The Friedman Clan: February 2020

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Vicious dogs....

When they play, the look mean, they sound mean.....but, they couldn't be mean if their life depending on it. Notice their new, ugly haircuts too......uck!

The hair braider.......

She's extremely good at it, loves doing it.....

I think she spends most of her free time at school braiding her friends' hair too.....she is actually pretty darn good at braiding her own hair also!!!

Jack doesn't mind Mike's absence

Mike has been gone a couple weeks the last month for some conferences for work. Jack hasn't minded one bit....he's been thoroughly enjoying Mike's side of the bed.

Two sleepy boys......neither of them move too quickly in the mornings.....

Peyton's new accessory.....

Well, she's on the DL again. Last week in a pre season soccer scrimmage, she had a fluke injury. One of her teammates got shoved and ultimately fell into Peyton. She fell into the side of Peyton's calf, and Peyton's lower leg went one way and her knee went the other way.

She went down, she hobbled off the field and wanted to stay for the rest of the scrimmage. By half-time, she was freezing and her knee hurt so she wanted to go home. She tried hopping on one foot all the way to the car (she thought she could), once her good leg got tired, I said, here hop of my back. She was pretty impressed that I could carry her!! HA!

The next day she went to school, limping. Once she came out of school and got home she and Mike talked about it and she was telling him it still hurt her to straighten her leg and that she couldn't straighten it all the way.

He took her up to work and put her on the MRI machine. Sure enough, she has a sprained MCL and a fractured femur. Mike took her to the ortho doc a few days later and he told her she'd be out six weeks. She was ok with this news, as her biggest fear was SURGERY!! She had herself all freaked out!!! So she gets to wear this nice big knee brace as her new accessory and wait six weeks until she's back in action.....

Jack's mornings....

Jack's "lack of hustle" in the mornings leave the girls screaming at him every morning! They like to get to school early and Jack couldn't care less. He is SLOW moving in the morning AND easily distracted! His biggest distraction.....the DOGS!!!!
Here he is, not a care in the world, even tough the girls are screaming at him.....just laying down petting the dogs.....

One of Maddie's Talents

Maddie has a few "talents" but one that would be super convenient is being able to "drop" wherever you are when you are tired. Car, in the middle of a party....you name it. If she is tired, she will find a place to get comfy enough and catch some z's.

One of the perks of always being sleep deprived????

Peyton Guest Playing

When Peyton gets asked to guest play for any team....basketball or soccer, it is an immediate NO for an answer. She does NOT like guest playing. She says it makes her too nervous and that she's afraid she will mess up and they will all be mad....ha!!! Whatever....but there is NO chasing a teenagers mind about her feelings, so we just have to say, "ok".

Coach Renee asked her to sub for her school team, and she said YES!!!!! I couldn't believe it. So we went ahead and documented it for there baby book.

Dishwashers do NOT like us!

We got a new dishwasher about 3-4 years ago and it already broke a year ago. The appliance guy said he could fix it, but not promises on how long it would last...."they just don't make appliances they way the use to." So we fixed it, and like he said, it only lasted a short bit of time, again.

We opted to buy a new one this time.

After many hours of installation, Mike was a crabby man.....but we have a working dishwasher!!!

Sunday, February 9, 2020

Knights Christmas Party

Last night the Knights had their Christmas Party....took us a while to find a time that everyone was available, but they finally found one. The girls had fun...they ran around, the giggled, they tictocked, they snap chatted, they ate, the giggled some more, they opened presents......

Jack Day!!!!.....it's been a while!!!

I think for the past month, I must've been on girl duty and Mike must've been on Jack duty, because it feels like forever since I have watched Jack play anything.
I was on Jack duty yesterday, and it was a FULL day of it!!
First I took him to his "server test" in the morning....he passed, and is ready and eligible to start serving mass.

Then straight from there we headed off to her COLD football game. Mike met us there, as he was coming from a baseball meeting. I only stayed for half.....TOO cold for me. I got to see Jack score a touchdown, got a few pics, and then back to the warm car I went!!!

After his football game was over, he came home, changed for basketball, thawed out and then off we went. He played well in both of his basketball games!!! He even played with a little attitude and got an offensive foul as he took it to the hole....his dad was proud!

Chaminade Mixer

Meanwhile, on the same Friday night, I ran around being Peyton's group uber. I picked them up from walking around after school and took then to their pre-party at the Gorsuch's house. From there, we loaded the girls into two cars and took then to the mixer. It was a very giggly/excited car!!! It was pouring down SNOW and these crazy girls were wearing shorts, shot sleeves, and no coats.......

What the floor of a minivan looks like after hauling 7 girls in a muddy, snow storm......

Friday Playdate

Coming out, hand in hand, for their Friday playdate. They then talked me into a sleepover, as they had a super early (7:15) soccer game in the morning anyway. So I ran to Molly's house and grabbed her soccer stuff and overnight bag. The girls went to bed at 9:00. Maddie fell right to sleep, but then I kept going up and checking on them and Molly kept being WIDE awake!!! Finally at 10:30, she thought maybe her mom should come get her, cause she just wasn't tired. :)
So she went home, but Maddie had NO idea!!!! The next morning Maddie came in my room, woke me up and said, "Me and Molly had a sleepover last night, but I can't find her!!" LOL
I filled her in, we got dressed, and headed to the soccer game......

Snow/FLU/Rain Day???

St. Peter is having a HUGE outbreak of the FLU. 1/3 of the student body was out earlier in the week with the FLU. On Tuesday night they canceled PSR classes so that kids wouldn't have to go the the germ infested school. Wednesday the weathermen were calling for a lot of snow/sleet that was soups to start around noon. All the area schools were calling school off at noon, St. Peter however called of the entire day.....in hopes of killing to birds with one stone.....getting rid of germs and a half day snow day.
Kirkwood Baptist still had a half day of school, as they follow the Kirkwood School District schedule. Maddie was MORE than happy to go to school with me!!! She asked me, "What week is it?" When I told her it was "O" week, she ran to her room to find a variety of "O" books to read to my class.
She read the a read aloud, she taught then one-on-one how to play Go Fish, and she did puzzles with them. She was actually SUPER helpful.....and actually a better "aide" than my real "aide" this year.

It pays to come to school with mom......

Once we got home, I was freezing, so I head to Jack's bed (the bed with he heated blanket) and took a good snooze!!! When I woke up, I pushed up the shades thinking I'd see a ton of snow......NOT A SNOWFLAKE!!!! The weatherman was indeed wrong!!!!

We then all thought we were going to play a quick game of Monopoly Jr...but we were WRONG!!! Maddie and lost quickly, but Peyton and Jack went on and on FOREVER!!! I think Jack finally won!

Gus was thoughtful, and helping Mike with he banking.....

Mike mentioned to Maddie that maybe they should go to Grandma Jeanne's sledding hill, cause they actually got a lot of snow. Then once he thought about it and the rush hour traffic he decided that maybe that was a bad idea. But she has having NONE of it!! The weatherman said it was gonna snow and then her dad opened his big mouth and this girl WANTED to go sledding. She went to the garage and go herself fully dressed. Snowboots, snow pants, gloves, hat....she was ready and there was NO telling her NO! Mike had to find her a hill in St. Louis steep enough that the sled would work with no snow. Mission accomplished.....they found hills steep enough at Laumeier Sculpture Park....Annie enjoyed it too!!!

Monday, February 3, 2020

Groundhog Day 2020

Well, groundhog Phil said we WILL NOT have 6 extra weeks of harsh winter.....he said that yesterday, and today we had 70 degrees and sunshine!!! We will take it, and not talk about the snow that's in the forecast later in the week.
Mike was off today, so we took the dogs on a hike to the sculpture park. They LOVED it!!! They were jazzed the minute we asked them and got their leashes out, they knew it was gonna be good!!

Super Bowl

Well, we got back around 4:00 from Indy on Super Bowl Sunday. I was not really "feeling" a Super Bowl party, I was tired. Maddie was tired and needed to get in bed on time, Peyton still had the FLU, so Jack and Mike headed off to the Ronken's for a "mostly dudes" Super Bowl. They had fun, we had a relaxing evening and ordered out Chinese and everyone went to bed!!!
Sounds like it was an exciting ending, with the Chiefs winning.

We DID watch the half-time show (us girls), and it was Shakira and J-Lo. They shook their butts with hardly any clothes on and danced on a pole, totally inappropriate in my opinion. Maddie kept saying, "Ew! She has like a wedgie of something.....it's hanging out!!!" She wasnt too sure about it either. If a seven year old knows better, National TV should too!!

INFLUENZA for Peyton

While all the caretakers were away in Indianapolis (mom and grandmas), Peyton came down with influenza and it hit her HARD!!! Poor girl had fever, chills, body aches, headache, bad dreams from fever, sore throat, cough.....had it BAD!!! She called us, A LOT!!! I know she wishes so bad we were at home to take care of her.
She did survive but she was happy to have us back.
She got sick Friday and couldn't play her basketball game against MQP, she was sick Saturday and couldn't play her Knights games, and then she had nothing on Sunday, and then missed school on Monday, which is today. We aren't sure yet if she will go back tomorrow or not. She's feeling "better" but still no energy AND 30% of the student body was gone today from STP. Kind of makes me want to keep ALL of them home and away from the germs!!!!
We never took Peyton into the doctor but 6 our of 8 players from her StP basketball team had influenza A, so I'm just going with that!

By these pictures, take a guess at who had it and who DID NOT want it!?!?!?!

First On The Road Gymnastics Meet

Maddie had been looking forward to this since last fall when the schedule was released. Her first out of town team event! Her gymnastics team was headed to Indianapolis to compete in the Circle of Stars meet. She did not compete until Sunday morning at 8:00am, so we did not need to leave until Saturday. Our original plan was to leave mid/late morning Saturday, get unloaded, have dinner with the team and get up and compete. Well, he coach gave them strict instructions that they could only swim until 2:00 Saturday and then they needed to be out of the pool. Well, this meant we needed to get up early and leave by 7:00am so she had time to swim, as there is also an hour time difference.
Grandma Farm came the night before and stayed the night and Grandma Jeanne was there at 7:00 and we hit the road.
We got there with no problems. Our room wasn't ready yet when we got there, but they went ahead and let Maddie use the pool while we waited. A few teammates were also in there swimming, so they had fun!!! Once the clock struck 2, it was time to get out. We headed up to our room, Maddie took a bath and then we went down and had lunch in the restaurant in the hotel.
We ordered pizzas with the team for dinner in the hotel and then we had the girls in bed by 8:00, for our 6:20am wake up call.
The next morning we got up and headed over to the convention center for the competition.
Everything went pretty smooth, the meet in itself ran pretty slow, but otherwise, all was good.
Maddie did well and had her best meet yet. Her first meet she scored a 36.2 and got 6th all around. Her second meet she scored 36.225 and got 4th all around, and at this meet she scored 36.775 and got second all around. So she gets a SMIDGE better, but those SMIDGES sure do count when you're talking about gymnastics!!!!
She took 1st on bars, 2nd on floor, 5th on beam, and 7th on vault.
SLGC took second as a team as well. She was a happy girl!!!
We took some pics, went back to the hotel, got our bags, checked out, and hit the road. We found a McAllister's to eat lunch at on the way home and we were back in the Lou by 4:00!!! When we got out of the car, we were hit with some very pleasant 70 degree weather!!!!!

Pizza party time, and time for the moms to improvise with our cooler-making skills. We did just fine!

We stayed at the Crown Plaza by the convention center and it was kind of like their Union Station. This "train" in the middle of the hotel actually had hotel rooms inside of it. Kind of cool!