Leon's 4 Year Video

I caught up on all the kids yearly videos.  Wahoo!!  Here is Leon's 4-year-old video.  I now have a couple months before I need to do his five-year-old video.

Leon's Tooth

Leon lost his tooth!  Below is the before picture.

It was funny because about a month back he was upset and telling me that his tooth hurt.  At first I was like, "wait, we just went to the dentist and you don't have any cavities."  My next thought was that he didn't hit his mouth on anything and so his tooth shouldn't be hurting.  Then I realized that he must have bumped it while eating and that he must have a wiggly tooth.  I tried to tell him that it was just a tooth getting ready to fall out, but it being his first one he wasn't so sure.  After a while of it getting wigglier and wigglier he was ready for it to come out.

I don't know exactly how it happened but a couple hours after the picture was taken the kids were at the park and the tooth came out.  They rushed into the house so excited while Leon held his tooth up in the air and loudly let me know that his tooth fell out.  They were all so happy.  I love that all the kids were excited for Leon to loose his first tooth.

Leon Modeling for Beams

Leon had his first modeling job back in March, but I wanted to wait until the pictures were out for me to post about it.  He was pretty nervous for the whole thing.

But all the people were so nice and helpful for him.  They tried really hard to make him comfortable.  This was the most organized shoot I've ever been to.  He modeled more clothes in less time than any of our other shoots. 

Go here for the website and scroll through the pages to see Leon.  He has quite a few more pictures than I am posting, these are just some of my favorites.

I love these!

Oh man, he is so cute!

This took place right in Harajuku so we stopped for a crem brûlée crepe afterwards.  I think the top of it was pretty yummy, that was the part that was burned.  The rest was just ok.

Tucker fell asleep on the train ride back.

After it was over, I talked to Leon about what he thought about the whole thing.  He said it was ok and doesn't really want to do it again.  Even when the pictures came out online he wasn't very thrilled about it.  I don't think I'm going to sign him up for more jobs unless they are with his siblings or something else fun like that.  He had the experience and that seemed to be enough for him.

Baseball Season

After two months of twice a week practices and weekly games the baseball season is winding down for these boys.  Coming off of basketball I wasn't sure how this was going to go but I'm really glad we did it.  Having two children in sports is much more manageable then four.  They had back to back practices so that really cut down on the number of times we had to drive back and forth.  Penelope and Scarlett even made friends with other girls who had a brother on Tucker's team.  In fact I think they might have enjoyed playing with their friends during baseball equally as much as the boys liked playing.  Not once did they regret not signing up for baseball. 

I enjoyed the weather and sitting an chatting with the other mom at Tucker's practice.

Leon did awesome at his games, I'm so glad I took this video of his very first time up to bat.

He has came a long way since then.  He now touches all the bases and doesn't pass his own teammates.  But he does run home as much as he can even though they are really only supposed to run one base.

Tucker's games were so different than Leon's.  An hour and a half felt like forever sometimes.  The pitchers in general had a hard time getting the ball over the plate, so it was just like watching walk after walk after walk.  There was a game where Tucker didn't get the ball once, and he was walked both times he got up to bat, and everyone after him walked as well.  

Baseball is just a lot of pressure.  It seems like the game just rotates who is under pressure the whole time.  Where as other sports seem more like a group effort.  

Tucker really wanted to pitch but the coaches didn't choose him to do that this season.  I think in the end he was ok with that.  On this last game he got to play first base, which he was really excited about.  Even when playing first he only got the ball once.  I think there was only 2 or three hits from each team the whole game.

Even though sometimes I was bored I really could see the value that this game was bringing to Tucker.  Their team lost most games, and not all the boys took it well.  Tucker also struck out one time and during that same game he missed a big ball that gave the other team a home run.  It was a rough game for him.  I was worried about him emotionally, but he handled it ok.  He didn't cry or get angry like he could have but I know he was feeling bad.  It is important for the boys to learn how to deal when they make mistakes, when they lose, or when their teammates make mistakes while the stakes are so low like this. 

During this last game Tucker was the very last batter and the bases were loaded.  I could tell he was nervous but excited.  We really encouraged him to swing at anything he thought he might be able to hit and it worked.  He got a nice hit.  In fact he made it all the way to third, and brought in three RBI's.  Their team won! Wahoo, he was excited.

Leon's 5-Year-Old Photos

Leon did not want to stop playing for five minutes to let me take the pictures of him last week before church but I made him anyways.  I feel like Leon changed so much in the last year.  He was so easy up until he turned four.  Like the most mellow easy going toddler that was pretty happy entertaining himself.  It seemed like at the flip of the switch after he turned four he turned crazy.  He now runs around jumping and climbing on everything.  He turned into a little ball of energy and I love it!

Leon is loud and fun and dirty, just everything a little boy should be.  He is always climbing on people and running around like crazy.  He leaves things out and tries to get aways with the least amount of work as possible.  I really like having him around. 

I didn't know Bob as a child but I can picture him being just like how Leon is now.

Along with Leon being so full of energy he is so genuine and sweet.  He gets nervous to do new things and he is so cute when he is scared.  If even a remotely scary scene will happen in a movie he will run over to me and try to hide his face from the screen.  Leon also will randomly come up to me and give me a hug.  He even sometimes shares his bed with Tucker when Tucker's bed can't be slept in because it is in fort mode. 

I've seen Leon try to keep up with his older siblings and get frustrated when he can't.  Often there will be things that they can do but he isn't old enough and he really is a trooper about it.  I think now that he is five he will be able to join in most of those types of things.  For example he got to hang out with me every week while the other kids did their swim and gym classes.  He is really fun for me to be around because he seems to have the right balance of talking to me and playing alone.  Leon really seems to idolize Tucker especially.  Not only does he try to copy him all the time Tucker is the one that he runs and jumps on and wrestles with all day.  I think he learned that the girls do not like it while Tucker will play back with him.

I'm excited to see how he continues to grow and learn this year.  I love him and am happy he is in our family.

Leon's 5th Birthday Party

Leon had his first ever friends birthday party and it was a blast!  He was so excited, for months ahead of time he kept asking me how many more weeks/days until his party.  It was cute and also annoying at the same time.

After we spent the morning setting up Leon came around the house with me to take pictures. 

We ended up with a lot of chain!  I love how they looked though.  If you ask me those nights we spent stapling them together while watching TV were worth it.  I'm not sure if Bob agrees.

We even had time for a picture together before friends arrived.

Just before the party started Tucker, Penelope, and Scarlett went to the neighborhood park and Calista took a nap.  It was great to have the house a little more empty to focus on the party.

As the kids came in we had them make their own flags.  Once they all finished we played the Olympic theme song and watched the kids march around the house.

After our opening exercises the first olympic event was curling.  This one was so easy and it turned out really well.  We just had taped a square on the floor and had the kids try to slide their bracletts into it.

The biathlon was a bit trickier.  They had to suck up a marshmallow with a straw and shoot it across the table.

We had a cheeto torches snack break.

Then on to speed skating.  For this the kids just slid in a circle around our house on rags and we timed them.

For the ski jump bob made a ramp that the kids had to slide a ping pong ball over and try to get it to land in the step.

For the olympic cake I thought about actually lighting the torch but we decided to stick with the traditional candles.

It was quite a bit of cake.

The awards ceremony was probably my favorite part.  I was worried that the dollar store trophies and medals were kind of cheap looking.  But the kids were thrilled to get them.  They were so excited it was really cute.

Later after the party we opened our family presents.  Leon couldn't wait for this!

I think he was most excited for his remote control car.  He was asking for one for a while and so we didn't want to disappoint.

I love how Calista is just sitting and watching like everyone else.

Happy Birthday Leon!