Lost and found post!

This picture is McKenzie after her Pacific Rimland Tournament.  They were the Champions!!  She loved the neon yellow sweatshirt!  Some of her favorite colors are neon! :)

I found this unfinished post in my drafts.  I am not sure why I didn't finish it or publish it?  So...here it is! Short, sweet, and to the point! :)

Happy New Year's Eve & Birthday to McKenzie!

Happy 12th Birthday to McKenzie!!  

She opted to go to Chuck E Cheese with Emily (and family) again this year.  The girls had fun!  We stayed about 3 hours (which is about 3 hours too many for me!).  McKenzie has a favorite game that she loves to play.  She spent most of her time playing it today.

Jake is in the background giving it a try.  He did pretty well!  You shoot the green ball into a basket, or a claw and if it is lit up, you get extra points (tickets).  McKenzie got the 125 bonus about 7 times!  She even got it TWICE in one game!!  She was super excited!  All total, she got 1384 tickets today, plus the 100 tickets for it being her birthday!  I think last year, she got 400 tickets and thought she did really good!!

This is McKenzie showing Emily, Audrey and Mia how to play the game.  They were pretty impressed with the amount of tickets she got!  She picked out a pretty cool ball with some of her tickets, and she is saving the rest for another trip.

My phone died and I had to take some pictures with McKenzie's phone.  She is spending tonight with Emily and I will get them tomorrow.

Alexandra is spending the night with her friends (Bella & Maddy).  She has actually been at their house since last Friday!  The girls are having fun tonight and I am getting ready to go to bed and watch a movie.  I have to work tomorrow (the store is closed so we can do inventory) but I don't have to be there until 10, so I can sleep in a bit.

I have all sorts of New Year's resolutions this year, but I am not typing them out on here!  I have a journal I am writing them in.  Mostly they are little things and I am not going to start them all tomorrow!  I have lots of goals that I hope to accomplish this year, and I will be taking baby steps to get them done.

One of my resolutions that I will post on here is photography!  I want to take a class (or classes) this year.  I also want to try to take a photo a day with my camera (not my phone!) and get better with my editing program (maybe even take a class for that!)  Hopefully by spring I will be able to get my photography website up and running!

Have a Happy New Year!!!

Bye Bye 2013!!  Hello 2014!!!

Pacific Rimland Day 2

This morning started off a little early when we woke up to be one of the first 200 people through the doors at Sports Authority for their grand opening.  We made it!  There was a lot of people there ahead of us, but we made it in.  We got our picture taken with the Seahawks bird (actually the girls got their picture taken, I took it!) 

After we shopped around and looked for a bit, we headed off to soccer!!

Today was Day 2 of the tournament.  Their first game today was at 12:30.  McKenzie’s team won 3-0 again and Alexandra’s team lost 0-1 again.  It was almost a repeat of last nights’ game.  Both the girls played so well.  

GO RANGERS!!!

 These pictures are from Game one, but they are so cute, I had to post them!

 Both Ryan and Aiden love taking pictures!  I don’t know where they get that from. J  They both raid my camera bag looking for my “little” camera.

Fun times on the soccer field!  The boys found a friend and had so much fun playing with him!  He is the little brother of one of McKenzie’s teammates. He is right in the middle (age wise) of Aiden and Ryan.  They had so much fun in the dirt! J

 Help Gaga!!  I stuck!

Game three – Today at 6:30.  It was nice and a bit cooler this evening.  The girls used their new water coolers to help keep them cool.

Alexandra’s team with a 0-2 loss. L

McKenzie’s team with a 7-0 win!! 

Both of the girls played really well, but Alexandra’s team just couldn’t score. 

McKenzie played so good in the last game today!  She was all over the ball getting it away from the other team.  She even had an assist! J  It might have been an assist to an assist, but it was still cool!

McKenzie’s team made it into the semi-finals tomorrow morning at 10:30 and then if they make it, the finals are at 3:15.  Off to bed!  Long day tomorrow!!

Fun in the sun!

McKenzie and I were at Home Depot getting some plants for the planters at work.  We found this cute little flower sprinkler on the clearance shelf.  McKenzie has been asking me for a sprinkler and I keep saying I will look and see what we can find.  I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of money on one, but when I saw this for about $2 I couldn’t pass it up!!  It was super cute and it works really well!!  The kids had a great time jumping through it.  OK, McKenzie jumped through it and the boys ran through the very edge so as not to get wet! J

Then off we went, inside to change into dry clothes and feed Elizabeth.  I fed her most of her bottle and when she was done, I set the bottle down and let her play for a few minutes.  She started fussing a bit and Ryan sat on the couch with her bottle and said, “Me, bebe sit,  milk.”  (I am sitting on the couch, put the baby next to me so I can give her her bottle of milk)  So I sat Elizabeth next to him and he gave her the bottle

 of milk.

He may or may not of helped himself to a little bit of milk too….

Pacific Rimland Tournament Day 1

Today was Day one of the Pacific Rimland Soccer Tournament.  Both Alex and McKenzie played at 3:30.  Their schedules are the exact same time all weekend.  So I can only watch half of each game and then I go to the other game for the second half.  Alexandra’s team lost 0-1 and McKenzie’s team won 3-0.  Tomorrow, they both play at 12:30 and 6:30.  The semi-finals and the finals are Sunday. 

 Grandma Kaye and Elizabeth Kaye

Mom came to the games today and watched them with me and the little ones.  Jay and Grandpa Jerry were on the other field watching the other game.  I think I took about as many pictures of the kids as I did of the games!  My grandkids are just too cute!!  J

 After the games were over, we loaded up (no easy task!) and headed over to my house for some playtime and dinner.  When we got there, Aiden remembered about my blackberries. He ran over to check them out.  He was so excited to find some that were ready!  Well….they were the right color, they were still a little sour.  Ryan, not to be left out of anything his brother was doing, ran right over and tried them out also!  Elizabeth didn’t really care about the blueberries, she just wanted to chew on some toys.

Off to another long, fun, hopefully not so hot day of soccer tomorrow!!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me!  Today is my 40^th birthday and this is the “cake” McKenzie made me last minute.  She took tootsie rolls and “melted” them together in the microwave for a couple seconds so they would stick together.  The candle was a tootsie pop!  Creative and yummy! J

 I went to work today and mom came by and delivered some beautiful hydranga’s!  Katherine came by a little bit later with a bouquet of flowers!  Then…Mikey came by to tell me happy birthday! J  It made my work day so much happier!  J

After work, it was soccer practice for the girls and then home for dinner and dishes!   Such a great day ;)

In other news, aren’t these two of the cutest mugs!  Joyce made them for Elizabeth and Ryan (Aiden’s is in the works still!).  She also made me one to replace the one that Lesley broke years ago! J

Stay at home Saturday

I had the kids on Friday night/Saturday while Alyssa and Richard were finishing up the house.  They should be in by the end of the month!!  :)  So excited for them!

Ryan had this shirt on and when he started playing with the play cell phone, I couldn't resist taking a picture!  He is such a cutie!

Little Miss Elizabeth grabbing for my phone.  She is 51/2 months now and has grown and changed so much!  I forget how fast they grow when they are little!  She can sit all by herself for long periods of time.  She scoots around and around on the floor if she is on her tummy.  She can flip herself over.  She grabs for everything!!  :)  Aiden says she eats Cheerios and eggs. :)  but not donuts!

She is adorable when she is sleeping!!  As are most babies! :)

After the kids went home, the girls and I sat on the couch and had a movie night.  Four came over and made herself at home on my lap!

It was a great day!  Lots of fun and sunshine.  The girls took Aiden to the park while Ryan and Elizabeth took naps (but not at the same time! :(  )  I got a bit of McKenzie's room done and some of my stuff organized.  I am ready with some consignment/goodwill loads.  A very productive day! 

Just playing catch up!

We have two pots of flowers at the store that I work at, right outside the main entrance.  I usually water them and pull the dead flowers off and try to keep them looking nice. 

Since we have had so much sun and HOT weather and very little rain, the flowers were not looking very good.  Actually, I think you could say that they were all dead.  Very dead.

Enter McKenzie.  She asked if she could help pick out some new flowers and plant them.  So off to Home Depot we went and picked out some pretty flowers.  Then, back to the store so plant them!  They turned out so pretty!  Much prettier than the dead ones.  J

McKenzie is at a soccer camp this week at Western Washington University.  It goes from Tuesday – Friday from 9:30-3:00.  They work on individual skills and speed & agility in the morning.  Then off to lunch in the dining hall at Western.  (This would be McKenzie’s very favorite part!!)  After lunch, they watch a short video (usually snipets of USA soccer games) and have a short lecture.  Then the rest of the afternoon, they scrimmage. 

McKenzie was a little nervous the first day.  Her coach is Claire and she has 6 of her teammates on her team.  (it is just the 7 of them and another girl who plays goalie)  When I picked her up, I asked how it went.  GREAT!! She said.  She was named player of the day!  Very excited!  AND she had 4 pieces of pizza for lunch!  Even better! J

She thinks her brand new cleats may have helped a little.  J

 Last weekend, Alex played in a tournament with her old team (U14 Ranger’s white) at the Crossfire Tournament in Redmond.  They played pretty good.  They ended up in 3^rd place overall.  Going from 1^st place Sunday morning and losing the game 1-0 in the last 5 minutes and not getting into the finals.

Alex had a super great weekend!  She played so well.  Her position is right defense and she was very good at not letting the ball get past her.  The team they played on Friday night had some very tall players on it.  The girl that was supposed to get the ball past Alex and into the net was getting very frustrated because Alex almost always outmaneuvered her and got the ball away from her. J

On Saturday, they had an early (9:25am) game and then played a late game (6:50pm).  So what do you do with such a large gap in between games?  You shop. If you are a teenager, you hit the nearest mall!  We were going to go to the zoo, but it was pretty hot and her coach didn’t want them in the sun.  So we went inside to an air conditioned mall.  (Bellevue Square Mall)  The favorite part was riding the escalators.  (their coach did say to conserve their energy!)  I stopped by the camera store and got a lens protector for my larger lens and an extra battery (finally!!)  We mostly just window shopped and rode the escalators J

 McKenzie and I the boys (and Elizabeth) for a walk last week, while Alyssa and Richard worked on their house.  We decided that it would be fun to go for a walk down to 7-11 and get a slurpee!

The boys rode in the wagon and Elizabeth rode in the stroller.  Aiden also brought his scooter and rode that most of the way down there.  It took us a looonnnnggg time to get down the hill to 7-11!  J

After getting a slurpee, we stopped over at the library to look at some books.  The boys loved doing puppet show.  We checked out the book sale and found a Thomas DVD for Ryan and Spiderman beginner books for Aiden.  The best part about buying them is they don’t have to return them! J  The movie only cost me 50 cents and the books were $1.  Then we popped on over to the playground and played for a bit before we headed home.  Such a long fun night!  I think we walked over 5 miles!!

Everybody slept really good that night!!!

Ryan loves animals.  All animals.  Big ones, little ones, slimy ones.

Ryan found a spider in my grass crawling away.  So he very carefully watched it.  Aiden came over to see it (Aiden doesn’t love animals as much as Ryan) and was telling Ryan that he was going to squish it.  Ryan wouldn’t let him!  He protected that spider until it disappeared.  J

 While the boys were bug watching (and not killing!!)  these two girls were playing on the easy roller!  Elizabeth had a great time going for a ride!

I will leave you with a cute little picture of Elizabeth in a dress that her mommy and aunties wore! J