Alice's parent teacher conference was on the 20th. She got a glowing report. She's up to a 2.7 reading level now and is keeping busy with extra work her teacher is giving her in class. She sometimes wishes she could do what her classmates are doing, but she's so high in many ways that she's doing some extra / different work. Alice got a couple of extra days at Sadie's this past week when we poured cement and an play date with Ava on Thursday. She loves to be social and being with buddies is the best in her world!
Pete started basketball practice last week. His team is the Clippers and he's being coached by Kimberly Elementary's principal. (Casey happens to be coaching her daughter this year in basketball! ; ) Pete is excited to start his games next weekend! Peter had activity days on the 17th and got to play games at the church and show off his Lego building talents with the boys. He went to Gage's birthday party on the 20th. The boys had a nerf gun war (Pete's still talking about how fun it was), they watched top gun as well. He also got a play date at Holland's on the 21st for an afternoon away while Casey and I worked on the house. I had Peter's parent teacher conference last week. He's improving in reading and testing fine just needs to keep up on his work, and practice spelling better.
Kendal got a 4.0 for her semester! She's worked hard for it and is so happy she made it happen! Her anxiety keeps things harder lately and she feels overwhelmed more often these days. We're giving her tools to work through things, and it's up to her to learn and grow through these challenges. She got to go skiing with the middle school this past Friday. She had a great day on the slopes and loves being up there with Casey and her friends. Kendal has spent the last two Saturday's baking at home with friends (Netta / Hope). She enjoys baking and is always happy to have friends around.
Casey had his last two basketball games in the last couple of weeks. I took the girls to his last home game this past Thursday, then I went back to watch senior night while the kids had a movie night. Casey is grateful to be done with early morning practice for the year. (Early mornings and building a house has been a lot for him some days.) His team only won a handful of games, but they grew over the season and sometimes that's better than nothing. Casey had a good time skiing with Kendal on Friday, however it was a crazy day. (Two kids broke their arms, one girl got a concussion, and a girl passed out / had soe kind of medical issues on the bus ride home.) Casey prefers uneventful ski trips (hopefully when he goes with Pete this week all goes smoothly). Casey's beard is full and fluffy these days. It's the longest he's ever kept a beard, he's very handsome, but it's funny how much he fiddles with it.
I had book club on the 17th, (couldn't stay long, kids were at activities, and Casey was off at a game) but it was a fun book to discuss and get some time away from the house / kids. Casey and I read the book 'A Man called Ove' together last month. (Combined we finished over 100 books last year! We also read books together - mostly the Dan Brown books but a few others as well). We finally got to go see the movie together in Theaters on the 21st. It definitely pulls on your heartstrings, but it was a well done movie. We've also worked on the house on any spare day we could getting the board and batten all done, little things here and there, and then starting siding this past weekend.
In the past couple of weeks we've had drywall installed, taped, mudded, and now it's being textured. Dad, David, and Andy came up this past Monday so we could pour the garage floors. The weather turned towards the cold side again, but we manged. The boys were amazing and over the span of two days we got the garage poured and set as well as the exterior worked on! We put in some long days and David and Dad even stayed longer to give us more help so we could keep progressing. We have a hopeful move in time of the end of march (spring break ish). It's so close and I'm just so excited this is all happening. My gratitude and joy is definitely overflowing. I am humbled by the hard work that Dad, David, and also Andy are giving us, as well as the sacrifices that my Mom and Anica are having to make for the boys to be up here helping us. I feel immense guilt over it, but on the other hand I'm gushing with thanks for this amazing gift. Work continues and hopefully things go well! We can do hard things!!
