Proud Mama

We went to the Norwegian Lutheran Church today and celebrated syttende mai a couple days early. The boys greatly enjoyed the hot dogs and ice cream and then...the games! They had about 8 little games set up for kids to play and everybody won a little prize after each game. Adin loved horseshoes and the bean bag toss. Usually Erik prefers to stand back and observe, and Joe was on Erik duty so I'm not sure how much he participated. Except he had all the prizes in his prize bag, so he must have done the activities. Anyway, then they had a variety of team games. First there was a tug of war. We cheered the first round (kids) and the second round (girls). Then they had a round of kids vs. parents. Joe pulled on one side and the boys pulled on the other! I have some pictures on my camera and maybe when it's not midnight I'll post them. I think the boys look sort of terrified in the pictures, but I was so happy they got in there.

Next was an egg relay. Adin agreed to do the relay and I waited with him. There were five teams of four kids. The bigger kids were so great. They were the perfect balance of trying their best, but not getting upset about who won. I had Adin practice holding a coin on his spoon so he could get the concept of holding his spoon flat. Fortunately, by the time it was his turn, another team had won, so I ended up walking the relay leg holding his hand steady around the spoon. Nobody seemed to mind.

Then they had sack races! The first round was just children, but the second round they said the age limit was 100 (sorry Bestemor)! So I decided to jump! I had been encouraging Erik to join in and he refused because it looked hard. I told him the boy I'd been cheering for (who stood in front of me in the egg race) had fallen about 20 times, but he just got up and kept hopping. So anyway, I jumped and then the third round ERIK JUMPED!!! I was so proud of him! He didn't fall but all the other participants were a lot bigger and finished ahead of him so I came out and jumped him the last few yards(stood behind him and lifted him up and down). He got a big kick out of being the one who 'jumped' the highest! Maybe the dozens of times we've explained that it's ok to do something less than perfectly are sinking in. Woo Hoo!