Summer Activities

 Big News for FINN!!  He learned to ride a bike without training wheels!

Luke and Liam's lacrosse game.  The face-off thing is very odd in lacrosse.  

Graduation Party for the Weigel's niece, Emma

Aiden attended a professional soccer game with several good buddies from his soccer team.

Luke and Liam's 3 on 3 hockey team won first place in the spring league.  Luke is a skater (not a goalie) on this team and its fun to watch both both with some of their close friends.  

We have not been at a loss of things to do this summer.  Each of the boys is signed up for a few things, but it is all of their combined activities that keep us quite busy!  Luke is doing a goalie camp several mornings per week and it really wears him out so he spends a bit of time recovering before he is ready to move to something else in the afternoon.  And, he's super hungry after camp!!

Luke, Liam, and Aiden are all doing golf lessons and playing the MAC 9.  Finn will have a small sports camp and VBS later this summer and the older boys will head to overnight camp.  In the evenings, we are still busy with soccer for Aiden and lacrosse for Luke and Liam.  Finn's soccer will pick up in mid July.

Finn's big accomplishment this week was learning to ride a bike!  He was so excited.  He had a balance bike for two summers and got too tall to use it so we pulled down our next bike (the one Luke and Liam used to learn how to ride) and he was too big for that as well.  So, we moved to yet the next size of bike in the garage and he tried it with training wheels and then decided he didn't need the training wheels because they make a funny noise.  So, we took the training wheels off and OFF he went!  He really had very few issues other than when he tried to jump a curb on a bike ride around the block and flew off the bike onto the grass (thankfully).  He loves to practice riding and wants to take off down the street, but I am hoping for baby steps....

We made it!!

Last Day of 5th grade (and elementary school) for Luke and Liam.    Last day of third grade for Aiden.

First day of First grade for Luke and Liam (and their first day at the elementary school)

Taking pictures still isn't easy

My favorite moms of 5th grade boys!

5th grade boys at the decathlon (yes, they all pulled their shorts up high on purpose)

Biking to school on the final day

Celebrating the last day of school

Finn's last day of school and our final day at Montessori

Last day of Montessori Kindergarten 

Throwback to Luke and Liam's last day at Montessori kindergarten

Finn wanted one final picture with his favorite teacher, Ms. Kristi

We survived another school year and we are ready to have a fun summer!  The last few days and weeks of school were busy.  Just to recap a few highlights....

1.  Luke and Liam finished their final day at Basswood Elementary where they started in first grade.  They are moving onto middle school whether we are ready or not.  It was a fun week celebrating their final days at Basswood and preparing to say Goodbye to their wonderful teachers.  We had a picnic lunch with parents, kids, and teachers, a field trip to the Mall of America, a decathlon, a final bike ride to school, and a pool party to celebrate on the final day.

2.  Aiden finished third grade and will be at Basswood again next year for 4th grade.  His teacher this year is doing something called "looping" so he will actually be in her class for 4th grade as well.  Should be fun to maintain many of the same friends and the same teacher.  Aiden celebrated with a pool party on Friday (after school finished up on Thursday).  It was a fun day with several of his friends.

3.  Finn celebrated his final day at Step by Step.  This was a really hard one for me as we have known the teachers at Step by Step since Luke and Liam began there nearly 10 years ago.  We have grown up with many of these teachers and they have loved us and taught us well.  We are so thankful for each of them and what they invested in the boys.  We promised to come back to visit because we will miss each of them so much.  Finn is excited to begin kindergarten at Basswood Elementary with Aiden in the fall.  

Memorial Day and Spring Sports

Aiden (far left in pic, his team is blue and white) is really enjoying soccer this spring.  His team is undefeated and Aiden has scored a goal in pretty much every game.  

Liam's AAA team in their most recent tournament

Liam's team watching an overtime game

The younger siblings cheering for Liam's team

Luke after a recent lacrosse practice

We made a quick visit to the pool over Memorial Day.  It was very warm outside, but its all relative when you haven't seen teams in the mid 70's in so many months!  The boys didn't care that the water was ICE cold!  And, that's Finn on our inflatable bull (a birthday gift).

We had a nice Memorial Day weekend and enjoyed several days with no sports or other schedules to follow.  It was great to have the free time and a chance to catch up on things at home.  We had some nice weather for at least two days.  Our spring has been chilly and very rainy this year.  We finally had some sun and temps in the mid 70's on Sunday so we made a quick trip to the pool.  It was chilly, but the boys honestly didn't care.

Liam had his final AAA spring tournament last weekend.  His team played well together and while they didn't finish as strong as we hoped they would, it was a good weekend.  In our pool, we ended up playing both the first and second place teams in the entire tournament.  Both games were close for us so we definitely had some good competition which hopefully will pay off in the long run.

With all the rain this spring, we have had some messy spring sports.  Luke and Liam love practicing in the mud and rain.  Aiden played an entire soccer game in the freezing cold and pouring rain last week and I was honestly a bit more thankful that hockey is an indoor sport.  I think I would take a cold rink any day over the cold and windy conditions we had at soccer.  I couldn't even keep my umbrella upright.  

Kindergarten Graduation

Swans on the lake during Aiden's field trip

Aiden and his buddy, Broden, on their class field trip

Aiden and Broden

Finn receiving his kindergarten diploma from Ms. Nikki

Finn and his numbers book that he finally finished at school.  He was so proud!!

Pancake lunch for the kindergarteners

Graduation night

Finn's kindergarten graduation

Finn was so excited

Walking down the aisle

Finn and his kindergarten class at Montessori

Finn and his diploma

Finn and his brothers

Finn and his teacher, Ms. Kristi

Ms. Kristi is our favorite!

Finn and his cake!

I am beginning to think that the month of May is similar to December with all of the activities!  I think nearly every close friend of Aiden's was born in the month of May because Aiden has been invited to a large number of birthday parties this month.  Spring sports have also started in full force and on most nights we are balancing practices for Luke, Liam, and Aiden and sharing carpools for lacrosse, soccer, and AAA hockey.  Finn is doing soccer, but thankfully that will not begin until later this summer.  And school is still in session until the first week of June, but we have field day, end of the year field trips, band concerts, graduation, bike to school days, end of the year parties, and the list seems to go on and on....It is a fun and busy time of year for us, but I will be ready for some downtime in June!

Finn had his kindergarten graduation this week and loved every minute of it.  He was so excited to graduate although he will miss Montessori quite a bit.  We have been so fortunate to have an amazing teacher, Ms. Kristi, who taught kindergarten to all four of the boys at Step by Step.  The only thing that made it easier to let Luke, Liam, and Aiden move on to elementary school was the fact that we always had someone still at Montessori with Ms. Kristi.  For the last 10 years, we have been at this school and have enjoyed the time there so much.  In the fall, Finn will begin kindergarten at Basswood elementary where Aiden will also attend.  Luke and Liam will be moving onto Middle school which will be an entirely new adventure for them (and for us!).  

Awards, Band, and more hockey

Liam (white shirt in front) and Luke (blue shirt in front) receiving their awards

Academic Achievement awards

5th grade Band concert

Luke and Liam and their friends at the band concert

Luke at his hockey tournament over the weekend

Aiden in his tournament

Luke and Liam had a busy week last week.  They each received an academic achievement award for maintaining at least a 3.0 GPA or higher during the hockey season.  Their hockey association held an awards ceremony and they each received a few prizes and a certificate.  We didn't win any of the big prizes like a new hockey stick, but it was a good motivator to maintain good grades next season so they can be eligible for the award (and the prizes!).

In addition, Luke and Liam had their end of the year band concert.  They each began playing in the band in September and have come an extremely long way in a short amount of time.  The songs sounded so much better in the spring than they did in the winter concert.  It was fun to hear their progress.  Liam is playing trumpet and Luke plays trombone and they plan to continue with their instruments in middle school.

Lastly, we had another weekend of hockey.  Luke and Aiden each had five games, but thankfully we were still under our record of games from last weekend when we hit fourteen.  This was the final AAA hockey tournament for Luke and Aiden this spring so they won't pick back up until August.

Luke's team made it to the semifinals and sadly lost by one goal.  Luke learned a valuable lesson about being a goalie.  Even when he has a good game as a goalie, his team doesn't always win.  Luke let in fewer goals than any other goalie in his age group in this tournament, but his team simply didn't score enough goals to win.  The team struggled a bit in some areas and managed to come in fourth place.

Aiden's team met some very good competition for his age group.  They were playing a lot better by the end of the tournament and really learned a lot.  He had a great time playing with his friends and got to play center which he hasn't done many times before.

Liam's last tournament is coming up in a few weeks so stay tuned! 

AAA Tournament Time

Liam's team with their trophy after their second place finish

Aiden's team after their third place victory (Aiden is in back on top left)

Aiden's team getting ready to play

Aiden is on the far right (#97)

Aiden got a Minnesota WILD players autograph!  Jared Spurgeon was at  one of his games.

Liam's team doing games in the hotel.

Jared Spurgeon (who plays hockey for the MN Wild) with Aiden and his buddies

Saran wrap ball with Liam's team

Siblings saran wrap ball

Liam's team played the championship at St. Cloud State University

The Moms on Liam's team!

Luke's team with their first place finish!

Liam's team and second place

Luke and the trophy

We set a new family record for most hockey games played in one weekend.  This isn't a record that I hope to break anytime soon, but I am very thankful for the friends who helped us out.  We had a total of 14 games from Friday to Sunday.  To make things more complicated, Luke, Liam, and Aiden were in three different AAA hockey tournaments in three different cities.  John traveled to Duluth with Luke and his team, I traveled to St. Cloud with Liam and his team, and Aiden stayed in the Twin Cities area with a neighbor and good friend of his whose dad is also the coach of Aiden's AAA team.  Overall, we had a successful weekend with Luke's team finishing in first place, Liam's team finished in second place after an overtime loss in the championship game, and Aiden's team finished third.  We have three more tournaments before the first half of the AAA season is over until August.  It will be nice to have a break and focus on our spring sports that are starting up.