The Baker Bunch

This school year Zane was a part of Mathletics. They met before school once a week and had quarterly competitions against the other elementary schools. It was so fun to watch him at the competitions! To end the year, they had a district-wide competition with teams from all of the elementary schools. I think he had fun and made some new friends as well!

Go mathletes!

Solving problems...

Is that right???

Mason's basketball coaches had the brilliant idea to have a mother/son scrimmage to end their season. There was lots of smack talk coming from the boys...and in the end the moms ended up winning by a couple of points. They underestimated us! It really was fun and hopefully it'll be a yearly event!

Moms and Sons

Happy faces

Dabbing!

Tough (?) faces

Let the game begin!

Mom huddle!

Look at those skills...

See us back there?

Mason went out with a bang in basketball! He did a very nice job in the last game of the season! I was so proud of him!

Block that shot!

And that's a wrap!

It's been really fun having the boys at my school this year! I get to see things like this, that I never would have seen if they were at a different school. And honestly, I never even would have known about it because they tell me NOTHING!

Mason on the morning announcements

This year we have enjoyed following the Bearcat Men's Basketball team. We went to a game in Kansas City and 2 games in Maryville. So much fun! Mason's favorite player is Justin Pitts, their point guard. Mason has played point guard quite a bit the last 2 years so he thinks Justin is pretty cool! After the game in Kansas City, Justin posed for a picture with Mason!

Justin Pitts and Mason

Another perk of knowing so many people at the boys' school is having them take pictures when they visit, so I get "action shots" from their day as well!

Lunch with friends!

Here we are heading to Maryville on a whim to watch the Bearcats play basketball! It was a FULL house. We barely got a seat, and it was an amazing game! They ended up going into overtime, and then winning! So much fun! Afterwards, Matt's parents met us for supper!

Maryville bound!

I posted the first picture and people's comments on Facebook talked about Matt not looking excited, so this was his "excited" pose!

Go Bearcats!

OVERTIME!

Bearcats for the WIN!

Our washing machine is on the fritz, well at least one part is. So Matt has it torn up in the garage, which means we cannot wash clothes at home. Instead, we must go to the laundromat. It was all fun and games at first, but now we are on the 4th week of this. Honey - please - FIX THE WASHER! The first week the boys did the laundry. They thought it was so cool how they could use multiple machines at once. I just let them go with it!

Folding their laundry

Why doesn't this happen at home?!?

At the end of each quarter we have a celebrations assembly at school. We get together to celebrate the accomplishments we've made throughout the quarter. At the end of the assembly each teacher choose 2 students from their class who have been "driving the bus" - or being a great leader - to participate in a game/activity/relay against each other. The names of students chosen is a surprise until the assembly. Since I plan the assemblies and the teachers have to send the names to me, I knew that both Zane and Mason were chosen this quarter. I also knew that they would be participating in a cup stacking tournament (March Madness style). But they didn't know.

That morning on the way to school I told the boys about the assembly and what would be happening during it. I told them about the cup stacking tournament and Mason said "Wait, what? I don't want to be picked for that." Great, just great! I asked why and he said "It's my first year at Graden, I don't know all of the moves for cup stacking yet!" So all morning I was a nervous wreck worried that Mason would be so upset about this!

Thankfully, both boys did GREAT! Honestly, I started wondering if it would end up being Zane vs. Mason in the finals! But, Zane ended up getting beaten, just barely, by one of his classmates. Later in the tournament, Mason faced her and beat her! Mason ended up in the finals against a fifth grade girl (a former student of mine) and she won...but not by a lot! You should have seen Mason...like a boss...so serious and would just do it, then stand there with the most serious look on his face!

The finals!!!

The next day I had a teacher work day but the boys didn't have school, so Grandma Keeta came down for a day of fun! They got spoiled as usual and got to spend the day any way they wanted! Here they are at one of their favorite pizza buffets (and Grandma doesn't even like pizza)!

Look at all of those plates!

For spring break this year we decided to drive to Destin, Florida. We really wanted the boys to see the ocean. We waited until both boys were done with baseball practice on Saturday and finally hit the road about 6:00 p.m. Saturday evening. Matt is a great nighttime driver and we are great car sleepers! So he drove all night Saturday, stopping for gas, restroom breaks, and snacks. When the sun came up we were in Alabama and Matt just HAPPENED to notice a battleship museum that we HAD to go to (I'm not a fan of museums).

Here comes the sun!

Most of the first night was like this...

Out!

Mason is under there...

First views of the ocean!

This was Bryce's first reaction when he saw the ocean! He was excited!

Battleship Museum

Captain Bryce

Captain Matt

Like a kid in a candy store...

The beds. How in the WORLD could they have slept here? My children barely fit!

After the battleship museum we drove some more, and then came to an airplane museum (this one was planned). Two museums in one day, I've met my quota!

I told Zane this was the car I was going to buy him! Doesn't he look thrilled?

This was how we felt waiting for Matt and Zane to get done with the virtual ride...

Getting instructions

Ready to go

Check out this crazy ride!

Reactions afterwards!

The first night we went to a restaurant named Fudpucker's. The boys LOVED saying the name! Ha! They also had some pretty creative t-shirts and hats but I didn't let them get any! Not really appropriate for your 11 and 8 year old to wear! Ha! The place was really cool! There were live alligators that you could feed. We even ordered and tried alligator tail (tastes like chicken)!

Alligator tail!

We couldn't WAIT to get to the beach on our first full day there! Our hotel wasn't on the beach, but there was public access right across the street so we didn't have to go far! The beach was beautiful. The sand was white and super soft. Our feet squeaked as we walked! The water was COLD but that didn't stop the boys from playing in the waves! Me - I just enjoyed the sunshine, the breeze, and watching them enjoy it all!

We enjoyed Harbor Walk, where there were many shops, restaurants, and food trucks! As we were enjoying some ice cream there, a family we knew from Kansas City walked by! We talked to them for awhile and laughed about traveling so far to see one another when we live a mile apart in KC!

Playing with our KC friends!

When we were at Fudpucker's the first night, we saw an ad for an illusionist show at a second location, so we went the following night. There, they had an alligator you could hold! Zane was the only one that would do it! The illusionist was GREAT! He called Matt up on stage to blindfold his assistant!

Our only brave child!

Ready for the show!

Matt's 10 seconds of fame...

With the magician and his wife after the show!

We ate at a restaurant named LuLu's, owned by Jimmy Buffet's sister. It was so so good!

Waiting to be seated

Mason's sand creation!

My very favorite thing on the trip was the dolphin cruise we went on! Amazing! The people running it were a lot of fun, and we got to see dolphins! The water was gorgeous, such a pretty turquoise color. We saw lots of dolphins that day! The water was pretty rough, so we didn't get to go too far out into the ocean, but that didn't matter. We had a blast!

All you can drink beer, wine, and soda! My cup was never empty!

These seagulls followed us around forever...we were feeding them saltines!

DOLPHINS!!!

Zane got to drive the boat!

Guess what...another family we love from KC was also in Destin! I saw my friend Mary a couple of weeks ago and she started talking about their upcoming trip to Destin. I couldn't believe we were about 30 minutes from them! Again, we had to travel hours to be able to hang with our friends from home! After the dolphin cruise we headed their way and spent some time on the beach with them. It was so much fun and we even got to watch the sun set!!!

Bryce, Mason, Madelyn, Nora, Zane

Amazing!

Mary and I!

The last full day we ate breakfast and went back to the room to get ready for the beach, but they were cleaning our room so we hung out for a bit in the lobby. The boys were telling jokes, mostly at my expense, but this is how they passed the time...then we headed to the BEACH! I could have sat there for hours watching their joy in the water. They loved every second of it! We had to almost beg Zane to get out of the water! He's convinced he's moving to Florida!

Bryce was done, tired, COLD!

On our last night we went miniature golfing. I heard so much talk about how I was going to be terrible, and lose, etc, etc. You'll never guess who won...ME! I had 3 hole in ones and I beat everyone! These smiles didn't last on everyone...

We were super sad to have to leave. Our week was so much fun! We decided to break our trip home into 2 days. So we went to Nashville and spent the night. Friday before we headed home we went to a science museum. The boys had fun exploring for a couple of hours!

Bryce said this is what the "cool guys" do!

We then headed back toward Kansas City and took a detour through St. Louis to see Aaron, Michele and Thomas! It had been Christmas since we'd seen them, so Thomas took a little bit to warm up to us. We had a BLAST with him! I wish we lived closer together!

Cousins rock!

DAB! (Can you tell Zane was so over this at this point)?

It didn't take long for us to get back into the swing of things once home. Saturday evening we watched basketball and hung out at the fire pit with friends!

There's been lots of rain lately! Here's a double rainbow outside our back door!

Bryce received a letter from our principal this week. He was covering his mouth and giggling while I read it to him. It was the most adorable thing! HOW is this kid going to be in kindergarten?!?