What a Week!

Last week was a crazy, crazy week. If I don't write it down, I'll never believe it later. :) Sunday and Monday were pretty normal and then the fun started! Tuesday was my first MOPS meeting of the year and it was also Amelia's "Tea with Teacher." Simultaneously. No worries. I would go to MOPS with the kiddos and then at 10:30, go get Amelia out of MOPS childcare and take her to Tea. She was. not. happy. I have NEVER seen her act like I did that day. She was already teary when I came to pick her up (MOPS and school are the same building, so I wasn't deserting my other children. Promise.). And then the tears started free-flowing. "I don't want to go! I'm not going in there!" Dug her little heels into the ground and went boneless. I literally dragged her down the hallway. She was just about as hysterical as I've ever seen her. TOTALLY unlike her. She was all grins and giggles about meeting her teacher when we left the house. She loves school and has been asking for weeks (Read: all summer) when school was starting back up. So I have no idea what her deal was. Well, I have a few theories, but none that equate the show she produced. Anyway, we stayed after everyone else left and met with Mrs. Beth one-on-one and she was fine. And Wednesday came and she was out the door of the truck without even a good-bye. Stinker. So, that was Tuesday. Wednesday was our first day of school. Amelia was very excited and had a great first day. And then we got hit on the way home. By a tow truck. It was terrifying. Thankfully, we were not hurt and the kids handled it well, although James still asks if we're going to crash every time we get in the car. We were turning into our subdivision. This wrecker was in front of us turning left also. He completed his turn so I followed. And then he started backing up. And backed up right into us. I don't know that I've been that scared in a long time. Nothing like seeing a giant wrecker truck backing up into you and your truck full of babies and not being able to do a THING about it! He even admitted "I didn't look, I just started backing up." Um, maybe you should LOOK. But, like I said, we weren't hurt and the truck was still drivable. His company is completely paying for repairs and our rental for this week. We didn't report it to his insurance because he would automatically lose his job and we didn't feel that was right. It was a dumb mistake, but we all make dumb mistakes. Thursday was second day of school and first day of dance. No drama, jut busy. Friday we picked up Lindsay and Brian from the airport. Brian is separating from the Air Force and their layover was in Atlanta, so they were allowed to extend their layover for a few days. Yippee! We picked them up on our way to Peachtree City where our triathlon was on Saturday. Because we didn't have anything else going on, why not swim/bike/run? Ha ha. This race was HARD. I don't know if I just wasn't as well-trained as the first one (probably) or just wasn't prepared for the course (probably), but it was hard. The course was described as "gentle, rolling hills and a flat run." They lied. There was nothing gentle about those hills! And the run was not flat. Hmph. The bike ride is really what kicked my tail. I KNOW I wasn't prepared mentally or physically for that route. I was prepared for the distance, but not the hills. By the time I got to the run, I had very little energy left, but still managed to run about a 13.30 minute mile (not blazing, I know. I'm slow.). Total time was 2:08:something. :) Robert finished in about 2:20:something. It was hard, but still a lot of fun and I'm still glad we did it!

So, that was our week. Brian and Lindsay stayed the weekend and it was fabulous. I'm so happy they're back. And in the same time zone. And only a 6.5 hour drive! Wonderful. :) Oh, almost forgot....when we got home from the triathlon, our fridge was warm. Freezer was warm. Lovely. And they couldn't send anyone until today. Friday. A whole week. So we've been using a mini-fridge all week. Ho hum.

In other news...hmmm. We're settling down into routine with school. James misses his sissy during the day, but we've stayed pretty busy, so he doesn't notice too much. Naomi is ac.tive. I have found her at the top of the stairs (yes, we have a gate). I have found her in the basement playroom. She loves to climb. She loves to play peek-a-boo with herself. She loves to bite. Ouch. She is so close to walking. She'll take a step or two and then falls.

Okay. Signing off for now. Here's to quieter weeks! :)

Sum sum Summertime

We've been busy with lots of little stuff here and there. Warning: Lots of randomness in the following! Our 6th anniversary was the weekend before our race. We had our race. My dearest friend Bethers came to visit for a few hours the following weekend. I haven't seen her since our wedding day. Too long! The weekend after that we drove to somewhere in Tennessee to join our dear friends, the Resnick's, at a family/friend reunion of sorts. We had a blast and wish we could see them more often. We have been to the zoo and the aquarium and to the pool and lake a number of times. Amelia and James are enjoying "cooking camp" this week and the school. I didn't really know what to do with myself this morning! Amelia and I have been working on "Hooked on Phonics" and she started reading a few words this past weekend. She is quite proud of herself and we are proud of her, too. Naomi has 3 teeth in and 4 more working their way in. She is all smiles. Except when that plethora of teeth are working their way in. She has a new love for popsicles. :) She has started walking behind one of her push toys and is quite pleased with herself. She climbs stairs if the gate doesn't make it closed. She is a busy girl! James started the month off by splitting his forehead open on the baseboards. Thankfully, they were able to superglue it and no stitches were required. The glue is STILL there. 7-10 days my foot. At least he should be good and healed by the time it all wears off! We have signed up for another triathlon at the end of August. I have to admit it has been harder to stay motivated with training this time around, but I'm still looking forward to it. It will be a little bit longer than our first race, but not by much. I will let you know if we survive!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

WE DID IT!!! On Father's Day, Robert and I, along with our friends Sara and Stephen, completed the Callaway Gardens Sprint Triathlon. I am so proud of ourselves. :) It was months of training. It was awesome. My ultimate goals were to finish with a smile on my face and preferably under 2 hours (I didn't know exactly how attainable that was...). Well, I finished with a big smile at 1:20:19! It ended up being something like 859th place out of 1096. I can't even describe how great it felt to cross that finish line! We're already planning our next one in October!

You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby...

Here is Amelia's dance recital rehearsal. She absolutely LOVES being on that stage. I don't think she will ever become a professional, but she does love her dance class! She was so proud of herself tonight at rehearsal. And she should be. She did a great job. One of the best smilers up there if I do say so myself. I sure do love her. :)

Na Na the Nanny Goat.

We call Naomi Nanny Goat. She eats everything. Paper is her favorite. If she sees a piece of paper, she will fight you to get to it. She crawls fast only to get to Mommy or paper. I have pulled paper, cotton balls, mulch, strings from pom pons, and rawhide chews from her mouth. And she doth protest loudly when I take away her treasures. She has shorted out the power cord for our computer. (As a side note, this is the FIFTH power cord we have bought for this computer, so I'm not putting all the blame on her!) She also devours Cheerios, Gerber puffs, bits of banana, graham crackers. She has snatched bacon off my plate. And not a single tooth.

I know I'm a slacker...

I know, I know. No posts since January. We really just don't have much interesting going on! Besides the normal madcap antics of a 4, 2, and 6 month old anyway...Just a few quick updates on each gremlin, uh, precious gift.

AMELIA: Is really growing up and maturing. She still has her moments, of course, but I'm very proud of her. She loves to help me and almost drives me crazy in the morning making sure that I have the other two kids dressed before we leave the house. She likes to help too much sometimes! She is still full of a bazillion questions a day. Right now she is in a phase where she wants us to spell everything for her or want to know what a word is. I have a feeling that if I took the time to work with her one-on-one, she'd be reading. She has a hilarious imagination and uses it freely. She loves to play "I'm the mom and you're the itty bitty [baby]."



JAMES: Gives me a heart attack at least once a day. His favorite phrase right now is "MOM. WATCH THIS!" Usually followed by a leap off the back of the couch or table or toilet or or or... :) He is in a whiny stage that I remember all too well from Amelia. I see lots of time spent in the whiny chair in our future. He is eating better, though not well. He will at least eat most meat and a few fruits. Still only one or two veggies he will touch. I think there's about a 6 pound difference between he and Naomi. He loves to sing and talks way more than Amelia did at this age. He is ALL BOY all the time! Loves the dog, the dirt, water, running, kicking, hitting, etc. He is going to keep me on my toes! We have a new deck and he will spend hours playing out there. He is still my best sleeper, often sleeping 10-12 hours a night.


NAOMI: Is growing too fast! She just turned 6 months and is already trying to crawl. She's got the rocking back and forth down and can lurch forward a little bit. I'm not ready for her to be mobile! She sits very well and is usually very happy. Well, she's either very, very happy or very, very mad. There's not much in between! She is very playful. She loves the tub. She has ridiculously beautiful eyes that elicit comments every time we're out in public. The girl likes to eat. Loves her mama food and her baby food! (Side note: James just walked downstairs with one of Amelia's baby dolls and wearing one of her bracelets...hilarious.) She is not a fan of naps or sleeping through the night, though we do get that occasionally. She is very loud, whether happy or not. James and Amelia both love to play with her and fight over whose turn it is to hold her. Amelia can make her belly laugh better than any of us.

So, there you have it. :)

And One and Two and One and Two and...

So, we got this hair-brained idea to do a sprint triathlon this year. Yes, we are insane. I have not run since my freshman year of college. I have not been on a bike for probably 7-8 years. I do not swim well. So we have our work cut out for us. We joined the gym in November. I finally went for the first time two weeks ago. And let me tell you, I have really been enjoying it! In fact, I didn't go today and I miss it! It is such a nice little refresher for Mommy. We generally go right after dropping Amelia off at school. I have been mainly working on the treadmill and bike for now, but will be changing my 'norm' a little bit to follow the training schedule more closely. I figure the people who designed the schedule know what they're doing far, far better than I do! This is just a sprint tri, so it will be a quarter mile swim, a nine-mile bike ride, and a 2 mile run. The swimming is what concerns me the most. And after my first time in the pool the other night, that concern was very justified. I was waiting for PETA to show up to rescue the beached whale. Oh, was that painful. And I didn't even do that much! I thought Jesus was callin' me home after the first couple of laps. Hopefully by June, I'll be able to swim more than flounder! And maybe I should buy a bike... :D