Wednesday, May 13

We're still here!

It's been a while, so excuse the length. Grab a cup of coffee or glass of wine, sit back and enjoy catching up with us. :)

Wow, I can't believe my last post was the first day of school! I'm really hoping to get better at this, because I want to give you all updates, but also be able to print out my blog for us. I'm not so good with scrapbooking. :) We've had a great year, and although I could go back to the beginning of it, I'm only going back to Spring.

We'll start with Nate's birthday. It was the big 1-0 and we've known for a while now that we would take him to Spring training in Phoenix to watch the Mariners. We're MLB.com subscribers so are able to keep up. We know them much more than the Rockies. He loved it...really can't get enough baseball. In fact, Nate has a practice game this Saturday before his season starts (it's training for umpires) and may also fill in to play 2 other games for a 12U team (he's 10U). Three games after a flag football championship game in the morning. This kid is a bit of an animal!
Yes, it was very hard for Sam to go on this trip with him. I had to practically push him out the door. :)


Got some throwing in...


He got a lot of signatures. This was a happy kid after getting Nelson Cruz's!


While Nate was away, Mac had a tryout with Group Publishing. They make the vacation bible school music videos. He did great! He gets called right before the video shoot if they need him, so not sure what he'll do. Keep an eye on next Summer's VBS videos (Summer 2016)...he just may be in one!


We did some Spring skiing. I may have to go back to winter to get some more ski pictures. Nate moved to snowboarding this year and has gotten it down. Mac stuck with skiing and got to ski free this year. 5th graders ski free and get an ID with the resorts that get punched when you ski. I think he had the goal to ski at every one! He's a bomber on skis and was bummed to be done with skiing for the season.


Mac earned his "Arrow of Light" award with cub scouts! He is all finished and has moved on to boy scouts. He also got the Webelos Super Achiever award for doing all 20 activities in his book. It's pretty crazy to seem him all done. He started in first grade. This picture with Papa Monte was when he was in second grade.



Mac crossed over from cub scouts to boy scouts. He actually attended his first boy scout meeting this night, right after his final cub scout meeting. I'm excited for him! He loves the outdoors and there is A LOT of camping with this new troop! He's already worked on an archery merit badge and will attend boy scout camp for a week in NE this June. He actually just passed a swim test, 75 yards continuous swimming, 25 yards backstroke so that he could take swimming, canoeing and SUPing this summer at camp. Swimming will go towards his Eagle scout award. Not many boys actually finish and get there eagle award, but I'm hoping Mac can do it. He's shooting for that!


Yours truly on Easter. Quite the colorful bunch we were!


We took a road trip to SD with Grandma and Papa!


We hit Mount Rushmore, Reptile Gardens (Elly is our kid who still picks up snakes, but is mortified of spiders!), Bear Country USA, Cosmos (crazy place where you can't stand up straight, Grandma's all crooked in the picture), Wind Caves and Custer State Park. It was a great trip. We seemed to hit everything at the right time and the kids were old enough to enjoy it. :) Papa was a real trooper hanging with us. He had a stomach bug contracted from his sweet grand-daughter :(.


Mac was in a virtual concert through school. The City of Fort Collins has a friendship with a city in Mexico and they decided to do a virtual concert with a marimba band in Mexico, a jazz band from a middle school here and then our elementary school. Our school has an amazing music program. So glad Mac gets to be a part of it!


He just finished his last year of guitar, making it through beginning, intermediate and now advanced. He took guitar before or after school with his music teacher for the past 3 years. I hope he keeps up with it now that he won'd have any more classes. He's hoping to play the trumpet in middle school. Guitar isn't an option right now.


The boys competed in the 4th/5th grade city-wide track meet. Kids qualify through their PE programs, then compete against all the other elementary schools in the city. Here is Mac running the 1600. That's a mile...ran quickly! He finished just over 7.5 minutes. He didn't place, but isn't that fast?! He's planning on running cross country in the Fall in middle school.


He also did the softball throw. He actually was absent the day they tried this and was pretty frustrated this was his event..but he had a great attitude once he got over the fact he was doing it. I gave him the choice since baseball, and thus throwing a softball isn't his sport. He decided he wanted to be part of the track events and did it. He did just fine. He said the hardest part was staying in the ring!


Nate was all running events. He ran the 800, 200, 100 and shuttle relay.


As you can see, he placed 3rd in the 200. He also placed 9th overall in the 800 and we're not sure how he ended up in the 100. He's a fast kid! He told me about a year ago that he thought he was fast because he was little. He said since he was smaller than most kids he had less weight to carry. Not sure if that's still his reasoning.



This is Nate as the anchor on his school's shuttle relay team. This is a fun event the school district does. All the kids get excited for it as it's the only elementary track meet they do. It gets kids excited for middle school track!


And finally...we had a birthday yesterday! I think Elly gets the most excited for her birthday. She had the countdown going! Sam went and had lunch with her at school for her birthday. She was also a Bauder buck winner, so got to wear this t-shirt all week. Kids get Bauder bucks when they're caught doing something good and then their name goes in a drawing to wear the shirt.


Other snippets of her birthday. Her big present was a bike as she had outgrown her old one. This one has hand brakes, so we'll be doing A LOT of practicing! She got some good time on it yesterday. Her party is actually this Sunday, so we'll have more pictures later.

Well that's it from the Eli Crew for now. Hopefully you'll be hearing from me more frequently!

Tuesday, August 19

First Day of School 2014

The Summer has come to an end... The kids have mixed feelings, excited to see friends, but could have used another month of Summer. :) Here they are!

The last year they will all be at Bauder Elementary. Mac is the ruler of the school in 5th grade. :) Nate is a 4th grader and Elizabeth a first grader. Elly has decided she wants to go by Elizabeth in 1st grade. Although she still does not have it perfected, so after writing it a few times, I'm guessing she'll be back to Elly. :)

As they are getting on the bus this year, Mac has dreams of being a veterinarian or actor, Nate a professional baseball player (because football players have a better chance of getting hurt...so glad he has that figured out:)) and Elly a nurse that takes care of babies. Oh the places they'll go...

Saturday, April 26

A Sunny Saturday

Spring sports have begun! Again Nate is playing flag football and Mac is playing soccer. And again, Elly has not had the option to play.:) She would like to play soccer, but as her brothers weren't playing when they were 5, we decided to not add to our crazy schedule. Fortunately with Nate's games, she has two other little sisters to run around with. Here's some pics from today.

Here's some pictures of Nate on defense. I forgot I had my camera for the first half of the game, which is when he played offense. He did catch and run the ball for a touchdown though!


We were able to hit the park afterwards to play with some friends. This little one with Elly is a little sister to a boy in her kindergarten class. She loves Mel!


Later we headed to Mac's soccer game. You can see the weather heading in! It was beautiful all morning, but the weather man is calling for possible snow tomorrow. I hope not! In the first couple pics Mac is playing defense.


He then got to play goalie. I was a bit nervous watching him play there, being the last line of defense, but he did great as you'll see from some of his smiles. He stopped all but one...which was a great shot. Even getting a congrats at the end from a buddy.


Can you believe how big they're getting?! Nate still kind of looks small on the football field, but he is, and his team is mainly 3rd graders playing 4th graders. They're a good team, although they're definitely being challenged this season. Nate's learning that you don't always win and we've had lots of talks about still having a good attitude and being an encouraging teammate. He's an intense one! Mac's been fun to watch this season. He's getting more aggressive and persistant with his playing. HE looks big on the soccer field! I really can't believe how big he is these days! He's busting out of his size 10 jeans and stealing my flip flops. It's crazy...

Friday, November 22

Fall Happenings

It may still be Fall, but it's feeling like the middle of Winter today! Here's some pics before the snow settled in...

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Happy Birthday Sam!

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Kid's annual walk-a-thon! The kids ran great! Nate actually won a season's registration to play hockey this Winter...so we'll be doing that come January.

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Mac running!

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I ran with Elly...sort of! She wanted me to run with her, but took off right out of the gates! I was bobbing and weaving around kindergarteners and finally gave up! Caught her on the next lap!

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Some farmers visited...I mean Grandma and Papa!

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We went to pumpkin patch and the kids ran on top of a hay maze...

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Did a real corn maze...

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...and found some pumpkins.


Nate played flag football. His team did awesome...playing 8 games in one week for the playoffs. They lost and the beginning and had to fight their way through the loser's bracket. Ended up losing in the championship game in triple overtime.

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Going for the pick!


Since Nate didn't get a good photo in the last post. We may have to limit this kid on times he can be football player for Halloween. He did make a mean Clay Matthews though...


Even redid his commercial...

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The kids have gone to a couple CSU football games. We signed them up for the Junior Ram's Club this year. For $40, they get into all football, volleyball and basketball games free. Being 5 minutes from the university, seemed to make sense. This game they got to go on the field and high five the players as they ran on after half-time.

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Elly got a pic with Cam the Ram.

And finally the big 1-0 birthday. We decided to make this a big event and used miles to get Sam and Mac to Hollywood. Mac had no idea... They went to the beach, Universal Studios, Santa Monica pier and more beach. Mac loves the outdoors...particularly the beach, but also loves big productions. He gets the big picture, so we thought universal studios would be up his alley. It was! Happy Birthday Mac!
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