Dancing Into Summer

The first Sunday of summer, Addie had her last dance competition of the season in Lake Tahoe. They did better than expected with their Jetset routine winning high score in their division. It was the best way to end her first year on competition team! We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring South Tahoe and grabbing dinner before heading back to Reno to pick up the brothers.

The second Sunday was a dance-filled 12 hour day in Carson City for he studio’s year-end showcase. This was her 6th time performing in a recital. I can’t even describe how much I love watching her on stage. I’m so glad in this family full of brothers, she chose to love this ultra-girly activity. It’s the best mom-daughter bonding time and I simply cherish these dance days I get to spend with her.

Now that dance is over, we can officially enjoy and embrace summer. Video games and pool time are fine by me! So, in case I go another three months without an update, this is where we’ll be…

A & B Last Days

The first week in June, Addie & Beckett had their last days! Addie’s moving on up to third grade (!) and with careful consideration, Beckett’s going to give first grade one more shot next year. Look out for first grade, take 2 coming up this fall! This was super tough year, though both had completely awesome teachers and some of the best friends. Our school lost our principal, Beckett lost an aide, it was just too much transition to handle.

Beckett had the cutest awards ceremony a couple days before the last day. He won an award for being a ray of sunshine in his class. His friends started cheering and chanting his name and he smiled bigger than I’ve ever seen. I cried. Not surprising! It was beautiful! My biggest hesitation about holding him back was the amazing bond he’s made with his classmates. But, big things are coming and the foundational learning in 1st grade is so important. Plus, he’ll get to continue on with his phenomenal teacher who is so in tune with his educational needs. We’re praying for a better year to come!

Coen and Holden got to enjoy one final park day between pick ups. We’ve sure enjoyed our little half-hour outings when we find ourselves with a little time to kill.

We ended the day with a campout with Caleb and Josie. No better way to close out a school year!

And while these pictures don’t really fit this post, I only have one more to go before we’re all caught up and these boys are just the cutest…playing at Coen’s 5-year well check, and FINALLY willing to potty train! Wish us luck! **Edited to add that we’ve only had one successful pee in the potty but this morning (June 25) Holden had a poop in the potty!! You better believe he got the biggest Mickey sticker in the book for that one!

Bring On Kindergarten!

Coen is officially a preschool graduate! He had a darling celebration at his school with the most precious songs and the cap and gowns were just too cute for words. He wants to be a firefighter when he grows up (though the day before when making his birthday poster, he told me scientist, so I guess it’s still up in the air!).

We celebrated by ditching school the next day and playing at the hot springs with some of our favorite friends. And getting nasty sunburns. Don’t be fooled by the overcast weather! Coen was miserable all weekend!

The following Friday was his official last day. I took him for a donut cake pop from Starbucks after school for a “last-day” treat! Watch out kindergarten, he’s coming for you!

Mother’s Day, Piano Recital, and Volunteer Awards Night

Coen’s preschool had a super cute Mother’s Day brunch. Of course, Holden tagged along and I got to spend a morning with these two precious faces.

On Mother’s Day, our church had the most gorgeous photo backdrop ever…I may have been the driving force behind the design, so pardon the humble brag. I just love these kiddos with every ounce of my being! I truly can’t remember what we did to celebrate. I think we went to lunch with my mom and Vic. I’m sure it was fun! With so many events and lack of sleep, the days all blend together 🙂

Addie had another terrific piano recital. It was movie-themed. She played A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman. This girl is so incredibly talented. I can hardly believe she’s mine! I truly love watching her gifts unfold. And she loves every second of it!

The next night (can you see why it’s hard to keep track!!), we had our Night at the Oscars volunteer awards party at church. It was a completely staff-run event, so tons of work and the most fun night ever! I love a good excuse to get dressed up! I have the most fun co-workers and our church is filled to the brim with awesome volunteers. It was an amazing night to honor and thank them for all they’ve done this year.

Spring Activities

Spring weather is simply the best! In May, we had some great days spent outside soaking in the sunshine after a long, cold winter. Our church had another day of service cleaning up and planting flowers by the river. We showed up pretty late thanks to a late night prior spent celebrating the launch of our Pastor’s first book (how cool is that?!), but the kids helped a little and I managed to get a few pictures of the group that was left.

Coen started another season of baseball and Addie and Beckett got back to horse lessons. Baseball has ended but horses continues until October! Fun times!!

Birthday Boys!

Holden’s 3rd birthday fell on Easter. It wasn’t ideal, as it was already a packed day, but we managed to squeeze in presents and cake. I’m pretty sure I threw this poster together that afternoon. Being proactive is not my jam these days! But dang, if he’s not the cutest little three-year-old I’ve ever seen!!!

And, of course, no Gibson kid’s birthday is complete without the “last” picture…the last time ever I’ll have a two-year-old…

When it came to party planning, my friend Brittany and I had one free day to plan parties, so the only possible solution was to combo them up. She’d already planned a “How to Train Your Dragon” party for Josie, so we just hopped on in and had a Gibson Boy/Josie birthday bash. It all felt very last minute, as the weeks leading up to it were already packed, but the kids had so much fun hunting for eggs, dragon racing, and devouring a gorgeous cake by the amazingly talented Kimberly Dixon!

About a week later, we celebrated Coen’s actual 5th birthday, starting with dinner and video games at Lamppost Pizza. Earlier that week, we were displaced from our house thanks to a burst pipe in our crawl space, so we got to celebrate his official day at a hotel! The kids thought it was awesome and got chocolate muffins for breakfast every morning. What’s not to love?? So here we are, a three and a five year old. These years are just flying by!

Easter!!!

Oh, how I love holidays! Working for a church, Easter has become second only to Christmas. It used to be Thanksgiving, because who doesn’t love food, but can’t fight the amazing celebration Easter brings! This year, our church filled more than 10,000 eggs for what is easily my favorite community event, our Eggstravaganza! It’s an egg hunt-meets-color run and is just pure messy joy! The kids love it and walk away with a bag full of goodies and hair full of chalk dust. It’s awesome!

We spent an evening with friends coloring eggs, and fun Saturday at Seema’s for our annual friends’ egg hunt and brunch. It’s always so fun to see these kiddos together year after year and to spend time with some of my favorite people on earth.

Easter morning, the kids tore through their baskets before we headed to church for what felt like the entire day! We had a unique service this year featuring a musical to show God’s love through everyday music. It was incredible and so uplifting. And, though I really played no role in the day, it was completely exhausting!

New Beds, Braces, and a Birthday

I can’t let a milestone go undocumented! In April, Holden officially transitioned out of his crib and into a “big boy bed”. Really, it’s just a mattress under Coen’s new bed (handed down from Addie who upgraded). I feel it’s quite fitting for a fourth child to just get a mattress on the floor under someone else’s bed, right? Especially considering this boy has never had a pretty nursery like the rest of the kids thanks to hellish wallpaper in his room. I promise to pay for his counseling when all of this sinks in. Though, to be fair, he is the only one of the 4 to get to stay with me all day every day instead of going to daycare, so he’s surely gotten more snuggles than all the rest combined.

Our favorite little friend from Coen’s daycare days, Maya, had a super fun birthday at Coconut Bowl. Coen and Holden had a blast climbing through tubes and sliding down the ginormous play structure. I lost them for most of the party, but still left with three kids in my car. Don’t worry, Addie wasn’t with us. I didn’t mistakenly leave someone behind!

In other exciting news, Addie had a consult to get braces!!!! She’s stoked and can’t wait until she gets back from Girl Scout camp in July to get the process started. She’ll enter 3rd grade as a brace-face! This is phase 1 with a high potential of a second phase when she gets older, but her mouth is just too narrow right now to fit all those big, beautiful grown-up teeth coming in.

Spring Break

Yes, I realize it’s officially summer. But…you know me and keeping up with this blog. So, backing it way up to Spring break, we didn’t plan much as school breaks usually call for catching up on kid’s appointments. This year was no different with all 4 scheduled for a teeth cleaning. Always a fun time!

Then we headed over to EDH for a few rainy days to play with cousins and meet the new okapis at the Sac Zoo. I can’t remember where my obsession with okapis came from but once I saw that email that they were coming, I was sold on getting a membership so we can visit more often. They’re fascinating little creatures who look like half giraffe, half zebra. I’m definitely more into them than my children. Their favorites were the crazy little meerkats running along the glass of their enclosure. The energy of these animals somehow rivals that of my children. It’s exhausting and amazing!

And it’s so hard to leave the zoo without a stop at Fairytale Town for slides and climbing. Needless to say, there were four sleepy children on the drive back to Nana & Poppy’s house. 

Dance Competition, Girl Scouts, and Just Random Fun

This is our friend Caleb. Caleb says when he and Addie are older, they’re going to get married. I asked him why he thought that and he said, ” because I do everything she says.” Smart boy!

Backing waaaay up to January, this picture is from a birthday lunch for our friend Brittany. She didn’t want her birthday treat, so Caleb and Addie decided to take care of that. Ignore the paint all over her arm. We were fixing up the kids’ bathroom finally. Two months later and it’s still not done, but the cabinets are now turquoise.

In February, Addie had her first dance competition. She’s performing in two group numbers. It’s pretty awesome! At the first competition, Encore, her routines scored in the top level and the second highest level. They won highest score overall for their category. They just had their second competition, Spotlight, last weekend. They scored in the second highest level for both dances. One more competition to go in June. She’s loving it and her jacket is all fancy now with pins and bling!!

We spent an evening with our church group making Valentines for refugees at the Northern Nevada International Center. We made more than 30 Valentines and our friend Lauren took them to the families who have been resettled here.

My sweet little Valentines had tons of fun at their school parties. Amazingly, they just wanted to use the same Valentines as last year, so Addie gave out ring pops, and Coen and Beckett just swapped themes. Coen gave out dinosaurs and Beckett gave out super hero masks. And with all their loot, our candy bowls that were down to the last few Halloween goodies have been refilled. We should be square until Easter! Coen stayed up late with me one night and picked out everyone’s Valentine shirts from Zulily. His shirt says “I chews you”. So weird!!!

February also launched Girl Scout cookies season! This is Addie’s first year selling cookies. Thanks to all who purchased from her. She set her goal super high at 25 boxes. Between her online store and hustling all the church people, she sold 65 in presales alone! She’s now at 190 of her own sales, and still has the totals from a cookie booth to add into that. She should be past 200 boxes. She’s super stoked to get a pocket knife as her prize 🙂

She also participated in the Girl Scouts World Thinking Day. A bunch of troops from the area get together and each troop chooses a different country to represent. They present a dance or game, dress up, and serve food from their respective countries. It was a pretty cool event and fun to get together with girls from other troops in our area.

The winter that wouldn’t end brought an icicle the size of Addie hanging from our roof…the kids performed in another super cute youth ensemble performance at church with the theme of “love”…the winter sickies finally hit our house giving us a week of randomly puking brothers and a stuffy Addie for about 5 days…Beckett lost his other front tooth…and we finally had some lazy days at home with nothing to do, yay!

After a terrible ski lesson amidst a blizzard, Addie rounded out her ski season with a gorgeous bluebird day. She loved it and improved so much in just 5 weeks. Her coach said she needs to work on keeping her weight forward on her skis and connecting her turns. He was so proud of her progress!

Addie’s piano teacher (the very talented Brittany!) had a master class last week where all the students get together and play games to build relationships and share their knowledge. Addie has never wanted to participate in these before. I don’t know why because all the kids are her friends. Anyway, she was willing to give it a try and had a great time. The next recital (May 17) is going to be songs from movies. I’m so excited for what Addie’s going to play!

This past Friday, the kids went to a circus party at church for youth ensemble. Coen was the strongest man in the world and Addie dressed up as a trapeze artist. Coen wanted nothing to do with his costume but entertained me for just one picture. Isn’t he the cutest though! They ate hot dogs, popcorn, and snow cones and played games. They were super bummed when it was over.

And now we have a giant barbell sitting on our mantle. So fun! I’ll try to update again soon to avoid long, rambling posts! This is really not my style 🙂 Baseball is starting back up for Coen, spring break is coming up in a couple weeks, then Holden’s 3rd birthday and Easter! This year is flying already!