Weekend Sports Update

We had a sporty type of weekend this last weekend before Christmas. Don't get me wrong, we did some other things too (i think?!) but sports was definitely a big part of it all. On snowy Saturday (which was icy/snowy Saturday by the time we left) we had Max's all relay swim meet. It was really fun for the kids! Max loved it. He swam in three relays. The first was a medley where he got to be the anchor member and swim the 50 freestyle. He swam it sooo well, he brought his team up from sixth place to third!!! Here he is ready to take offHis second relay was the backstroke relay where each child again swam 50 meters (the length of the pool and back). He was the anchor position again and was the only child able to use the board to dive off and then flip to his back. The other team members started off in the water (it was fine to do so and was an option for his age group). Here he is mid starting off. Swimming pictures are HARD. You just can't get close enough.His third relay (and by then it was nearing 8pm - swim meets take quite a while) was the breastroke relay. This was his least favorite, but he did a personal best time and was in the anchor position again. Not bad Max, not bad at all! The picture is of his backstroke.
Then on sunny (shocker!) Sunday we had Abbie's last indoor soccer game of this session. Her team was undefeated - today was no exception. They won by a considerable margin.

The great thing for Abbie was that within about the first ten minutes of the game she scored a goal! She was sooooo stoked about it. She is a defender and was playing from the back, ran it all the way up the field and shot it in for the GOAL! Whoo hooo Abbie!!! And it just so happens that this was the first indoor game of this session where the whole family was there to see it. Good stuff Abbie, good stuff!
Soccer pictures are also hard to get because she is never facing the way I want her to be and instead of looking at the camera she is watching the game/ball. Go figure! Abbie had some great moves in this game. The second half I gave up watching from above, you can't see in the pics but the spectators have a very nice watching area up above the fields, and came down to the coach's box to take some pictures.
So, there you have it. How was your weekend?

December Daily

Good morning!
Well, I woke up to snow, which is a pretty regular occurrence here after all. Not sure what accumulations are supposed to be - but it is supposed to snow most of today and tomorrow too. The ESm from H is watching happily. He is hoping we build him some minions to help spread his snowy terror. He is like one solid block of ice - I figure he's here to stay until April or so. So I got a little behind with my posts to you. We've been very busy. Friday was the kids last day of school of 2009 - and those of you with kiddies I'm sure can back me up that the few days leading up to vacation are CRAZY. And to top it off we had a sport practice every night this week. That doesn't happen all winter - but whew! This week was a doozy. To top of the craziness of it all Jeff was out of the country and my parents were away too. So... I was TOTALLY alone running all over the place. Add a band concert to the mix as well. So, you perhaps see why my blogging time was minimal. Jeff's back for the rest of the month now, so in theory things should be smoother. Also we have two more sports days (today and tomorrow) with a swim meet today (that could get cancelled thanks to this lovely weather) and a soccer game tomorrow - and then we're done with sports for this year too. Whoo hoooo!!!

So, I am working on a December Daily book that I put a link to in an earlier post. I am not totally current with it - but I have some pages done. The point of this album is to take a picture or two a day to document your December. I had the album "made" in November. The pages were done with the numbers ready. No embellishments were added, you put them on as you add the pictures. Here are some of the pages done - I'll go backwards and get the rest. The number you see on the page corresponds (or close) to the day we did the activity.

First snow in the picture above.
This is one of my favorite pages (above) I like the shape of the page. The point of the album is to have unusual and differently shaped pages in there. Sort of an eclectic look. I tried. My color themes for the album were pinks and the colors that compliment that. If you are a scrapbooker you know how many Christmas products out there lately have pink somewhere in their base, that's why I chose it.You've seen this picture before, decorating the tree. This is actually a two page layout with the picture below on the other side. To do the picture below I took a close up shot of the tree and had it blown up to 8x10. Then I cut it down to the size of my book (loosely 8x8) and backed a picture of the done tree on black. Then I popped up the small tree pic using popdots. This is my favorite page so far. It looks better "live" then in the pic.

The picture below is of the day we sent out most of our Christmas cards. Did them in batches this year for time related purposes! Anyone else do that?
Then on the twelfth was Ethan's gymnastics meet.
And the next day Abbie had an indoor soccer game. The picture is of she and her coach.

And there you have it! That's pretty much what I have done so far. I need to catch up a bit. Maybe on this snowy day. Now that school is done I feel like we can relax and enjoy the days leading up to Christmas. What are your plans? If you live on the east coast I hear you are about to get quite a bit of snow... be careful and safe and enjoy!!! :)

Got Snow?

How's the weather where you are?
Here we have had lots of snow. I mentioned in an earlier post that we had two snow days last week. That is really rare for this part of Michigan - I really think that we had only one all last winter. You see, it snows sooooo often here. Lake effect snow. There have been flakes flying here all week so far - but they don't accumulate to too much. Last week's big storm brought accumulation though!

Here is Frosty, created by Ethan and Jeff. I took this back view out my front door. Attempting to show you the proximity to the front door and the tilt of the snowman. While I do not think it was on purpose this evil snow dude (as I call him to myself, don't let Ethan hear that though!) has startled the bejeepers out of me more times then I care to recount here. Like SCREAM scared - and I have so few bejeepers left that I really need to conserve what I have! When it is dark outside and he sort of catches the corner of your eye it looks like there is a big guy out there on the porch. Lovely huh.That said evil snow dude garners a lot of bus stop attention and is often admired. He looks like a sentry at our front door doesn't he. I included barefoot (!) Ethan in the pic to give you an idea of scale and again proximity to the front door.

He is a happy friendly snowman and I should consider him watching over us all. Still, late at night, alone in the house with just the kids and me...... yep - there go my bejeepers all over again!

edited to add: after some reflection when done with this post I decided to come clean on the following addition to the story... last night, home alone with kiddies, late, can't sleep (you get the picture), go downstairs - around midnight - to get a drink......... I glanced to my right looking to see if the front door was locked (habit) and darn it if the Evil Snowman from Hell didn't get me AGAIN. I nearly started crying and grabbed my frying pan (it was handy on the dish drainer) and went out there barefoot and swinging that pan. Lordy if a neighbor saw me the authorities would have been called. Here's the irony - I did VERY little damage to the darn thing!!! It's been a bit warm and then cold and the ESm from H is like coated with ice. I am sure I could have destroyed it given time and a better weapon - but I really didn't want Ethan upset about it. So he remains to stalk me another day............ (send the men in white coats people, I think I need a vacation)

December 9th

My December daily picture for December 9th, decorating the tree.

We had a fun time with it. I think it's about 9 feet tall in the stand. Needless to say standing on chairs was involved. I like the silver and white base for the tree. White non-blinking lights. What do you like?

The big three did a great job of putting up all their ornaments. The ornament part went by in a breeze. They were all very involved too. I had Christmas tunes in the background thanks to sirius radio. It was snowing outside. Very cool.Skulls and crossbones somehow needed for tree decorating. But hey, at least she wore the hat for me. In fact, they all wore the hats pretty happily.The finished tree. Wish you were here to see it.

Flipping for Joy

We interrupt this mostly Christmas post related month to bring you Ethan's gymnastics meet.
This is his second meet, but last June he was in the younger children program (this year he's in the "big gym") and so it was different. This was run like a real meet. The children all did such a great job and the organization was amazing. We had a great time!! It's going into my December Daily for the 12th.
Ethan's first event was the vault. Here he was running for to jump. He got right up there both times!! Next was my personal favorite, the parallel bars. I was impressed by how much Ethan's strength has improved. It also made me smile remembering Max on those bars when he was in gymnastics in CT. Anyone else remember that one?

Beam was his best event score wise. They were scored on each event and were given a corresponding colored ribbon reflecting that score. It was kept totally positive and age appropriate. The kids weren't competing against each other - there wasn't really a "winner" but were competing with themselves to do their personal best. Love it. I was really proud of Ethan that this was his top event. Balance and strength continue to be something he has to work on and for him to do so well on this event.... wow.
Floor routines were adorable! Here is the beginning of Ethan's bridge.

Awards ceremony! You can see Ethan's four ribbons and he got a trophy engraved with his name. He was one happy gymnast!!!!!

One thing I just have to add so I remember... Everyone (spectators around us) kept commenting about Ethan. He was just brimming with joy for the whole meet. When it was his turn he would be smiling and waving and just jumping with happiness until they said - prepare (which is what they said to signal their turn) and then he would get into the ready position and look very seriously at the judge. Then all smiles - whether he did great or bobbled or whatever. Just positive happiness. After each event he would say to his teacher (you can see her in the bars and beam pictures) something along the lines of "wow did you see my..." or "that was fun" or "whoooooo". He high fived, he waved, he smiled the biggest smiles that he made those around him smile (and chuckle) too. I think that is what I am most proud of (and I am proud of a lot) in this meet. His positive, happy, can-do attitude. He really was flipping for joy!!!

Tree Hunt!

This year has been a bit off as far as our timing. Circumstances have just dictated a different pace. Usually I am on the ball to go and get the tree the weekend of Thanksgiving. This year on Sunday after Thanksgiving it was pouring rain. And I do mean pouring. We went after a tree anyway, but tried a new place (still haven't found an "Angevines" in Michigan. Irreplaceable I tell you, irreplaceable). When we got there, in the sog and fog, we found that cut trees were about $85 - $100. YIKE! That was more then we wanted to spend on a tree. So, we decided that we would go artificial.

Those of you who know Jeff well are no doubt amazed that he even acquiesced to consider a non-real tree. Well, sure enough, when all of us went to look at them we all just felt sad. That is nothing against those of you who have artificial trees - because believe me I see the "pros". It's just so much a part of our personal family traditions to go on the "hunt" and get our own and saw it down together. We're just not ready to let go of that yet. I love the smell, the feel, the look of a real tree. Not so fond of the needles, the watering, the cleanup - but for now still think all of that is worth it.

Then Jeff went out of the country for a week including weekend. So more delay. Then very sadly we lost Uncle Harold (my Godfather, best friend of my parents) and that changed our priorities.

So, mid December we got our tree.
And we went back to the place we went last year.
And we didn't overpay.
And we loved it - every minute.

Here's the tree in it's natural habitat.
Strike a pose Abbie! This is one of a few like this of her. She is really good about having fun in front of the camera. Hope she stays that way, she's a really good teenager. Good to her dear old camera obsessed mom.
The best part... it was snowing and there was snow on the ground. We went on a Monday night when Jeff got back from Europe and had the place virtually to ourselves (go figure). Wasn't long before a snowball fight ensued.
Watch out Max!

Much merriment was had by all. Even Ethan got in the snowball throwing. Abbie and I (who were not wearing snow pants because - well hey! fashion first!) shrieked every time we got hit. I was shown mercy due to ongoing illness (see! every cloud has a silver lining - my sickness saved me some snow bashing!).
I'm glad we're keeping our tradition.

Just wait til you see how it looks decorated!

Coming soon!!

THE Catch Up Post

WOW!

Nothing since June... that's pretty bad! I had to update my avatar, my profile, and lots of other stuff. Serves me right! Ever since I found out that Meme (hi Meme!) checks regularly and would prefer not to see Fred (go back and read if you don't know...) I have been meaning to update. So here's a brief synopsis month by month... (i know, by the way, that I overuse those three dots... not sure why... a grammatical flaw I suppose...). So, the very quick and just one highlight per month....

In July we attended a wedding. It was lovely.
In August we had some first time visitors to Michigan and we took them everywhere!In early September we visited Uncle Don and Aunt Drina and got to see the New Jersey shoreline for the first time in almost four years. We miss the ocean a lot living here. In October we had a crime fighters Halloween. The littlest SWAT police officer, the power of good ninja and of course Batgirl all made sure the neighborhood was free of all wrongdoers (and candy - we had TONS)!We had a lovely Thanksgiving with wonderful family. Missed those who weren't with us, but rejoiced in our many blessings.
So, there you have it. We've done many many many other things through the months of course and ideally I will go back and get to those things. I really need to show you football playing Max for example. That said, this month I am working on a scrapbook called December Daily which you can read about here if you are interested. I want to start posting about our december. So, now that I feel caught up with everything else - stay tuned for the tree getting and tree decorating. Today was a snow day here and finally we are full of home decor. The snow has been amazing and non-ending today. Literally. Since Jeff worked from home, and I didn't have to worry about his driving in this I actually had a really great snow day. We all did. Sick or not (and most of us are). So I will leave you with this one VERY current picture (hours ago) and the promise of more. Stop back in when you can. Leave a comment if you're up to it. I hope you all stay healthy and safe in the wacky winter weather. Take care!!!

(The view is off my front porch showing you the hood. Can you tell how bleeping much snow we have?! Nearly a foot by now I am sure!)