Sporty

Tonight was one for the books. Brynley had her very first ever soccer practice! She was made for sports this girl! She had such a great time that after practice she said to me "Mom, I cant wait to do this again next year." I laughed and told her that she gets to do it again on thursday:) And she said, "Really? That makes me so happy."  She must have thought that this practice was all she got. I still dont think she understands that she has two more months of this!

While at Brynley's practice, Carly was finding ways to entertain herself. She would run around with the balls and she could even pick out Brynley's ball from the rest of them and would bring it to me to play catch with her. We walked around the grass and field at the school it was at. Carly would try to sit on the ball but everytime I would get ready to take a picture she would fall over. It was so cute.

                                                        Cute little bum

                                                      Brown eyed beauty

After school today Caleb had his first workout with the fall baseball team Strikezone Cardinals. Yes he made the team {I just realized I didnt blog about that, oops} He looked like he was gonna puke it when I got him. Poor kid said that another boy did puke it there. Sad. I think we all know that feeling and its not a good one. But I told him that No pain, No gain. He will be a great shape and will be ripig balls over the fences like crazy because of the workouts. Good job my man. Also is it inappropriate to say that your son got his first ever real pimple on his chin? Growing up:( See it in the picture? Shhhh, dont tell him  I told you.

Aubrie had her first soccer practice too. I feel bad that I didnt get a picture of her. I was kind of crazy because I had to pick up Caleb and have Brynley to her practice in the middle of Aubrie's. Thank goodness for my friend Danielle for helping me out and bringing Aubs home for me since Mitch was at work. Such a little thing but meant a TON to me.

Together...

Is a wonderful place to be.

This is the girls dance photo I had taken of them together this year. The dude finally sent it to me. I had to practically beg but as beautiful as they look it was worth the begging.

Tonight is Aubrie and Brynley first night apart sleeping in separate bedrooms. I moved Aubrie into Carly's room to give her some "space". With Aubrie turning 8 this week I decided it would be her birthday present along with the new desk she has asked for. I spent all day painting and rearranging everything which meant taking apart beds and moving out clothes and decor in each room. I am soo glad its over and I survived. I am dreading my 6am workout in the morning with my trainer now. My feet hurt and so does my back. But it was all worth it when Aubrie came to tell me goodnight she said "Your the best mom in the world. Thank you for my new room, I love it". But maybe she just loves her Justin Bieber poster I hung in her room for her. Either way I love that girl so much. Her words made my heart melt.

Grillin

Something I LOVE about this time of year is all the fresh veggies and produce that is available to us. I have been taking advantage of it and using the grill to cook up some yummy dishes. Last night's dinner was a hit with the kids and was also very healthy. I grilled beets, squash, zucchini, red onions, and yellow bell peppers with some tilapia and some brown rice on the side. YUM-O!

This little gem even liked the beets! She knows whats good:)

Bestie

I have come to learn that there are few people out there in the world that you just "mesh" with. You like them, they like you, even after really getting to know each other. You have easy conversations, you like their kids and husband and this friend just might "get" you. This gal is my go to girl for just about everything. I have wanted to do this post as a Thank You for being you to my dearest friend Monique. She did what most people would never do, she kept my kids while Mitch and I went to New York last month. Seriously what kind fo friend does that? Well, my friend does. And she's mine, so dont get any ideas about stealing her ok. LOL. J/K No really dont even.

Thank you again for keeping our kids while we were away. I didnt have to worry about them because I knew they were in good hands.

Monique I am very blessed to have found you in this life. You are a special and dear person to me. Thank you for being such a great friend and thank you for being so good to my kids. Grateful to call you my friend.

Keeping it Real...

This is what I have been chasing and trying to keep with the past week. Carly turned 18 months old and you would think that we had entered the terrible two's the way she has been acting lately. Maybe its hitting her early but man, has she been fun. {Insert sarcasm}. 

 She is the busiest baby we have had! Always into trouble and messes. I had a lady at church tell me that the busy,messy babies are the smartest. Well then Carly must be a genius because this gal doesnt ever quit! She went to nursery at church for the first time and loved it. She can hold her own and she fit right in with all the kids. Not to sound like she is the spawn of satan, there are the sweet things we love about this special girl. Carly is very obedient when it comes to asking her to do something. She If I ask her to pick up a toy and put in the box, she knows exactly what I am saying and will follow through.  She loves to go for walks in the stroller. She likes to just go places in general. She says "Go, Go" when she is excited for a trip out the door. Carly still eats pretty good. Her favorites are still oatmeal, bananas, and fruit snacks. She likes any kind of pasta and meat. Isnt a fan of potatoes, even french fries she doesnt love them. She likes chocolate milk. Loves nutella and peanut butter on a spoon. And enjoys popsicles. I found these kind that are called mini melts and they are just perfect for her. Smaller and dont melt as quick as a regular popsicle.

Carly is a daddy's girl! She loves playing and kissing with her dad. When he is around, no one else matters.  Even if she is driving me bonkers, she knows how to keep life interesting:) Here I found her holding on to the sink for dear life. She obviously was climbing up on the tiolet to play in the water and got herself stuck! I couldnt help but take a picture!

This young man did something cool. He earned his Faith in God award! He was awarded it at church by the Bishop and was given a cool pin and framed picture of a strippling warrior with the whole armor of God on, as a reminder of what he needs to be at all times. I am so proud of him for putting so much time and effort into all he does. Caleb was also sustained in church as the newest and only deacon in our ward. He will be ordained on the same night as Aubrie's baptism. Another thing he did was he tried out for a fall league baseball team last saturday. We wont know if he made it until wednesday but I am so proud of him for just trying out. There were alot of older boys there that were twice as big as him and we 4 years older than him and he didnt let it get to him. He went out there and showed what he was made of. Keeping our fingers crossed for him!

   
I cant help but take picture of my kids while they are all dressed and ready for church. It just might be the only time of the week when all four of them are clean and happy:)

Struggling...

My blog has suffered this week because I have been suffering. Or maybe struggling. It has been a really rough week for me. I have been contemplating so many decisions. I have had to endure alot of new changes in my life this week and  to top it off, I often feel so overwhelmed with the kids. It is the hardest thing in the world, to be a good parent. Everything else in the world doesnt matter if I am not on my A game with my kids.  I find myself wishing everyday that I would have done this or that differently. Only because my kids deserve the best and if I am not giving them my best, then I just failed. And all too often I fail miserably.
So on top of being a crappy mom lately, I just feel off. Not myself. Not completely unhappy but not really knowing what to pinpoint as my unhappiness. I have this unsinking feeling inside me that I just cant seem to get rid of the past few days. So as I am sure you would just love to read about my depressing attitude, I will spare you this and promise to be back next week with some new, cute, witty or funny posts! Stay tuned, it does get better.

School Time!!

Gosh, I know I have said it before but where did the summer go?? Today Caleb is officially a sevie and sweet Aubs is a seconder grader! Now I know I have said this before too, but where does the time go?? I can't believe that we have a seventh grader! Holy cow! I met Mitch in 7th grade and also some of my friends that i am still friends with this day. And I started going to Northeast half way through my 2nd grade year and Aubrie is in second grade there now too. How wild. My old classroom is across the hall from her classroom this year. I was really hoping that next year she would get the teacher I had in third grade Mrs. Volmert but she left last year.  Bummer.

I am excited for a new school year for the kids. They both have soo much to look forward to and I hope they both have a great year!

Caved

Ugh, I caved. I am back on facebook. I realized that I have to keep up with certain organizations on there like baseball info for Cal and PTO stuff for Aubrie's school. So i am a Twitface again:)

Gigi

Not the best picture but we were in a hurry this afternoon before church. I wanted to get a picture of the girls in their new dresses that my Grandma had made them. Gigi is special because she thinks of my girls and is so good to them. Not only did she used to make me and my sister dresses but now she does for my girls:)  She was so happy to present the girls with their new dresses for church, I just had to try and get a picture of all three of them for her.  Carly wasnt in a bad mood but she sure looks like it in this picture! So pretty! Thank you Gigi for taking the time and energy to do something so sweet for my girls!

YouTwitFace

So I did it. I got off of facebook. I know, what am I thinking? Well, truth be told, its been full of drama for me and well, ruined it for me. I need a break to clear my head from it all. Isn't it funny that something so simple can turn into something so hard? I am quite sad about this but I do need to try to get rid of some of my distractions in life with so much going on in our family. Who knows I am sure I will join the social network again but right now, I just have way too much going on. I need a vacation from facebook.

So if you need to get a hold of me, do it the old fashioned way and call me:)

Also I dont know what I am doing about my poor blog, going private or not? Seems like alot of work that I dont feel like doing right now either. So for now, we are public.


Feeling sad about school starting. But I am happy for a new routine and new adventures for us. On that note...

 I am scared to take my dumb class. I know its only one class but its probably one of the hardest classes up at the college and I am scared I will drown. I already feel overwhelmed by the amount of things going on in our family and I am still unsure where my time will come from to be able to study and to all the things I need to do with the kids and make sure our home stays afloat. One day I was talking to a dear friend and she told me that I need to remember to ask for divine inspiration. Pray for the help I need to get myself through the day. Such great advice! Often we forget that instead of doing things on our own, we need to ask for our Father in Heaven's help each day. Dont leave it up to us, leave it up to him. Because he does ultimately know what is best for us and will guide our direction in the right path.

Life is a balacing act, and we just need to find the rhythm to help us through it. I hope I find lots of rhythm.

Fair Time!!

I have found myself posting a little off date this week. I guess I am trying to take in the last week of no routine and lots of fun! This summer has been the fastest one yet. Caleb and Aubrie start school again on Tuesday and Bryn will start the week after. So since this was the last full week of summer, Mitch took the week off to be with the kids before the rush of routine and activites hits our home. We have done lots of fun things, we went to the fair last Monday night and had such a fun time together!

The girls loved the pigs! Bryn and Carly were both giggling over how stinky and snorty they were.

Brynley wanted to ride the ponies and loved every minute of it. I'm telling you this girl loves animals.

After we ate dinner, we ran into our dear friends the Bartley's and decided to head over to the carnival together and the kids took in some rides together and had fun having a buddy to hang out with.

Daddy's girl #2

Cotton Candy= One happy girl

The Big Apple!!

The post everyone has been waiting for, including me. I knew it would take me some time to get this together so here it is...finally.

The view from our room. My dad and Mary got us an awesome room at the Marriot Marquis for my bday present. It was so cool there! Perfect location, right on Times Square by everything. Thank you!

Day One...We left on Monday July 25th but with all the traveling it takes to get there, the time change, a delayed flight from Chicago and a crazy ride in a taxi at 1am, this day was shot. So we went to bed and woke up refreshed to take on the city on tuesday. We went on a walk through central park and found our way to the Natural History Museum. It was amazing! So much to look at and as we were leaving this sweet girl asked to take our picture and so here is one of us together. A very rare thing on a trip with just two people. One of us usually always had to take the picture or we have a lot of us together but with one of us holding the camera:)

Tuesday night we had tickets to a show at Radio City Music Hall called Zarkana. It is a cirque de soleil show and was amazing! Both of us really enjoyed it. Radio City was really beautiful inside and had the most comfortable seats.

Wednesday was my berfday. The big 3-0! I woke up and we went and had a yummy danish and milk because I could and went to the Harry Potter Exhibit and the Pompeii Exhibit. Both were awesome and I was so happy to see the HP one cuz you know we are all crazy for Harry in our house. I was sad that our kids didnt get to see it. Maybe someday it will come close to us and we can take them.

After the exhibits, we were hungry and so we went around the corner and saw Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. SO we ate there and I had the best shrimp salad ever. Yum.

After lunch we had tickets to Phantom of the Opera!! Yay a dream come true for me. It was awesome and I loved every minute of it. Mitch however fell asleep. Yeah, annoying. Also embarassing.

After Phantom Mitch wanted to go to Chinatown and Little Italy so we rode the subway down and I dont have any pictures of anything there because, well I could have lived my whole life without going there! It was so dirty and very questionable characters were everywhere! So lame. Thats all I have to say about that.

Mitch made up for taking me to China, with a nice horsedrawn carriage ride through Central Park during sunset. Much better!

This is where John Lennon lived and was shot:( Yoko still lives there.

The famous Plaza Hotel

 Our carriage driver was stupid and didnt know how to take pictures, can u tell??

After the carriage ride, we ate some yummy pizza and salad at a small pizza joint by Serendipity because the wait was so long for a table, we just walked down the street, had dinner and went back and got seated for some dessert. I had their famous frozen hot chocolate. It was divine! Mitch had a killer sundae that was made up of warm pecan pie on the bottom with butter pecan ice cream, caramel and hot fudge sauce with whipped cream. It was super too!

After we rolled out of Serendipity, we stumbled upon this...The mothership of all Gap's!! Awwww!

Times Square

On thursday, we went to Top of the Rock, which is an observatory 80 floors up. We had heard from several people that it was even better than the empire state building. So we went for it and it was amazing! The view and sites were unbelievable! This was one of my favorite things that we did in NY.

Empire State Building

After TOTR, we found our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or known as The Met. We spent the majority of the day in here. It was so wonderful. There were so many things we liked about this museum. They had so many cool things that we might never see again like art from Monet, Picasso, Van gough, a real part of a temple, lots of egyptian arctifacts, jewels, stones, photos, sculptures, it had a roof garden and reall good food in their cafeteria.  

That night we met up with a friend of mine from high school, Josh. He moved to NYC right out of high school and has done very well for himself. We had a really great time and he took us to dinner at a little hole in the wall but I seriously had the best pizza of my life there! It was so good to see him!

On friday we decided to ride the subway down to see the Statue of Liberty. It was well worth the humidity we endured down there. It is a sight to see! She is beautiful and her color is so brightly green. Its amazing that she is as old as she is. She was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, designated as a National Monument in 1924 and restored for her centennial on July 4, 1986.

Mitch's salute to America and the Lady Liberty...These pictures are so hilarious to me! Gotta love his sense of humor.

That night we had tickets to watch the Yankee's play the Baltimore Orioles!! We had some yummy hot dogs and were watching batting practice when all of a sudden it started to down pour! And it didnt let up for almost an hour and a half. But then after lots of praying on my husband's behalf {heehee}, the rain stopped and they uncovered the field and we had an exciting game! Awesome stadium and we had awesome seats!  

Derek Jeter was getting heckled by this kid sitting right next to us, he kept yelling at Derek, calling his name and all of a sudden he turns our way ans says to the kid "What?" Funny.

A prefect ending to a perfect trip...Junior's cheesecake. It was like heaven in a box. Thank you honey so much for this trip for my bday. You are so special.

Love you long time.