Catching Up: September 2010

September 2010 meant the return to school and also the return of soccer season!

Here are Kristin and Grandma, relaxing on the sidelines during a game. While Kristin seems to enjoy soccer, it seems what she likes best is watching soccer. She'd often volunteer to sit out. And sometimes even when she was playing, she'd stand and watch the game go by.

Kristin's team this year was called The Super Stars. Here is their team banner:

Here's Kristin and her team warming up for a game. They had a really great coach this year. She always made sure the girls had a good time.

Here's Kristin after a game, showing off her "Super Star" pose.

This year, Joey was once again on the lime green team. The name of his team was The Alien Demolishers.

Joey learned a lot about soccer this year and improved his playing skills dramatically. He usually played defender, but sometimes he was a midfielder. We had an unusually rainy season this year (not that you can tell from these photos) so a few times Joey had to play in very wet weather. But that didn't stop him.

It was a great season. Though, just like in years past, it was kind of a relief when it was over! The practices were on the same night, at the same time, in two different locations. They were also at a time when Matt was still at work - so it meant lots of running around for me! And there were times when their two games overlapped on the weekends as well. It was quite an adventure, lugging equipment and wrangling Simon without a spouse to assist. But we made it work. The fun starts again in the fall!

Pac Man Cookies

Another fun summer activity was when we made Pac Man Cookies. I don't know where Joey even heard about Pac Man. But he's been semi-obsessed with it ever since. (In fact, he had a Pac Man birthday cake this year - but I'm getting ahead of myself). Joey and Kristin wanted to make cookies that looked like Pac Man. Here are my little bakers, ready to help in the kitchen. Joey is showing off the Pac Man he made of Legos. Actually, it's supposed to be a combination of Pac Man and Mario - that's why it's half red. Um, maybe we need to cut back on the video game exposure?

Here, The Bakers show off the tools they will use. We didn't have actual Pac Man cookie cutters, so we improvised! A tulip and a house? How will it work? You'll see...all in good time.


First, Kristin starts on making one of the Pac Man ghosts by cutting out an upside-down tulip.

Then she cuts off the tulip's stem.

Voila! It's ghost-shaped!

Then Joey cut out a simple circle with a glass, and used the roof part of the house cookie cutter to cut out Pac Man's mouth. I suggested just doing it with a knife, but Joey looked at me like I was crazy. There's a science to cookie baking, see?


Then we started decorating!

For the ghost's eyes, we used white chocolate chips and topped them with a single mini-chocolate chip.

Here are a couple more shots of The Bakers. I love how happy they look. They were really having a great time making these cookies!


And the cookies came out looking pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Catching Up: August 2010

What's this? Two blog posts within a week?!? I'll give you a moment to recover after passing out from shock...

So, as I said, I wanted to catch up on where we LeVines have been since our last post back in August. When you last joined our heroes, Matt had just undergone minor surgery on his finger. That was at the beginning of August. The rest of August was packed with fun activities. First, there was Korinne's first birthday. We had a lovely family party at Grandma's house with lots of great food. Can't believe it's been a year already. Look how big she is! (And, of course, this was almost 6 months ago, so she's just bigger now!)


Also in August, my mom went to Minnesota for a visit. Since we didn't have childcare while she was away, Matt and I took some time off to spend with the kids. We had a great time playing around town, going to the park and the Science Center, and working around the house. We also went to the Birch Aquarium for the first time.

I don't know why we haven't gone before. It's really fun and educational, and not as crowded (nor as commercial) as Sea World. The kids had a great time. Here's Simon checking out the kelp bed:


Here, Joey and Kristin are checking out the tide pools. There are lots of starfish and other sea creatures in the tide pools - like squishy sea cucumbers!


I think the thing we liked the best was playing with this water table. It's supposed to demonstrate how ocean currents work. So you build a little water maze out of colored planks, and then put little toy boats into the water current. Of course, Matt was a master engineer and came up with lots of fancy configurations.


And no trip to the aquarium would be complete without a visit to the shark tank. Here, we pose for a picture like the tourists we are. I love this photo so much. It's so typical of our family outings. Simon isn't really interested, and is trying to get away to do his own things. Joey and Kristin are pushing each other's buttons. Look at Joey and Kristin's faces. Ah, siblings.

We're Still Alive!

Happy 2011! My goodness it's been a long time since I've updated this blog. Sorry about that. Time gets away from me so easily sometimes. I will try to do a bit of catch up over the next week or so, and then hopefully can post CURRENT updates in a more timely fashion.

For now, please enjoy this photo taken of the three wee ones this past Christmas. I can't believe how big they're getting. This Sunday is Joey's 10th birthday. TEN YEARS OLD! How did that happen?

Adventures in Minor Surgery

Way back in November, Matt was cleaning out our car and was brushing off the place where we'd had Simon's carseat. There was a toothpick that was hidden between the seat cushions, and it ended up stabbing him in the finger. It hurt, it bled, but eventually it healed. But Matt noticed that there was a slight bump where he'd been stuck with the toothpick, and every now and then it would be hit just right and it would hurt. So he finally had it looked at, and the docs determined that there was still a bit of wood stuck in his finger. I thought it would be a simple procedure to get it out, since it was basically a glorified splinter. But it was deep enough and in the right position that it required surgery. The actual procedure didn't take very long, and everything went fine. They gave him a sling to help him remember to keep his arm elevated.
And they wrapped his finger up in a ton of gauze. This fancy bandage fell off three times during the first 24 hours. Matt managed to re-wrap the finger and even rig the fancy wrist-wrap part by himself, single-handedly (literally!)
When we got home from the hospital and went to pick up the kids, we were met with this in the driveway (courtesy of Kristin):
And then this at the bottom of the stairs (Joey and Kristin did this one together):Aren't they the sweetest?

Joey's Green Beans

When we planted our garden, we made sure to include several bean plants. Green beans are one of the only vegetables Joey really likes. Most of the beans we planted were green beans, but we also have purple pole beans.I felt like we planted a ton of beans, but we haven't had a very large yield. Next year I plan to sow more of them. For now, we only had a small handful growing. And one evening, Joey asked if we could "please, please, please!!!" go out and harvest some green beans for dinner. So we went out and picked some. Like I said, it was only a very small handful. Here's Joey showing off our harvest. Doesn't he look excited? And he's excited about vegetables! Obviously, I'd like to encourage this!
Here's a close up. That's a whopping TEN green beans total. But Joey was thrilled to have them with our dinner.
Here's the thing. I've cooked fresh green beans before. I steamed them. So I thought I'd do the same with these. But since there were so few, it was hard to know how much time it really needed in the steamer. I overcooked them. One of the beans actually looked kind of burned, actually. How do you burn something in a steamer? Anyway, I took out the singed one and gave the rest to Joey. He took a bite and then instantly grabbed up all the beans off his plate and made this face:
I guess I fail at green beans.

4th of July & Kory's Birthday

For the 4th of July we all gathered at my mom's house for a BBQ & small birthday party for Kory. His birthday is on July 8th, so it makes it easy to combine the two holidays. I love a 4th of July BBQ! Here's Matt and Simon showing off the matching shirts we get every year:
Here's Korinne and her two aunties!

And here's the birthday boy. Gee, doesn't he look thrilled? It always makes it so nice when you celebrate someone's birthday and you see how happy and excited they are to receive so much attention. A second after the photo was taken, Kory blew all those candles out in a single puff. It was rather amazing, to tell you the truth. How does someone recovering from a kidney transplant manage such incredible lung capacity?

Here's Kristin enjoying her piece of cake. Tandy make the cake herself - it was a Jello poke cake, using red and blue Jello. Very patriotic! And then it was frosted in Cool Whip. Delish!
After the BBQ and the usual round of board games, we headed home. Simon was exhausted from the excitement, so I stayed home with him so he could sleep while Matt took the older kids to watch fireworks. Hope you all enjoyed Independence Day!