Tax Day Tea Party Has Come and Gone...

WHEW! Taxes done, in my usual form--at the last minute. It was quite a busy day today! Ty had a parent meeting tonight for summer basketball, then open gym. I went to the tax day tea party at the river prior to heading to Skyline. Good turnout despite the rain. I enjoyed hearing from Mel Richardson. He's great, and really understands the constitution. Fun to see Barb there and quite a few familiar faces, but many more than I didn't know. Whitney Shetrumpf and Jenna Zollinger babysat for us while we were at the gym. (Jenna was a bonus as we lined up Whit but she had Jenna come over!)

Funny thing Kysa said earlier in the week, kind of out of the blue...

"I am a HUGE princess."
I said, "Kysa, you're not a huge princess!"
She responded, "No, I am a BIG Little Princess!"

Yesterday she was in her car seat and exclaimed,
"Mom, I got my boog-ay (booger)...........I ATE IT!"

The babysitter reported that she told them "I can drive the car."
One of them said, "Wow, you can drive a car?"
She said confidently, "Of course!"

She often tells me she can do things, like go to school, because she turned three. She is actually going to get her chance in about a week. Idaho Falls High School home economics students are teaching a 4-week long preschool that goes from 1 p.m. - 2 p.m. every day. It only costs $20 and I got her signed up for it the other day. Shay can do it with her next year as it's for 3 and 4 year olds. I imagine Kysa is going to eat it up.

I am excited for the weekend as Kirby and Andrew are coming and Ty and I are actually going to get a babysitter and go out with them on Friday night. Gretchen and Dave are meeting us here at 7 and we are planning to go to Iggy's. Then on Sunday we are having some friends over for dinner...Kirby's friend Lindsay Beck and her husband who recently moved to Idaho Falls, and Brandon and Cynthia Taggart.

Now backtracking a day or two...
The volleyball tournament in Pinedale last Saturday was really fun. I had a great time driving over with Andrea Baldwin and she played some awesome v-ball in the tourney. Kysa came with us and was an absolute angel. She wasn't a bit of a problem and slept most of the car ride both there and back. Never even turned on the DVD player.

Raleigh got the "screature" he wanted for Easter, which he earned by keeping his room clean for a month and a half. He is a good kid. He does really good at the basketball clinics I'm doing on Tuesday nights at Skyline. Yesterday night he and his buddy Brennan Bodily (another kindergartner) won the dribble tag game with the 2nd and 3rd grade group. We had to call it a tie after a minute because they couldn't get each other out. Raleigh's favorite thing to do is not to play basketball though, it's to play HALO! We've been trying to limit it to only a day or two a week that he can play. We should probably just get rid of it altogether, but sometimes it's so helpful to have a "carrot". He'll do just about anything to earn HALO time. I hope it's not too bad for him to play. I guess as long as it's the good guys versus the bad guys, which it seems to be. I don't know how I feel about it. Some parents would probably condemn me for letting my kindergartner play Halo!

Shay is talking more and more every day, and she seems to say words exactly like Kysa. For example, they both pronounce the word "Paper"--"Pay-Pay". She gets along with Kysa more than she did a month or two ago, but they still have their battles. Today, Kysa handed her something she wanted, and she said, "Kysa share...Kysa share with me!" So I think she's starting to understand the concept of sharing, which is obviously huge. She is also becoming more sympathetic. If I get mad at Kysa, often Shay will stroke my arm and say, "Nice....Nice....mommy." But it's not like she is telling me to be nice to Kysa, but more like she is comforting me in a sweet little voice because she recognizes that I am upset. It's really interesting how she operates. I think Shay is going to be very bright. Raleigh has a great memory and is good with numbers. Kysa has amazing fine motor skills and is going to have excellent handwriting. But I think Shay will be our braniac-maniac. I hope they all do well in school. But my prediction is that Shay will have the highest ACT / SAT scores. That's probably silly to say at this age. We'll see if they prove me wrong.