. But... he scored a goal and I had to include it anyhow! We are always encouraging him to keep after that ball because sometimes he tends to lag behind the group. But not today! He was on that ball and kicked it all the way down and into the goal.

I was so proud!! He was pretty proud of himself too! :)

The new dome doesn't really have much food to offer, so the first time we went out to get a snack. This time I planned ahead and packed us lunches. Thomas polished his off pretty quick (because he had clearly worked up an appetite) and asked if he could go watch the virtual golfers. There was already a tiny crowd, so I figured one more little watcher wouldn't hurt. The kids were all very cam and quiet while they were watching - good golfing spectators!

Finally it was Henry's practice time! He's got his full kit (outfit) on today, so he looks like an official soccer player. Kiddie soccer doesn't have quite the same set-up, so there are no teams names. I keep calling him a Blueberry anyhow.

The day Henry decided he had outgrown his snow boots, he also didn't seem to fit into his sneakers. (Growth spurt!) I bought him a new pair, but didn't think about him wearing them to soccer and the fact they *light* up*. He would be running and suddenly stop to stare at his feet.

Rookie move, momma! 

I think I had forgotten how all of the place the kids are during kiddie soccer... While they are all having fun, there is a bit of a challenge in getting them to all do the same thing. But part of the point of kiddie soccer is teaching them to follow the coach's instructions. We'll get there - Thomas is certainly proof of that! ;)

This week I got smart enough to addd Henry's name to the soccer ball - his coach kept calling him Thomas because that was clearly the name written on every soccer ball we have. Now they have at least a 50/50 chance of using the right name. Ha!

And I realized that I never blogged about Thomas' soccer when we first started  it, so I found a photo from the last day of his very first soccer club. How tiny & adorable is he?!?