FUTURE FAME?

 I think James wants to see his name in flashing lights...

MORNINGS

As Jay was leaving for work, after kissing the kids goodbye, he told me to go see what they were up to. I found James asleep on Buster at the end of his bed and Cora snuggled on the floor with all her pillows and blankets, nekkid and reading phonics books (because her bed was wet). I thought they looked too sweet not to snap photos.

A DANCE AND A HAIRCUT

BUSY DAYS, NEW ART, AND LESSONS

Mondays and Tuesdays have become very busy for our family. After school yesterday, we rushed home to take Buster out for a walk, then get all our chores done before heading to spin class and family swim (Jay and I have attempted to give the kids mini-lessons before our trip to the waterpark next week). While I repacked school bags, signed the daily reports, paid the bills, washed lunch boxes and other dishes, packed the dance and soccer bags, remade Cora's bed, took the trash up to the street, set up the coffee pot, picked out the kids' school clothes, and got all our gym stuff together, the kids quietly and calmly worked on a new art project (I know, QUIETLY - amazing, right?) This hypotrochoid set seems to be a big hit, even though it's going to take them a while to figure out the logistics of holding all the pieces correctly at the same time while also applying the appropriate force to make the designs (the one shown in the photo is my example for them). James had a much easier time at this than Cora, but he still got frustrated that his "flowers" didn't look like my designs. He wanted them to be perfect, but after a dozen attempts he still wasn't seeing what he wanted to. I promised him he'd figure it out and that he just needed to practice, but he was unconvinced and visibly frustrated...

I think this is actually a really good hands-on lesson for him in patience and persistance - he's been getting very frustrated lately at things that take him longer to master than he thinks they should or when he makes mistakes (examples: reading, learning to ride his bike, building his new Lego sets). We don't ever demand perfection in anything (we don't even expect that from ourselves, in any aspect of life), so it's a little unnerving to see him get so stressed out about getting a letter/word/sound wrong or placing a Lego piece in the wrong spot. He seriously holds his breath as he places those Legos... and you wonder why he's so proud of his finished products! When we first took his training wheels off, he was more worried about not being able to just get on and go immediately (and go fast) than he was about falling or getting hurt. When he reads, he wants to just KNOW the words, not sound them out or take his time. I found last night that I had to hide the photo above the sentence because he'd just look at 1-2 letters of a word and use a word that he already knows which also applied to the scene he was seeing instead of sounding out the new word (for example, two kids playing soccer - he could do the words "and, ball, fell", but had a hard time with the kids' names: Don and Jack, so he said "kick" instead of Jack). His phonics tests at school are usually 100%, but every now and then we get a page home with a note that says he knew the correct sound, but named the letter wrong or vice versa (he tends to confuse "d" with "b" and "p", "n" with "h", and "v" with "y"). Is that normal for this age? Or do we need to worry about dyslexia? Or is he just overthinking things, so worried that he's going to get it wrong?

 

Not to leave Cora out of this pondering, she is the exact opposite of her brother... While swimming last night, she was determined to make it across the pool by herself using a kickboard (we are trying SO HARD to get them to swim horizontally and not vertically, teaching them to splash while they kick), and she was furious with us for following so closely, reaching out to re-balance her or rescue her when she fell off and went under (how dare we, right?), and repeatedly reprimanded us with "Stop touching me! I got it!" and "I don't need you!" and "Leave me alone, I can do it by myself!" This was after about 30 minutes of her continuously jumping off the side without waiting for us to pay attention and be ready to catch her. On the bright side, she is completely gung-ho about learning to swim this year and is already comfortable swimming underwater and kicking forward. If only she'd do it where she can easily stand when she gets tired or runs out of breath... Oh yeah, and as I sit in the corner doing James' reading homework with him, if he pauses too long, she'll chime in from across the room with the correct sound that the letter makes... Real confidence boost to him, I'm sure. That girl is the main cause of all my gray hairs...

UNICORN SEASON IS AROUND THE CORNER...

Ultramarathoners have a thing for unicorns. Not all of them, of course (I only know a few personally, but those guys are definitely borderline obsessed). Now that my first marathon is over and done, and my favorite local road race is around the corner (that would be the Run Thru History 10K this coming weekend), I'm thinking ahead to the spring and summer months and planning to focus on trail races for a while... The Spring Equinox 50K is less than 4 weeks away. I'm SO READY to hopefully prance around the woods in blissful ignorance for 6 to 7 hours - is that asking too much? to run the full trail system there this year! Then there's the Unicorn Faint of Heart (a 4.6-miler with a 2050 ft elevation change - that's an AVERAGE slope of 13.2%!), the Mother's Day Dash Trail 5K, a repeat of Hells Hills (10K or half marathon, though Jay will likely run this one solo while I watch the kiddos), and at the end of the summer, the Mt. Ashland HillClimb Run (13.3 miles straight up, from Lithia Park to the very top of Mt. Ashland - an elevation gain of over a mile...)

 

So, in the spirit of our season of trail races, I'm ready to get my unicorn on!

Jay and I spotted this bell at lunch today (the Klondyke has the strangest assortment of items for sale) and I couldn't resist buying it for the Forge Racing directors. They were in need of a starting bell for their events anyway.

TEETER-TOTTER

James' birthday present from Grambot and PawPaw arrived a little early, and since the box was giant and had a picture of the item on it, we couldn't exactly hide it - so it got set up today!

 They like it just a little bit...

EARLY MORNING CARTOONS

Since mommy ran both mornings this weekend, the kids got to watch cartoons two mornings in a row. You would have thought they won the lottery... All snuggled in together with Jude and their pillows and blankets and favorite stuffed animals. Watching DVR'd episodes of Paw Patrol.

FIRST GAME OF SPRING SOCCER 2014

Half the kids scored at least one goal this game, including James. We have an awesome team, they like playing together, and James is so into it this season! The game was over before we knew it (with ZERO whining or crying from anyone - except when they had to switch out - nobody wanted to take breaks!)

They played so well together and showed a lot of teamwork - we were really impressed with them all!

(She had wandered off with my phone, singing and dancing along to the Frozen soundtrack. She honestly knows more words than I do to some of the songs...) 

SPRING SOCCER HAS BEGUN!

While Cora is sitting out this season (happily) to do ballet and tap instead, James has been ready and waiting for soccer to begin! Jay is again coaching his team and he has 3 returning players (James, Brycen, and AJ), another boy who played on a different team this fall, and 4 boys who are new to the sport (but have enjoyed playing in their backyards, so they have some experience). I think it's interesting that Jay has an all-boy team again, and based on their first practice, I think these little guys are going to rule the fields this season!

 

(That's James in the black shirt w/ white sleeves and blue team shorts)

 

Their favorite drill was "kick the coach" (everyone aiming to kick their soccer ball at Jay as he ran around the field dodging them). Jay played hard to get, so it took forever for one of them to finally tag him, and when he collapsed to the ground our littlest player dog-piled him. It was hilarious to me, especially because I could tell how absolutely exhausted the chase made him (he'd just come from yoga class, and had done yoga at home this morning as well, so running around the soccer field after a bunch of 4-year-olds was his 3rd workout of the day).

 

(Bonus photo of Cora and her 80's style side ponytail at dance class today)

 

 

P.S. Tuesdays are now ridiculously busy with yoga, dance class, and soccer practice. Who knew we'd be rushing around like this with kids so young? Sure, fall soccer was busy with dual practices, but at least they usually overlapped and were at the same location. I think a between practices snack of milkshakes and dinner of sandwiches is going to be completely justified for the next couple of months...

FAMILY HIKE

Today wasn't quite as sunny and warm as yesterday, but it was still nice enough to encourage us to get outside and get into nature. Poor Buster doesn't get out much, so we wanted to test him out at Rocky Springs and see what he thinks of trail hiking and stream splashing. Turns out he likes nature. A lot. Especially sand. But it wears him out even more than the kids (both of whom should have crashed in the car on the way home for lunch, but neither did). The morning was fun for all of us and we're glad we took this weekend a bit like last year and spent some extra quality time together!

 

Headin' on down the old trace to the stream...

Just look at that dog's smile! Ready to chase daddy down the "beach"! (P.S. Jay is not magically hovering, he is mid-jump)

The water was so cold that Baby Doll's feet turned red (rather quickly). I was concerned, but Jay said "Don't worry, when they get really cold they'll get out and just play in the sand." He was right.

I promised them that if they paused and smiled for just one photo that I would leave them alone and just take candid shots the rest of the morning. Apparently that deal sounded pretty solid to them...

It's confirmed, Buster can swim!

Running straight for mommy so he could shake his mess of water and sand all over me. Again and again. (No, we did not let him off-leash. We so don't trust him... As fun as it would have been to watch him bound up and down that strip of sand, all we could picture was having to chase him through the woods, filled with greenbrier and poison ivy and fire ants.)

Cold Cora (warming up by piling sand on herself) and an already tuckered out Buster. He was cracking us up by speed-digging little holes to stick his booty or nose into.

Apparently he likes to chew on sticks too. He won't fetch, but he enjoyed methodically breaking branches into pieces and sort of piling them up next to himself. Does that mean he's an OCD dog?

We hunted out a few cool rocks to add to our collection, then packed it in.

Sissy got a blister from her new shoes, so she hitched a ride back to the car (a 1-mile hike) on daddy's shoulders. Bummer for him was that her lower half was completely soaked from playing in the water...

Snacking and watching James ride his bike in circles. He'd wanted to take it on the trail so bad, but we didn't want to take it down to the water and we knew parts of the trail would be impassable by bike, so we promised him he could ride while the rest of us refueled when we got back to the parking lot.

 After lunch and showers (and triple-checking to be sure nobody brought any ticks home), we rested a bit, then went to the gym for spin class, followed by our first family swim since summer. Since we're taking the kids to an indoor waterslide park in 2 weeks, we figured we should get them used to pools again. They were ridiculously excited to get their swimsuits on and get in the water. They even attempted to swim, but we have a lot of work to do... Who has tips on getting kids to lay on their bellies while kicking? Both of ours try to swim in an upright position. Perhaps it's time to enquire about private swim lessons...

BIKING IN THE SUNSHINE

After our owl adventure, we caught wind that Christina was heading over to the flats to ride bikes, and since we were right in that neck of the woods, we crashed her party. The kids road their bikes down the long grass hill in the "parking area" for 20-30 minutes, then we went into the flats so we could chase the kids for a few miles (just a very slow recovery run/walk). It did the trick to loosen up some of my tighter muscles (I did a 24-miler yesterday in prep for next month's 50K) and the kids used up enough energy that they were both pooped by the time we headed home for lunch.

SEARCHING FOR SNOWY

The ice storm brought a snowy owl way off course down here to Mississippi and we learned about it yesterday. It was spotted for multiple days just 30 minutes north of us, so we set off on an adventure this morning to see if we could spot it. Turns out we were too late (not surprising, since the weather cleared up and then really warmed up yesterday), but it was still fun to take the kids birding and let them experience the chase. Plus, we got to see a hunting dog competition of sorts (they were flinging dead ducks from behind blinds and the dogs were taking turns fetching them, being timed for their retrievals - never seen that before) and LOTS of hawks. James said he had fun, so hopefully we can do it again soon. It's always nice to get out of the house and go for a drive to new locales!

EMMA THE EXPLORER

Sweet little Emma turned 3 and we helped her celebrate at her Dora the Explorer themed party (she's a big Dora fan)! The kids had so much fun playing on the seesaw helicopter and playset, and inside with all Emma and Coltin's toys. They kinda refused to leave (they always do when we visit the Hancock's house - they love it there), so we stayed late while the kids closed down the party by riding bikes in the driveway while us adults chatted. Thanks so much for inviting us over guys (and thanks for the yummy tacos too - just what I needed after my long run)!

Cora, James, Will

Cora, Coltin, James, Will

Cora, Gabriel, Coltin, James

Cora, Gabriel, James, Coltin

Gabriel, James, Cora

Lauren, Will, Cora snacking on taco fixins

Cupcake time with the birthday girl: Cora, James, Emma

Cora the Explorer

Cora down on the dock with Stirlin, feeding their "pet" fish