What we've been up to and some pictures (of course!)



Big man Abe in all his football glory!!

   

Cutie patootie Mr. Eli



Cy and Lucy on the first day of school.  Lulu's first day of kindergarten and Cy's first day of FOURTH!! grade.

 

Kate hitching a ride on Kaleb's back at the Missouri State Fair.



My girls in their Sunday dresses.  Kate wanted to wear her cowgirl boots and they actually matched so I said, "why not?"

This is definitely going to be one of my favorite pictures of my sunny little baby boy!

 This past couple of months has been pretty busy.  I use to think that when school started that's when things "slowed down", but now I know better.  Abe begged us to play football this year, his first in jr. high, so we decided to let him try it (I was very reluctant).  He has loved it, but it means practices for two hours after school, and then combined with homework, Young Men's on Wednesdays, games on Thursdays it has made him a busy boy.  His team is 0-4 for the season so far, but he doesn't seem to care too much, he just loves to play!  I'm just glad he hasn't gotten hurt (knock on wood). 

Cy has been enjoying  getting through fourth grade.  We've already had a visit to our home from his teacher (that was a first!), but I think things are starting to get better.  Hopefully?!  School has never really been "his thing" even though he loves learning and is getting mostly A's in his classes.  He still has an intense interest in science and history, and loves to read books about those subjects.  He loves going to Cub Scouts though, especially since they got new Cubmasters.  They have some field trips planned, including a trip to an old military fort, that he is really excited about.

Lucy is loving kindergarten.  She is learning to read.  She practices every night when we read scriptures.  She knows some of the basic words like "to", "from", "the", "be", and a few others.  She's learning how to sound out words too.  She says her favorite part of school, though, is recess!  She and Cy seem to get along pretty great most of the time so going to the same school has been really nice.  Although, I think that his interests are rubbing off on her.  A couple of weeks ago I reached into her backpack and pulled out a library book with a snake about to strike on the cover.  (Snakes are not my favorites, to say in the least!) I thought, "Great, just what every 5-year old little girl loves to read about!"  It turns out that Cy was encouraging her to get animal books and then reading them to her on the bus ride home.  I thought that was pretty thoughtful of him, although I've suggested to her to pick something she likes to read too.

Kate is Kate.  She's about to turn three next week and is still a bundle of fun.  She's still getting into everything, but I figure that just goes with the age.  I'll blog more about her (hopefully) closer to her birthday.

Eli is getting big too.  He has figured out how to roll everywhere.  I would bet that he's probably faster at rolling than most babies are at crawling.  He is such a sweet content baby most of the time.  He loves going outside and gets really excited whenever we go close to the front door.  He also likes sitting in the grass (as you can tell from the pictures).  He is still not sleeping through the night, which is normal for all my kids.  (It must be something I am doing!!!)  He usually wakes up about three times a night.  I am really looking forward to getting a full night's rest, but for now three times a night has become my "normal". 

As for me I'm just trying to keep up!  I'm still running a few times a week.  I try to run four times a week, but most weeks am happy with just three.  I completed my first 10k on my birthday with a time of 62 minutes.  I was just happy that I finished it and that I ran  the whole thing (albeit slowly).  It was a small race and I finished last (complete with a police car following me most of the way), but I just told myself that finishing was all that counted.   Last week I was in my third 5k and finally achieved my goal of finishing under 30 minutes (I finished in 29:43) by running probably the fastest I have ever run in my adult life!!  This Saturday I have one more race planned, another 10k, so I'm just trying to keep my nerves from getting the best of me.  I always get horrible butterflies just thinking about a race.  I would like to do one more 10k for the year and then call it good (at least for this year).

Kaleb is also about the same ol', same  ol'.   He just hit his 7th anniversary of working at his job.  He's also trying to stay in shape by running.  He could probably outrun me (when it comes to speed) on most days.  I'm trying to convince him to run the 10k with me this Saturday, but he's balking a little.  I don't know why? ha ha