Well, that was abnormally fast.
March is already over.
It was a whirlwind month full of school and PTA events, along with a dose of normal life and activities.
Both kids are still swimming every Sunday.
Katie's art teacher injured herself and so Katie's afterschool art class has been cancelled for now.
Mikey started an afterschool coding class, which he loves, and at the end of the month they both started an afterschool art program hosted at their elementary school.
Let's roll into March then, shall we?
The first PTA event of the month was Family Bingo Night.
Katie was excited to see her friends....
Katie abandoned Mikey and Me to sit with her friends family.
That is the truth.
Such is the way it goes.
Mikey hung out in front with me as I kept track of the bingo numbers and letters that were called on the handy Bingo Caller App Huzbend created a few years back.
Mikey was in heaven.
He essentially got a whole large pizza to himself.
And he followed that up with a snow cone.
Out of the three of us (Huzbend was off playing for our co-ed soccer team), we only won one prize.
A RC mini-helicopter.
Which surprisingly, has lasted the entire month without breaking!
The day after Bingo Night, it was time for Emerald City Comicon.
Of course, we HAD to dress up.
Here's Goku layin' down a little Kamehameha wave....
And an evil Dragon Princess.
Huzbend went as Jackie Chun/Master Roshi and I decided to try to match Katie as an evil Dragon Queen.
In character.....
We met this spiffy little R2 unit while waiting in line to enter the show floor.
Can't beat a photo op that has Totoro in it.
I'm so proud that my kids know Totoro.
Yay for anime nerds!
Katie got to hug a whole bunch of mer-kitten (mermaid/kitten) stuffies.
The 501st always has a presence at the Con.
Their room was awesome this year with lots of photo ops and fun things for the kids to do - for a small donation to Seattle Children's, of course.
He was speeding so fast his eyes were closed....
WATCH OUT FOR THAT EWOK!
These light sabers were the bomb.
One of my favorite pictures.
My ultimate favorite graces the front page of this blog....
"It's no good! I can't maneuver!"
"Stay on target."
The best.
Blast-a-Trooper.
Mikey LOVES this.
Shooting Nerf guns at Star Wars Bad guys.
And if you're like Mikey, you take those head shots so the darts can stick to their helmets.
Katie could not resist the Ewoks.
Nor could she resist staring down Lego Wonder Woman.
Am I right in assuming that Mikey is siding with the Death Trooper against me?
Hmmmmmm.
Katie is just THE coolest.
Whenever she saw someone in a costume that she really liked she would go up to them and tell them, "I really like your costume!"
Here she is visiting with Queenie from Fantastic Beasts.
(Her costume WAS pretty awesome)
THIS is why the kids like to come to Comicon.
Forget the costumes, the cool merch, the booths full of comic/video game/fantasy goodness.
It's all about the Free Build Lego Station.
I think we spent, like, an hour here?
Not sure.
Guess it was good to rest the feet.
We invited some friends to come along with us.
The spent a chunk of their time getting a photo taken with Stan Lee.
YES. THAT Stan Lee.
But we did walk around a bit with them.
And they weren't embarrassed to be seen with us.
(At least I don't THINK they were.....)
I think this was one of my favorite moments of the day.
Lego Batman ran over and challenged Goku to a throw down.
They've got everything at Comicon.
Even vintage pinball machines and arcade games that are free.
Only at comicon.
It got more and more crowded as the day went along and we decided to call it.
Saw lots of cool costumes and bought waaaaay too much stuff.
The day after that, Katie and a friend (along with me and the friends mom) attended a class for tweens about puberty.
Katie had this to say about the class, "It was mostly stuff I already knew."
Yay for us parents. Good to know we're not completely failing at our mom and dad jobs.
Next up for Katie was 5th Grade Camp.
Each year, in our school district, the 5th graders get to go to a 3-day/2-night outdoor education camp.
We were the second set of schools to go this year.
It was cold, rainy and VERY muddy.
But, with the appropriate amount of layers and water proof hiking boots, it was all good.
Katie's groups second class was shelter building.
They had to split into two teams.
So, of course, it was boys vs. girls.
At the end of the building period, the kids teacher would test out their shelters in various ways.
One such test was to see if it would keep them dry.
The kids had to be IN the shelter for this test.
12 girls fit in this shelter.
It was impressive watching them all climb out.
Like a clown car.......
Katie had a great time.
This was one of her favorite classes.
Three meals and snacks were provided for all the kids each day.
Although they did have gluten free options (and did not use nuts in their kitchens), they could not guarantee that cross contamination wouldn't take place.
So, I opted to make Katie's meals myself.
The kitchen was very accommodating and let me stash things in their fridge and freezer.
Here was my set-up.
I must say, making the meals (mostly using the rice cooker and microwave) wasn't that bad.
I thought it was going to be a lot more time consuming and frustrating.
The meals were served family style and the kids got assigned random tables to sit at so they wouldn't just hang out with friends the whole time.
The first evenings entertainment started with skit practice.
Then, it was story-time.
(Katie's teacher scared the crap outta the kids while wearing a bear skin. Hilarious).
Then some s'mores.
(Yep, I brought g.f. s'mores supplies for Katie).
This is what happens when you give 5th graders s'mores.....
They become very smiley too.
And after they were all jacked up on s'mores, a rowdy indoor (it was raining and cold) campfire sing-a-long.
Here's Katie with three of her school friends (to the left of her) and four girls from the other school we were partnered with (to the right).
The next day was spent in all sorts of classes.
Like, fire building.
There was a friendly competition between the volunteer moms and dads to see who's group would make the best fire.
Our group did not succeed.
There was a friggin' puddle next to our fire ring.
Katie was not impressed with our efforts.
For the record, a dad was the first to get his groups fire burning.
But, it was a mom who's group ended up building the biggest fire using a paper coffee cup that she had been carrying around from breakfast that morning.
There was rock climbing too.
Forestry!
They put those kids to work, I tell ya.
One task was to transport a giant log.
They had to walk around that big tree in the back there.
It looked heavy, but they managed it.
They only stopped once.
More saws.
Katie ended up doing this for a quite a while.
She and the other kid had a nice rhythm going.
Their last class was archery.
Katie loves archery.
This mom does too.
The instructor here was nice and let the parents give it a go since it was the last class.
The entertainment that night were skits the kids had been working on.
Our cabin bounced from a super complicated Broadway show type skit to this short little vignette about trees.
They didn't practice the thing at all.
When it came time to actually do the skit, almost all of them cried "Stage Fright" and didn't want to go on with it.
Katie and her friend led them on stage and wouldn't let them back out.
Although the skit was silly and didn't make much sense, Katie helped lead their team and I was proud of them.
Before bed hair braiding.
Cute.
It was really hard to get the girls to settle down.
Katie's friends were all ready to go to sleep but the girls from the other school were not.
They made me use my "Mom Voice" to get them to shut up.
Bummer.
Annnnd, that night, my co-cabin mom got the flu.
I felt really bad for her. Camp is NOT a place you want to be sick.
This is Katie the next morning.
Sooooo, tired.
After breakfast, the kids did a camp-wide scavenger hunt.
After that, they competed in "Whacky Olympics".
Most of the events were balancing/racing events.
The team with the most laps completed won.
Camp was tiring, but a lot of fun.
I wish that we had had something like that when we were kids.
It was nice to go away with Katie and her friends for a few days and step away from normal life.
The only thing I had to focus on was the kids.
I really liked it.
These next pictures I just put here because they're funny.
Katie hates to brush her hair.
She wakes up most days and just goes with whatever her hair happens to be doing.
As she's gotten older and her hair has grown out, it's curly at the ends.
So, here's a before brushing shot......
.....and after.
Katie had an orthodontic appointment when we got back from camp. They informed her that she didn't have to wear her retainer during the day anymore. Just at night.
She was super happy.
This is Katie keeping kids at her elementary school safe as a part of The Safety Patrol.
She helps kids being dropped off in the morning get out of their cars.
The next PTA event was a Family Dance held on St. Patrick's Day.
There was lots of green and yellow glow sticks, loud music and kids running around screaming.
Not very much dancing went on.
Meh.
Our dishwasher broke and I had to start doing dishes old-school.
It's very overrated.
Next event, Roller Skating Night!
We started off the evening all on inline skates.
After one circuit, Mikey didn't like them and so he switched to four-wheelers.
Here's some videos of the roller craziness:
Oh no! The month wasn't over yet!
Katie had an IV infusion. This time the IV team (vein finding specialists) was on call for her and they hit her vein first poke.
There was much relief.
Yay!
I also got a call from our insurance company saying that they would no longer pay for Katie to get her IV infusions at the hospital and that she had to start having them at HOME.
Boo!
Yes. They have home infusion services.
Not too happy about that due to her pesky veins.
We have to speak with her GI doctor and we can appeal the decision if we'd like.
We'll keep everyone in the loop.
The last PTA event of the month was Exploring Science Night.
A night of hands-on science experiments.
Catapults, trebuchets, 3D Doodlers, microscopes, lasers, engineering puzzles, Snap Circuits, paper airplanes and, the hit of the night, Mentos/Soda Bottle geysers (one even hit the gym ceiling).
April brings with it Spring Break and a more relaxed month with not so many events and activities.
We're also hoping that April brings with it just a little sunshine.
Just a little. That's all we ask.
