Hello Spring!

The kids and I made a mad dash for the sunshine this afternoon. We got a little muddy but had oh so much fun. Josh ran up and down the street over and over again. Any time I picked him up to face him in another direction he would kick and scream until I let him back down to run.

And the Award Goes To...

Jakey finally received his 2nd place medal for the tournament this past Saturday. He also received a pin for his PIN!

More Easter

The hunt was on! I firmly instructed Jake and Jordan that the little tiny eggs were for Joshy. So they promptly ran around the room, found the tiny eggs and put them in Josh's basket. Not quite what I had in mind, but Josh didn't seem to mind. Shortly after, Josh gagged on a piece of candy and threw up in the middle of the playroom. He was furious that I took his candy away afterwards.

Happy Easter!

Can't keep our shirt tucked in. I chased this boy all over the house for a photo. And he still managed to spill food on himself before I got it.


So handsome! Jakey loves to dress up like a little man. He loved wearing a tie just like daddy.


Jordan cried all morning about having to wear a dress. She absolutely despises them. But then again, so do I. But I think they are adorable on her. Too bad for her I guess.

Finally Dying Eggs

Because my illness fled today, we got around to dying eggs. Because the very idea stressed me out, we did it on the floor in the kitchen. Here's some pics.





These eggs all had their names on them, but obviously, you can't see it.

WRESTLING!

Today Jake PINNED his first opponent at his wrestling match. WAHOO! In doing so, he scored 5 points for his team, earned himself 2nd place for his division and got the highest placing of all his teammates! The opponent he pinned was actually the girl that pinned him last week.

Here is the takedown...


AND THE PIN! This is a new wrestling move we like to call the "copafeel." Whatever, it got the job done, son!


VICTORY!


And just so we don't get too cocky, here is Jake getting pinned by his second opponent...


He actually managed to squirm out from under this tough guy TWICE before he finally got pinned. And once again, he had fun and never cried.

A Couple of Pics

In honor of our second wrestling tournament tomorrow, here are a couple of pics...

This is the third place medal that Jake won at his first tournament. They handed it out at practice the following Monday. He thought he won it for sitting quietly in the circle while watching the other kids get their awards.


Jake fell asleep on the couch after a long day. He went to wrestling practice from 5:30pm until 7pm and then went with Darrin to visitation at the church until 9:30. By the time he got home he had a snack and almost fell asleep at the table. The reason this picture is remarkable is because Jake NEVER falls asleep anywhere but his bed.


Isn't he cute?

It sucks to be sick!

As Jessica pointed out via comment on my last post, I spoke too soon. I'M SICK! WAAAHH! Fevers and chills, aches and pains, nausea and vomiting. No fair, nobody else had vomiting. I have a life long phobia of vomiting so I'm pretty bitter about it.

So no egg dying yet. Silver lining? No stained carpet!

Tomorrow is Jake's next wrestling tournament. I REALLY hope I'm up for it. It would break my heart to miss it.

Let the Games Begin!

Today marks the beginning of Day 1 of Darrin's four days off in a row. Nobody is sick. Whatever shall we do? So far this morning has been spent playing Mario Olympics on the Wii in between spurts of watching college basketball and tracking our brackets. So far I have a perfect March Madness record, but one of my teams is currently losing. This afternoon we shall attempt to dye eggs without staining the carpet. Pictures to follow soon, I'm sure.

Mommy's Little Helper

I told Jordan, if she cleaned up all the shoes that Joshy tossed around, I would give her a cookie. She got it done in typical Jordy fashion. My OCD son Jake is going to freak out when he gets home and sees it! But then he'll fix it and I'll give him a cookie too. Everyone is happy.

Cookie face!

Cheesin'

Jordy, Joshy and Mommy rolling around in the playroom while Daddy and Jakey are at practice. I couldn't get Josh to look at the camera (even when the self-timer was beeping) and even though I'm obviously trying to force him, he's too busy laughing at Jordan.

First Wrestling Tournament

So my sweet little Bubba had his very first wrestling tournament today. I fully admit that I was a nervous wreck. I went in with zero expectations. Well, that's not true. I didn't go in with any positive expectations, let's put it that way. I fully expected him to either refuse to participate, or cry the whole time.

I'm extatically proud to say that he did NEITHER of those things!

The meet itself was run poorly and for some reason the little guys didn't get to wrestle for HOURS. So before he had a chance to show his stuff, Grandma had to take his brother and sister home for lunch and a nap. Daddy, sick with the flu, managed to make it through Jake's first bout before he had to head home to bed.

So, about that first bout...I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that Jake had absolutely no clue what the heck was going on. The ref set him up to wrestle another little guy and blew a whistle. Jake just looked at him like, "why did you just blow that whistle in my ear?" While the other little boy took Jake to the ground and pinned him in three seconds flat. At the last second Jake realized he needed to get off his back and made an attempt to roll over, but it was already too late. Game over.

Big smiles and no tears. "I was tryin' to move!" He told me as I was hugging him afterwards. Not upset about it, he was just explaining the facts to me.

We sat around for HOURS AND HOURS waiting for his second match. At one point he even told me that he wanted to go wrestle again (that is a huge victory in my book because he really wanted to quit a couple weeks ago).

So his second match was against a tiny little girl. Jake was more prepared this time and really gave it a valiant effort. He managed a couple of take downs and was actually winning by earning points for moves. He even pinned her at one point but the ref missed it I guess. I'm not bitter. Stupid ref. ANYWAY, as the bout wore on, Jake ended up on his back, pinned by a girl.

But he came off the mat smiling and that's all that matters to his proud mama.

I don't have many pictures because I kept getting distracted. But a friend took some and hopefully I can post those soon. But here's a couple...

This is Jakey just waiting and waiting and waiting for his turn to wrestle.


This is the pep talk from Daddy right before his very first bout.


And this is the shaking of the hands right before the first bout. I was distracted at this point and took no more pictures!

Wrestling Practice

Here's a couple pics of Jake's recent wrestling practice. He has his first tournament this Saturday. We did a weigh in tonight. He weighs 33.4 pounds.

Another digital page

Learned some new fun tricks with Photoshop this week and designed this page with my new skills. I think this is one of only two layouts I have EVER done that wasn't about my kids.

Just stuff

This weekend has been exhausting and it's only half over. The basketball tournament concluded this evening and the shirt factory did well. The basketball team managed to make some money off of us.

Today was the last day of the basketball season for Darrin (woo hoo!) but we start track season on Monday. I had grand delusions of running with the team as I prepare for my half-marathon, but alas, I forgot I have three children. I guess I'll just stick with late night jaunts to the gym on base with April.

Beebs seems to have recovered from his toilet meets face incident but has since succumbed to a 102 degree fever. It's been going around, it was only a matter of time. So now I'm waiting for the other two to catch it so they can all be miserable together. I'll be keeping them home from church tomorrow.

Got some fun new scrapping stuff in the mail this week. Looking forward to playing with it and getting my next article started.

I think that's about it. I sleepy.

Ouch

What a day.

Today I took the kids out shopping with a friend and then we hit the McDonalds playland for lunch. At one point, I took Jake potty, and to make a long story short, he slipped and fell and bashed his head into the toilet. The full story will be posted in my journal soon.

Recent Photo Shoots

Here are some pictures from a couple recent photo shoots I did for friends. This first cutie might look familiar because I've taken her photo several times. This is baby Kate at 3 months.




And this little beef cake is Cael. Everyone calls him Caelman. He is 9 months old.