Little Updates on the Kids

Here are a few snapshots (in words and pictures) of the things the kids have been doing lately.

Isaac joined the school Cross Country team when school started and has become quite a runner. The team includes kids in grades 6-9 so Isaac is one of the very youngest but he sure holds his own! He's been placing pretty high in meets and has been in the top three when racing against his own team in practices. The team went to Regionals last week then Isaac was chosen to be one of only 8 runners on his team to go to State this week. The team didn't place but they all did a great job and we're excited about Isaac's new-found talent and love of running.

"do a running pose."

 

at Regionals

At the recent school carnival, when I couldn't help with set up because I had to set up for a church party at the same time, I dropped Isaac off to help in my stead. When I arrived the moms there said Isaac had been super helpful with carrying everything and they'd assigned him to run the big bouncy slide along with two of his best friends from school. These three cute kids took tickets at the slide all evening and did a wonderful job helping all the scared little kids navigate that steep slide. It was fun to meet these kids that he hangs out a lot with at school.

Ashton is doing touch football for the second year and now that he really knows what he's doing, he's enjoying it a lot more this year and really progressing. It's been great to see him really step up and take a leadership role on his team, getting them into a huddle or lined up when it's time and encouraging others. 

see him there in the center?

Ashton's also been practicing on his new electric guitar a lot (but somewhat sporatically - got to work on that and find him a teacher...). He prides himself on having ridden his bike or roller blades to school every single school day so far. Sadly, his bike was stollen a couple weeks ago (learned a lesson the hard way - he'd gotten a little slack about locking up his bike in public places...) so he's down to just the roller blades now and he's amazing (and pretty scary to watch) on those roller blades!

Eliza LOVES her dance class and it brought tears to my eyes to see her dance her heart out at her recent performance. She just dances with all her heart and soul and at least to me, it's breathtaking. Sorry, I guess I was too busy enjoying to take any photos at her performance but here she is putting on her own little show in the back yard:

Here's Liza performing a Spanish dance with her school class at the school carnival:


She also loves coming up with plays with her dear friend Savannah. When Savannah comes over, they always come up with a very thoughtful and lovely play to present to me and anyone else who cares to watch.


The twins are super sad that our neighbors just gave away their dog who was Oliver and Silas's best buddy. But they're making new dog friends in the neighborhood and all is well. They have to pet every dog they see and they know the breed of just about any dog. Here they are saying goodbye to best-buddy Hobbs. The used to keep an eye out the window as they did their homework and when they'd see Hobbs heading out for a walk, they'd go flying out the back door yelling "Hobbs!" with glee and the three of them would have a lovely little reunion sometimes followed by the twins helping to take Hobbs on a walk. The neighbors were very patient with the twins' infatuation.

Ollie and Si have been loosing teeth like crazy. And our darn tooth fairy is really really slow. Oliver had one tooth under his pillow for like 2 months. Then he lost it. Then he lost another tooth and put that one under his pillow with a cute note that explained the loss of the previous tooth and requested that the tooth fairy see if she could use her "tooth powers" to find that other tooth and perhaps pay him for both teeth. The tooth fairy finally did show up (some excuse about being on the other side of the world and having an extra large number of kids loose teeth while there...) and gave him TWO $2 bills AND a 50 cent piece. He was pretty excited. Silas is right behind Oliver with the tooth loss and the tooth fairy has been slightly less negligent with Silas. They're so sweet and understanding with our silly tooth fairy.


Isaac has just started loosing his molars so maybe one of these days he'll have enough permanent molars to anchor some braces to so we can start working on his bunny teeth (he calls them "my buckers" with a big buck-toothed grin). All Eyre cousins who have permanent teeth have remarkably similar big big teeth as a special problem/bonding trait they share.

So handsome - buckers and all

As far as extracurriculars, Oliver and Silas are perfectly happy just hanging out with this cute little "gang" of neighborhood boys who are always coming up with imaginative games (that USUALLY don't involve anyone getting hurt), building forts, and working on the hole in the backyard where we've promised to put an in-ground trampoline when it's done (they've got a long ways to go but they seem to really enjoy the digging!). Here's what I saw as I drove into the driveway the other day:



And they were very excited about their recent performance with their class at the school carnival.

See Silas on the front row, second from the right?

See Oliver?
He's the guy in the middle with the way-too-big hat over his whole head. Oops.

On another note, we (mostly Jared) finally finished the huge back yard fence project. All our kids plus some great neighbor kids had a good time helping with the fence (some pickets aren't exactly straight but there's a lot of love and hard work in that fence).  Then w got a truckload of gravel to finish off the parking area by the fence and the neighborhood buddies pitched in again. It's looking good now (and we did finish staining the fence in case you're wondering about that two-tone look...)