May 31 - Magical Labs

Happy Tuesday folks, I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing, long weekend. Last Thursday, fifteen 2nd graders were sent home sick with a stomach virus. Julia was sent home at the end of the day on Friday with an upset stomach and low grade fever. She was lethargic and ate applesauce for dinner but wasn't vomiting, so I thought she was in the clear. Then midnight hit-puke time! She was sick every hour from midnight to 5am. The dogs and I stayed with her all night comforting her. Clearly, she couldn't swim on Saturday and had to miss the meet. The kids and I pretty much watched movies all day while she rested. She was still extremely tired and not her normal self on Saturday, eating a piece of toast, some applesauce and drinking water. She slept well but was up at 5am spitting up water. After that...she was 100% fine. I tried to keep her on the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) but when I was cleaning, she ate 2 chocolate puddings and a variety of other snacks. After wrestling with Luke for 2 hours straight and then running laps around the house, we determined she was back to her old self. We went to the pool for a few hours Sunday afternoon as well as Monday and had a blast. 

Labs have magical healing powers

Labs need to rest after staying up all night with their sick human sister

Labs travel in style

Mommy and her snuggle bear

May 27 - Academy Tryouts

It's the end of May and we are in full swimming and 'end of the school year' mode. So, it was a little strange for the kids to put on their shin guards and cleats for fall soccer tryouts. Yes, you read that correctly-FALL soccer tryouts happened this week. Julia tried out for the girls Academy team and Luke tried out for the boys Jr. Academy team. These teams have professional soccer coaches (instead of parents like me hehe) and teach the kids skills and how to play the game. There are weekend games and tournament opportunities. Julia loves soccer (she actually seems to love pretty much every sport) and really wanted to try out. I signed Luke up for tryouts as well since we would already be at the field. I figured he'd have more fun running around with his friends than sitting in a chair with me. The tough thing about Luke is that while he's very athletic and great at a lot of things..it's a challenge to get him to do activities.

Every week before soccer practice this winter/spring he claimed he hated soccer and didn't want to go to practice. And then lo and behold-once we got to the field, guess who the happiest kid there was? I've learned not to pressure him on sports type stuff, he'll dig his heels in. So, I told him he could try out if he wanted to..and surprisingly he did on Monday. The Jr. Academy age bracket is a combination of kids born in 2009 and 2010. He was one of the youngest and definitely the smallest kid on the field. But he did great-he's extremely fast and has natural defensive talent. He decided he didn't want to try out again Tuesday and was content watching Julia. We found out yesterday that both of them made the team!! I'm not sure that's we'll sign Luke up for the Jr. Academy (it's not as fun as the recreation league) but we're very happy that he gave it a try. 

May 23 - Beat It

Wow-another crazy busy, fabulous weekend here in Houston. Saturday morning we were up bright and early for an Orca swim meet. Julia swam backstroke in the medley relay (they did great and came in third place) and she won the 25 yard freestyle. She improved on her time from last week, go Julia! We packed up our stuff and headed to the local university for dress rehearsal. There are 12 kids in the hip hop routine (10 girls and 2 boys) and we had seven for the dress rehearsal, which I was allowed to record. For the actual performance, one of the girls had to leave (she was sick) so they were down 4 people (2 were at a piano recital, another's parents forgot about the recital and the last one was sick). So, 4 out of 12 missing was not ideal and all of those kids happened to stand on the same side of the stage for the performance. It definitely looked a little unbalanced but the kids had fun. They did an encore performance on Sunday and everyone showed up-they all did a wonderful job!!

Julia and Reese (Reese is also an Orca and dancer)

This 8 year old girl knew how to apply makeup...

Hip hop girls

Julia & Coach Brittany

Great job Julia!

Dress rehearsal

May 18 - Fifteen Weeks to Go

Take us for a walk...pretty please

Happy Wednesday everyone. Tomorrow marks 25 weeks pregnant-15 weeks to go and we are almost in the home stretch. I still have a lot of food aversions, or more accurately, foods that I avoid because they make me feel really sick afterwards-pizza, bread, pasta, strawberries, cantaloupe, any sort of berry and milk. A lot of sweets don't settle well either. I'm a huge carb eater normally so this has been tough. I've never eaten so much rice and veggies in my entire life. I can tolerate soy milk and drink it every morning with my carnation instant breakfast, but yikes-that stuff is incredibly thick. in great news-I have stopped puking finally and can take showers at night again (evening showers were previously triggering a gagging reflex...I know, very weird). My pelvis is still causing issues but I try to limit movement as much as possible and that helps considerably. I'm still having some light headed issues as well, fun times. 

25 weeks

So...being pregnant with older kids is definitely a unique experience. When I was pregnant with Luke, Julia was really too young to understand what was going on. This time...to say she is excited would be a gross understatement. She is beyond thrilled. She and Luke comment on the size of my stomach every morning (Luke thinks it's already huge, Julia doesn't think it's big enough). She wants to know everything about the baby-how does the baby come out? Does childbirth hurt? Will the baby be naked when she comes out? Will she have hair? What color will her hair and eyes be? How loud will the cry be? When exactly will she and Luke be allowed to see the baby? Hold the baby? How long will the baby be in the hospital? Can she please change some of the diapers? Can she sleep in the babies room? Can she pick out the clothes? She is frustrated we told her about her sister 'so soon' because now she has so long to wait and Julia just wants her to be her NOW (I told her this is a good exercise in patience). She's upset I will get to 'stay home with the baby all day long for 3 months' while she is in school. Yesterday she was concerned that when her sister is 7 and she's 15, her sister won't want to play with her. I told her that I'm sure her sister will want to play with her, but she (as a teenager) will most likely not want to have a 7 year old hanging around. Julia assures me she will...we'll see about that! I asked what games/activities is she most excited about playing with her sister and she said-riding bikes, tag and definitely-hide and go seek. 

For Luke's part...he's questioning why he's surrounded by 2 girl dogs and soon-to-be 2 girl sisters. Why couldn't we have had a boy baby? 

Oddly enough-this pregnancy has been great for their math facts. They are constantly asking how old they will be when the baby is xyz age, so they should be both experts in +6 and +8 soon! I never answer them, I make them figure it out on their own. 

May 16 - Soccer Stars

Tiger Wolf Pups

Happy Monday dimpled munchkin fans. Our last two soccer games were last week and the kids really worked their little butts off. We only have four kids show up on Wednesday, which was tough because we need six to play (two fields with 3x3 playing each field). So we played 1 field with 1 sub-it was hot and humid but they rocked it. On Saturday, we had our last game and seven kids showed up. The good news-we were able to fill two fields. The bad news-we only had 1 sub and it was close to 90 with extreme humidity. All the kids were ready to stop playing after the first quarter. They powered through it and did amazing. It is incredible to see how much they improved this season, and for those that were on the team in the fall-they all look like new players, their skills have really improved.

Julia & Hannah

Great job Tiger Wolf Pups!

The Orca practice meet was on Saturday and it was a fast meet. We skipped medley relays as well as 15-18 events, so the whole meet was over in a few hours. Julia and her friends all had a blast and Luke had fun playing with his friends on the playground all morning. Julia did a great job-she won the freestyle, backstroke and butterfly, earning  a championship qualifying time in the backstroke as well as 'reserve' times (B cut) for the free and fly. Her breast stroke was super illegal (JD disqualified her lol!) but the most important thing is, she had fun! I'm also super proud of her girl scout friends Hannah and Chloe, who are new to the team and competed for the first time ever. They rocked it!

We play games during events

Great job to our new Orcas, Chloe & Hannah!

Getting ready for freestyle

Our GS crew: Chloe, Reese, Julia & Hannah

Girls 8 and under free - Julia is the rocket in lane 2 (from the bottom)

May 12 - You're Amazing, Just the Way You Are

I've had the unfortunate luck to be traveling almost every year right before Mother's Day and have missed several celebrations at Luke's school. Not this year! The kids performed two songs (I actually teared up, he was just too adorable), we had a little photo session and they presented us with our gifts-homemade sugar scrub, a plastic flower, a sheet about things he loves about me (apparently I'm a good cook...who knew lol) and a key to his heart. Then we had lemonade and muffins. It was a great celebration and I'm glad I was able to make it, as they don't do anything in elementary school. 

On Sunday, the kids, dogs and JD woke me up with breakfast in bed (strawberry crepes with homemade whipped cream and sparkling cider) and they gave me some awesome wall art: Be Yourself, If You Can't Be Yourself, Be Your Dog, Always Be Your Dog. I Love it!! It's hanging in the kitchen. 

I love my little man

You're Amazing, Just the Way You Are

Uncle Jay drew JD and I!

Silly kids

May 9 - Orcas

Hannah, Chloe & Julia

It's May, which means it's time for spring swimming! The Orcas started practice last week and it was quite chilly after the non-stop rain we've been experiencing. Julia was super excited to see her friends and has two new teammates this year-her fellow girl scout troop members Hannah and Chloe! Welcome to the Orcas girls! We now have 4 girls from our group swimming this year! 

For the first time in recent years, we have a huge group of young swimmers. Almost 60 8 and unders!! Last week, 24 kids were age 6 or younger. We usually only have 6-8 kids in that age group so it was crazy. There are 4 pool assistants (high school swimmers) and each assistant had 6 swimmers per lane. Luke tried practice on Tuesday and did 2 laps of kicking (with the kickboard) in 30min. Then he turned blue and started crying. We bought him a wet suit and he tried practice again on Friday. He swam 1 lap (stopped a few times) and decided he was done. He didn't want to try the swim test. He has a few more swimming lessons and can still try out for the team if he's interested, but either way, we're very proud he got in and tried! 

Julia & Hannah

Luke is getting ready

Look at all those little ones

Wetsuit!

May 4 - You are Breaking My Heart

Happy Wednesday dimpled munchkin fans! After weeks of non-stop rain, it is finally gorgeous here, yay!

Last Friday afternoon the girl scouts had a tour at our local police substation. We met with the community liaison officer who gave us a tour of the station, talked about gun safety (don't ever touch a gun, if you see a gun at someones house find an adult) and went over all the gadgets that officers carry (taser, gun, bullets, flashlight, stick, handcuffs, etc). He let the kids check out the two different types of bullet proof vests, explained why they have carseats in the station (if they are called to an accident involving children, they have to be able to provide transport) etc. And the highlight of the tour was checking out his police car-the kids loved it! They were also full of questions.

The first question a girl asked-Have you ever killed anyone? Answer was 'no' thankfully. How does it feel to be hit with a stun gun? Have you ever knocked down a door? How many people have you handcuffed at a time (3). It was definitely an educational and unique experience. 

After the tour, our troop went out to eat for dinner. Sophia drove with us and Luke asked her what she thinks of Star Wars (Luke is currently OBSESSED with all things Star Wars related, he and Julia recently watched all the movies including the most recent one). Sophia said she didn't like Star Wars and Luke responded 'You are breaking my heart!.' Haha!!