Hello everyone! I've launched a new online fabric store. It's called Flannel Queen, and it specializes in flannel fabric. It is independent (not through eBay or etsy), and I'm so excited about it! Sneak peek:
My sewing/fabric blog My Fabric Obesssion tells all about it. If you like to sew, be sure to enter my giveaway (ends Oct 2).
Other than that, what have we been up to? Josh and Matt continue to do well in football, Matt is a rascal in school (I got the "Mom, I'm calling you because I can't control myself in the classroom" phone call), Joey got 5 stitches in his chin from falling off his bike, and Kate is queen of her tumbling class and preschool class. Life is good!
Here is a picture of the boys on the first day of school. Don't they look excited.
Here are some pictures of Kate on the first day of preschool. She is REALLY excited. I had to explain to her that we don't take purses and toys to preschool.
Back in May, Bryan's cousin told us about the Hobble Creek Half Marathon. He said it's a fast race - gentle downhill slope a lot of the way. Bryan and I decided to give it a shot (our first race ever). We followed a 12-week training plan we found online. We did short runs 2 days a week, cross-trained 2 days a week, and did a long run on Saturday mornings. Each week, the short runs and long runs got progressively longer. I have to say, I loved the training. I never thought I would/could run 10 miles just for the fun of it. But I did, and I loved the challenge. Bryan was always faster than me, though. That kind of ticked me off. :)
Today was race day! We got up at 4:30 AM, drove to Mapleton, and the 1200 runners were bussed up Hobble Creek Canyon to the start line. It's true, it was a fast race. I ran faster than my training pace. Unfortunately, Bryan donated blood earlier this week, so his lack of red blood cells hurt his speed. Even so, he ran at his training pace. My favorite part was seeing my cute kids at the finish line. Claire was nice enough to take them to the race.
Hobble Creek Half Marathon
Bryan: 1 hr 57 min
Sara: 1 hr 55 min
The picture is in black and white so you don't have to stare at our sweatiness!
Kate (whose full name is Kathryn) came to us with lots of attitude. So did her cousin Kathryn. My sister and I have consequently joked that you need to be careful when naming a child Kathryn. Last night, we took the kids swimming at the community pool. As soon as Kate got in the water, she found a new friend. Her friend's name is Kate. It turns out, this new Kate is also 3 1/2. Her birthday is 2 days after our Kate. And this new Kate is also bossy. She and Kate had a great time bossing each other around. As the new Kate was leaving with her family, she says to me, "What's your phone number?" Her mom was shocked. I wasn't. After all, it's something my Kate would have said!
Swimming: Kate is fearless. She can't swim yet, but she spends most of the time with her head underwater. It's a little stressful for the lifeguards. Joey can swim, and happily goes around doing his own thing. He went off the diving board a few times. Matt and Josh spent the whole time going off the diving board and the high-dive. They both did flips off the high-dive, and ended up over-rotating. Can you say OUCH???
This year I decided to grow a vegetable garden. Look...vegetables are growing!
Yellow squash...
Zuccini...
I also planted bell peppers, but I don't have any veggies on that plant yet.
OK, so here's the whole truth. I don't have a designated spot for a garden, so I planted veggies in pots. I knew I would have to water by hand whatever I planted, so I started small.
This is a picture of my WHOLE garden...
Isn't it cute? It's okay if you are laughing right now. I am too.
Matt and Josh both play tackle football. It starts in late August. I want them to start practicing now, so they'll be better prepared for tryouts. The problem is, these two fine boys CANNOT play catch without getting into an arguement almost instantaneously. It drives me nuts! So I came up with a plan. It's not a perfect plan, but it will have to do...until I can come up with a better plan. I offered to play catch with them. Every time they catch the ball, they earn 5 cents. Every time they drop the ball, they lose 5 cents. And we play to $1. They were a little surprised that I knew how to throw a ball. :) Two days of this, and I already see improvement. One of the boys got down to negative 40 cents the first day. He ended up only earning 35 cents. He didn't go negative at all today, and they both earned $1. So while this is not the ideal senerio, I guess it will have to do!
Last week we were dealing with strep throat. This week, we are dealing with hay fever and ... stitches!
On Tuesday, I had to be at scouts at the same time as Josh's baseball game. Grandma Jodi and Grandpa Vern are in town visiting, so Bryan and the grandparents took the kids to the game. I got a call from Bryan saying Kate needed stitches. Matt had been off by himself practicing is batting swing. Kate came up behind him without him noticing, and the bat hit her in the eye. When I met Bryan at the Instacare, Kate was in good spirits, eating a lollipop and talking non-stop. She listened to the Dr, nodding her head and being very polite. When it was time to stitch her up, they wrapped her in a blanket to keep her arms down. A nurse held her head still. Kate got so comfy, she fell asleep! The Dr was very impressed with his model patient. It was the same Dr that stitched up Matt after his sledding accident. We are getting quite a reputation at the Instacare. Kate ended up with 4 stitches above her right eye.
The next morning, Kate woke up with one eye puffy from the stitches, and the other eye glued shut because of hay fever. It was pretty funny (but not to her). A donut cheered her up.
Last night, Kate and cousin Tatum had a dance recital (tumbling show) to finish off their year of tumbling classes. It was hilarious. Kate was wandering around chatting with people the whole time. Little busy-body. Tatum was much more serious about doing the things she was supposed to be doing. But she kept on messing up when Julie would tell her to smile. Apparently, Tatum has not yet mastered smiling WHILE tumbling.
Josh has about a trillion projects due before school gets out in 2 weeks. For his science project, he has to classify 10 different bugs and 10 different leaves. For about a week now, everyone's been helping him catch bugs. Once caught, the bugs spent some quality time in the "kill jar" where the nail polish remover did it's thing. Here's his bug display:
We were visited by the elk again today. Usually we can see them about a mile away in the hills, but sometimes they get closer. Today we could see them from the road leading into our neighborhood. And we've been getting a lot of rain, so everything is nice and green.
I like doing the dishes. As a result, I don't ask anyone else to do them. I know, I need to let the kids do the dishes once in awhile so they learn how to do them. I'm really good at asking them to do the things I hate doing. But the dishes haven't made it to that list yet.
Yesterday, Bryan asked Josh to do the dishes. I walked into the kitchen, and there was Josh, busily trying to figure out how to load the dishwasher.
OK, it's a first. I finally figured out how to get the videos off the camcorder and into a format that works. At least, I think it works. You'll have to let me know.
Joey memorized a poem for the Storytelling Festival at his school. He was one of 4 Kindergarteners who told their poem for the K-3 grades at an assembly earlier this week. And he won first place for the Kindergarten age group!
Today they had a special little story telling time where any Kindergarteners who wanted to could say their poems. We filmed Joey doing his poem. And it's a little hard to hear, so these are the words:
If I were the color blue, I'd sing sad songs for you. If I were the color yellow, I'd be a happy fellow. If I were the color green, I'd grow like a big string bean. If I were the color brown, I'd be a chocolate town. If I were the color pink, I'd be a lemonade drink. If I were the color purple, nothing would rhyme with me! (I found the poem somewhere in the internet, in case you were wondering)
Don't you love it when a plan comes together? I was sick of complaining about the snow, so I thought it would be a good idea to make Joey's birthday party a "snowman party". We had a snowman cake...
Played Pin the Nose on the Snowman...
Played Pass the Snowball (like hot-potato), Made Snowman pictures...
And made real snowmen!
I wasn't sure the whole "real snowman" thing was going to work, but it did! The kids had so much fun. Definitely a success!
For decorations, I cut out a bunch of snowflakes.
After making a few pretty lame ones (like the one on the left), I found a really neat website where you can print out snowflakes templates. Very easy to do, and the snowflakes look oh-so-professional! After the party, Kate wanted it to snow in her room. So now some of the snowflakes are hanging from her curtain rod. And now Joey wants it to snow in his room...
Anyone who knows Kate (3 yrs old) knows that she always thinks she's in charge. After church on Sunday, I asked her how her class was. She said, "My teacher calls me 'jefe', and that means I'm the boss." Sure enough, "jefe" means "boss" in Spanish. I think her church teacher knows her pretty well.
Most of you (family and friends) are already aware of this incident, but here is the whole story...
On Saturday, I went out with my sister Julie. While I was gone, Matt and Joey went sledding at the park by our house. They were sledding with a couple other kids, and a neighbor mom, Marcia, was there watching. She was going to leave, but her son asked her to stay just a little longer to watch the sledding. I'm so grateful she stayed. Matt sledded down the hill and tried to go under the metal park bench. His head hit the back of the bench. Huge head wound. Marcia yelled for the younger kids to go get help while she held a snow hat to Matt's wound. Bryan was home, and he took Matt to the Instacare. Matt ended up with stitches both below the surface and on the surface. He is lucky to be alive. He took a Tylenol with Codeine that night, and a regular Tylenol the next morning...and that's it! He has felt no pain. I have him doing indoor recess this week. I am sure if he was outside with his friends, he would forget about the head issue and run around like a wild man. Poor kid.
A nice neighbor covered up the bloody snow at the park before I got a chance to do it. However, a few days later enough snow had melted so I could see the blood. It was everywhere. I am so grateful that Matt is okay. I am so grateful that Marcia was there to help. It could have been so much worse. I love my Matty!
Wow, isn't it lovely?
Sunday, before church, Matt, Joey and Kate put on their (Kate's) butterfly wings and "danced" around. Can I just say it is close to impossible for Matt to take it easy? We had to buzz his head, so his hair wouldn't get in the wound. The only problem is that the wound is SO obvious with a bald head. It caused quite a commotion at church.
This afternoon, Josh yelled in a tattling voice, "Mom, Matt's throwing snowballs at the window!" It was the window right by where Josh was doing his homework, so he was annoyed. And any opportunity to tattle on Matt is fun for Josh. So I opened the front door and yelled for Matt to knock it off. Then I hear "I'm stuck!" I peeked outside, and all I see is the top half of Matt. The bottom half is in the snow. Do I run to help him? Oh no, I run to find the camera. I got the camera, got my snow boots on, and went out to see Matt. I informed him that I was going to get him out, but first I had to take a few pictures. :)
I asked him how in the world this happened! He said he was walking on the sidewalk (um, hello, it's under a few feet of snow!) and was doing fine until he sank. And then he was stuck. Good thing this happened in front of our house, so he could throw snowballs at the window to get our attention! We had a little talk about walking in the street instead of the "sidewalk" when the snow is this deep.
"When you get to my age, you'll measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. That's the ultimate test of how you've lived your life." - Warren Buffett
