February Gymnastics Meets

February brought a couple more meets for the traveling Eberhardt kids. We road tripped to Jamestown, Minneapolis and Fargo. Mary was mostly great, except when for one spot on the way back from Minneapolis when she decided to scream for about 45 minutes. Thankfully I had picked up Michelle's mom Pam in Minneapolis and brought her back with me. She climbed in back and soothed Mary. I think that poor baby was just so sick of the car!

Mary got to hang out with Calvin some more and I got to hang out with Calvins parents! I tried to make a trip to Whole Foods but got caught in a blizzard. I did the next best thing and got Caribou...to go!

I am sure glad Michelle and Chad sent me with a Diet Coke. Nothing could prepare me for the nightmare of a meet I was about to encounter! The gym was small and had very tall very rickety old bleachers. The amount of spectators was huge and once they were all piled in, there was no way out. It was awful. The people next to me and I decided to make a break for it and Annie, Mary and I sat in the entry way( with windows into the gym) the rest of the meet. It was SO much more peaceful( and cooler!). 

January Cell Phone Pics

Wrapping up another month ! 

 Look mom, no braces!

 Playing with awesome art supplies from Aunt Jo

 Mary showing off some pants I made for her

 Silly silly kids playing dress up on a very cold day

 Mary showing off more pants I made

 These three guys sporting new hair cuts. 

trouble!!

First Lego League Competition

Elias has always loved building LEGOS. Our entire house has been over run with them since 2012 when he got his first LEGO set. When Elias was 7, we heard about this First LEGO League program that was free and run through the library. You had to be 9 to participate so Elias had to wait a couple of years. I think we both thought it would be building LEGOS and making a robot made of LEGOS do some cool stuff. It was a bit of that, but so much more! 

The teams are ran by volunteer coaches and since I like to be involved, I signed on to be a volunteer coach for my son's team when I could be there which was bout 40% of the time. . I quickly realized I had zero idea what was going on. So the general idea is you build a robot and program this robot to complete missions which are worth points. You also need to research a problem and find a solution to that problem related to the theme that year. You have to present your project, your robot design, make a poster and of course compete on the timed course with your robot. As we got closer to competition I knew there was zero way we were getting out of the regional meet. We had no idea what we were doing the whole season seemed so disjointed. 

The meet was ALLLLLL day one cold cold January day. We struggled through our presentations and made it to lunch! After a terrible first run we had an eh second run. We now knew we needed 60 points to stand a chance to advance to state. The bottom 3 teams, even if they rocked presentations, are not eligible to move on to state. 

Our team had an OK run. We struggled with our second mission but were still hopeful. We needed our last mission to go smoothly. It did not. We needed our robot to do a 90 degree turn and drop a "water" into a "well". The robot didn't rotate a full 90 degrees ending our state dreams....but wait!! The robot was programmed to go back to the base but was off course from its previous mishap and it ran right into another challenge we missed KNOCKING THE PIECE IN in the final seconds! It was epic!! The entire place erupted in cheers. We had a beautiful Hail Mary moment and it secured our spot high enough to stand a chance to move on. All we had to do was wait for judges awards. 

 When awards were announced, much to everyones surprise, we made it to state!!! We shouldn't have based on project scores but two teams were eliminated from advancing due to low robot game scores. We had a lot of work to do to improve our presentations but we were just SO excited to advance!

Hydro Nerds!!

Mary Elizabeth 5 months

5 Months

Weight: You weigh about 15 lbs and are in 3-6 months clothes.  You seem to have a long torso so we have even snuk in some 6-9 month sleepers and onsies.

Hair color- Good question! It is either blonde, strawberry blonde or light red. Not brown and not black. Her hair is taking FOREVER to grow, she is still pretty bald.

Eye Color- Dark blue right now but they are getting lighter still.

Sleep- You do not nap unless on someone or in a vehicle. I don't mind terribly as you are my last baby and I will soak up those new born snuggles all I can. You are a rock star at night. You go to bed around 8 and I don't see you until 7 or so in the morning. Thank you. 

Eating-  You still nurse every 2-3 hours for the most part. You started solids this month and were less than impressed.

Daily routine- Get up around 7 or 8 depending on the chaos around here. Eat, play, take some naps, play some more, eat some more etc etc. You are a super easy going baby so your schedule varies day by day but always to bed by 8.

Firsts: Time going to Minnesota, first non sibling birthday party(Ainsley) , first time eating solids, first time sitting up alone. 

What we are looking forward to:  More independent sitting because that means more play time for you and free hands for me! Also, a consistent nap schedule. 

Mary Elizabeth where to start? You are the sweetest, smile-est, best-est traveler, best sleeper cuddliest baby (EVER) I can't figure out what I did to get the perfect baby ( 6th try is a charm?) You are amazing! You have been on so many road trips this last month to so many meets and so happy through it all. Strangers frequently come up to me after meets and tell me what a good baby you are. You coo "talk" love to play with your two bottom teeth with your tongue, roll all over the place, push up on you belly and are starting to sit but not without some help very close by. You are also a great model for my clothes making obsession. You don't nap which I would say is your only negative quality at this point. We love you lots! Please don't be an awful teenager in exchange for being a good baby!