Daddy Day

Matt recently returned from a five-day business trip. I didn't want to complain, but now that he's back, I wasted no time leaving him with the girls while I had a day to myself with my other girls, my book club pals.

Here's what life looks like with Daddy...

Bath time. Even Gus got involved.

Game night! (Okay, I got talked into one round.) Current favorite: Spot It!

Playground stop while waiting on a prescription. Apparently Annie bee-lined to the biggest slide in the park. 

Back to the prescription.

Easter Egg Hunt with our small group! Such a pretty day for it, too!

Annie had fun finding the same egg over and over.

My man, holding court with the ladies.

I'd say they had a pretty good time without me! I had a pretty good time without them, catching up with old friends. There may have been a bloody mary involved. There was definitely lots of good conversation and laughter and promises to do it again soon. Somehow I don't think my girls would mind...

Blue Thunder!

Blue Thunder team photo!

We had our second soccer game today and Blue Thunder rocked it! I mean, no one was keeping score or anything. But considering we had to drag Violet out of the car and onto the field, she played exceptionally well once she was out there. I'm happy to report that Violet only touched the ball with her hands once and kept the skipping around the field to a minimum. She even scored three goals! Two of them were for our team! (Ha!)

Practice time.

Despite the freeeeezing weather (hello "feels like 35 degrees") Violet played hard, ran hard, listened well, and even had a chance to defend the goal. She's not a bad little defense player, I gotta say. The jury is still out on whether she'll be ready for position play next season, but I can already see how much she's grown from last season. So much with Violet has to do with how comfortable she feels. New experiences, not good. But once she's had the chance to observe, absorb, get the hang of things, she's generally good to go.

She shoots... she scores!

As for my first round of being a Team Mom, I have to say I'm pretty terrible at it. I haven't managed to collect all the money for our uniforms, I haven't sent any reminders about who is bringing snack... Although I prefer to keep things low-key - I do give a little "hey, don't forget..." reminder at each practice. And at least I have a list of who still owes me. I did pick the team name, though, so I guess there's always that! Consider it my contribution to the team.

Learning the word of the week, "perseverance". Trying your best even when you don't want to.

Field Trip to the Aquarium

BFFs with matching shoes!

Violet's Pre-K class took a trip to the Georgia Aquarium this week. She got to buddy up with her pal Emma and Emma's mom was sweet enough to send me these pictures of the big trip. Everyone had a blast. I thought about trying to go, but with a parent for every two kids, I think they had plenty of help! I'll try to go next year if kindergarten makes it one of their field trips.

Violet reported that she got to touch a starfish and see the giant beluga whales. And her favorite part was the penguins. Emma and Violet have been friends from the infant room at daycare, and this will be their last year together. (Sniff sniff!) We've been lucky to have such great friends for so long!

The wonder!

Storytime with Violet

Do you think she'll be a teacher when she grows up?

Chalk It Up to Spring

When you're an artist, all the world is your canvas!

Violet decided to celebrate the first weekend of spring by waking up before 6 a.m. and insisting we go outside for chalk art as soon as sanity allowed. But since it was such a beautiful morning, and I was up anyway, I complied. Everyone ended up getting in on the action. Also, side note, the arrival of spring attire (read: shorts) has shown us that Annie is not quite as steady on her feet as we might have thought. Girlfriend had two scraped knees on the very first day of shorts-weather!

Things took a turn when Violet decided a chalk body outline was in order. The driveway suddenly looked like a CSI crime scene investigation!

Outlining the body.

Our victim. Code name Daddy.

It's clear from the victim's expression, this was a surprise attack.

Or perhaps he was just a victim of fashion.

Finished product! Violet wrote "DAD" at the top. Backwards (she was sitting above the drawing). Should I be impressed, or concerned?!

Zoo Day

It's been rough lately. I can't seem to bounce back from the time change. I'm tired all. the. time. Report cards are due this week. I had seven parent-teacher conferences Friday, with more to come this week. Conferences always make me feel like a terrible teacher. "Oh hey, your child is struggling... but since I'm supposed to be teaching them, I guess it's my fault?" Or "yeah, here are these problems and I don't really know how to fix them or I would have tried already so, see ya later!" They don't really go that way, and the parents are all super appreciative, but that's how I come away feeling. Plus we've entered the wild ride that is fourth quarter. Soccer has started up again. Every weekend between now and Jesus coming back has been booked. And now my throat hurts and there's greenish gunk coming out my nose and my right ear is killing me.

So, all that to whine about say, it was lovely to get away from it all on this beautiful afternoon and meet all the grandparents at the zoo after church. Both Grandma and Mimi have birthdays coming up this spring and they decided they wanted to celebrate by hanging out at the zoo. They even brought a whole picnic for us to enjoy. Best idea ever. The weather could not have been better (oh flipflops I've missed you!) and the girls were both really good. Annie seemed a little overwhelmed by her first visit to the zoo and all the crowds, but she liked pointing out all the animals and loved the playground. She's so funny; she could care less where I am. She has no fear and insisted on tackling the "big" slide in the playground, despite all the big kids in her way. Violet, on the other hand, must know where I am at all moments of the day. So different, these two. But the trip was a success and we will definitely have to come back again soon.

Soccer, Take Two

Back on the ball.

It's soccer season again! And wow, what a different having some experience makes. When we first started soccer, Violet was nervous to go onto the field by herself. Often Matt or I would have to join her in the practice to get her to participate. This time, even though it's a new team and new coach, she ran right out there. Of course, it helps that half the team is made up of kids from her class (yeah, we really worked the system on that one!) But even so, I think her comfort level is definitely helping.


I was relieved to see Violet has such a great first practice, because things were a little dicey when teams were announced. When we signed up for our second season, I listed the names of some of her friends she wanted to be with, and also the name of last season's coach, whom we loved and had a great experience with. So I was thrilled when she called to say we were on her team again. But I quickly grew concerned when none of the parents from school had gotten a similar call. And then I grew extra nervous when I realized it was because Coach Angie was now coaching a U7 team.

Age-wise, U7 is appropriate for my five-year-old. But skill-wise? Maturity-wise? I wasn't so sure. U7 has positions. Goalies. They keep score. My child... well, have I mentioned that Violet's favorite part of soccer is snack time? In fact, the only question she asked when I had her decide if she wanted to play again was, "Will there be a party with cupcakes at the end?" So yeah, we've got different priorities.

Violet is one of the oldest in her class, so when all the requests for Coach Angie came in, we made the cut and everyone else stayed in U5 (no score-keeping, more "run around and have fun" attitude). I immediately started expressing my reservations to Angie, who to her credit did a great job calming my fears and promising the best snacks at halftime, just for Violet. Have I mentioned how much I like Coach Angie? I agonized over it. Should we try to switch? Should we stick it out? Would a hard season ruin the sport for Violet forever? Could it all be okay like Angie said? We decided to go for it. I talked to Violet and explained why her friends weren't going to be on her team, we picked out snacks, bought new soccer gear, got ready to go.

Huddling up with Coach Jeremy.

Then out of the blue, I got a call from a "Coach Jeremy". I didn't know any Coach Jeremy, but he'd gotten our name from one of Violet's classmates. He was going to be coaching all her friends on the U5 team and as fate would have it, he had one extra slot open on his team. He'd heard we might be interested in switching to U5 and he was prepared to write her name in on the spot. Did I want in?

Talk about being put on the spot. But it felt God-given. I hadn't asked the other mom to pass along our name and number. I hadn't run to the league demanding to be switched back to U5. It really felt dropped in our laps. So I took it. I felt awful when I emailed Coach Angie to tell her. But Coach Jeremy seems great, Violet was so excited to see her four friends from school, and somehow I got roped into being Team Mom despite my best feet-dragging. Hopefully it all adds up to the start of a really great season!

Cool Cat

Cool cat! 

Violet's classroom has a mascot called "Cool Cat." Cool Cat got to come home with each child for the weekend. But once all the kids had their turn, the teacher decided to make Cool Cat a reward for whoever earned the most silly bands (earned for good behavior).

Well, guess who was the very first winner? That's right, MY cool cat! Apparently her face, when the teacher announced the winner at Friday's circle time, was priceless. Cool Cat has been everywhere with us this weekend, and I'm proud of Violet for doing such a great job in class to earn him. 

As a parent, you wonder what your child is like in public, when you're not around. I've had plenty of parent-teacher conferences where the parents mention a specific behavior and are both shocked and pleasantly relieved to find out their child isn't the same little holy terror at school as he is at home. And I get it. We save our worst selves for the people who have to love us no matter what. So it's good to know that whatever we're struggling with at home, she's got her best foot forward out there.

Saturday morning breakfast.

Picnic time!

Another thing making this weekend awesome? The weather! Finally we're seeing a hint of spring after the "snow" we've had lately. I'm hoping we've finally turned a corner on Old Man Winter now. Violet had this Sunday afternoon picnic planned before we even left for church. She couldn't wait to get her PBJ and blanket and set up in the backyard. And of course, Annie was all "anything you can do, I can do" about it. She had her two favorite things - her big sister and snacks. Good to go!