It's Been Awhile....

Time flies these days...  Life seems to revolve around school, soccer, swim lessons, and church.  Which is all good, but keeps us busy.  Everybody is happy and healthy (though a bit of a cold - very mild- has run through the boys and I).

Soccer's been tough as we've had a couple of rough defeats.  Ethan's kept his spirits up though, and still managed to get at least one goal at each game.  He really loves it and is playing so incredibly hard.  I love that I can see him strategize, and that he is just as loud as I am from the sidelines.

 Last weekend we managed to venture out to Seattle for the Northwest Chocolate Festival.  It was in the same place as PAX, so Lucas directed us on where to go - since he knew this time.  He has become incredibly bossy - though at times it is still really cute.

 Ethan insisted on going to a lecture about chocolate making in Ecuador.  It was a guy, in a dimly lit room, showing a bunch of pictures of equipment and trees.  I had a really hard time keeping awake.  But Ethan loved it.  The guy kept coming back to a map, and even gave everyone a copy.  My little cartographer was delighted.  Lucas only made it through the first few minutes before it was clear he needed to be elsewhere.

 The festival was a bit overrated, and overpriced, but it was an experience and here in the Sprague family, we live for the "experience" stuff.
At school, Ethan and I have started a before-school club where kids can come and play in the arts - making some big project each week.  I have loved it - though underestimated how popular it would be!  There are over 90 kids on the roster, though about half forget each time.  I have a colleague helping as well as several parents, so it actually is really easy.  But my favorite part is doing the planning with Ethan.  He's picked up his Dad's artistic abilities and I am loving seeing his ideas and expression.  He also started working on his Reflections project and I have to say that I am just adoring getting to watch him work on it side by side with Brian.  We went to Michael's yesterday and Brian helped him get the tools he'd need and then we spent the evening drawing, painting, coloring, just creating!  After so many days of sports - it was fun to focus on art.  And such a cool bonding experience for the boys.

Other adventures in the last couple of weeks....  Mini golf with Daddy while Mommy attempted to clean (but started watching Marley and Me and got totally sucked in) 

 Drawing faces on bellies - biggest giggles I've heard in a while.....

 Lucas showed up at the soccer game with orange beads and an orange "purse", orange shorts, and orange shoes...  No doubt on what his favorite color is!

 More soccer - another tough defeat, but some awesome defense from yours truly!

 Filthy, filthy children....  Cannot believe how gross he can get after a soccer game!

 And a few meals out here and there -including a trip to Toad House to build our own pizzas....

So life is good, though I've been quiet.  Swimming ends this Wednesday, along with Lucas' soccer and Ethan's climbing wall class.  We'll get a couple weeks off to decide what comes next.  But first, I'm going to sleep - at 8 p.m.  Everything else can wait for tomorrow :)