Phoenix has been preparing for her birthday party for the past couple of weeks. She made this super cute chicken pinata and we purchased all of the chicken theme gifts for her white elephant game and quaking chickens and chocolate to go into her pinata.
Besides preparing for her birthday party she has used the past couple of weeks (with no swim meets) to catch up on some well needed rest which included a lot of drawing and reading. Here are a few of her drawings from last weekend.
On Sunday, January 19th, Phoenix requested chocolate croissants for breakfast.
Everyone enjoyed the special treat as this day was her big birthday party day.
Axel and her spent the morning decorating her cake.
They had an incredible amount of fun with each other.
I just love how sweet Axel is in helping her and the memories that they will have working together to make a special creation for her special day. I think they did a great job. Axel is the master mind behind making perfect frosting and Phoenix is the primary artist here. Since her birthday with chicken theme, she was having a happy bird- day, hence the spelling of birthday.
Phoenix brought out the chicken Axel made her for Christmas and chicken sat at the head of the table with her during dinner and cake.
Phoenix invited over 10 girls, but the party started with 5. Cielo, Joanna, Stella, Sohpia and Savannah. They played the hot dog and chicken game while they waited for the other girls to arrive.
Catherine and Maggie arrived in time for laser tag, capture the flag and the pinata. Helen and Sarah couldn't make it last minute and Amy didn't arrive until cake time at 6pm.
Daddy setting up the pinata.
The girls getting ready to hit poor little chicken.
After the pinata everyone was hungry so they came in for pizza! It was so easy to have pizza and snacks rather than make a bunch of food. I get why people do pizza or catering for parties now.
Once Amy arrived, we sang Happy birthday and the girls enjoyed a lot of ice cream with the cake. We couldn't believe how much they all loved the ice cream.
Once their tummies were full it was time for Phoenix's favorite white elephant game. I think it was a hit. The favorite gift was the chicken night light.
Once the white elephant game was over, Phoenix opened the gifts her friends brought her. They were mostly chicken themed too! I loved it!
Sunday, Phoenix had the privilege of spending time with one of her BFF's Audrey, who moved to Pleasanton. They got their nails done and then went out for Noah's bagels before coming to our house and hanging out for the afternoon.
They have so much fun together. I love how they are still good friends despite being far away. They plan on getting together during the ski week break in February.
Tuesday morning was more of a rush than ideal. I was only able to take a couple of quick photos of Phoenix before heading out the door. She had a lot to get together with school, snacks for her advisory class and snacks for both her basketball and swim team. She wanted to wear her yellow sweat shirt again and be warm and cozy for her free dress day.
After school she had basketball practice. I went early and was able to watch the last 10 minutes or so from my car, while I was in line. It is not ideal watching through the fence, but it was still nice to see her and her friends having fun.
After practice she passed out Hostess Cupcakes and Oreos. During advisory she brought macaroons and Oreos. Apparently, all children were happy with these sweet treats.
We went straight from basketball to swim. I was impressed we made it on time because he had a 30 minutes turn around from basketball ending at 5pm and swim starting at 5:30pm. We got lucky with traffic which was nice! Tuesdays are usually fly day. After the warm up set and drill set, Coach Luba helped Phoenix put on the birthday swim cap.
The team sang Happy Birthday and then it was right back to swim with the main set, which was a hard fly/breast set.
The girls are putting away their gear and getting ready for the main set :)
I noticed when putting Phoenix to sleep that her Lovies have multiplied quite rapidly over the past year. I thought it was funny that I got rid of 2-3 bags full of stuffed animals except "Doggy" and "Panda" which were her two childhood favorites. Now she has all kinds of soft, plush, "Lovies".
Her swim friends asked her if she was able to fit with all of them now. The answer is yes, but sometimes one or two of her "friends" gets knocked off in the middle of the night, regardless of how hard she works to prevent this from happening.
It is hard to believe that she is 12 years old. I remember this being a big year of growth in maturity, so I am looking forward to seeing this growth! :)
In other news.....
I found this little origami that Axel folded awhile ago. I am amazed at how detailed his miniature origami is.
Here is the cat he made for his "girlfriend" Laya. It is very cute! He is so talented!
This weekend is the start of a very busy time for us, but I am hoping to stay grounded and not get caught up in it all. We have had a really difficult start of the week with our new washing machine breaking, our leak in our kitchen sink getting worse and worse and or top oven breaking. We were lucky enough to have a plumber come out on Tuesday and we have GE coming next Tuesday to fix the washer. We won't have the plumber back to fix everything until the February break because we are just too busy with work and the kids schedule. I actually had to cancel my work day next Tuesday to be available for the repair man to come because Keith has missed too much work taking care of everything. That is the bummer thing about working from home. I always expect that he can manage, but his entire Layout team just got laid off and he has one of his managers in Colorado who is quitting or trying to get fired. He has an incredible amount of work stress.
This weekend brings the start of the Spring Swim season with the first 3 day swim meet of the season. Phoenix plans on racing just after 5 pm tomorrow and then having me drive her over to her first dance of middle school. They actually have a 6th grade social with just the 6th graders and they don't even call it a dance. She is very excited. So, she will go to bed late and get up early for her swim meet on Saturday and then rush over to a birthday party at 12:45 pm where she will enjoy lunch, cake and an Escape room. Axel will have his Winter Ball this weekend as well on Saturday. He is going with Laya, of course. He is also busy competing in a computer science coding competition called BattleCode. He is having a lot of fun with it.
Axel and Phoenix both finish their first semester. Axel received straight A's with only 2 A+'s and 1 A- (in Honors English). He is very pleased about his English grade, but was a bit disappointed in all of his other A's. I felt kind of bad because a couple of his A's were 96% and a 97% is an A+. I am hoping he can get use to just getting A's. :) Phoenix received one B+ (English Honors) and the rest A's with an A+ in Japanese. She has really struggled with her Honors English teacher, but I think she is learning a lot. She also received an A- in math, but I was proud of her digging herself out of the whole she started in with some pretty bad grades the first month or two of school.
Rubix is on trimesters. He received his grades in the fall. I am not sure if I shared them, but he did well getting all A's with one B+, which is also in English. I think all of the kids excel in STEM, even though Phoenix really enjoys Language Arts more than math.
Rubix has started playing soccer with his teammates for the Spring season. They officially start in February sometime. We have been focused on helping Rubix work on being a bit more responsible, trying to keep track of his belongings and assignments. We had him moved to an earlier math period, which has resulted in him being more successful. He was really struggling with math at the end of the day. He is also playing basketball on Thursdays in a "lunch time" basketball tournament with his friends at school. The basketball coach is trying to get the boys interested for 4th grade basketball, which I think is a great idea!
I likely won't get a chance to post anything for a month. Until then, stay warm!
