Life

With school starting and Sparky's birthday I have a bunch of pictures that I am working on, but they're not quite ready to post and so instead please enjoy a few of my thoughts on life as it is being lived right now.

1. My oldest and dearest boy just turned 12. It kind of hits me in the gut to say that and so I will continue to think of him as the precocious 3 year old who never stopped talking and only wanted to read non-fiction books. Honestly, not much has changed.

2. With my oldest turning 12, life has become much busier since he is now part of Young Men at church. The weekly activities are definitely going to take some getting used to, as well as a bit of coordination to get him to those activities because of all of the other things he and the other kids are involved in. I am sure you know what I mean because that's life. Although, it kind of makes my head swim. Big kids are busier kids.

3. We threw him a big Nerf war birthday party. It was a lot of fun and I will be just fine if I never have to throw a party again. Except for the fact that Woo gets a party for her birthday in March. Well, at least I have a reprieve until March.

4. I am trying to find some motivation to start working out again. If you find some, let me know.

5. Fall is in the air. A small seed of anxiety has been planted deep inside of me knowing that winter is right around the corner, but Fall is my girl's most favorite season and her excitement is pretty fun to witness.

6. School is in full-swing, house projects are underway and life is marching on.

Pictures for those of you not on Facebook

I post many more pictures on Facebook than on the blog because well, it is just so much easier. Posting on the blog takes so many more steps and sometimes I just don't feel like working that hard. Perhaps there is an easier way, but right now I sure don't know what it is. Regardless, here are some pictures from the last week or so that I took with my phone.

Doug and I headed to Costco to pick out some new glasses. While we were there Tiger found these sweet shades and thought he was looking pretty cool.

This boy of mine is about to turn 12 in one week and so it was time to buy him his first suit. I must say that he is one sharp looking kid, but every time I see him dressed like this I just want to cry.  I am having serious issues these days with my kids growing up.

Last Sunday I had a splitting headache and so what better spot for our Sunday walk than at the bottom of a dam. My, oh my was it loud down there. Not really helpful to my head, but way fun for the kids. My favorite quote of the night came from KK who, when asked if they had fun said, "Yes, but it smelled a bit like a man who never takes a shower." Descriptive and true.

What good little sports these kids of mine are. They are always being asked to stop for pictures and they handle it like champs.

I think Tiger just likes to use photo stops as an opportunity to practice his many expressions.

Sparky has been testing the bounds of his freedom and has been dying to walk to McDonald's which is really not that far from our house, but on a busy street without sidewalks. I am not quite willing to let him walk there by himself yet and so as a compromise we all walked there together. It was a small victory for my boy and I got to be "fun mom" for a moment.

Tiger's outfit choice the other day. Wow. It just hurts my eyes to look at this, but as a good mom I just let him go with his mismatched self.

My boys are quite obsessed with video games. Whether it be on the DS, the computer, or the Wii. It absolutely drives me crazy and I totally limit their time, but playing makes them happy. As you can see here it is Sparky's turn to play and Tiger is stuck watching because he has already played his allotted time for the day. Although, I must say that Tiger loves to watch his brother play almost as much as he love to play himself.

He also loves to make faces for the camera.

I am sure you have all noticed that Tiger likes to dress up. Well, we were walking through Costco the other day and all of the Halloween costumes are out. Tiger was instantly taken with this Ninja costume because, well because it is a Ninja and it has a mask and weapons.

He wasted no time running down the street striking "fear" into all who crossed his path.

So, there you have it, snapshots of our life from the past week. Two things have become very clear to me. I need to get more pictures of my girl, and Tiger and I spend way too much time together.

Track 2012

Every year I am totally surprised when Sparky tells me that he want to do track, but I am thrilled that he likes it so much and it is a fine way to spend a Saturday morning.

This was the year of the long jump for my boy. It turns out that he really has a great natural jump and even came in third for his group. I like to pretend that the guy measuring my boy's jump in the picture above is opening his mouth in awe and not just because he is a little bit bored and yawning.

Look at the height. Quite impressive in my book.

My favorite moment of track this year was when he informed me that he is now more of a distance runner. His preferred distance you ask? Well, that would be the 200m. Yep, he's a distance runner all right. Although, that is slightly up from last year's favorite race which was the 100m.

It's been a busy few weeks

This has been kind of a weird summer. We started off with our trip out west right after school got out. As fun as that was, it really threw everything off and we never quite got into a groove after we got home. I feel like we have been in a state of constant chaos ever since, but the last few weeks in particular have been quite crazy. First we had swim lessons for a couple of weeks. Tiger and Woo were in heaven, but Sparky was there under duress. This is what happens when you refuse to actually swim when you are in the water, you find yourself almost 12 years old and still in swim lessons. That's ok, I think he got the message and he tried extra hard this round after I promised he wouldn't have to take lessons again if he proved he could swim.

My cute little Tiger. This boy just loves to be in the water. His feelings about lessons are much like KK's were at this age. He is so happy to be in the water and just wants to swim, but doesn't so much want to listen to the instructor. He was often found off to the side doing his own thing and was constantly being pulled back to the group. On a positive note, this kid can hold his breath for and amazing amount of time. I am constantly amazed at how long he can stay under water.

We have also had lots of opportunities for dressing up in costumes that are way too small. Perhaps it is time to update the dress-up box?

Can you tell this boy enjoys a good party? A week or so ago our very kind Mexican neighbors invited us over for one of their kid's birthday party. It was an experience to be sure since we were the only non-Mexicans, but I tell you these Mexicans sure know how to party! There was food and more food, games and prizes, and good times being had everywhere. One of the best moments was when Tiger got up on the deck and proceeded to spontaneously dance for about 5 minutes to the 80's hits that were playing on the Karaoke machine. It was hilarious! Next to that however, my favorite part by far was the food. In fact, Sparky called it the Festival of Food. It just kept coming until we were ready to burst and it was so incredibly delicious! I really need to learn how to cook like they do. Perhaps I can get the recipes? I'll have to work on that.

Here's KK doing the egg walk. She totally rocked this game. It was quite humorous though because the mom would give everyone the instructions for the game and then one of the daughters would have to translate for us.

Here's the classic eat the apple off of the string without touching it with your hands. Tiger was all about this game until he realized that the goal was to eat the apple and since he really doesn't eat fruit, and certainly not apples unless the skin is cut off, he quickly gave up.

Sparky and Woo kept trying and trying, although without much success. I'm just glad that my girl didn't pop a bracket off of her teeth.

At the end of our second week of swim lessons this little man came down with quite the illness. It was so very sad. In fact, he's still coughing.

One night we had my sister and her husband over for dinner and afterwards KK had the genius idea for us to play Apples to Apples since it is her favorite game. It was seriously so very funny, especially since Chad didn't win a single hand and he is used to always winning every game we ever play. That is the beauty of playing with children. You never know what will happen.

Even Tiger got in on the action and he took it very seriously. I must say, for a boy who can't read he sure knows how to pick some good cards.

This week Sparky has been at soccer camp every morning. This has been very good for us because it has forced us to get up and get going in the morning. The other two kids and I have had all sorts of adventures while Sparky has been at camp. We've gone out to breakfast a couple of times, visited the party store, gone to the pet store, we went school supply shopping, played on many playgrounds, and even had some play dates. It has been a lot of fun.

Here's my little Tiger being his usual silly self on our outings.

And here's Sparky one day after soccer camp. Holy sweaty mess, but the kid has had the time of his life this week and I think he has learned a lot. I am so glad that I signed him up to do this.

Yep, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. Now only one more full week of freedom left until school starts. I have mixed feelings about that, but I think that overall we are all ready. We'll just have to make the best of the free time we have left.