Seven Years My Boys

I just want to document today real quickly before I forget it.

Today Calvin and Clark turned seven years old. Celebration started last night with a Hungarian cake that Brian made for them. It was his favorite cake growing up and this year he made one for the first time, with his mom's expert, Hungarian help. We had cake with Gammy and Poppy and the boys opened their gift from us-- roller blades! They are naturals, though it's a good thing we bought the extra pads for their hands. They're used to ice hockey and having a bit more protection when they fall. They roller bladed until dark.

Dobos!

Eight little cakes

Teddy helps open

Tearing up the cul de sac

This morning Calvin woke up without his other front tooth! It fell out in the night and we still haven't found it.

For breakfast we had crepes on their request, with Nutella. Gammy brought over their favorite Izze-- blackberry-- and they had sausage. I stuck candles in their crepes and we sang happy birthday to them. They opened a little gift from Gammy-- a set of Minecraft handbooks. They are quite obsessed over the game, even though they're barely actually played it. They love to talk about it.

Crepes, sausage, Izze, and Minecraft books

Teddy and I went to school with them and I lead the community art project that we have once a month. This month we did little projects with patterned paper and learned about Eric Carle. Ted and I stayed for lunch and the first part of recess.

Art!

Cafeteria lunch

All the girls love Teddy

After school we met them with a frizzbee and candy from Grandma and Papa. We played with the frizzbee at the playground. When we got home I gave the boys my birthday poems, which I've been writing for them almost every year since they were born. They were unimpressed and pretended not to like them. I think one day they will. They opened another gift and card, I made them a smoothie, and they headed to hockey practice.

When they got home we grilled up the steak Brian had marinated for them, had some sweet potato fries and veggies. Calvin loves to talk about how much he loves steak. He ate a very large amount of steak tonight.

We had to chase them to bed. They all three wanted to sleep in the same bed, but we were able to convince Cal to sleep on the top bunk, but Teddy and Clark cuddled on the trundle, leaving the bottom bunk open.

I can't believe it's been seven years of these wonderful boys. I feel blessed to spend my days with them.

Toothless!

Impossible to take a normal picture of them

Cal reading his poem that was "Ok, but weird"

Indoor Olympics

I love the winter Olympics. I have wonderful memories of watching them with my family when I was little. So naturally I want our boys to have memories of the Olympics too. We've been letting them stay up a little later than normal, watching hockey at seven in the morning (awesome!), and live ice dancing at 10am. For some reason they love the ice dancing and pairs figure skating. I'm a total sucker for all the features on the athletes. The grainy movies from when they first started skating. The personal obstacles they've overcome. Maybe I tear up a little.

I don't know if all kids are this way, but Cal and Clark don't miss a single detail in anything it seems. They remember the clothes that people were wearing at certain times and mimic the movement of all kinds of athletes. This was no different. Lately all sorts of athletes and competitors have been showing up at our house, along with enthusiastic observers. Here are some moments I've captured this past week.

Three fans cheering for USA hockey at 7am

Ski jumping

Got some real air there

The bobsled course was tough this year.

Because the boys love Alex Ovechkin (Russian Capitals player), they
cheered for Russia vs. Team USA...until the end when the US
won. Then they claimed they really wanted their country
to win all along. Here is the Russian flag Cal made out of gears
and a t-shirt.

We have pretend metals, but Cal wanted to make some of his own too.
#lovemyartsandcraftskid

Gold metal winner in smoothie drinking!

Just to get under my skin-- when the USA women's hockey
team was playing Sweden, Clark came out
dressed in Sweden's colors.

Cal practices his figure skating jumps- I believe this is a
double toe loop.

and again

Ice dancing getting underway-- they got out mattress pads and I
let them decorate the "ice" with Olympic rings made of Sharpie.

And now skating from the United States of America...

Calvin and his cross-dressing brother Clark!

Such grace 

Perfect unison

Delightfully choreographed routine 

The lift

Aaaand... the finish

Speed skating! Made the bibs from newsprint

This speed skating track is made of mattress pads, old poster paper, and a towel.

Cal's bib

Short track speed skating ended in a bit of a meltdown. 

Biathlon! Cross country skis and a gun on his back 

gun= Wii steering wheel and foam sword stuck down his shirt

Ready to hit the trail

And another contestant ready to ride

same gun situation

Shooting at the target- target is upside down bucket of gears,
bullet is a battery that comes out of the wheel in slow motion

The course, designed by Cal, and including a
penalty lap, is made of gears and t-shirts
rolled up, and a sword and pajamas

All kinds of hockey gold metal games have been played...
they are much more dramatic than the hockey that happens here
once a day-- more slow motion replays.

Crepes by Clarvin

So I'm sitting here in a quiet house with a nice glass of wine and wanting so badly to work on some long-ish blog posts that have been in my head for awhile, but I know that I won't last much longer and that I'll never get anything posted unless I keep it simple. Somehow these days fly by so fast but they go so slow. They go slowly when the baby is screaming, Clark is having a meltdown over something trivial like orange juice or the way Cal looked at him, and Calvin is screaming for help on the toilet. Those moments take forever. But somehow it all comes to an end in a messy whirlwind and the house is quiet except for the dishwasher and the crickets outside.

So, to make things less complicated I'll just write about today. We read a delightful little library book yesterday called Crepes by Suzette by Monica Wellington. It's an impressive piece of art, actually. The backgrounds for the pages are photo collages of Paris, with real people inserted in places like windows, but the main characters are all drawn in the foreground. At the end of the book there's a crepes recipe so this morning Clarvin and I made crepes. (Clarvin is the name that our friend Margo uses for the twins in order to save time, space, and effort.) We used lemon with powdered sugar and strawberries as filling and they were delicious. I love books that include activity ideas. I highly recommend the book and the recipe.

Here are some pictures from that, as well as some other pictures from the past couple weeks just for kicks.

Master Theodore and I attended Missy's garden tea party to celebrate the
200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice. Delightful.

Teddy keeps smiling

Hockey started!

The ones down on the ice in the corner? Those are mine.

Little sweaty after, but very enthused, as is volunteer coach, Dad

Clark played third base with Dad at cousin's 10 year old birthday party!

Calvin on deck

The 10 year-olds modified the pitching for the 4 year-olds

Teddy bundled up

Teddy slept through the night last night!