finishing it up

this weekend ben had his final tournament
of the regular season

they played in roseville
they beat eagan, east ridge, and then finally woodbury
to win the championship!



now on to state

way to go boys!! 

 

snuggling ...

... with my sick boy :(

getting ready for spring

this week it is feeling like spring is around the corner
how crazy are we that temps in the upper 30's make it feel 'nice out'

naturally ...
this put the bug in everybody
to get the basketball court cleared off
and ready for use



2 snowblowers
4 shovelers
and
a little kosher salt out of my cupboard ;)

and we were ready for the sun to do it's job

WHICH IT DID!

yesterday the boys got home from school
and jumped right in

 

we are officially ready for spring

diggin through the archives

yesterday we had quite a bit of fun

going back and looking at some old videos

in keeping with the getting ready for disney theme

i am bringing back 2 of my favorites from our last trip to disney

first ...

alex telling us he's going to 'mickey mouse house'

to see 'mcdonald duck'

i can't get over how little he is

and how much i miss those little voices

and the funny things they say!!!

the 2nd video is with 

a friend we met at disney, named PUSH.

PUSH is a talking trash can.

really ... PUSH is a remote control trash can with a guy who follows him closely - but not too closely - and interacts with people in tomorrowland. it is SO clever and the kids all LOVE it. they have no idea who is controlling it and how PUSH is really hearing their answers.

i took a bunch of video of him talking to the boys, and then to stacey as well - but here is just a small clip :)

tournament champions!!

despite swimming and staying up late
ben played an excellent 3 games on sunday!

our first game was bright and early at 8 am against fairbault

 

 

ben looks like he's playing against a bunch of 6th graders!
BUT
we won!!

our next game was against mankato west

 

 

 

 

and we won again!
so we played owatonna for the championship

our team played SO well through all 3 games
ben made some nice rebounds

made an almost 3 point shot

made a few other nice shots
but the ref seemed to always get in my way

 

 thankfully he was a really nice guy
and did a great job!

it looked like ben was sweet talking him
but ben said the ref had just told him 'nice buckets!'

our team played fabulous defense

and of all the tournaments they have played

they deserved to win this one!

way to go blaine 4A

 

 

AND
way to go ben!!

  

we are so proud of you!

 

traveling basketball

this weekend was our out of town
overnight
basketball tournament

all of the blaine traveling teams from 4th-8th grade were there
and we were all in one hotel!
that means 90 rooms of blaine families in one hotel
be glad you weren't in any of the remaining ;)

we got placed on the 3rd floor
which ben thought was a great sign
because he is #3
and 3 is his favorite number

the hotel was a really nice setup for such a big group
there was a HUGE gathering/pool area

i took this picture in the afternoon
while a lot of the kids were still out playing
so it doesn't do justice to how busy or loud it was

but really ...
no picture would because even if you saw a full pool
you would be missing the masses of groups
roaming the halls
and playing 'hallway tag'

THANKFULLY
the hotel staff was great
and VERY patient!

because the 4th graders played all of their games on sunday
we spent the entire day saturday hanging out.
it was nice because
a lot of drew's friends play for the 6th grade teams
so he kept busy with them
while ben hung out with his team
and alex floated amongst them all
literally.

the boys swam A TON

 

 

they also spent a TON of time in the hot tub
which may have been a LITTLE over capacity

 

yuck ;)

all the while
we got to hang out with the parents
and it truly was a blast!

we finished up the night with pizza ranch

a little more swimming ...

and the boys finally crashed around 10:30 

i thought for sure they would be SO tired
and would NOT do so well waking up for the 8am game
BUT
our coach had said that fun was #1 on our list for the weekend
and basketball was 2nd
SO ...
after winning the 8am game
we let them back in the pool
for a little more swimming before being back on the court at 12

 

 

 

 

they ended up winning at 12 AND at 3
so obviously the lack of sleep and extra swimming didn't affect their basketball
BUT
it did affect our ride home.
it was complete silence

 

a PERFECT way to finish up the weekend
in my opinion ;)

we are the champions

* more pictures to come *

love from my littlest valentine

 

 

happy valentine's day!

this year our valentine's day consisted of a whole lot of
hearts, love, and sugar ;)

alex decided to make some kool valentines
we put a kool aid singles pack with a crazy straw



ben decided on giant pixy sticks

and
i decided to try an idea i found on pinterest.
once the boys were asleep i got to work
and in the morning they each woke up to a sign attached to a string

which led all over the house

 

and eventually ended up at a treat
where they also found a love letter from me
in which i wrote some of the many reasons why i love each of them

when stacey and i woke up
we found that drew had also made a scavenger hunt -
for us!
he sent us around the house
with the instructions to find each of the clues
and then text him the code from each.
once he got the correct answer he would give us our prize
SO ...
we followed the clues

and when we got to the end
he gave each of us a big valentine's hug :)

we followed our hunting with some quick pink heart pancakes

i spent the afternoon making some heart cookies

ben's class got to go bowling

alex's class had valentine activities all day long

and
drew ended his school day with a cowboy themed after school party/dance

following basketball practice
we ended our night with a fun dinner
and an easy dessert idea
twinkies cut and shaped to look like a heart
this is not a picture of ours by the way -
but i wanted to show you how cute they are

it was super easy
and the kids loved it!

a busy day
and despite all of the sugar
the kids crashed instantly!
happy valentines day to us!