Turkey Trot update

Well, Thanksgiving was a cold, wet day and to be truthful I thought more than once of just rolling over in bed and pushing the snooze button. The boys wouldn't of allowed that though, they were SO pumped for the race. We got to the race and were all bundled up, me with my lightweight jacket, Sophie with 2 pairs of exercise pants and 4 shirts, plus gloves, hat and a jacket.... and we were all Benjayed (is that a word) up too, knees, and back were good to go..

The kids ran there race and then we ran (um, walked mostly) ours. We did pretty good time, Sophie came in right over 1 hour, and I was 1 hour 7 minutes. We both think we should take time off of that for the delayed starting that happens when you are in the back...

After the race, we went to Josh's mom and dad and had a fat laden, calorie extravagent meal with dessert's galore! It was a really fun day...

Because I am thrifty... some say cheap, but I say thrifty. I decided this year to run in the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot downtown instead of the Flying Feathers Four Miler that I ran in last year. Why you may ask?? Well let me tell you, the 4 miler is $40 per person, you get a shirt and a medal BUT in the Turkey trot you get the same for $35 PLUS your kids get to run for free and they get shirts and medals! Not isn't that a better deal, the only flaw with this plan was that I am going to have to run (let's face it walk) 5 miles.... YES, it's a 5 miler!!! I.am.going.to.DIE!!!

The pain will be worth it because I saved $35 - $5 for the difference of me, and the $10 registration per child for the 100 yard dash... again, I am so cheap, I mean thrifty!

Hockey Game

We took Clay and Collin to their 1st Hockey game! They absolutely loved it. It was an OSU Hockey game and Clay kept screaming O.H.... and waiting for anyone to scream I.O... not one did, but he kept trying over and over and over... :)

The band was there and they had a little league hockey team go on the field during half time, they were so little, they had Brutus there as well.

The best part (well besides the game ofcourse) was watching Clay's eyes light up when he saw himself on the Dance Cam. When I pointed out where the camera man was, it was all over, he was hamming it up for the camera every chance he got, and was on the Dance Cam for about 3 more times as well as Collin ofcourse.

Cregan turns 7!

Cregan turned 7 this year and with some prodding I was able to get him to have a Halloween themed birthday party. I let him pick out the cake, he had choices from Frankenstien, spiders, coffins but finally chose a Mad Scientist cake. I got arm and leg and eyeball gummies from the Dollar Tree, added some gummy worms and green icing and 'voila Mad Scientist cake.

Clay decided to make a mad scientist laboratory in the tree house, he had peeled grapes for eyes, noodles for intestines, watered marshmallows for brains, and inside of pumpkin for stomach, the boys came into the room blindfolded and they were totally grossed out by all it...tehehe, boys are so much fun

We had cake and ice cream and opened presents then we had a mummy contest, the kids were partnered up and then given a roll of toilet paper and were to mummify their partner, they had a blast with that, and then they all just played and jumped on the trampoline.

Craft

Megan, Lexi and I made this really cute banner for Halloween this year. It was easier than expected and so fun. I love it! And can't wait to make a Give Thanks one for Thanksgiving!

2nd tooth

Cregan lost another tooth, this time he lost it while in the shower, he said he was trying to open the shampoo bottle and it just popped out, he was very happy, except he said "I could have done with out all the bleeding" - funny kid

Fishing

Josh took the kids fishing a few weeks ago, it was a stocked lake and the kids got the oppurtunity to actually catch a fish.

Josh said Cregan wouldn't touch his fish, he wouldn't take it off the line, put worms on it, nothing...
Clay would do it all, but Collin needed a little convincing....

Conversation about the tooth fairy

Cregan lost his FIRST tooth, he was so excited!!! He got a dollar and was even more excited, and then I hear him tell me, he can't wait to lost more teeth so he can get even more money, in fact he says to me, "I'm going to put fake teeth under my pillow, do you think the tooth fairy will know?" That's my boy...

Preschool

And so it begins... another one of my little guys goes to school... I didn't cry or weep or wail, but I did feel sad, and lonely when I left him.

Of course Collin was like, "bye Mom" and I was like, "give mommy one last kiss", and he was like "mom, I at school...." and I was like "ok buddy, then just a hug" and he ran to me and hugged me tight and was gone....

I take him to the YMCA preschool so I stayed and worked out for an hour, just so I'd be close just in case they needed me, for anything, then I went and hanged out with my friends in child watch at the Y (that's the department I work in there) and still no necessary mommy duties needed, so after an hour and 1/2 with 1 hour to spare I went shopping... (with cell phone close in hand)

But the shopping was theurapetic and helpful, I love to browse when I shop and that just doesn't happen when you have children in tow, so it was wonderful looking around the shops... but could tend to get expensive... so I'd better get used to this thing called quiet and come home and clean, we will see, I really love to shop...

Batman

Usually for parties we have a pinata, this year was no exception, I wanted to purchase a batman pinata for Collin and did so with full intention of betting the candy right out of it...

Brought the said pinata home, let him hang out in the living room for a few days with all the other purchases from that day. And strangely enough, I started to feel bad for poor batman... he had no idea what he's finally fate would be... (maybe I should not be watching Toy Story movies) but I didn't have the heart to let the kids knock the candy out of him. Instead we pulled the string on the bottom, which stunk by the way because with the 1st string the candy was opened... but oh well I have a clear conscience and Batman was not harmed... come to think of it though, he was stuffed to the brim with candy and then he's entrails (candy) were scattered across the back porch... oh well, he still looked pretty

Collin

Collin turned four last Saturday, I can hardly believe my little baby is getting bigger, he'll be starting preschool next week too!!!

I remember when I found out I was pregnant, I was not expecting to have another baby anytime soon and just thought I was sick because of the flu... surprise... I remember the first time I held Collin in my arms and completely fell in love with him just like Cregan and Clay...

Each day he makes me laugh with something funny he says, or does.
I love my baby Collin...

Back to school

On Wednesday the kids summer offically ended... school started back...

I hate to be a bad mom, but I was SO excited!~ I have had the kids without Josh for most of the summer, and with school and church callings and the fact that Cregan and Clay DO NOT get along, I was grateful that school was starting back...



Cregan was ofcourse, up and dressed before anyone else was even thinking of getting out of bed, and he was excited about starting school and being there "all day" as a big boy 1st grader... He is attending Emerson which is a magnet school, fingers crossed he does well...


Clay is going into the 3rd grade and is so happy because a lot of his friends, including our next door neighbor are in his class. His teacher is Mrs Tucker and comes highly recommended and he came home beaming on the first day of class, "I got candy!" Also he is wearing a big boy backpack now! He really wanted an over the shoulder backpack.. so this is what he picked out...

Boating

We finally, finally got the boat working and on the water this year... We have had the boat since I was pregnant with Cregan so about 7 years, this is my 1st time I'm been on it though. Either I've been pregnant, or the boat was broken... so I was soooo excited to finally be on the thing...

Summer

I love summer, my favorite thing about the summer is the pool. I love jumping into the that bitter cold pool and then coming out and basking into the warmth of the day. I love watching the kids jumping in and naming there own jumps, the pencil, the Mario, and triple decker...

I love that Cregan learned how to swim this year, and that Collin know can swim with his life jacket on. I go out sit by the pool with my good book and enjoy the day....

I love having my friends and neighbors over, it is so relaxing and fun to have them and there kids over to swim... admittedly sometimes hectic, we had 15 kids in the pool once and that was a day of constant counting to make sure we had eyes on all...

I love summer and I'm going to miss the pool...

This year Josh and I celebrated our 15 year anniversary! I remember our wedding day like it was yesterday, I remember being SOOO very nervous at least until I saw Josh, he has always keeps me centered and calm. He is my stablizing force, he is my best friend, lover, confidant, comedian, therapist and massagist. He keeps me grounded, keeps me sane and helps me be a better person...

Clay's birthday is July 20th and he shares the birthday between he's 2 cousins by 2 days each, Maddie on the 18th and Lindsey on the 22nd! This year we went to Tanya's house and she made an awesome cake for all of them. This olympic cake was great!





















Clay got a DSI, he was so super-duper excited, and so was Maddie, look at that cutie!







Overall, it was extremely fun day, I still am a bit in denial that I have a 9 year old though, it's going to be really difficult next year, 10 years old!!! NO WAY!

Zoombezi Bay

I probably have the best babysitter in the world, I hope she doesn't read this blog, cause then she's liable to ask for a raise... but she's wonderful. Recently she took Cregan to Zoombezi Bay with her and her son. Cregan and Nemo (nickname of Amber's son) are BFFs, they do all the same things, play the Wii and love Super Mario... but they also l.o.v.e.d Zoombezi, Cregan has stopped singing the silly theme song since last week, and now I have to go through it all again, she's taking Clay tomorrow... sigh... :)

4th of July

This 4th of July was, well, interesting... First off I was running the Westerville 5k at 8 in the morning but had no babysitter because my husband forgot that I was going to be in the 5k and told his friend he would work with him... but my niece saved the day and babysat. 5k finished at a time of 41 minutes, not too bad...
Get home, sit down, literally 2.3 seconds later the phone rings, I was supposed to work at the Y that day, run the kids and my stinky self over to the Y, work till noon...
Then I run with the kids over to the parade in Westerville at noon...it doesn't start until 1pm but you gotta get there early. Watched the parade, the kids got sugared up with all the candy that got thrown to them..
Run home, everyone is coming over for a pool party/Garrett's birthday party... so there was 10 kids and a whole lotta parents here, we ate, we laughed, we ate some more... cake, presents, Josh coming home, swimming and finally I crawled my big bum into bed... I'm tired just writing that...

Blues Festival

Crystal and I went to the Blues Festival in Gahanna, what fun! Music, and balloons and water and rides, the kids had a blast and I rather enjoyed watching the kids riding on the rides. This was Collin's 1st time at a "fair"... if you could call it that, it was huge but to him it was.

Cregan

Cregan graduated Kindergarten today! He's going into the 1st, Clay goes into the 3rd and hopefully Collin will go into some kinda preschool...

Cregan's teachers are great, they have a graduation for them, where they walk into the gym to Pump and Circumstance, the prinicple speaks, the kids sing, they get diploma and have paper hat...all very cute... he was very excited and throw us lots of thumbs up and air gun shots...

His teacher Mrs Calhoun is wonderful with him and thinks he's is hilarious! Her favorite story of him was when they were at story time and they were reading what was a kinda spooky book about a boy who kept hearing a noise, kinda in the distance, kinda like a whisper and as she was about to turn the page to see what this noise was, Mrs Calhoun asks the class "what do you think the noise is??" expecting things like it's a ghost, or a monster... well Cregan raises his hand and says "it's the Holy Spirit whispering..." It was much cuter hearing it from his teacher.. that's my Cregan

Done with this quarter

My version of hell would consist of repeating this quarter over and over and over...

I have my bachelor's in arts in Psychology, it was freaking hard, tons of papers, tests all the time, experiments and calculations...but this quarter, **sigh** this quarter kicked all the other quarters of my schooling experience in the behind and took some names....

It was a busy, tiring, extensive, mentally draining, guilt ridden (not spending appropriate time with children, spouse and house), time consuming, brain exploding...

It started with our instructors asking the class during a lecture, "so how many of you all are going full time?" a good number of us raised our hands, "well you will probably won't make it," she says straight faced.... I barely squeezed by, but I did and thank goodness, now it's 1 class - which consists of a 2 hour lecture, 2 hour seminar and 10 hour clinical... but oh so better than the alternative of doing this quarter again...

Polar Frontier

This weekend I decided to take the kids (Clay and Collin to be exact) to the zoo. The new Polar exhibit was finished and I really wanted to see it. So we trek over to the other side of Columbus and get out walk over to North America, we see the Grizzly and Black bears, Wolverine, and the Bob Cats and then we got to the Polar Frontier, and it's decked out! It's really neat, there's a playground and a man dressed in a polar bear outfit (which Collin was kinda scaried of) and there was a huge exhibit for the Polar Bears.
We are so excited, the hype is building, we're going to see the Polar Bear!!! When we finally get there, what do we see a sleeping white bear that won't move... isn't that always the way. He was on a rock back a ways, so you couldn't even see him very well. But the exhibit itself is amazing and the kids loved it nonetheless. Ofcourse that is until Clay told me he was going to throw up... then the fun really started.

We were probably 3/4 of a mile away from the car and I was trying to get Clay and Collin back to the car, but every time Clay walked a little bit, he would start to turn green and get cold sweats. We stopped at every bench and every bathroom but we were getting no where pretty fast (the zoo was closing), so I talked to a zoo worker and asked if someone could take us to our car (like a wheelchair or something), well I got the security people in their golf carts and EMS to check on Clay, I tried to tell them he's just got a bug and he's not dehydrated (what do I know though....), anyway, they ended taking us directly to our car on the golf cart and Collin thought that was just TOO cool!!