Benton Skating

Benton couldn't have been more thrilled when I scored these crappy roller blades at a yard sale for .75. He is absolutely in love. He can get around half decently too! I guess it helps that the are two wheels on the back of the skate that help to balance him. All he knows is that he feels cool like Tab now and couldn't be happier.I took this video of Benton figuring out the whole skating thing using my new Flip video camera. The only problem is I can't figure out how to flip it. Ugg...I'll have to have Jason figure it out, otherwise the thing is sort of a waste.

We love the YMCA!

There is nothing more enjoyable than watching your kids learn something new and get so excited about doing it. We belong to the local Y and it has provided us with the opportunity to enroll our kids in various different sports programs.

As I have mentioned before Tab is obsessed with hockey. He has roller blades which he is getting quite good at, and a hockey stick and hockey ball. He is a pretty good and "puck" dribbling, but he is way too spastic to control himself in "competitive mode". He ends up just whacking away.

Here Tab is in his floor hockey class, whacking away. I believe he scored on this one.
Here he was playing "goalie"...that's a joke I think.There are about 15 minutes between Tab and Benton's classes, so the kids just play in the Gym. The boys were racing back and forth. Paisley wanted in on the action. After a few times of switching directions because the boys had finished their laps, she was getting frustrated, so they decided to lay down and wait for her to catch up.She was quite the trooper. Just to give you a better idea of how far she went just to play with her brothers. Poor girl... as soon as she got there, they ran back. Sigh...Benton is taking a wrestling class. We probably will wait a year before enrolling him in anything else because he needs constant reminder to focus, lol. But he LOVES it. And it is hilarious. Here the coach was trying to get them to do push-ups. (I don't think he has kids.) It was more of hip ups, as you can tell.
They were practicing single leg and double leg take downs. Tab was letting Benton practice on him. It took some work to get all of the kids to "hug" the legs instead of grab them like Benton was in this picture.Here is Benton trying a double leg on his coach.Success.
The boys have been practicing their moves and can't wait for daddy to get home to work on them with him.

I can KNIT!

I have been wanting to learn how to knit for a few years now. My brother, David tried to teach me when my oldest was about 1 year old. He died 3 years ago, and this is the one thing that I feel like I can have in common with him and that I can do to remember him. I have a ball of yarn that he bought me when he was trying to teach me, I can't bring myself to use it yet. I think I just need the perfect project and better skills.

My sister, Alissa finally convinced me that I could teach myself to knit. And with a lot of help from youtube and a lot of phone calls to my sister, I finally knit my first project, a cute little shrug for Paisley.

It is oh so imperfect, but I LOVE it.

My Discover Card Commercial...

Option not taken to pay a babysitter while you go to the store, $10-15
1 cart with about a month's worth of groceries ~$230
Making it to the checkout line with 3 kids and not a single tantrum- PricelessWithout Jason around and even with Jason around sometimes, I have to go to the store by myself with kids in tow.

This is how I survive. I plan ahead. I go first thing in the morning after breakfast or immediately after naps. No tired and cranky fits.

I start out by getting one of those annoying to drive Tanks of a cart. I buckle all 3 kids in. (Just in case you are wondering, you can put duct tape around the buckle so your five year old can't undo it. I'm just sayin'...)

I bring a bag with books and one toy for each of the boys and attach it the the handle in front of them. I bring an assortment of toys for Pais, but only ones that can attach to the cart handle. I don't want to be picking up toys the entire time.
It is also mandatory to bring water bottles and snacks.
And finally, you run through the store as fast as you can getting everything you need. I would love to say that I plan ahead this much every time. Alas, instead I end up with 5 things in my cart and wanting to strangle kids and kick myself for not doing this. Life is much much easier when I do this.

There Jason, I hope this satisfies your need for pictures.

A bit of Randomness

Jason, who has been out of town for 2 1/2 weeks and will be gone for another 3 1/2, has begged for pictures of his chillin's so, this is for him.

First, the pretty bird. She has a thing for hats. I need to find her a cute girlie hat. Still in her jams, doing what she does best, loving on one of her dolls.And I was trying to get a picture to demonstrate how Paisley's hair is trying to decide if it wants to be curly or not.Anytime she gets a little sweaty or her hair gets tear-soaked, lol, it curls up.Though we were short one major player, I decided to take the kids to do the home depot project. I think the guy felt pity on me, because he helped Benton build his football holder...not that we need any of those. (They are currently being used as boats.Tab working on his. That kid has got the hammering thing down.It was family day while we were there, so they had activities set up all over the store for the kids including fun prizes! They also had a scavenger hunt where the kids filled a bucket with various supplies from their list. They loved it. I pity whoever had to restock all of the flashlights, tape, light bulbs (that one wasn't too bright) paintbrushes, etc.

Here Benton was throwing beanbags into the washer/dryer/whatever it was.

First Day of School!

Michigan starts school really late. Today was Tab's first day of kindergarten. He will be going all day on Monday and Wednesday and half a day of Friday! I'm probably awful for not being one of those mom's who cry and whatnot when their oldest starts kindergarten. I was more like thank goodness school is finally starting.

Here is Tab all ready to get in the car to head to school this morning!To drop him off every morning I have to park my car, get all 3 kids out and walk around the back of the school, where all of the kids line up outside the back door to their classroom. Waving goodbye.
Not even a single look back!We decided not to spend money on buying Tab a backpack just yet. We took a barely used backpack that I got from Novell when I worked there. I went to town doctoring it up for him. First was the skull and crossbones out of some remnant corduroy. I love the texture it gave it! Then I told him to pick out something that a Pirate says to put on it. He chose "walk the plank".
There was Novell lettering on the straps so I sewed some fabric over top to cover it up.I made him a luggage type tag for his backpack.Then he requested that I put a sword on it because we all know your not a good pirate without a sword!In an attempt to avoid all things school lunch, we (or should I say, I) have opted to pack Tab's lunch each day. I've decided to go with Bento style lunches, so I got him this set. So of course he needed a lunch box to carry it in. So I made him one just the right size to carry his lunch. I sort of used this tutorial.
And I made another luggage tag type thing for his bag too.

Magic!

We recently added another event at our local library, a Magic Show. The guys was just fantastic with the kids. Here he was doing a trick where he kept pulling golf balls out of his mouth.Then Tab got lucky enough to be selected to come up and help him with one of his tricks!

Here he is greeting the magician. The magician was jumping up and down as if Tab was shaking his hand very vigorously. Tab thought it was awesome.First Tab had to stuff a scarf into the bag.Then he had to wave his spider over the bag, as if it were a magic wand.
At the end of the trick, the spring snake things popped out of Dracula's coffin. Tab thought they were pretty awesome. Since this event Tab has been making up and performing "Magic Tricks" where he makes things appear and disappear. He thinks he's pretty hot stuff.

Repayment

As I have mentioned before, this past year has been absolute hell for me. On top of moving and having absolutely no friends for a good portion of the year, Paisley was a nightmare. She screamed 24 hours a day, there was no bonding going on and well....this post isn't really about that. This post is about repayment.

Paisley, since being medicated for Silent Reflux or GERD, has been an angel. She is such a happy kid most of the time. She sleeps through the night (vs. getting up to 6-8 times a night), will ride in the car without screaming bloody murder the entire time, as a matter of fact she often is chatty or sleeping! She is just plain a HAPPY girl. And she plays a lot by HERSELF! and with her brothers. All I have to say is that this is the best repayment ever and I hope that it lasts at least as long as the torture did. Love you little girl.

A Tribute to Taylor

So, one day right after Tab got up from his nap after church (thus the black socks and stoner face), I noticed that the outfit he had chosen was reminiscent of a good friend. He had athletic shorts, a t-shirt on and had pulled his black socks up as high as they would go. I looked at Jason and said, now all he needs is a sweat band around his forearm and a baseball cap and he would be a spitting image of Taylor. This means nothing to those of you who don't know Taylor, but we sure got a kick out of it.

Trapeze Artists

I cannot say enough how much I LOVE our local library system, especially in the summer. They bring such great performers in for the kids. One evening I took the kids to a Trapeze show. It was so much fun, for the kids and for me too!

They started out by lining up a bunch of kids on the ground. Then one of the three girls handstand walked over all of them! It was pretty impressive.Then they did some sweet fire eating, which I'm not going to share pictures of because you couldn't really tell what they were doing in the pictures. But it was freaking cool.

Then they started on the trapeze.Tab was a little concerned about this one. He was really worried that she was going to fall as she was spinning around in circles.Paisley was truly in awe.She kept clapping and clapping and clapping. I was trying to get a good picture but she was on my lap.Then they started on the silks.
This girl was awesome. She did the whole wind up and roll down this. It was awesome. She was even more impressive as she had a broken foot.
We had a lot of fun. Benton was a little nervous about this girl, so he wouldn't pose with her for the picture. He was pretty much crawling up my leg whilst I took this picture.

Transformers Again

As we are all well aware Tab has an obsession with Transformers. Well. I bought him some slippers for $2 that had ugly puffy transformer heads stitched to the tops. So I cut them off and per his request but a decepticon on one foot and an autobot on the other. Love you Tab.I only aim to please.

Butterflies

Tab and Benton have been really into spotting butterflies this summer. Not long ago Tab spotted and caught this "butterfly". I didn't have the nerve to tell him that it was in fact a moth.Look at that face. He couldn't be more proud. (And yes it was about 90 degrees out and he was wearing a fleece. This kid is crazy. But he just loves that fleece.)He wanted to make sure that he had "food".
Releasing the butterfly to go back "home".