Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Halloween

Halloween in December....seems fitting to me:)

Some people are really great at blogging.  I'm not one of them.  I used to be better.  Then we had our third kid in three years.  Then I got a good phone and I got lazy and didn't feel like lugging my big camera around while trying to keep track of the kids.  

Perhaps if I had a camera fairy that carried my camera around and was responsible for uploaded my pictures onto my computer? That would be nice.

Anyways....moving on.  Halloween happened.  Back in October actually:)  I sort of hate the holiday.  I like the candy, but could do without the actual day of celebration.  The kids are getting old enough that they actually are starting to enjoy it (despite my humbug attitude and lack of excitement towards it:)), so it is starting to suck a little less.  

We went trick or treating with the kids' BFF, Grey, again this year.  Their cousins and papa also got to join us, so the kids were in heaven! We had a big ole' group of people and kids.  Made for a little bit of craziness.  Especially since our kids were some of the younger ones and walk way slower.  We were having a very very hard time keeping up with the older kids who were onto the next house by the time Kamdyn and Shepherd made it up the steps to the previous house:)  I had to carry Kamdyn half the time just so we wouldn't get left behind.  Needless to say, my feet were tired!  All in all, it was a fun night with friends and family.  And I throughly enjoyed being the candy patrol and taking care of portion control for the kids:)  Thankful it's only one night once a year.  I need all the time I can get to recover!

Until next year, enjoy some pictures....








 Eli also got to celebrate with a fall party at school.  This was a first for us both.  So fun!  He got to dress up in his costume and do a parade with all the kids in the preschool.  Brian's grandparents watched the other two so I was able to actually go and just sit and enjoy watching Eli.  Amazing:)  One of Eli's little friend from school has a mom who is a chemistry teacher in the district.  So she came and did some fun halloween "experiments" for the class.  His party was way cooler than anything I remember as a kid!

 (Random picture that got thrown in with this bunch.....such a cute little man.  Every serious trick or treater has to bring along his monkey, right?!)

 Eli's preschool class.  His teacher, Miss Tammy is in the football jersey.  His para Miss Stephanie is in the pink.
 Parade of preschoolers!  Eli is Bob the Builder (if you haven't figured that out already:))

Friday, October 26, 2012

A few more of Parker

Ok, I have some more of Parker.  I promise I do take pictures of our other two kids.  Sometimes:)  In any case, I didn't actually take these pictures anyways.  These are Parker's one year pictures my friend Allison took for me.  I just have to share some because they are so cute and he is so handsome (just try to ignore his crazy hair please:))  So here you are!









Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The youngest....

Well, believe it or not, I've actually gotten pretty caught up on this blog.  Left you from stuff in August, now I'm posting about a couple of weeks ago.  Mostly that's because I didn't take any pictures on my big camera from Eli's first soccer game until about 3 weeks ago.  Sad story I know.  Maybe I should start including some of my phone pictures on here.....I use that thing way more day to day than my big camera.  Or it could be that we just don't do anything all that exciting.  With Eli in preschool 4 days a week, I spend a lot of time at home.  

Anyways, this post is all about Parker.  Because apparently he's the only one I take pictures of.  Must be the cutest;)  I actually think it has more to do with the fact that he's the one that is ALWAYS with me (can't let that kid out of your sight....he's ornery!) and he still humors me and lets me take his pictures.  For a few minutes anyways:)


Parker has been walking for a while now.  Probably since at least mid September, but I just got around to taking pictures of it. Gotta document this in the scrapbook afterall!  Let me just say that this kid is fast.  Once he picked up on walking, there was no turning back.  He walks(really more of a run) everywhere now.  It's pretty cute.  Seems like once they start walking they just instantly grow up before your eyes and transition from a baby to a big boy.  I don't like that part, but I love watching him toddle around.  He's got to keep up with his brother and sister....

The first few are blurry, but I had to include them because they were hysterical.  He gets so excited when he gets to running around the house sometimes:) 


 Really, I guess they are all a little blurry.  He is fast and my camera wasn't keeping up with his lightening speed:)






 And always remember....... after vigorous exercise it's important to stay hydrated!



Parker has had his hair cut once.  It needs it very very badly again.  But for now, it just gets in his face. And he wakes up with some pretty amazing bed head:)



Sunday, October 21, 2012

4 year olds and soccer

I thought it only seemed fitting to blog about Eli's first organized sport experience since his last soccer game was yesterday.  What a season.  

FYI, this is a LONG post.  If you don't want to read all about my experience with Eli and soccer, just scroll to the pictures....they are at the bottom.  I swear:)

Where to begin.....

Eli was finally old enough to join in some sports this year.  I was so excited to get him signed up for something.  This kid is so active and loves to be outside, so I thought he would love anything we signed him up for.  We went with soccer.  We are a soccer family around here:)  We had to sign up through the YMCA because he was just a few weeks too young to play for AYSO.  It didn't really matter where we put him, we weren't expecting much out of him because he's four and he's never played before:)  We put him on the same team as his best friend, so we figured we'd be set and he'd be pumped and ready to go every week.

Man, my low expectations of soccer for Eli weren't aimed low enough apparently.  I suppose I forgot (or maybe intentionally tried to forget) how hard it is to get Eli out of the house for ANYTHING!  That kid loves to be home.  Not. Even. Kidding.  I'm pretty sure he could not leave our property for 2 weeks straight and be happy as a clam.  Add to that that our first "practice" was during his first week of preschool and he was adjusting to being gone all morning 4 days a week.  That seriously cut into his train playing time!

Needless to say, all those factors combined, getting Eli to soccer was sort of worse than getting cavities filled.  Not to mention that B had soccer practice himself, so I was doing it all solo.  Imagine tears, fits, kicking, ect.  And that was just trying to get the darn shin guards on!  Then I still had to get the other two loaded up in the car.  Before soccer even started I sort of hated it:)  I figured once we got there things would be better.  As much as Eli hates going places, once he's there, he usually does fine.  

This was not the case with soccer.  Practice didn't go much better than getting him there.  He refused to do anything.  Even with his bff there, he just flat out refused.  I was useless because I was ticked off and had to other two to keep an eye on by myself too.  Anytime I'd walk away, Parker would cue the waterworks and Kamdyn would follow me.  So pretty much I was in tears by the end of our first soccer practice for a four year old!!

With that being the start of the season, I definitely had no expectations for Eli when it actually came to game time.  I figured he might be a really great benchwarmer:)  His first game was cancelled due to rain. I was secretly kind of glad because I was dreading getting him dressed and out of the house.  Figured it would be better if daddy was there to help though.  Well, his second game (actually the first he played), B had a soccer tournament:(  So I was flying solo again.  Insert sad music.  Getting Eli out of the house was just as hard as it was for practices.  But we got there.  I hoped he would get going once he saw all his team and got to playing.  Once again, no dice.  I was done with it all.  Pretty much in tears again, I sat him on the bench told him to sit there if was wasn't doing anything and that I was going to watch everyone else.  He was happy to sit there for a while.  But, the guy that runs the group practices (they had a 30 minute practice to teach fundamentals before each game) went up to him and got him to go on the field.  YAY!  I was so glad he was actually doing something.  He actually participated in the whole practice!  I was nervous about game time and whether or not he'd actually do anything.  Thankfully he did.  I was so grateful to the guy that went up to him and got him to go on the field.  Soccer season could have been really long (who am I kidding, it was long enough anyways!) had he not made the effort to go over to him and spend 5 minutes with him on the field before his first game.  

Watching 4 and 5 year olds play soccer is so funny.  Or mabye it's just our four year old.  Eli got to play on the field at the same time as his friend the first game.  He just chased Grey around.  So stinking funny.  He even told us that.  He had fun chasing Grey around:)  After that first game, they never played at the same time again......his coach was probably hoping for better things if they weren't on the field at the same time:)  He never got aggressive and went for the ball.  The only time he kicked the ball all season was when he was practicing or when his coach made him kick in to his teammates:)  He was actually a hoot to watch.  Very easily distracted and could care in the least about what was actually going on on the field.  He just ran behind the pack.  Got distracted by airplanes hopped around.  What a goof.  But he was out there and having fun.  That's all we cared about.  And we got a good laugh every Saturday morning:)  

Soccer for Eli wasn't anything like I expected.  But that's ok.  He actually ended up having a little fun and he was active.  Brian and I could care less if soccer is a sport he likes or not.  We just want our kids to be active and involved in stuff.  We gotta start somewhere.  So maybe soccer isn't for him.  And maybe we will try something different next year.  Oh boy, I'm dreading it already.....

Anyways, the Bumblebees (his team:)) ended up being undefeated (I think....so not one of those moms that keeps track of that stuff.  I was just glad we could get him on the field for 12 minutes of every game!  The little things in life....).  I'm hoping if we decide to do something next year it's not so much of a challenge to get him to participate since he's used to it now.

And for reading that very long post, enjoy some pictures from his first game!