October 27 - When I Grow Up...

"When I grow up, I'm going to have four kids. The first will be a girl and I'm naming her Bella. Two years later I am going to have another girl and name her Ellie. One year after that, I will have two boys. They may or may not be twins, they'll be named Hunter and possibly Joseph. I definitely want a J name for the last one. The girls will each have their own room and the boys will share a room. We're going to have three dogs too. Bella will have the option of a golden retriever, black lab or German Shepherd. Ellie will get two choices, whatever Bella didn't and the boys will get whatever dog is left." - Julia


Luke, completely unprompted the other night (he was not in the room when Julia told me her child plan):


"When I grow up, I want to have four kids. Two boys and two girls. The boys will be named Boomer and Lightening. The girls will be Jay and Essie. We'll probably have some cats and dogs, my wife can name those." 


Hahaha! Love these kids. 

October 19 - White Group

Aquastar is the year-round swim program in our community (just like Schenectady Swim Club where we grew up). Julia has done Aquastar from approx. Jan-Jun for the last 2 years (I love swimming because not only is it affordable compared to other sports, but we can easily activate and deactivate with no issues). This year both kids are doing swimming in the fall and (probably) the spring. The exciting thing about fall swimming is...swim meets! The Jan-Jun was good because it got Julia ready for summer league, but there was only 1 meet in February. Well, the first Aquastar meet was this past weekend and Julia, along with the 'dream team' all competed (I didn't sign up Luke because this meet didn't have any 25s). They had a goal: Operation Get Out of Red Group." Aquastar is leveled by red (beginner), white (intermediate), aqua and blue. To qualify for white group, athletes need to have 3 50s in less than 50sec in 3 different strokes. Julia had her free time from a meet in Feb. This meet she was signed up for back and fly. She was nervous to swim 50s, especially the fly. It was her first event and she sprinted the first 25 and then kind of puttered out on the way home, but she did great and made it in 46 secs. Go Jules! Backstroke was next and she made that time easily, welcome to white!! Kennedy and Reese also made it!! Great job girls! Kimya missed it by 0.47sec but she had all best times and was super proud of herself. But the best part of the day? Lucy, Julia's teammate from diving came to cheer her on. We love our swim and dive families!

The next meet is in 2 weeks, both Julia and Luke will be competing!

October 16 - Celebrating 7!

 My little man is 7. SEVEN!! Wowsa, I can't believe it. We celebrated Luke's birthday on...his actual birthday! We surprised him with breakfast in bed (Starbucks hot chocolate and coffee cake) and then after a quick trip to diving with Julia and Jillian, it was time to get ready for the party. We had a bounce house/slide in the backyard, snowcones, appetizers and a delicious cake...complete with a Stampy Longnose MineCraft (thing? person?) on it. Luke loved it! We had a great turnout. There were several friends from his class at school, his class last year, swim team and neighbors. His favorite surprise was that his teacher, Mrs. McIntyre, stopped by with her daughter, Juliette. Luke was so happy!! Thank you to everyone who helped make his day special. 

Jillian has her first snow cone...and loves it

Jillian met a friend at diving on Saturday

earlier last week, I chaperoned a field trip with Luke's class to a theater downtown

October 10 - Walking! Kind Of...

watching diving is exhausting

Great news everyone-Jillian is walking..kind of. She will walk 5-6 steps in-between us before falling over. She stands all the time and is getting so close to taking her first independent step. Any day now!

I've been slacking on the blog for the last week so here is a quick update:

Jules
Julia is a busy little lady! She doesn't have any homework this year...which means they work really hard all during the day with barely any downtime. She made the robotics team (90+ kids applied, 24 made the team) so she stays after 2 days a week to work on her project (she is in a team of 4 and she's a programmer). The competition is in December and all the kids are working hard. She is swimming 3 days a week, diving 2 days a week and does a tumbling class once a week. She's busy, but because she doesn't have any homework, she is still able to play with neighborhood friends after school every day before activities. 

watching swimming is exhausting

Luke
Luke doesn't like to give me any details about school but he loves his teacher (especially when she reads stories to the class). His birthday party is this weekend and he's super excited about his party. We invited some of his friends from his class last year and his entire class this year. So far, we have about 8 kids coming. It should be a blast! Luke is also swimming 2-3 days per week and does a ninja class once a week. He LOVES the ninja class and doesn't want to leave the gym afterwards. 

Jillian
Jillian continues to be the best baby ever. She sleeps all night, loves the bath and is almost always happy. She had her first fever Friday night and Saturday (which meant she was super snugly) but she was back to her happy self on Sunday. She loves to eat and say "dog!"

3 of my girls!

Amelia
My first ever baby is hobbling around slowly. She still wants to eat and go on walks, so I take that as a good sign. She is also right under Jillian's chair when she's eating, so we've been calling her Miss Piggy! Her hearing definitely seems to be going, although JD is confident it's selective. I don't think so. I have come home from grocery shopping and literally unloaded several bags with her asleep in the next room. She doesn't budge or seem to notice I'm there until I go over and kiss her. 

Luna
Luna was spayed last Friday and has been rocking 'the cone of shame.' She is my shadow during the day (she actually stays closer to me than Karma, which I didn't think was possible) and she LOVES Jillian. Absolutely loves her. Last Saturday the kids and I went to Tammy's for an Oktoberfest celebration. JD took Luna for a walk and said "find the kids." She literally walked to Tammy's front door. This is impressive considering she has never walked down Tammy's road before!