School, Soccer, and a Birthday

There is so much going on here I hardly know where to begin, so you might want to grab a snack and hit the restroom before you get started.  This is going to get really long. hahahaha
Ezekiel:  He is my constant source of amusement.  He's learning new words every day, loves to entertain people, and is ready to be a big kid.  He picks on David all the time, which baffles me, but still falls asleep in my arms each Sunday after the sacrament.  It's such a nice break, just getting to snuggle my baby bug and enjoy watching him sleep for a bit each week.  Because he isn't talking quite as much as he should be yet there are times filled with endless tantrums as I try to guess what he wants while trying to teach him how to use words to communicate with me instead of grunts and head shakes.  Which I just figured out this morning do not always mean no.  Surprise surprise.

David:  He was SO excited to start soccer! and in my last blog I think I wrote about how well his first practice went, but he fell asleep on the way to practice last Friday and his brain didn't want to wake back up, plus Daddy was filling in for the assistant coach, so he sat in the middle of the field wailing at the top of his lungs because "the coach wasn't letting him play" which translates to "He's making us take turns and I'm a basket case".  Ezekiel wanted to be on the field playing too so I had two kids crying their eyes out and trying to climb on a lap that is already consumed by my pregnant belly and really enjoyed all of the piteous looks I got from fellow moms. *insert eye roll here*  I've decided I'll just skip soccer practice from here on out, so I missed the round of tantrums and sitting out after the first half of practice this week.  David was thrilled that his birthday was this week.  He is now allowed to be in a booster seat and is learning how to buckle himself in.  He loved the birthday dinner we threw for him on Sunday.  Instead of having a birthday party with friends we invited over my parents, siblings and their 2 new foreign exchange students. Gabrielle's boyfriend Ethan came as well, so we had a rather full house.  Byron is the most gracious of hosts and grilled hot dogs and chicken for everyone, and we had root beer and Doritos.  David was so excited and actually ate dinner with the family, which never happens on Sundays because he loves playing with his aunts and uncles so much.  Granny made him delicious chocolate cupcakes with chocolate hazelnut frosting and provided ice cream sandwiches, one of his all time favorites. He loved all the little presents they brought him too.  I can always find him carrying or playing with one of his gifts which consisted of a necklace my brother David used to wear, which is kind of cool for me to see, a flashlight, a wallet, a mini magnadoodle, and he loves watching the Little Foot DVD my parents got him.  On his actual birthday things got a little crazy (which you can read about in the pregnancy update that will be in a separate post) but he still had a good day. Auntie Brie took him to the dog park, and kept the dogs with them for the day so he got lots of puppy snuggles, he got to spend hours playing at Granny's house too, where they would spontaneously burst into singing Happy Birthday to him all day.  Granny made him cupcakes again, and he absolutely loved it.  Eventually, we picked him up from Granny's house and headed home with his leftover cupcakes.  Upon entering the house he said "Mommy, I didn't get to eat anything at Granny's, I called him out on the lie so he fixed it and just asked for a cupcake.  I handed him one and he carried it over to the table singing Happy Birthday to himself.  Then he looked up at me and said "They sang Happy Birthday to me ALL DAY.  It's going to stay my birthday". It was the funniest thing and it warms my heart to see just how much he loves family.  Needless to say, thanks to our amazing family, he had a memorable birthday and was spoiled silly, even though I'm finding it harder and harder just to make myself get out of bed each morning and spent a lot more time than I care to count in doctor offices today. haha
Saturday morning was his first soccer game ever.  He played the first time he was supposed to, and very nearly scored a goal, but one of his teammates wasn't too happy with him having the ball and picked it up right out from under him.  That was pretty entertaining.  He went in the second time he was supposed to as well, but he bumped into another player, totally knocking the kid to the ground, then went off the field crying and stayed out the rest of the game, crying his lungs out about wanting to go home.  In hindsight we probably should have fed him lunch right before his 11 o'clock game, and brought the sport umbrella so he and his teammates could get some respite from the sun.


Caleb:  He is LOVING everything about his life right now.  He went for his kindergarten screening 2 weeks ago and was so excited to meet his teacher.  Monday afternoon was his orientation where they let them get on a bus and explore the classroom while the parents were trapped in the cafeteria listening to the principal (who has been around for quite a while considering he was my principal when I was in 6th grade...a few too many years ago haha) The presentation wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't been going over the exact same information they had sent home for parents to read after his screening.  Good times....But Caleb is so in love with school.  The structure, routines, learning, clear cut rules, and interaction is everything he thrives on.  He was so excited Tuesday morning (his first day of school) that he was dressed and walking around with his backpack on by 8 am.  He was pretty disappointed that he didn't get on the bus until after lunchtime. When I asked him if he had learned anything new he said they are getting there, and when I asked if he'd made any new friends he responded "All of them!"
He is also enjoying his soccer team.  He really seems to be flourishing under the care and direction of his amazing coach (his awesome Granny) and couldn't wait for his first game Saturday.  He played the whole time he was supposed to, even though it was blazing hot, and was so happy to talk about it on his way home.  He got a chance to play goalie, which was the only time I got the opportunity to see him play since I was distracted by his little brothers, but I'm looking forward to his games this season.
He also loves how much time he's been getting to spend with Granny, Grandad, and his aunts and uncles.  It just makes my heart melt to see how much the love of a family can affect a child's confidence and skill level.  Granny has been helping him work on recognizing his numbers and he's picking it up so quickly.  He is really proud of the chess skills he has been picking up from Uncle CJ and loves getting to challenge his daddy to matches when Byron has a few minutes to play with the boys, and he's working on being a Christ-like friend to everyone at school.

Byron:  He is truly my hero this week.  He has taken over the bedtime routine, is managing to keep up with the never ending pile of dishes we generate, and has even been managing the laundry.  This week they were supposed to have a code release on Friday so he was working as much as he could to get everything ready for it.  Wednesday he stalled out a little bit because he couldn't figure out the problem with his model, but he had it working by the end of the day, and kept chugging along.  He felt bad squeezing in a few hours here at home in order to keep up with everything, but it ended up working out in our favor, so I think it was a good thing.  There were some problems with the code outside of the control of BerrieHill's team, so the code release was pushed back, which took a lot of pressure off Byron, but he was glad he still had done everything he could to be ready for it.

Well, my personal portion of the update is all pregnancy related and will be in a post to follow.  Enjoy the pictures!

David played maybe a total of 8 minutes in his game, but he really did try to run the ball and was doing really well!

Charlie and Caleb are on the same team this year!!!

Caleb gets a little distracted...also, the teams were both blue, so his team ended up playing in pennies, and the light blue player across from him had forgotten his uniform so he had gotten permission to wear an old one.

Caleb got to play goalie!

This is the picture where the little boy picked up the ball David had been racing toward the goal with!

Caleb at his orientation! His school mascot is the bulldog

LOVING his new chess shirt! And I've got a head start on establishing his nerd status.

All ready for school!

Such a handsome sweet boy.  My phone died while I was taking this so Auntie Brie helped me get the classic first day of school pictures.

He looked so tiny, and so grown up at the same time. I didn't think I would cry, but I almost did seeing him standing there!

David's Sunday birthday dinner with the family was so fun!

His birthday dinner at Granny's was special too. <3

He just loves blowing out candles

Ezekiel's Sunday nap consisted of some snuggle time with the twins this week. <3

Uncle CJ is always up for a game of chess

These boys sure love their crazy fun Aunt Sissa

Ezekiel has really taken to Ceasar, one of the foreign exchange students living with my parents.
He has a younger sister and is so great at playing with the boys!