Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Six years ago...

I looked like this:


Isn't it a beautiful site?!?! I can't believe I was so huge...it truly was a spectacular thing. I was able to stop traffic and people in the stores just by walking around in public.


Anyways, it was all so, so worth it. Look what I got in exchange:





These two are the funniest kids I know. Avery is sassy, bossy, sweet, cuddly, smart, beautiful, and the girliest girl I have ever met. She loves her new jewelry box from grandma and grandpa.

Brock is sweet, tender, silly, happy, tough, loving, and just plain funny. He has the funniest personality and it is hard to put into words just how cute he is. He was so excited to get some new Lego's from grandma and grandpa, too.
I am on my way to deliver cupcakes to their classroom and pick up the last of their presents. I still am in awe that I got two babies at one time and that they are such perfect, sweet kiddos. I have loved every second of being their mom (well, maybe their first year was touch and go)!

Happy Sixth Birthday Brock and Avery!!!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Sunday, December 13, 2009

From our house to yours








I am not sure if I will get Christmas cards done and sent out this year, so consider these pictures your card!! Merry Christmas from us!!


Monday, November 23, 2009

It's great to be eight!



This weekend I felt old. My first baby was baptized. How did this happen? How did I miss him growing up right before my eyes? Yesterday he was smiling his first dimply smile and saying his first words...all I did was blink and here I am with an eight year old that knows more than I do about tree worms and the life cycles of insects. I hope that I have done my job and that Ethan knows just how much he is loved and treasured.

We love our Ethan and are so proud of him for making the choice to be baptized. It was a perfect day and he felt so special. I am so thankful that I get to have this perfect little smarty pants with me forever.


Don't you love the gum in Brock's mouth?

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Pictures, soccer, tooth pulling, etc..


I have officially entered a new phase of life. I have all three of my children in school, all day long. Kindergarten is the same length of time as the older grades and it is a long day! On the first day of school I picked up the kids and as we were walking out to the car Brock says to me, "Mom, I'm just tired of walking." Poor dude was worn out :). They seem to be getting into a routine of sorts, but they (well, mostly Brock) are still a little shell-shocked for the first few minutes after they get home from their day. They are loving school and having a great time despite the long hours. Ethan is enjoying second grade and loves his teacher. I am fortunate enough that I can go in and spend Friday afternoons helping out in their classrooms. It has been really fun for me to see them in their classroom environment and get a glimpse at another side of them. I just hope that the teachers don't get sick of me


I realized that I was a bit behind in my blogging when I discovered that soccer began and ended since my last post. Ethan was not too into soccer this year and I think that next year he will not be playing again. At his last game he got a speeding soccer ball right in the face causing his teeth to cut open his bottom lip. Poor kid. He mostly did a lot of this at his games:




He would much rather be doing this:


Nothing like a little Pokemon on the sidelines...does anyone even understand the allure of Pokemon??


The twins were in micro soccer this year and I got to be their coach! We had a ton of fun and they were both really aggressive players. Brock thought that sliding around to block the ball was so awesome (like sliding to your base in baseball) and he tried to show off those skills often.




Avery was not afraid of the ball and was always right in there kicking the ball away from the other team. She always had a smile on her face!

Ethan had been complaining that his teeth hurt, but when we investigated and looked in his mouth we couldn't see anything that looked wrong. Finally after a week he came home from school with the right side of his lower jaw swollen and hot to the touch. We headed into the dentist the next morning with the verdict being that he had an abscessed tooth which was infected. Fabulous. We got on a waiting list with the oral surgeon who just happened to be coming to Ketchikan this weekend (He lives in Juneau) and luckily they got us in this morning to pull out that yucky tooth. It was horrible. They gave Ethan laughing gas and then asked me to leave the room. I could hear him screaming all the way in the lobby. After a few minutes the dentist came to tell me that he couldn't work on Ethan because he was freaking out too bad. He wanted to knock him all the way out. I asked if I could come back and talk to Ethan and he let me go back there. I pretty much gave Ethan some tough love and told him that we had no choice but to pull out the "sick" tooth. I held his hands and told the dentist to let 'er rip, which he did among the screams of Ethan. (I realize I sound totally insensitive, but I wasn't at all. Ethan is the kind of kid that does better with a no nonsense type of approach to things and I knew that once it was over he would be fine, and he was) We're home now and he is back to normal watching movies and bossing around Brock and Avery. Here is his tooth:


Look at the size of those roots! You can see the silver filling on the tooth...this is a tooth that had been worked on many times before: a cavity, then a root canal and finally getting abscessed and infected. Ethan has had many teeth issues and we are hoping that his permanent teeth are in better condition. This is one expensive bill for the tooth fairy!

Here are just a few random pictures of the kiddos this summer. Brock loves to ride his big wheel on our deck.

Avery LOVES to paint. Loves it!


Ethan also likes to ride the big wheels on the deck, but he is totally into multi-tasking. Nothing like reading a book while you cruise on your big wheel :).

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

I think I know some of these people...

I wasted a good hour on this site today: www.peopleofwalmart.com

I have totally seen many of those people...I can't stop laughing! What goes through someone's head???!!!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Triathlon

When the idea of participating in a triathlon was first introduced to me, I was extremely hesitant and unsure of the whole thing. I didn't sleep that first night and was plagued with thoughts of doubt and fear. I couldn't understand why my friends thought this was such a great idea and why they didn't cringe at the thought of even attempting this feat! (I later found out that my one friend in particular thought you had a few days to complete each event...after I let her know that it was everything in a row right after each other she was sufficiently scared, too.) I figured that at least there would be six of us Ketchikan girls down there and if I died along the course they could bring my body back home. So, I took the plunge and signed up for the race.

I jumped into training and didn't look back. I use the term "training" loosely because I'm certainly not a professional by any means, but I quit doing general working out and focused on the swimming, biking and running aspects. I'm not a swimmer and that was the scariest part for me, the fact that I was going to be swimming in a lake with thousands of other women. I stuck to it, though, and was able to start shaving time off of my time at the pool. I am also not a runner and anyone who ever sees me running will agree. The biking was not too bad, the worst part was going from your bike to running. Does not feel good at all.


We got to Seattle and we had to rent bikes, rent wetsuits, register for the race and stage our transition area. When we got to the building to register, we were amazed at the huge line that went around two blocks of buildings! Walt Disney would have been proud!



We waited and chatted with a nice woman who had done this race several times before. She eased our fears a little bit and helped us to relax. We got inside and got registered, got our information packets and activated our timing chips. We then had to hunt around for someone to "mark" us with our race number and they also put our age on our left calf. I have never felt so cool.



We went and got our rental items and headed to the park to stage our transition area. When we got there we were totally amazed at the amount of people who were participating in the tri. We later found out that there were 5,500 women who participated (some of them were relay teams)!!! We had some guy take our picture and we were feeling excited and almost giddy.


We racked our bikes and headed downtown to get some dinner and check into our hotel. I didn't sleep very much that night, I was up every 15 minutes checking the clock and having hot and cold flashes. I got sick that morning and was not feeling well at all the morning of the race. (Looking back, I think I had a touch of the flu and not just nerves...I was sick for the rest of the day after the race and Jen had been feeling "off" the day before, too) I forced myself to eat as we rode in our taxi to the park. We were trying to pump each other up and were laughing so hard, I'm sure the taxi driver thought we were loony.


The race actually started at 6:45, but my "wave" wasn't until 7:52 so we were able to watch the swimming for a while before it was our turn. Thankfully I had Jen in my age group, so we waited together and kept each other from running away screaming.

I thought I was prepared to do the swim portion of the race, but it was such a different experience than what I ever thought it would be. This is literally what it was like:

Mass amounts of people kicking, elbowing, splashing and basically trying to not drown themselves but inadvertently drowning you in the process. It. Was. Insane. I tried to stay with Jen but quickly realized it was not going to happen. So, I started kicking back, elbowing back and pretty much getting dirty with the swimming. I swam on top of people, I squeezed in between people when there was only 2 inches of available space, refused to be intimidated and just went for it. I loved it!! I ended up shaving two whole minutes off of my best pool time, so that was really cool.

After the swim you had to run out of the lake, find your transition area (did I mention how freaking far away our area was??!! We were literally the farthest area you could get...right next to the porta potties, which considering my morning wasn't a bad thing!) and gear up for the bike. Shoes and socks on, wetsuit off, tank top on, helmet on, sunglasses on and grab your bike and run it to the road.


The biking was a lot of fun, too. They shut down a portion of freeway and we went on the bridge that goes across Lake Washington (of which we had just conquered in the swim)and through a major tunnel (which inspired some crazy chicks to scream and yell....I'm such a quiet person that I didn't even think about yelling). It was amazing to be out there with so many women.

The running portion was next and I was dreading it. I waited at the transition area for Jen and we took off together from there. They didn't allow you to listen to ipods, so we decided to sing to each other and anyone else around us. We were laughing and singing and talking and having the best time in spite of having areas of our bodies that were numb and tingly. After about one mile we started to feel a little bit better and less numb, but we were also starting to get a little bit tired. Jen pumped me up when I was feeling tired and I did the same for her when she hit her tired moments. I'm just glad we didn't both feel tired at the same time, :). There were race officials and spectators all along the sides of the path and I swear you didn't go more than 10 feet without somebody clapping for you or cheering for you or giving you a high five. It sounds totally cheesy, but man alive it was incredible! We felt invincible and empowered and alive!

Around the 2 1/2 mile mark there was a big hill we had to run up. They had some drummers at the bottom of the hill banging out a great beat and we just dug in and gave it our all! We got to the top and wow, the burn!! Luckily the rest was flat or downhill, so we knew we could do it. We got closer and closer and the crowd got thicker and thicker until we were right at the last little bit. There were hundreds of people there lining the gates cheering for us and yelling inspiring things at us and we both totally got choked up. I am all teary eyed right now just thinking about it. It was truly an amazing experience. I grabbed Jen's hand and we crossed the finish line at the same time, which I'm sure looked as gay as can be, but WE DID IT! They took off our timing chip, gave us a bottle of water and a medal and we were done! I felt like a total bad ass!!

This was truly one of the funnest things I have ever done and I can't wait to do another one. I am so proud of my body for withstanding all of the punishment of training and for it being strong enough to carry me through the race. To have made this goal and then reach it has been awesome. I honestly had doubts that I would be able to do it, but I finished the whole thing and I did it in under two hours! Anyone up for joining us next summer?