That Weekend We Hosted All the People

After our afternoon full of hockey, we had a fun evening planned. Auntie was coming!! We ordered pizza dinner, listened to music, and watched Quinn terrify Em with her emotionless stare. At one point during dinner, Emmy started calling Q "the tiny mob boss." Quinn was enjoying the game and really played up her role. The rest of us could not stop giggling!

Emmy joined Mike and me for our evening walk and we had a great evening, just catching up over drinks after the kids went to bed. It has been so long since I have been able to hang out with my sister that it was just the perfect time to reconnect. We also all needed a low key night because Em was heading out fairly early in the morning to meet some friends and Mike and Quinn were heading out even earlier for hockey practice. 

Then Sunday, after Quinn got home from a very early practice (they left at 6:45!), the girls hosted a Valentine's Day party for a few girlfriends. I had made funfetti and strawberry lemonade cupcakes, mixed up four different colors of frosting, and had bowls full of sprinkles and cupcake toppers. The girls invited Declan to join and they had the best time decorating Valentine cupcakes. [I had also bought containers so I could send the bulk of those cupcakes to other houses!] 

Then Mike and Declan headed out for a snowmobile ride on Prior Lake while the girls (and a tray of snacks because cupcakes were not enough junk food) watched a movie in the basement. I had talked Fiona into watching 10 Things I Hate About You and she didn't love it as much as I wanted her too. Maybe she needs a couple more years to realize how wonderful it truly is. Luckily I am more than willing to watch it with her as many times as it takes!

I made an early-ish dinner of homemade mac and cheese and then the girls (and Dec*) decorated shirts. We had made little party favors of a plain white shirt, a gold heart necklace, and a Valentine scrunchie. The girls decided to make shirts to all wear the next day to school for Valentine's Day proper. After they were done decorating, they also signed each other's shirts. It was super fun to watch their creative processes. 

Once the shirts were done, we brought everyone home as it was both a school night and the Super Bowl. Then the kids helped me clean up from the party and we watched the half time show [because that's the only part the kids and I care about]. We were so grateful to have a house big enough to host a few friends and the girls were very pleased with their party. 

*Dec finished his shirt pretty quickly, so he and Mike made a trip to the pet store to buy two new fish to join Harry and Hermione. Ron II (III? we've lost count) and Draco are happy to join the fish family in D's room.

Saber Flag Bearer

On February 12, Declan had the honor of being the flag bearer at the second to last boys high school game. We've known for months, so marked it on the calendar and didn't think much about it. Then as it got closer, he started to get nervous. Thankfully, it was an afternoon game so his nerves didn't have to build all day long. It was also Mite Appreciation Day ... so the stands were full with lots of his teammates. Not sure if that helped or hurt the nerves!

When they handed Dec the flag, we saw the disadvantage of being on the shorter side of life. The "pole" (hockey stick) was aggressively tall. He was definitely practicing his maneuvering ahead of time. Dec also enjoyed meeting the HS coach and fist-bumping the team as they came off the ice from pre-game warmups.

When it was time to do his thing, there was a bit of a situation getting that giant flag out the door. He accidentally got it hooked on the boards and when someone tried to help, it threw him off balance. Let's just say that his entrance was a bit awkward [see video] - but he laughed it off and did an awesome job once the flag joined him on the ice!

He got to fist bump the team one more time, but chose not to stay out on the ice with the team for the national anthem. That was a lot of center of attention time for the little dude!

We stayed through the first period and hung out with some of the kids' teammates. Then Q and D participated in the Mite recognition between periods. They proudly wore their jerseys and waved to the crowd. Then we needed to head out because Q was subbing in for a game with the boys team in New Prague and Auntie was on her way to our house!

A Tournament, A Sleepover, and A Quest

In case you are wondering what happened to the blog, your girl over here thought it was a good idea to volunteer to do the school yearbook. In a not surprising turn of events, it has been a lot of work ... and overtook the allotted blog time. I'm currently loudly stating to members of the V household that I'm not doing the yearbook next year ... exactly zero people are buying it. So be prepared for a similar blog backlog in about a year from now.

Anyhoo ... back to the first weekend in February when we had Quinn's first out-of-town hockey tournament, Fiona's first sleepover, and Declan and I took an epic quest. It truly marked the end of our routinely busy, but mostly uneventful January. February started off like a lion, ended like a lion, and roared in the middle. Buckle up - here we go!

Saturday morning, Mike and Quinn headed to New Ulm for their Mite Jamboree. Her team had pulled a later game that afternoon, but the 8am game Sunday morning. Because of the distance, that meant hotel stay for the whole team. She was so excited (Auntie claims much of the pre-departure discussion was around car snacks). She was less excited that she had to run upstairs to repack her bag bag three times. Seems we needed her to bring more than swimsuits and pajamas.

Her team did not run into strong competition in the girls bracket and ended up outscoring their opponents somewhere around 100-3 in the three games. Q played goal in the first game and was deeply offended by half ice, small nets, and only a handful of shoots. She played out for the rest of tournament, scored a couple times, and had a lot of fun. She also loved her time with dad, all the pool adventures with her team, and the independence they all got. I do think she missed me though - because she climbed into my lap as soon as they got home (almost dinner time on Sunday - because they had the first and last games of the day) and was ready to fight any sibling who wanted my attention. 

Meanwhile, after I picked Fiona up from play practice and fed her lunch, it was time to drop her off at her friend J's birthday party. She was beyond excited! They were heading to the Mall of America to go mini-golfing. She tells me there was also a stop at the Shake Shack, which may be one of her new favorite places. Then they went back to J's house for girl time, dinner, and a movie. They watched Legally Blonde and F's mind.was.blown. She loved it so much - and I was pleased with her very good taste in both friends and movies. 

It was a sleepover party, but due to a few things we had going on, Fiona and I decided together that she wouldn't spend the night. However, I didn't come pick her up until 10pm and she felt very old to get to stay out and up that late. [Truth: both she and Quinn were tired Sunday night!] Best of all, I let her take my old phone* with her and she was able to take some pictures of her and her friends, which made her day even better!

While the girls were doing their things, Dec and I were enjoying a Mommy/Decky day. We had decided to go on a hunt for a dragon squishmallow (the softest stuffed animals ever!). We ended up having to drive to Eden Prairie, which officially made it a quest in our minds. We also were shocked by the massive size of the acquired squishmallow - we clearly did not look at the dimensions. But D was delighted, which made my day too!

We finished our evening with a movie (Diary of a Wimpy Kid), Chinese take-out, way too many gummy snakes, and watching Olympic snowboarding. D wasn't too sure about going to bed before Bugs got home, but he was tired enough to not fight it too much. 

It was the first of probably many weekends of divide and conquer kid activities in completely different locations. It was strange to be separated and we were very excited to sit down for dinner together Sunday night and share stories from the weekend. Everyone's favorite part - the dismay at the size of D's squishmallow!

*Remember three years ago when I drowned my phone on Spring Break? Apparently iPhones dry out in that amount of time. We recently found it in a box (yes, still unpacking!) and Mike and Quinn decided to see if they could get it to work. I told them in no uncertain terms that it was dead and about 36 hours later, they proudly showed me that I was completely wrong. Everything was still on it - so crazy! Mike reset the phone, attached it to his email, and voila! - a phone that can be used on WiFi to text me. Very limited capabilities, but it has served its purpose quite well when we are going all the directions!