The Sock Monster

I started this blog because I have a horrible memory and I wanted to preserve the memories of my children for as long as I could.  I tried a journal in a notebook but that didn't work out.  This has been a much better way of preserving their silly stories and pictures.   This may be one memory I may want to forget...or maybe I'll look back on it an laugh.  It's the sock monster!  Kyle often helps me with laundry...until it comes to the socks.  The kids are in a bad habit of taking off their shoes and socks wherever.  In what ever room you are in, you are likely to find socks laying around.  There may even be a few shoes to trip over as well.  But when it comes to laundry time, it is impossible to match up all the socks.  So I got an idea of throwing the lonely sock into a bag until it's mate eventually turns up.  Last Sunday I decided it was time to do a pair up.  We looked all over the house for random socks.  We threw them all in the floor and I started making matches.  It was kind of fun!  I probably made 10-15 matches, which I was proud of.  But after all the matches were made, here lay the poor loners without a mate.

If each of these socks cost $1...well lets just say I need to stop buying socks.

Longing for the ESPN days

It's football season and soon it will be basketball season!  I don't even want to think about of all of the games we're going to miss!  Last night was Monday.  I remembered the days when we'd relax watching Monday night football.  I don't really watch the game, but I enjoyed spending the time with Kyle while he watched the games.  Last spring, we disconnected our satellite dish.  Paying nearly $70 a month didn't seem to make much sense in April.  We never got to watch tv and if we did it was junky shows.   Since there weren't any sports on at the time it seemed like a good idea.  Now a new season of Dexter is about to start.  Plus there's upcoming football and basketball games.  How I wish we could just pay for 2 channels!

So, why did we disconnect everything?  Here's the rundown of our week and you'll understand why!
Monday: kids cross country practice
Tuesday: piano and violin lessons
Wednesday: girl and boy scouts
Thursday: cross country again
Saturday: swimming, ballet, volleyball
Sundays/other random days: cross country meets

By the time we get the kids to bed we're too exhausted to stay up past 9:30!  It's quite embarrassing!  Luckily we can watch our favorite shows..Modern Family and Project Runway on hulu.com.  We can hope our favorite games are on local channels...and we got netflix to watch kids cartoons and occasional outdated but decent movies.

I never thought we'd be this busy, but the kids enjoy all of the activities they do and their homework always takes priority.  Isabella has been begging me to add cheerleading to her plate.   Luckily I'm an expert at changing the subject!

 

Here's a recent photo (from this past weekend) of Vincent preparing to watch his favorite movie "Horse"..or "Tangled".  I was fixing up something in the kitchen and walked in the living room to find him in this position.  I guess he thought he'd get the best view possible.

Terrific Two's

My littlest man has officially turned two!  Let the trouble begin!  We had a fantastic school bus themed birthday party!  Vincent's favorite two things are school buses and toy story.  He shouted with delight as he opened each present!  He definitely got it and genuinely was excited for each toy he opened.  

The day started with Nord's Bakery Donuts!  (Super delicious!) Vin also took Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies into school to celebrate with his preschool friends.

A friend of ours made this awesome school bus cake.

 

Blowing out the candles!

Opening Great-grandma's toy story presents!

School Bus toys!

A cool remote controlled school bus from Jed, Katie and Charlotte!

Vin and Pop!

 

My baby with less hair!

Vincent was hanging out with his big sibs and he asked me to take this picture.

It's cross country season

I'm not sure why we signed up for cross country this year.  I think mostly it was because I found out that Coach Martha was the coach!  She is one of the most awesome ladies I've ever met!  She is so full of energy and fun to be around!  I never thought it was a good idea for young kids to be running.  I was actually pretty against it because as a high school runner, I had bitter memories of getting passed by 9 year olds in races.  In fact, there was a span of years where a girl dominated the KY state cross country meet when she was in 5th - 9th grades.  Anyway, I found out that Martha was coaching and that the kids only ran a half mile and suddenly it sounded like fun.  

Zach has had difficulty finding a sport he really enjoyed.  Football was a disaster and soccer was great until games rolled around.  Then he froze on the field.  So, I was also looking for a sport he might enjoy.  So far cross country has been a great success for him.  Practices were difficult at first.  He still gets the stomach ache right before practice and meets.  I'm not sure why.  I think it might be nerves.  But once the gun goes off, he smiles all the way.  

Isabella is enjoying it too.  Mostly because she likes being around the other girls...not so much for the running part.  She took a hard spill at this last meet.  She tripped and fell during the first 100 meters of the race.  Luckily she didn't get trampled, but by the time she got up everybody was way past her and she was in tears.  We gave her big hugs and she and I raced to the finish to see Zachary.  

Zach-man did great at Tom Sawyer.  It's difficult to compare races because they are all different distances.  The first race was 0.5 miles, the second was 0.75 miles, and the last was a 1K (0.6 miles).  He finished the 1K in 4:55, which was under 8 mile/mile pace!  Pretty great!  Each time he seems to be improving and moving his way up.  But most importantly he is really enjoying it.  

After the St. Edwards meet, the St. X boys were all congratulating him and he was on top of the world!  It was great to see him enjoying the positive attention from other kids!

So here are the photos from our last couple of meets!

Isabella on the start at St. Edwards

Getting her award!

Zachary at the St. Edward meet!  Running with a smile!

The boys at the North Oldham Invitational.

Zach at the Trinity Invitational

The Finish Line

Sprinting to the finish

Zach with his ribbon

Post race dinner goofiness

Back to reading Harry Potter at dinner

A non-labor labor day weekend

It was so great to have a family weekend...free of all high school cross country activities.  Because Kyle is a coach, he's usually out the door by 6 or 7am on Saturday's and might make it home by 3 or 4pm.  It makes the weekend seem really short.  So, having a nice long weekend with no obligations was great!

Turned out that today didn't quite go as planned.  Vincent woke up with one of the nastiest cases of pink eye that has ever stricken our family.  His eyes were super gooey and puffy.  Since our regular dr. was closed for labor day, I had to take him into the Immediate Care which took most of the morning.  Then, we had some errands to run..grocery and target trips.  (And I have decided to ban myself from target for the rest of september for obvious reasons!)

Yikes!

We needed some pics of Toby for Vincent's first school homework assignment..making a family tree, which I have to put together this week.  Yes, even after all the trash picking, toilet drinking, destroyed squinkies/petshops, and peeing on the floor, we still consider him part of the family.  I'll post a picture of the finished product when we're done! 

Here's another cute one!

Smiling kids!

Zachary built his first solar car today!  He did it pretty much all by himself..but it was the cloudiest day ever!  The car wouldn't run on the solar power and we had to stick in a battery.  Nevertheless, he got to check something off on his boyscout bear book...build a model of a car.

And finally...Isabella played her first duet performance for the family.  After only 3 violin lessons at Louisville Academy of Music she is playing fantastically!  Vincent loves listening to his big sis!  So I also uploaded a video of our mom/daughter performance.

Yes...I should be grading now because I have a stack of papers in my bag...and that is exactly why I am writing all about a weekend in which not too much occurred.

Here's the video: (don't laugh at my ridiculous outfit...I had run 3 miles, then stuck of bunch of random hair things in my hair that I found on the floor, and the socks are my compression pregnancy socks)  I know I look pretty cool!  Focus on Isabella's stellar performance! 

Zachary's Birthday

Zachary's turned 8 last weekend!  It's hard to believe that my first baby is now getting so big!  We celebrated with lots of family (all of our parents) and Uncle Jed, Katie and baby Charlotte.  We had a little cookout for Zachary with his favorite foods...hot dog and corn..and a cake with his favorite cartoon character phineas.  He got lots of great presents from everyone, including the Harry Potter movies from Jed, Katie and Charlotte, an HP video game from Uma, and a HP lego set from grandma and grandpa.  Can you tell he was all about Harry Potter this birthday??  He just finished reading the first book and is now starting the 2nd.  We watched the first movie last night and he was glued!

Vincent was ready to help him blow out the candles!

Opening presents!


Also this week Zachary had his first cross country meet.  We were so proud of him!  He ran a whole half mile under 5 minutes without stopping!  But the best part was that he had a huge smile on his face the whole time!

There were over 130 3rd and 4th grade boys in the race.

A great stride!

A proud Zachary!

The reward - a bag of popcorn at the finish!





I also had a birthday this week!  It was a wonderful day!  I got flowers and candy..and the vacuum that I asked for!  I also had a baby dr. appointment and everything was fine.  Heartbeat was around 150.  Next time we'll get an ultrasound and it will be time to answer the big question boy or girl?!!!

We're headed for another busy week, but as always the kids keep things fun and interesting!

More on that later.....