Kyron's Big Day

With four kids, weekends tend to always be busy with their activities. This past Saturday, however, everyone else's activities were put on hold and the day was about the youngest Kyron! We started the day with Kyron's much anticipated first soccer game! Like many little boys, all of ours have started their sporting adventures on the soccer field, so this is both the beginning of a new stage for Kyron and the end of another. He's been so excited to play though, that he's worn his shin guards and socks around the house for the past 3 weeks. Not surprisingly, when he took the field, he did pretty well and took advantage of all the backyard practice with the older siblings.

After soccer, we got ready for Kyron's birthday party.  He turns five today, but we had his party on Saturday. For his party, He had a special request for his birthday party, a scavenger hunt.  As we talked through what he wanted it became clear what he wanted was his own Amazing Race.  That got my creative juices flowing and I created The Birthday Race.  We divided the party into two teams, made "clues" for the teams to find, and had a series of challenges that led the kids around the neighborhood from houses, to the playground, to the creek and finally into the backyard for the finish line. Proving that we're a house full of reality television fans, after Kyron's "blue team" won the Birthday Race he announced "We won immunity!"  Okay, wrong show, but it was sure cute!

I look at Kyron and am amazed at how quickly the last 5 years have gone by and I also can't help but think back to how scared I was to have four children! I never imagined we'd have this big of a family, but Kyron brings so many unexpected moments of laughter to my life that I am so thankful God, as usual, worked His plan instead of mine and gave us Kyron.


Happy Birthday Bugs!

Anatomy of a Family Photo

We take a number of different family pictures throughout the year and they are always an interesting experience. The kids are past the stage of being real willing models for Dad’s photography pursuits, so each family photo is a series of crazy events to try and get the kids to cooperate for that one picture we call a keeper.

Unfortunately, the only part of the experience that ever gets captured and recorded for prosperity is that 1/80th of a second for the still shot. In an effort the buck that trend, I hid a camera on a bookshelf to video record the events leading up to the final shot of our annual Easter Day family photo. What the hidden camera captured was 12 minutes and 37 seconds of mayhem and chaos I totally didn’t expect. 

In watching the video back, a few things are clear to me:

1. Our family is crazy.
2. No one listens to me.
3. It’s a lot easier taking pictures of someone else’s family.

The video shows our family just being themselves: wacky, crazy, and lots of fun. When the kids found out I had been recording, their first response was to plead for it not be shown on Facebook and to be honest there are parts of the raw video that just can’t be shared because of the embarrassment factor. The experience, however, has to be shared because a verbal or written description of the event just wouldn’t do it justice. So here’s an edited 5minute and 20 second version.

Enjoy the chaos……

The Easter Spider Experience

Our family has become known for one of our favorite Easter traditions, the Easter Spider.  Many people have asked us about this tradition and probably the best way to understand it is to experience it.  We did things a little different this year and instead of tying the individual strings of yarn to each Easter basket/bucket we tied them to pieces of paper with various parts of the Easter story printed on them. To find their baskets, they had to work together to retell the Easter story.....

Final Four Experience

One of the benefits of living in Indianapolis is that it is a really great sports town.  The Colts bring their own amazing energy to the city and while the Pacers are going through a low point in their history, it's still a NBA franchise.  This weekend has been one of our favorite sports experiences in Indy so far as the city is hosting the NCAA Men's Final Four.

Friday we went downtown and watched the hometown Butler Bulldogs hold their final practice before their semi-final game.  Lucas Oil Stadium has gone through the transition from football stadium to basketball arena and it is quite a sight to see.  It was also very impressive to see how many people came to watch practice.  40,000 people turning out to watch practice is evidence of how excited everyone around here is for this weekend's games.

After practice and lunch with friends, we headed off to Bracket Town at the convention center which the boys described as 'basketball heaven, just with waiting lines.'  Every activity you could imagine for a basketball fan and the NCAA even had areas to promote other sports like football, lacrosse, fencing, and golf.

It was eight hours of basketball fun for the boys and despite Makela's constant complaints, even she participated in the activities at Bracket Town.  The whole day gave a us a glimpse of what types of activities and excitement Superbowl week may be like in 2012, can't wait!

Lucas Oil Stadium	Butler Bulldogs Practice	Caleb with the Championship Trophy

Bracket Town Fun