Basketball

This winter Avery played basketball for the first time. It was a great program. The kids were evaluated for skill and spread amongst all the teams evenly. Then they wore colored strips on their shoulders during games to match them up man-on-man with their similarly skilled counterpart. After every game was a little ceremony in which the kids were awarded stars. The color of the star corresponded with a positive quality the kids displayed during the game, ie: hustle, courage, defense, offense, sportsmanship, etc. The stars were iron-ons and as the season progressed the kids could show off more and more of their stars on their team t-shirt.

The kids entered each game to much fanfare and the announcer calling their name. They ran in through a tunnel with a smoke machine. Then they would run around the whole gym slapping hands with the crowd.


The kids really loved that part.


Being run by a Christian organization, they always opened with prayer.








He shoots... HE SCORES!




A clean steal!




Avery made a lot of really good improvements during the season and hopefully with future sports we can keep working on attitude with handling loss. And in the end, a trophy makes any kid ecstatic!

Boys

I love having a phone always to hand to grab these silly moments when they happen. These four are from today...








And these are some forgotten ones from a year ago, February 2011. I was taking pictures of them trying to send a kiss to text to my best friend.












And these last two are from May of last year. Crazy Emmett had toothpaste on his face and his shirt on backwards.


Taking a picture of Emmett brought the other two running for a shot.

Movie Time

The boys and I have been enjoying movie nights together more often lately as Travis is sometimes gone evenings working on his Divemaster rating, either working on skills, swimming in prep for that part of the test, or helping with a scuba class. (Divemaster is the first step in diving as a professional, the next step is Instructor). Here's a picture from my phone of my cute little men all lined up. Sometimes they're like this, sometimes they get more blankets and make a giant nest. Currently we're working through all the Harry Potter movies. The boys LOVE this time.

Jensen Arctic Museum

Avery's 1st grade class went on a field trip to the Jensen Arctic Museum in today as the highlight to the end of their long arctic unit. It's a small museum at Western Oregon University, but it's free and they have some good stuff there. The kids had a great time.




This room of taxidermy has a voice over talking about all the animals as the lights shine on each.

Emmett's Dental Appointment

Emmett had his first official dental appointment and did perfectly! We had not expected that at all. Actually, I don't know what I expected of him, but we were amazed at what an obedient little patient he was! Avery, on the other hand, took a while because he just kept chatting away. (Carson and I had our appointment the previous week). Here are some pictures of Emmett from my phone.






See my clean teeth!?


What a good little man.

CarsonTheo

Theo is Carson's best friend. Even in reverse.

Look, Mom, I wrote mine and Theo's names!

Good job, Carson...

Bucket Boy

This is Bucket Boy. He doesn't like to listen when we say to stay out of the bucket. So he gets in, sits down, and gets stuck.


With my phone just to hand, I packed him over to the front door to get better light to show how he's stuck in there.

Orange Chicken

Last week I had a great run of dinner domesticity. I made several different dinners that are out of the typical rut I find myself in. They were all successful, but this one was perhaps the most unique to what we typically eat (I make fried rice regularly and rarely yakisoba, but that's about it in the Asian cuisine). This was super yummy and I'll definitely do it again, but it did take a good amount of standing time in the kitchen so it probably won't make it into the regular rotation.

Orange Chicken!


Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into cubes)

Batter:
1 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs (beaten)
1 cup water (or as much as needed to make batter smooth)
6 tablespoons cornstarch
salt (to taste)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Sauce:
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup honey
4 teaspoons sugar
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons sesame oil
the juice of 1 orange
orange zest
dash of garlic powder
sesame seeds

Cooking Instructions:
Step 1: Heat about 1/2 inch of oil in a skillet to 325 degrees. In a large bowl mix all of the batter ingredients thoroughly.
Step 2: Dip chicken pieces into the batter to coat evenly. Fry the chicken in small batches (so the oil doesn't cool) about 5 minutes each side or until golden brown.
Step 3: In a bowl whisk together all of the sauce ingredients. Pour into a pan and cook until the sauce is thickened and bubbly. Mix in a bowl with the fried chicken pieces.