I'll be seeing you...

As some of you know I have the honor of going to see my sister (in-law) in Massachusetts this week. I cannot wait to see her and her boys (hubby Alex & new son Joseph). Of course that means I will be gone for a little while from the blogging world so I'll be seeing you later. Enjoy these photos until I get back.

Here's my favorite nephew (who isn't a teenager)! :)
Aw.. toes vs. video games! It's no contest for me! Doesn't seeing a picture like this make you think, "wow, B's getting old!" Followed quickly by, "boy K needs to make her bed!"


The great acorn hunt! This weekend we went looking for perfect acorns (no holes, particular size, shape & color) so that we could plant them next spring in our backyard and have some more trees. I love K's acorn hunting attire - blue flip flops, black tank top, camo pants & pearls. Jason was particularly scrooge-like about the acorns - it was very funny to watch him look over our finds and toss them for a hole the size of the tip of a pin!


While we were looking for acorns we found a pumpkin patch. SO - we tried to get some good pumpkin patch pictures, not so lucky with those!!! As you can see I have a hard time getting three kids to pose for a picture, ugh how am I ever going to get all four?!

I finally got a good picture of all four of them - but notice NO pumpkins in the picture! Ugh! :)

Last but not least - this next picture explains why I have been cut off from the outside world for over a week now! My sweet husband and his linux (I was told this was the correct spelling) quest continues - A likes to help him!
I'm sure I will have a lot to post when I get back - prayers for safe travel are greatly appreciated! Last but NOT least Mom & Dad got here safe & sound! Thank you to both of them for this opportunity, I'm sure Z will be showered with loveand attention!

Busy much?

Yes! I am! Oh I guess you thought I was asking you that question...
Well, if you were wondering we have been so busy around here the last couple of days.
Here's what we've been up to:
Monday was rainy and cold - a great day to stay in the house in my humble opinion. But the weeks activities beckoned, first the grocery store and some laundry. Then I took all the kids - the clown car was full :) - to the eye doctor to have B & K's eyes examined, they both must have been studying because they passed with flying colors, K still has 20/20 and B's eyes did not get any worse, which is unusual for a child his age. Yea! We came home, got K ready for dance and took her there. Oh yea and I made a big crock pot of chili to eat that evening, since it was so cold and gloomy - it seemed the ideal dish to serve to my family (nope - I didn't follow the recipe, I modified it to fit my cupboards constraints).
Tuesday we were up bright and early to take B to swim practice (it was about 50 degrees, but the pool, we were assured, was about 73). I was very proud of my popsicle, um I mean son. He was one of the first ones in and he listened to his coaches telling him not to stop - just keep swimming, just keep swimming.... (are any of you following that little ditty?). I was just getting ready to head home to make meals for the family when the coach stopped me and said he was getting ready to get B out since he had no fat and was very quickly turning a lovely shade of blue. Thankfully they cancelled practice this morning and they will be getting the solar cover this weekend and they are considering a plan to put a heater in the pool. Until then we are going to start having practice MWF from 7-8pm at an indoor pool about 10 miles from us. B's not real thrilled with this, he likes to have his evenings free (I'm not sure for what). The rest of Tuesday was filled with laundry and cleaning house (my mom & dad are coming this weekend, that might explain the cleaning even on a busy week :). After school was dance and then girl scouts.
Today we walked, went to story time, had a lunch date with Nicole & Emma, and then headed to the kids school to walk to the pumpkin patch with K. She was excited to see me & her babies. Oh yea and according to Z it is the porcupine patch - ouch!
Finally tomorrow I have my first observation for my job. I am a student teacher supervisor and I will be doing the first classroom observation tomorrow. Nicole is watching the babies for me so I will be leaving A for the first time (outside of with family) and I will be walking back into a classroom. I'm a little worried that one of two things will happen:
1.) I will suddenly feel an urge to holler at a kid acting like a fool. Like yesterday when I was walking away from the kids school and there were some kids playing with fire ants. I just can't stop myself from saying, "hey stop that!"
2.) I will have some strange desire to go back to teaching (ha - not likely)!
So in answer to my question (see title) - YES!
Here's the photographic evidence.

These are actually from this weekend, we went to a little farm with Harrison & Gillian, fed the llamas & emus and looked at lots of animals. There are lots more pics to be added to Snapfish.

Z with his new pet cow (thanks G'pa Harold) - hee hee!

Z being corralled by Gillian & K.

B with Harrison

Mommy with her little Z

K & Gillian

K feeding an emu.

B feeding the llama - this is shortly after one of them spit at him. He's so brave!

A was there too -
she was just more interested in chewing on lion than feeding the emus & llamas.

Today at the pumpkin patch. K with her babies, she's such a little mother hen.

Oh yea - did I mention it was Red Ribbon Week this week and today was crazy hair day?
You will notice a slight blue tint to K's - not sure what can be said about B's.

Z got into the fun too. :) He will tell you he needs a haircut.

One more thing, as if I didn't have enough things keeping me from blogging. My sweet husband is obsessed with something called Lenox (operating system on the computer - I don't know) and he's been using my computer when he's home and he's kind of bear like when I try to use it. A cranky old bear! :)

So Happy

To all my blog friends out there, here is my sister (in-law) and her family. I wish I could express in words how happy I am for Erin. She is going to be such a fantastic mother. Here is why I know this. Because she has one of the sweetest dispositions of anyone I know and a great sense of humor. In addition she is gentle, loving and kind. Finally, she loves to cook & bake and has an unusual affinity for ice cream (a must when you have children, at least in my opinion).
Congratulations Erin & Alex! Enjoy!

Welcoming a new family member

Our new nephew... Joseph
Sunday, Oct. 21 at 7:18am
7lbs 1 oz.
21 inches long
13 1/2 head
12 1/2 chest

Another Aggie?

Yep I think so!!

For PK

Not that she will actually read my blog but this is a post for her. She got this outfit for A when she was born, I remember thinking, "wow that is big, will she ever fit into this outfit?" Um YEP! So here is A in her PK outfit... hey PK I miss you!!!


As most of you know I'm trying to lose weight - all the baby weight that 4 babies will put on a woman, okay I admit it wasn't just the babies... it was the late night oreos, ice cream, chips and queso, etc... Well to lose this weight I have been walking in the morning with my new friend, Nicole, and her daughter, Emma. Lately it has been getting cool in the mornings so I HAD to buy these little slippers for A. So here is a series of pictures:

A's new shoes (love those little triangle legs).

Nicole & Emma

Z & Emma

Last but not least, Z and I at playgroup this week. We made shaker spiders, sang Itsy-Bitsy Spider and read a book.

Kid's Say The Funniest Things

The cable company was being bad yesterday! There is a picture but no sound (no I didn't have the TV turned down or muted). Z was trying to watch Franklin and asked us to fix it. Jason & I explained that there was nothing we could do, it just wasn't working. His response, "You get another TV now?" Too funny!

Weekend swim meet

A was really into the swim meet!

Z & Daddy had some good laughs while we waited.

This weekend was B's first swim meet with his new team. Let me start by saying he did GREAT and we were very proud parents! Now let's go over the details because that is the best part (like the icing on the cake, the chips in the cookies, are you with me?).
I was responsible for getting my 9 year old to downtown Hippy-Dippy Land by 4:30pm on Friday, Oct. 12th - what that means is that I had 4 small children loaded into my grocery go-getter and I was a nervous wreck, since I had never actually driven to the city by myself. I guess it is no secret that we all made it just fine. When I got there I called to see if Jason was already there, no he was still at work - ugh the kids really out numbered me but I would press on. Jason called at about 5pm saying that he was on his way. I asked him if he could stop and get some cash to pay for parking. Sure he'd stop... at the ATM across the street from our subdivision. Here is his line of thinking, Sherry needs money, there's an ATM across the street from our subdivision I'll swing by there (passing countless ATM's in the process) so that he could use the restroom (sorry if that is TMI but I couldn't leave out that Jason added at least 45 minutes to his trip downtown to use the home thone)! I finally called him at 6:30 wondering where in heaven's name he was and he told me this - I about fell over. Jason finally got to the meet and we waited anxiously for B's first swim. Here’s the play by play from my eyes:

Jason is ready to capture the moment on video.

I’m holding A and cheering from the sidelines.

K&Z are anxiously watching and ready to yell, “yea B!”

B’s standing on deck, ready to go. B takes off his goggles. Jason & I realize something is terribly wrong – there’s B’s name on the board, there’s swimmers at their marks, B’s not on the platform, he’s going to miss the buzzer. Jason and I are both yelling like frantic fools when we hear Buuuhhhrrr – the buzzer sounds and B’s name disappears from the screen! I could see his face and I could tell that he was NOT happy, in fact pretty sad that he’d just missed his heat. He quickly went to one of the coaches and tried to get into another race, but that was the last heat. It was all I could do not to cry. There was my “little” boy all alone facing his big bad coach and his mistake all on his own.

Here’s how it happened, each end of the pool had heats – one side had even numbered heats the other odd. So it was a counting issue, we mistakenly taught him to count 1,2,3 but on that side of the pool they were counting 1,3,5,etc. (which he knew but had forgotten).

As sad as it was, his coach didn’t berate him and all he had to answer to was his own disappointment.

For us it wasn’t as simple. We had been there since 4:30 and 6:45 to see this swift moving young man and we missed it, the next event he’d swim in was the last event for the night and he was in the second to last heat, which was at approximately 8:45pm! As you can imagine we were sad but we were more concerned about B's morale.

Today, was a lot less dramatic. Thank goodness! B made all of his events (as you can see in the pictures he had his own coach to make sure he made it) and even did really well in his last one, Individual Medley – coming in second in his heat! He shaved 12 seconds off of his previous time. Wow!

So now with that story told many will say, “Oh, don’t worry B it won’t happen again, now you’ll be more aware.” Ahem, I don’t want to burst any bubbles but let me do a little flashback to September 29, 2004 (excerpt from an email about B’s first EVER swim meet):

He didn't get to warm up before his second heat because he darn near didn't get to race!!!! He told me later he was counting (and he'd gotten to 160 I think) which is why he didn't realize his group was up again. We saw the other boys and what was up and started yelling at him. He ran (fast walked, 'cuz you shouldn't run around a pool) and was only half way there when the buzzer went to start. You can imagine our groans until we realized that there was a false start and he made it around there in time for them to put him in his spot and get the other boy out of the pool!!!! New set of groans, thank heaven groans!!! We were very excited, especially since we had been there since 5:00 and it was at that time past 8:30!!!

Here’s the REALLY great slide show of B at this swim meet. You may think I went a little overboard here but Jason explained to me how to take a series of action shots on the camera. Fun!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Last but not least - I really would love to have "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor to play with this movie clip but iTunes has gone wacky on me. Can anyone help me out?

My little pumpkin head

This post is dedicated to Z.
I'm not sure if this series of pictures is a tribute to Fat Albert and his friend Dumb Donald (remember that one guy who you never saw his face?) or is this from the Steve Martin movie, Parenthood? You decide - either way can I just say, "he's SO cute!"

Monday Musings

Happy Monday! Happy Columbus Day! Today I have all of my sweet children with me. B and I are working on a Star of the Week poster for school. Aw a trip down memory lane! B skiing, swimming, t-ball, soccer, riding his bike & hugging his sister (it used to happen).

Our excitement this weekend was taking walks and B started training Jason for the family Triathlon next summer. Since Aunt Erin was here in June (six weeks after sweet A joined the family) I have lost 23 pounds! Yea! I have eleven more to go and I will be at my first goal. Then I have about 10 more from there to be where I would like to stay. So I guess you could say I'm over half way there - it feels good to put that done.

K has lost two more teeth so she has a very gappy
(I made that word up, didn't I?) grin now.

A has started to really like her exersaucer.

Finally - I have come to a conclusion about blogs and I feel pretty confident that I'm not the only blogger who feels like this. I see each post like an email, as a matter of fact I write almost all of my stories on here now, so that I'm able to COMMUNICATE with all of my family and friends. I love it - what I really like is when people comment back - think of it as a reply to an email. :) So with that said I think it is only fair to warn you that this blog will self-destruct if I don't start getting more comments. ;0)

~~~Fellow bloggers was I too hard on them?~~~

Z & A's friend

Here are some pictures that my friend, Nicole took of the kids today. Z & Emma played today, they actually spoke to each other while playing, this is not the norm. But I think Emma still thinks A is way more fun. Poor Z - if only Emma saw him dressed up as a princess, maybe she'd have second thoughts.

This picture cracks me up - A looks so big (and mad)!

Indecisiveness

Poor K!
Tonight as K was about to get in the bath Jason noticed she misspelled one of her spelling words, never one to leave these things for later (ha ha) she came out before stepping into the tub and fixed the spelling word.
Well as she was preparing to take the plunge again B asked if we could go to the pool. She groaned but complied and got on her swimsuit.
Jason and I then realized that we were not in agreement, he didn't want to go to the pool.
So we told K, never mind.... more groans.
Then I started thinking again, maybe I could go ahead and take the three big kids, Jason agreed to keep A. More groans from K - who had by now taken off her swimsuit.
While she had gone back to put her swimsuit back on Jason and I realized that, ugh it is Wednesday the pool down the road is closed!
Poor K! She is now enjoying a warm bath and playing with her Barbies.

Nap Update

Not really an update as much as a comical photo shot. When Z decides to actually nap these are just a couple of the positions he assumes.

Prior to this picture I could have sworn he said something about playing hide-n-seek with Baby Bear.
I guess Baby Bear found him!

Uncle Scoot came to visit us this week. Actually it was the draw of a job interview that drew him out here to Hippy-dippy Land. I begged to take his picture and promised a blog entry if allowed me to take this picture. Gotta love the hat and sandals with his penguin suit.


Finally, 2 year old language development - gotta love it. Today we went to story time and while we were there Z sang songs, danced (not really - he just stood in one place while the other kids marched around him), we listened to stories about apples and then we did a "crap". That would be two year old language for craft! I keep asking him to go show daddy his craft just to hear him say it again. (Mark - kind of reminds me of dump trucks!)