Sean Sooy, Basketball Star!

This past winter, we signed Sean up for a Kindergarten-1st grade recreational basketball league!  Practices started in December and Seany learned how to dribble, pivot, and pass:

He had his first game in January.  Since all the boys in the league were given the same orange t-shirt, some weeks Sean's team would wear white t-shirts.  During games, Sean would get a turn to play each position and he seemed to like to play defense best - he even got a few steals during the course of the season :-)

Before we knew it, the middle of the season arrived and it was time for team pictures:

More pictures of Sean in action:

At the end of every game, the teams would high-five.

After the last game, the boys lined up and listened to a short speech from the coach before being presented with their very own Championship Trophies!!

First Day of Spring

We started the first day of Spring 2015 by pulling on snowpants and playing outside in the newly fallen snow:

The kids went down the snow slide again and again and again.

Later, I took Sean to a birthday party at an indoor fun place with a skating rink, arcade, bouncy house, and an insane jungle gym.  Sean gave roller skating a try - we went around the rink one time before he decided he wanted to go over to the jungle gym with his friends.

We played a couple of games of air hockey, too :-)

After the party, Sean and I came back home to Clare and Daddy.  The four of us went for a walk to soak up some of the warm sun.  When we got back, the kids wanted to ride the bikes, so we got out their bikes and rode down to the little waterfall and enjoyed the sun setting down on the first day of Spring!

To Catch a Leprechaun

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, Sean's teacher assigned an optional project - a leprechaun trap!  I asked Sean if he wanted to make one and he said yes! After we brainstormed together and I searched the Internet for ideas, we decided on a design. The design was also influenced by a tip from Sean's grandpa that leprechauns are not very good climbers unless they have a ladder :-)  Essentially, we'd lure a leprechaun with pennies as bait to the trap and up a ladder leading the leprechaun to the top of a tall oatmeal tub, and then the leprechaun would fall in and be stuck!

With Clare helping, we started with an empty oatmeal tub and began to paint it green...

...and then we took a short break for some drama over who got to use the purple paintbrush (hint: it wasn't Clare):

That didn't last too long and soon we were all calm and painting the tub green together :-)  Once it was painted, we set it aside to dry and focused our attention on the bait - shiny pennies!  But we didn't have any pennies that were super-shiny, so we took a little science break to shine up our pennies.  First, we made a solution of white vinegar and salt.

Next, we soaked 4 or 5 pennies at a time for about 10 seconds.  

Then, we rinsed the pennies in water.  

And finally, we dried them off and polished them until they shined bright enough to attract leprechauns.

After this, the kids messed around with the water for awhile before lunch and nap.  After nap, I took Clare to the craft store for some more decorations for the trap.

Later that evening, Sean started on the ladder...

...and the next morning, we got busy decorating the trap and setting the bait.

We added a rainbow for a bit of insurance that the leprechaun would follow the trail of pennies up the ladder to the rainbow.

And in case the leprechaun should approach the trap from the back, Sean wrote out a sign:

Finally! The trap is complete and ready for Sean to take to school on Monday.  On Tuesday afternoon, he told me that his trap caught not one but TWO leprechauns!  He was so pleased!

 And a picture of our little cuties ready for school (and parties) on St. Patrick's Day:

100 Days

Seany has his 100th day of school on Tuesday (if it doesn't snow, that is).  To celebrate, he and his classmates were assigned their very first school project to do: find 100 of something and present it in a creative way.  Sean thought and thought about what to bring - make a lego ship with 100 pieces?   A necklace made of 100 pieces of macaroni?  A shirt with 100 buttons on it?  Then Sean looked over at the kitchen counter and saw the bucket in which we keep his collection of applesauce caps!  He figured there must be 100 caps and he was right - the bucket had over 100 caps in it!  

Once it was time to make the poster, we dumped the caps out onto the floor and Sean sorted the caps by color and shape...

Then, he counted out 100 caps by making ten rows of ten...

Meanwhile, Clare cut pictures out of magazines - one of her favorite pastimes while Sean is doing schoolwork...

 

After sorting and counting the caps, it was time to glue them onto a piece of poster paper.  I thought Sean was going to glue them in their ten rows of ten, but then Sean suggested making the number 100 out of the 100 caps - brilliant!  So we got busy gluing and arranging the caps.  Once that was done we painted with a little glitter glue to make the poster snazzy and then it was done!

Sock Snowman

Sean's school held another holiday craft contest - a sock snowman contest! Of course, the Sooys entered - we love being crafty :-)  Sean wanted a superhero snowman and I thought Superman would be pretty easy to do although looking back, I think a tiny Batman mask on a snowman would have been pretty cute.

First, we gathered our materials:  a (brand new) white tube sock, a big bag of rice, rubber bands, different colored scraps of felt, buttons, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, and our trusty little hot glue gun.

The Sooy kids took turns scooping rice into the sock while Mommy held the top of the sock open (this was hard work because it turned out I picked up a pair of compression/support socks - wow, my arms were tired the next day!):

After filling the sock a little over 2/3 full, Mommy tied off the bottom portion with a rubber band.  And then the kids scooped some more rice into the sock and Mommy tied that portion off to make the middle.

For the top, we stuffed the sock with cotton balls until we were happy with shape of the snowman's head.

Then we got busy decorating - Mommy traced out shapes for the cape and the Superman emblem and Sean cut them out.  Clare added the pipe cleaner arms.

And then Clare took a picture:

Sean and Clare picked out buttons to use the eyes, nose, and mouth, Then Sean cut up little strips of black felt for the hair.  And then Sean cut up red felt to make his little boots :-)

After everything had been hot glued into place (and then hot glued again to ensure the snowman could handle a bus ride while stuffed into Sean's backpack), the kids were proud to show off their creation:  Super-Snowman!