Lady Pirates

We took a deep breath after the hockey jamboree weekend and then dove straight into show week for Fiona's first big production - Lady Pirates of the Caribbean. She has been rehearsing every weekend since early January and they had three performances at the end of March. [Yes. I know it is now June and we are still talking about March. But this is the last March post. Thank goodness!]

Dress rehearsal was Wednesday night and when I picked Fiona up, she was fairly nervous. As a whole cast, they were not as prepared as they could have been and she was not feeling too confident about the weekend. I assured her that she had done the best she could (she had her lines memorized for weeks) and that it would work out fine. 

I was secretly just as nervous as her. The play's director was great, but it was his first time directing a full production like this. Because of that (and quite a few first-time cast members), it seemed like that were some time management issues. Major parts of the play had only been rehearsed one or two times. Because dress rehearsal was ... bumpy ..., the cast had an earlier call on opening night to run through a few parts before curtain. It was for the best. 

I had volunteered to help with hair and make-up before each of the shows (with F's blessing). We also got her friend Ellie on Friday night so I could help E with her make up. E's mom and I thought that would work better than E's dad being in charge of make up. Once I got the girls ready, I just went with them for the earlier call and helped set up in the lobby while they rehearsed. 

As curtain time approached, I could tell Fiona was nervous. But she also seemed really confident. I was quite proud of her and how she didn't let her nerves get to her. It helped that she had a few good friends in the play and they all kept each other calm.

Here's what I will say about the play perhaps not being fully performance ready by opening night. The four V super fans saw it all three times. And each time, we saw a distinctly different show. I thought they performed with great energy on Friday night. But so many lines were dropped that it got to the end and none of us were too sure what the actual plot was. Regardless, it was wonderful and funny and Fiona killed it. She was so funny. I appreciated every moment of her on stage. Girlfriend was truly in her element!

We got up Saturday morning ready to do it again. But for the afternoon show, Gpa V came down to watch. Apparently he didn't watch enough Vs the weekend before and his butt was ready for more! Two of Quinn's hockey teammates were also in the show, so between the three performances, almost every girl on the team showed up to watch. A few brought flowers for Fiona as well, which was incredibly sweet. Between Friday night and Saturday afternoon, several of Fiona's friends also came and she felt so loved and supported. It was fun to see how happy it made her to see her people. As a girl who spends her life being a Super Fan, it was awesome to have her own entourage!

Gpa V headed home shortly after the show and then Auntie and Gma and Gpa J arrived for the evening performance. Now that was a performance for the memory books. Besides the fact that Auntie was convinced that the entire audience was wearing Shakopee Hockey jackets, there was a fairly significant cast change. About 30 minutes before the show, one of the leads (who had not been feeling well all weekend) ended up in the bathroom with a terrible stomach bug. She was sent home and the director donned a wig and a skirt and took her place. The show must go on. 

And go on it did. It was hilarious. But the cast also did a great job of staying in character and ignoring the fact that a grown up man in a Hairspray wig was on stage with them. Like I said, three very distinct performances!

We sent Q and D home with Gma and Gpa while Mike and I stayed to help strike the set. Once most of it was done, I took Fiona home as well (she was exhausted) and Mike was there until close to 11:00. We were so proud of our actress and her first "real" play. Over 400 people showed up to watch between the three performances! 

While she had some initial disappointment over the size of her part, we decided at the end that it was just the right size for her first time. She was able to feel confident and successful and cannot wait to do it again. Fiona (and Dec) are signed up for three theatre camps this summer - so more performances to come!

13 Games in 4 Days: Part 1

Buckle Up! It's Jamboree Weekend. This is not for the faint of heart. Grab your coffee. Numb your butt (seriously, think about sitting in the bleachers for this many games). Apply your eye black. It. Is. Go. Time.

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You know it is power-packed when you need to 1) write out the hour x hour schedule and 2) color code it so you know which child goes where when. Then 3) cross-examine for overlaps in drop off/pick up/shuffle. Finally 4) be thankful Gpa V came because clearly you need another person with a driver's license!

We kicked off The Weekend of Hockey on Thursday night (otherwise known as St. Patrick's Day) by heading to Mike's game. He plays with three other Shako coaches, so representatives from all their families also showed up. We had 9 (out of 10) kids represented and three wives. I was in charge of the tagalong Moon child, which was super easy because A loves Fiona and happily hung out with her. The Ps were there and Dec lived his best life running around with the boys, while Hannah teamed up with Fiona and A and lived hers. Quinn rotated between groups, depending on who looked like they were having more fun!

The big boys won, probably thanks to some of the coaching from the stands. Cooper took advantage and impersonated Brad's "spectator" coaching perfectly. My favorite was when Brad hit the crossbar and Coop yelled "you gotta hit the net." The mite coach contingent couldn't stop laughing when N ran behind their bench and yelled "move your feet." As you can see by the smiles (taken right before C handed out green frosting cookies to all), they had the best time!

Gpa V arrived Friday afternoon, looked at my schedule list, and [probably] contemplated hightailing it back home where it was safe. Instead he joined us for an early pizza dinner and it was off to the rink for the M3 Mite Olympics. This was Dec's level - and they did an hour of various drills and games. It was super fun to watch and sounded like it was a lot of fun (and lots of work for the coaches). My favorites were dodgeball and the relay races. 

Dec is a dream partner for half of the relay race - because he has great balance and weighs nothing. When his partner T was pulling, they handily beat everyone! However, T is much bigger than Dec and when it was D's turn to be the puller, they weren't quite so fast. I'll give the boy credit - he hung in there and was much closer to the front than expected. [Photo tip: D is #12 in the red jersey/black helmet pulling red jersey/white helmet]

After D's game was the event we had been the most excited about. All the girls moving up to 10U next year were playing the coaches. Plus one very special guest. A fair amount of the boys coaches had not signed up to play in the girls game (I have thoughts about this, but will leave it at that), so they were a bit low on grown up players. I played a very winning hand and asked Uncle Brad if he would come play - for Quinn. We all know he can't say no to that. She wasn't sure if he was coming, so when I had her pop her head out in the hallway, the smile was epic!

The game was so much fun to watch. The goalie for the girls was their goalie coach and the coach's goalie was one of the dads. It was hilarious to watch and the girls were just beaming. As you know, Quinn doesn't care for emotion - but she was visibly thrilled to be out on the ice with both Mike and Brad. It was such a special game for these girls - to celebrate the end of their Mite/8U career.

After the game, Quinn hung out with her teammates, Mike played in the boys vs coaches game (as did the majority of the girls coaches. just saying), and I ran home to snag a piece of equipment that Quinn forgot. I missed most of the boys v coaches game, but sounds like it was high energy and a lot of fun.

If you are counting and think I missed a few Vs, you are right. While all that was happening, the bookends were invited to head home with our neighbors to make a very long night slightly less long. Instead of sitting at the rink for over four hours, they got to head home with the Bs for a 2nd dinner floor picnic and movie. Thank goodness for great friends and a village to raise the children.

Meanwhile, I met Gpa and Q back at the rink for the final event of the evening - the M4 Olympics. Basically the same as what Dec's group did, just for the next level up. Quinn was tired from the game, but had a fun time competing with her teammates. I think their favorite event was "longest slide" and I noticed that they all took a couple extra beats to get up. Quick power nap, maybe? [photo clue: red jersey, orange stick]

And with that, we were home around 9:30. We ran the hockey players through a quick shower rinse and hustled them off to bed. Five games down. Eight more to go ...

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! 

January Life

Before they realized bowling is dumb

Last January was the longest week ever (or that’s how my co-worker Nick and I described it). This January is flying by! It could have something to do with new job and big kids who have activities, combined with [counting this one] THIRTEEN blog posts. We really did learn nothing from September.

The new job is good. I feel like I’ve been there much longer than a week (or so) – but that could be from the sheer volume of information I’ve needed to absorb and act on. There was no “wading in” period. Straight into the deep end, but so far, my head is above water. They are also using words like “Emerson Exchange” that should terrify me, but make me really happy because I know how to do that! My commute is significantly less good and I’m learning to deal with the traffic (I’m not). But we are figuring out the new schedule and I’m hustling my bottom out the door in the morning.

Happy skater

In the evenings, we are hustling out the door for gymnastics (on Monday for Q and D) and swimming (on Wednesdays for Q and D). Drama for Fiona will start up in a couple weeks as well. Declan has hockey every weekend, and you truly haven’t lived until you’ve watched a bunch of 4-year-olds play hockey. Mike has hockey most weeks and it is completely unpredictable when that is. If you are counting, yes, that is three activities for Declan. Yes, I overthought that strategy for weeks and was not loving the idea of over-committing him. Then the voice-of-reason (also known as Mike) spoke and reminded me that it’s the middle of winter and if we don’t provide children 2 and 3 with big muscle outlets, they will use our furniture and walls as said outlet. He was right. And our big muscle humans are extremely tired and happy with the arrangement. The non-big-muscle child does not hate the one-on-one time that she gets by default.

We’ve made a pretty significant transition in hockey life – from Dec getting all up in his own head and sobbing about ten minutes before leaving to joyfully heading out the door for practice. The introduction of a fancy mouthguard and a “cup nut” to his attire has helped this! And honestly, just the frequency of going has made a huge difference for him He’s feeling more confident on the ice and Mike says that Dec is smiling the whole time. I went to watch last weekend when he had a practice fairly late on Sunday night. It was from 6:00-6:45 and D did great. However, we all laughed when he fell down at 6:43, because he was just not going to get up. He was toasted and over it. One of his little teammates tried to help him up and they both ended up on the ice giggling. He did get back on his feet for the end of practice.

Two day braids. HOW?!?!?

We had a hockey team outing at the bowling alley – and the sisters could join. Everyone was super excited. I ended up bringing them since Mike was getting his volunteer hours in at the rink. If you don’t know, I have a pretty strong anti-bowling stance. The outing was just bowing for the kids, so I figured I could handle it. As the two hours of bowling went on, it became quite clear that I have three chips of the [not so] ol’ mom. They were all  on the team of “really?!?! we just roll a ball and knock over pins?!?!” I’m with you, kids!

In the rare instance that we are home and not taking ninja showers to maintain basic levels of hygiene, Quinn has been asking me to braid her hair. I love that she lets me play with it. She loves when I play with it. It's a good combo. We've also discovered that if she leaves the braids in for a day or two and then takes them out, her hair is incredibly curly. For my stick-straight-hair child, this is pure magic. For this wild-curls-and-so-much-volume-is-a-thing mama, how amazing her hair looks after two days in braids is beyond mind-boggling. 

So there you have it. That's January in a nutshell for us. You'll find us at the rink, the gym, or the pool. But not outside - because there is still NO snow!

Quinn Cheers

The biggest thing that school has done for Quinn is give her the confidence to finally separate from us enough to actually participate in things she loves. We still talk in great depth about what to expect. She does not like being surprised. Or unprepared. Or uninformed. But she is more willing to take a chance and give new things a try.

So when she wanted to be in a week-long, twelve hour cheer camp this summer, I was cautiously hopeful as I hit "register." And she showed me! Not only did she do it, she killed it! We came home on the first day to find her teaching her brother and sister how to do stunts. Don't worry - she and Fiona were the bases and Dec was the flyer ... that totally won't end badly. Maybe. She woke up each day excited to go and couldn't wait to tell us and show us everything she learned that day. Show and tell included cartwheels in the parking lot of the theater and front walkovers in the living room ...

Since Quinn was just over a year old, she has been fascinated by cheerleading. If Mike flips through channels and stumbles across a cheer competition, her head immediately whips around. If we are at a school event, she is just drawn to the high school cheerleaders. It may have been the best week of her life! 

Mike, Fiona, Nanny J, and I were all able to watch her performance on the last day of camp. We need to work a bit on her game face ... she has it during practice, but got so excited when we got there that she was a bit distracted. As she gets more used to performing, the game face will come. She did so great and we had the best time cheering her on. Fiona had her game face on and showed up in a dress, fancy hat, high heels, and a purse to demonstrate her support!

We couldn't have been prouder, watching her passion overcome her fear. Not only did she participate, she had fun and felt successful. Go, Quinn, go! [Sidenote: her favorite thing to learn and Fiona's favorite thing to learn from her was the "sassy walk."]

Keeping Busy

Mondays...

Monday nights are wild around here. We celebrate surviving the first day of the week by getting home, eating as fast as we can, and heading to the community center for gymnastics and skating lessons. As luck would have it, both classes are at the same time, which works out wonderfully. Until Mike has a hockey game at that time too ...

Normally, we take one car and then one of us and Quinn heads toward the rink and one of us and Fiona heads toward the gym. Declan tags along with one of those groups. Then we reconvene when it's over. Or if Mike has a game, Dec and I meet Q on the bench after her lesson, help her get her skates off, and hustle over to the gym to catch the last few minutes of Bugs' class.

Everyone is happy. Except maybe Dec. He'd love to be tumbling. Or skating. Or doing anything other than being a spectator. He's happy to report that sports camp starts up next week and he can hardly wait.

Sweet gymnast

 Proud skater

Little bro life ...

Q's Choices

If you’ve been reading here for a while, you know that Quinn has struggled to find her “thing.” And that struggle is mostly because she doesn’t like to separate from us. At all. You also know that Quinn is stubborn. So if I ask her a question like “hey Q, want to do gymnastics?” and she answers with a very firm “no” – the odds are pretty good that she is not going to do it.

We’ve come to a rather acceptable compromise. If she does say “yes” and we spend money on something, we expect her to follow through. This is a vast improvement from several swimming and gymnastics lessons that we consider donations to local businesses. This fall, she is participating in a cooking class at her school and floor hockey. And so far, she is doing great!

Despite her love the kitchen, her fear of a class almost won. It took all my marketing skills to talk Q into a little one hour cooking class, once a week for four weeks, at her school. When school is out for the day, she walks to the art room for class, and then walks to the after care program when cooking class is done. This was well worth the effort it took to get her to agree because she LOVES it. She comes home glowing each week with her goodies in her backpack and tells me all about every step of the recipe for the week.

Repaired pie

Last Wednesday, they made full-sized pies to bring home to use with Thanksgiving dinner. They made the crust from scratch, rolled it out and put it in a foil pie tin, filled it with their fruit of choice (Q picked blueberries), covered it with a second sheet of crust, and put it in a gallon sized Ziploc to bring home to bake.

Only one problem. No one told my 5-year-old that she should not tip a pie into her backpack – as she had done with all her other cooking class treats. So when we picked her up, the tears and despair were very very real. “Mama, my pie broke” was the saddest wail you have ever heard. I’m pretty sure her very soul was bruised.

When we got home, I did what any mama would do. I stuck my hand in a Ziploc full of blueberries and we put that pie back together. Then we ate it on Thanksgiving. And you know what – it was still wonderful. She was so proud – and her soul bruise healed! She will also now tell you that “pies have to stay flat.” So life lessons all around.  

She is also doing very well in floor hockey. Her dad would tell you that she is in the upper half of skill level in the class. She would tell you that she is having fun. The first week was a little touch and go (she left a couple times in tears – but went right back in after I hugged her), but the last two times have been fine. They scrimmage and she likes that a lot. She doesn’t mind the skill drills, but is definitely more interested in the game.

Q doesn’t like to be part of the mob chasing the puck and stands on the outside of the group. Then when the puck inevitably squirts out, she snags it and takes it down for a shot. It’s a solid strategy, although I’m pretty sure she’s doing it because she’s tired at that time of night and sees no point in running around unnecessarily. Mike also was bragging her up to me last week that she stopped a pass on her back hand and then pulled the puck to her forehand before taking the shot. She’s got an eye for the game. We’ll see if she wants to continue.

We are excited to see her enjoying and being successful in something sports related. She is incredibly athletic and has shown zero interest in any form of organized sport up to now. Mostly Mike is hoping that this is a gateway to getting this child to want to learn to skate. Like anything, Quinn will do it when she chooses to. And not a moment earlier.  

Diving In

The bookends have been thoroughly enjoying swimming lessons. The middle is a bit more on the fence about our Saturday morning activities of late. At the end of class during a couple of the lessons, the kids have had the option to use the diving board. Q says no way, thank you very much. And we respect that. But the other two have been down with it.

I wish we would have recorded the first week they did the board because Fiona did everything all by herself. She walked the whole way and jumped in. No help (other than the teacher in the pool, of course). But we didn't get a video. We were too busy cheering her on! She doesn't love that the board wiggles when she walks on it, so a teacher helped her get to the edge at this class. But you will notice she still jumps all by herself!

And Declan also loves the board. He was also a bit more hesitant on Round 2. Mike said that although it appears he is walking, there was not a lot of forward movement without daddy's help. Even with the nerves, they both loved it!

Q's Extracurricular Path

If it wasn't abundantly clear a year ago when I started investigating gymnastics programs, it is now MORE THAN clear that Quinn needs to be in gymnastics. Not necessarily in the "pinning gold medal dreams on a three-year-old" way, but definitely in a "stop doing front tuck half twists off my couch" way.

So ... Quinn will be starting up in a 3-year-old program at a local gym near the end of March. Recent events in the living room have reinforced her extracurricular preferences.

Scenes like this are a regular occurrence.
She walks backwards up his legs and balances on one foot.

Sometimes their escapades result in a double ice pack run

Swimming Lessons

We have now arrived at the Stage of Three Swimming Lessons. On Saturday morning, we gathered up the troops, dusted off the swim bag, did a quick verification of swimsuit sizing (yep, still need to size down for the girls), and drove five blocks down the road for our morning of lessons. While lessons take up our Saturday mornings for the foreseeable future, all three kids get in during the same hour. That felt way more reasonable than 2-3 rushed weeknights!

Fiona's lessons were first and she proudly headed off to class and had a blast. I had friends in town from Tennessee, who came with us to the lessons. So Fiona often looked up to make sure we were all watching and admiring her sweet skills. She is such a ham! It is amazing to see how much her confidence has increased in the pool since her last set of lessons. She's becoming quite the swimmer.

Quinn was doing great until it got really close to her lesson time (she and Dec are in the pool at the same time). This is her first set of lessons without a parent (can I get an AMEN!?!?! serious parties here when we age out of parent/child lessons!) and she got really nervous. We compromised on me walking over to the pool edge with her. Then her teacher started doing fun stuff and singing songs - and she promptly forgot about me and was all in! She did so great and we were really proud of her.

Mike and Declan hung out in the baby swim class. Dec was happy and then decided he wasn't entirely sure about this swim class thing. So Mike did the only obvious thing ... started blowing bubbles and splashing him. Which made D laugh. And then he was totally happy and ready to swim. The boys looked like they were having a good time - other than it being really cold in the water. 

Overall, the start of the Three Swimming Lessons has gone well. (And we sure didn't mind having two extra sets of hands this week. We will miss them next Saturday!)