Hallissey Tournament, Year Five

We had another epic weekend in Boise for the annual Hallissey basketball tournament sponsored by a Catholic church down there.  This was Glenn's fifth year of coaching a team for this tournament.  You can review many of our memories of this event here and here.

New this year, Glenn switched from coaching the girls' team to coaching the boys' team.  This was Ellea's first year of not being on the team after four years of participating on the court.  She started in 5th grade and it's technically an 8th grade tournament.  Glenn usually takes 7th and 8th graders along so she had a more years than most kids get.

Morgan will get to have the same experience, as he was on the team this year as a fifth grader.  He mostly took stats and got to experience the game from the bench, but he also got a couple minutes of playing time when the team had a nice lead.

They worked hard and made it to the championship game which is always exciting.  Glenn gets to announce each of his players.  He started with the youngest players, so Morgan went first.  Here, he's fist bumping the officials.  (I just realized that, looking back, Nicole also wore #12 when she played three years ago.  Funny!)

They played their hearts out, but they were playing a team that was strictly 8th graders.  They had played this team once before in the tournament and lost by 20 points.  The score was much closer for this game (it was often tied or one or the other team had a lead of a point or two), but the other team pulled ahead in the end.  Glenn's team played some great ball and gave it their all.

Second place is nothing to be ashamed of, but those were some sad boys.

So proud of these two.  Glenn had so many random people approach him after the game and tell him what a great team he had and how fun it was to watch them.  Can't wait to watch number 12 improve his game and continue to grow.  He's already got a great understanding of the game and really seems to enjoy it.  Until next year.....

Stacking Things

I have been going into the elementary school to present character education lessons once a month this year.  It's a paid position, but just barely.  The kids are great, but it's a challenge to think of fun, relevant activities and information to present to explain whatever the concept of that month is to kids from Kindergarten to 6th grade.  The value for month of February was cooperation.

I had the older kids do the same cup stacking activity that we did at the Christmas party this year.  The kids really seemed to enjoy it.  We even got tricky and had the kids flipping the cups over in different directions for the stack.

This game is a great example of cooperation.  Morgan should be quite the expert as we've done it a few different times now.

Glenn and I tried our hand at stacking something, also.  His company hosts a "winter party" every year and this year one of the activities had was the game Jenga.  Very large Jenga!

A Jenga selfie.

We're not big Jenga players, but it was fun to try our hand at this unusually large version.  It got very wobbly by the end, of course, and sadly, I was the one who knocked it over.  It was much louder and more dramatic than the usual tip-over in Jenga!

In the Genes

Morgan's 5th grade basketball team played another game last night.  They had the lead for most of the game, and ended up in overtime.  They lost the game by two points but are improving with every game.

Glenn had to ref last night's game.  He is a referee, coach, and dad extraordinaire!  Morgan is in black shorts at the top of the key in the picture.  He's quite the savvy basketball player already.  He just seems to know what to do at all the right times.  It must be hereditary, and thankfully he got more of Glenn's genes in this case!

Bright Eyes

Ellea and I got to go visit her sweet cousin twins and their family last weekend.  We hadn't seen them in a whole month and they had changed so much.  They're four months old already.  We met at Costco to share some baby wrangling duties while shopping which is a favorite activity of a certain someone.

This girl is an expert.  Diaper changing, getting dressed, burping, soothing.  She can do it all.

Sweet baby Cecelia was in a great, happy mood.

And somehow, I didn't track who I was taking pictures of each time I pulled out my camera.  Turned out every single picture was of Cecelia.  We did hold and help with Beatrice, too, but you wouldn't know it based on the pictures.

This is Cecelia's usually look.  Bright eyed and serious.  It looks like I'm scaring her, but no one was harmed in the taking of this photo.  At least, I don't think so.

Basketball Begins (Again) . . .

We're in the middle of Morgan's 5th grade basketball season.  Over the weekend, his team had their first tournament.  Let's just say that it was an opportunity for lots of practice and improvement.  They were pretty evenly matched by the first team they played, but the two other teams had clearly had LOTS more playing experience.

Ellea and I went and watched one of the games and Morgan played really well.  He even made one free throw and a basket, so that was exciting.

Of course, Glenn is his coach (with some help from a couple moms).  Glenn has decided that boys are much different to coach that girls.  Lots goofing around, farting noises (real and fake.....!) and so, so easily distracted.  Thankfully, our son is one of the better behaved teammates (he'd better be!).  Such a good daddy.  Proud of you both.

Baby Time

Ellea and I were lucky enough to get to babysit a good friend's adorable baby girl over Christmas break while her mama went skiing with her other kids.  Little Ruby was so fun to hang out with.

She loved her green beans....she would throw herself toward the spoon every time!

And who doesn't love some sweet baby cuddles?