Christmas warfare

Mason and Felix got matching Nerf guns. Kenzie got a white board and quickly put it to good use.

Sporting Christmas

I have mastered the Double Windsor, alas, even after failing at the task for Felix's homecoming. We had even tried YouTube before settling for the Half Windsor.

Prom: bring it.

When I'm 16

I asked Mason if he could do a video that describes what he's going to be like at sixteen. He's got a big brother role model here in Felix, so I thought it would be fun to capture what he sees and what's sticking. I thought I would hear things like "I want to be an exchange student and travel," or "I want to play lots of sports." I'd like to believe that the spirit of adventure and the love for sports is what's actually going to last, and not what he thinks today...

A perfect day

Every once in a while we realize that we just had a near-perfect day, even if we didn't do anything too unusual. Today started off with a nice, maybe smaller than normal, Christmas party with Cindy's family. The breakfast was easy-going, complete with good conversations, kids opening presents and being chased by the dog.

About three minutes after the party ended, Sarah, her exchange student Sara, David and Daniel showed up to spend the day with us. After a short while, my cousin Diane called and invited Felix to play a pick-up game of soccer with her son Keegan, who is home from college.

Kenzie opted to go grocery shopping and make dinner with the Sarahs, so Cindy and I loaded up all the boys and headed for Mercer Island. This December day the sun decided to come out in perfect time for the soccer game. The little boys played on one side while Felix played up with about twenty college guys. I joined the little boys for a bit, threw the frisbee, kicked the ball, while Cindy took pictures and enjoyed watching the game, including Felix's two goals.

By the time we got home the girls had a great dinner prepared for us. We chatted and laughed at the dinner table. After dinner the chasing and wrestling started. Felix had drawn a picture in Kenzies fashion book of a girls outfit. Sarah told him it was going to go on the blog. It probably wouldn't have but he ripped it out of the book. The girls took out in pursuit of the paper he had crumbled in his hand. The boys worked to defend Felix. Eventually the paper was flushed, but at least I got this picture out of it.

Christmas is half over

We had the Bolam Christmas party today. Hard to believe that Christmas is almost here...and half over.

Retro Santa

For some reason this picture was buried in the archived and never made it to the blog. I remember now why we stopped paying for pictures for a professional Santa.

Christmas pagaent

Our kids were in the church Christmas pageant today, that Cindy directed and helped write. The title was "techno Christmas," complete with Tweets and iPads. It was very cute.

Christmas lights

Finally we have Christmas lights on the eaves of our house!

Dear Santa

Santa, Mason enjoyed your video and wanted to share one of his own. He was concerned you might not get this in a timely manner, but I assured him you check the blog regularly.

Fame

Thanks to Felix for some candid photography...

Turn the sports calendar...it's basketball time

 

Tree and Santa

Mason was able to sneak to the front of the long Santa line.

The reason Cindy wanted a boy

Lion cut

For the first time in recent memory Madison came down and sat on my lap tonight. I like to think it's because he was thankful that I shaved all his mats away, not that he might be a little bit cold being bald in December. (A special shout out goes to Cindy for helping me at 11 o'clock last night, when, for some reason, I decided this was an emergency situation and got the clippers out.) Kids, need a haircut?

Hypnotized critters, by Kenzie

Siblings?

Maybe we have a little bit of German in our family line?

Ah, she does love him

Happy Thanksgiving

Kenzie wrote what she was thankful for. The last one (after teriyaki) was a forced addition by Felix.

Dinner play

For the Averills, when two or more are gathered together...we throw things. The dinner table is no exception. Actually, you might say that the dinner table encourages us to throw things. Last night Grammy and Grampy were over for dinner. Mistakenly, we let Grampy have a throwable object (a cork) and a platform (a salt jar). He decides to try to flick it to Grammy's tea. He misses, Mason fetches and returns the cork to Grampy. Repeat.

This went on for a full ten minutes before I shot this clip, about the same time that Grammy decided to fight back.

It's a job for a big sister

Still, the tooth. First we went out to dinner with our friend Corrin. She was a good sport and tried to pull, but made a rookie mistake:

Today Kenzie finally stepped in.

STILL wiggly

Sister Mermaid

If only Felix had been a girl. And a mermaid. (and had bulging muscles)

Happy Halloween!

Halloween had a little extra creep this year. Kenzie was a ghost. Mason was a zombie that got stabbed in the head and run over by a car. For the first time Kenzie went out with her friends, not with us. Mason, Felix and I went to Liz and Casey's with Josh and Luke, searching for expensive houses that are no more than ten feet apart.

This sums it up

Mason had his final soccer game of the season last night. When giving his award, the coach said that Mason is the most aggressive player out there and shows off his dancing feet. I think he means that his bullish nature makes him effective, but maybe not the most graceful, as demonstrated in this 1 minute clip: he falls down twice and scores a goal. (Purple shirt, black socks.)

Class photo shoot

...or chance to snuggle the teacher?

New camera

Cindy's new car has a camera. Primary purpose is to make sure the coast is clear when backing up. Secondary purpose...

Mud ball

Karate

Mason got another belt, still loving karate.

Hall art

Big ears

Cindy and I were talking about our yard. Nothing to do with the kids. Mason yells from the other room, "You know I can hear every word that you're saying. And I do NOT need to work on my listening!!"

Sidelines

Grandpa came to Felix's game tonight. Mason brought the football.

Helmet head

Leavenweird

I think we all officially agree now that Leavenworth is a very strange place. Felix confirmed it today. There's not a lot of German in that "Bavarian Village" in Eastern Washington, but there is a lot of crazy. At least it was a nice day for a drive (in our new car). Had I not taken the very long route home, we would all be in better spirits tonight. But at least we got some pictures.

Stubborn streak

Kenzie has such a stubborn streak. We always say that some day it will be an amazing trait that will take her anywhere she wants to go....if we all live through it. Ninety nine percent of the time she is an charming, fabulous kid, but that one percent is something that stands on its own. Today we went shopping (at my work). She was tired and a minor incident turned into a battle of the wills, one that I was surely not going to lose to a nine year old.

She simply cannot, and will not, back down. We video-taped the incident for fodder for her later essay writing. We told her that we were doing it, but she still couldn't calm herself down or dig her heels out of the cement she was pouring.

So, when she finally did take a breath, we told her that she owed us a 600 word essay. (The first, several months ago, was 200 words. The second, a couple of months ago, was 400 words.) She accepted her punishment and when we got home, she went upstairs. Progress, we thought!

After about an hour and 246 words she came down to see if I would accept these heart-felt words as enough. I wouldn't read them until they reached 600. She again dug in her heels and increased the word count to 700. Still she didn't budge. Then she said, "fine, you don't like this?"...and tore up the paper. "Bummer," I said, "now you have 800 words with no head-start."

So, the afternoon was long, but she went back into her room. I eventually served her dinner in there as she wasn't up to her 800 words. At about 500, she asked if her 246 would count toward her goal, but I was sorry to report that those were torn up and wouldn't count. So, in the end she wrote 1,046 words, and came out very humble and sorry. The essay appeared very heart-felt and included words such as "flabbergasted" (sorry, just 1 point) and "alas." She says all the right things, but we will see if the behavior changes however.

I did let her know that next time it's 1,000 words and it will need to be typed. The good news is that typing will automatically count your words. The bad news is that she doesn't know how to type.

I'll stay still if I can play a little longer...

Very, very fun in Ms. Teddy's class

school pics

Finally...wiggly!

Soccer boys

David and Daniel celebrated their 9th and 11th birthdays today. I like this picture of Daniel and Mason...both shirts are soaked from the rain, but they share a common focus on the ball.

Athlete

 

Cindy said to me the other day "thank you for my athlete." This guy is a natural. He is super aggressive on the soccer field. Slide tacking comes natural to him. He has great instincts, works hard and is fearless. It's fun to watch him take on each new sport.

On the school board

Score

For a ride

Stewardship campaign

Kenzie kicked off our annual stewardship campaign this year with her story of what this church means to her.

Middle child......and loving it

Issaquah

Last weekend I had Mason at Kenzie's soccer game and Cindy was golfing. That meant Felix was home alone. A very scary and random thing happened - a man, wielding two guns, started shooting and heading toward Clark Elementary (the kids school) and the high school, both are less than a mile away. Felix was outside and heard the shots. Immediately our area was in lock-down. I called Felix and told him to go inside and lock the doors. It took me an hour and half to get home as all the streets were closed. The man was eventually gun down by police in the high school parking lot. It wasn't a great introduction to Issaquah, to say the least.

...

This weekend was more than a little different. It's Salmon Days, Issaquah's annual celebration of fish dying, as Felix calls it. He knew he was in a parade with the football players, but I don't think he really knew what that meant until, at 8:00 in the morning, he saw the first giant, crazy fish float. Turns out he had a blast. All the senior football players - plus Felix - got to ride on this truck while the juniors and sophomores had to run behind. Sixty guys, center of attention with music playing, trailing the dance team and leading the cheerleaders...yah, a better weekend than the one before.

(Felix is in the truck on the left behind the guy in the white hood)