Jungle Bungle

I told Trey over the summer that if he could stop sucking his thumb before his birthday, he could have his birthday and we would go to Jungle Bungle. If he didn't want to quit, no birthday. No presents, no birthday treat for school, no party. But he quit so we were able to celebrate. On Saturday, the Adams helped us with wood and then we went out that night together.

Can you believe all those kids and only two families?

Trey's Birthday

Trey had an awesome birthday this year. His birthday was on Friday, so we had G. Buddy and Nana and A. Trish, U. Daren, and Shelby over for a fire. He wanted chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ice cream. He's definitely my chocoholic boy. (It's just fine with me:)

Trey Buddy Turns Six

Happy Birthday to Trey today. I'm not sure I can remember all the details of what went on six years ago today. One thing I always seem to remember is that Trey's birthday and football season go hand in hand. Dave had to miss one of his games that he was supposed to be coaching. I'm not sure why I felt so bad about that, but I did.

Well, Trey got to take his favorite snack of Oreos to school today, so we'll see if it was a big hit or not.

He already got to go out to breakfast with Dad this morning and tonight we'll have a party and a fire outside.

Happy Birthday Trey Buddy!

Merry Mid-day Music Muncher

What you can't see is the i-pod sitting on the chair behind her since she's eating. Otherwise she walks around and dances and presses the buttons and stops the songs and gets mad.....

What was really funny was watching her try to keep the earbuds in her ears.

Update on the Huntleys

Dave- Signed up for a 50K race in October. As of now, he can't keep his training consistent. We'll see how he does. As a side note, I get to volunteer at his race! I am so excited, I get a bunch of free stuff for doing it and it doesn't cost me a dime.

He's also into football games now so that makes him busier than he already was. He is working off and on for a business here in town with their construction project. He also keeps busy helping the Adams with their kitchen remodel. (A thing he is drawn to these days with the Rezins project he just helped with and another guy in town just mentioned to me he wants his done too.)

Me- Signed up for a 6-7 a.m. exercise class 2 mornings per week. Cardio/strength circuit. I need to tell my mothers about this class. There are people there who make them look like spring chickens. It would be fun to all do it together.

I also signed up for MOPS. I am excited about trying this again. I tried it a few years ago and didn't really feel like I needed it or fit in. There are a bunch of young moms from Grandview in it now so we'll see how it goes.

Zach- Doing really well with cross country. He has a meet today so maybe I can actually remember the time he gets. He practices 4 times a week and on his off day (wednesdays), he goes to church to practice with the youth band. (Bass guitar) He keeps me busy running all over tarnation after him.

Lexi- Had two teeth pulled because they were abcessed (which happened a lot to Zach when he was younger, too). Apparently the tooth fairy is negligent around these parts because she came out this morning with teeth in hand and said, "I need to get rid of these stinky teeth!"

She is also doing Poms this year and loves it. She's really been into cheerleading lately so I knew she would enjoy poms.

Trey- is absolutely LOVING Kindergarten. I was really worried about him but he has adjusted wonderfully and has the teacher wrapped around his little finger.

He's not doing any sports right now (unless you count running around playing Star Wars all the time. He excels at that) and that's okay with us.

Leah- is really enjoying the extra mommy time she gets when the kids are at school. In the past couple weeks her vocabulary has tripled in size. Yesterday she put her sunglasses on, made the "thumbs up" sign with both hands and said "cool".

That's our lives in a nutshell right now.

Addendum to "Zach"- Praise God. I just love it when He orchestrates things with very little help from me. A couple weeks ago, I called about getting Zach private string bass lessons. I didn't hear back and didn't hear back until finally I decided to call the other person on the list. The only thing that held me back was that Zach had said he WANTED to take from this other guy. (He had been saying no previously to any kind of private lessons because it takes up his time.) So I waited. Today I get a call from this guy who apologized for taking so long but he was taking care of the details ....with Zach. It seems he gets to take lessons right there at school in the morning (instead of in Davenport like I was originally told). So I don't even have to drive him anywhere. Praise God and Halleluiah!

The Longest 5K Ever

In July, Zach ran the 2nd annual Walcott Day 5K. He did really well but that's not what this story is really about. Well it starts out with him...

So we get up at 6:00 to watch this race that starts at 7. Kind of early to wake up 3 little kids, but we thought they would enjoy watching. We stood just down the street here because we knew they'd be passing about halfway through the race. Zach was doing well when he passed by and we hooted and hollered (because we know how much he loves that). So he runs by and we head up over the railroad tracks to wait by the finish at the Coliseum. On the tracks, Dave stops to turn around and watch everyone coming up (we knew alot of the people). I happened to look down the tracks and see a huge headlight coming our way. I said "Dave, train!" He looked at me as if to say Okay I'm coming. I said "Dave! Train!" And pointed to all the people running over the tracks. He said "Oh, good call." And proceeded to yell at all the people in the race "Train! Hurry, a train's coming!"

So here's all these people sprinting over the tracks. After the race, Zach told me he heard people talking about a guy who saved them by yelling about a train coming. I was able to tell him, "That was your dad!"

The bad news is, not everyone made it over the tracks. About half the people in the race got stuck on one side of the train while the other half finished. Not terrible news, I suppose, until you factor in that the train sat there, right down the middle of town, for over an hour! This caused quite a bit of confusion, of course. I was glad our whole family was on one side together. But we were also hungry and had a parade to get ready for. And our house was on the other side of the tracks!

I guess when the train finally moved, some people were able to finish. ( I would have given up by then because rest assured, had I been running that day, I would have been on the wrong side of the tracks and would have walked home.) My mom's neighbor, Anne, told an extremely funny version later that day. She said when they were finally able to be done, the race official told everyone to subtract one hour and five minutes off their total to get their time for the race. (She's a big runner and has been for years.) She said, "I bet not many people can boast about taking over an hour and a half to run a 5K!"

Swimming in the Living Room

The Middles are convinced they can swim in the living room. The upside-down foot stool was their boat on this day. They had to swim to it and they had the baby in on the action and it was quite funny.

However, it puts me in mind of a stunt The Middles pulled a couple of years ago-long before the baby existed. It was the dead of winter and I came into the living room to find them both in swimming suits dumping large cupfuls of water over their heads. "Mom, we're swimming in the living room!" Their hair was soaked and so was everything else. When I had enough mind to give them towels and have them clean up the carpet, the water soaked up through the towels and pooled on top. It was hard to be mad because they were so darn proud of themselves. Sometimes in parenting I have learned to chalk one up to ingenuity. This was one of those times.

I'm happy the picture above didn't involve any actual water:)