My Village

In this month of Thanksgiving and reading daily Facebook posts about what we are all thankful for, it's time for me to share my thoughts.

I recently read a friend's post about how her friends got together without her knowing to set up a schedule to help her out over the Thanksgiving break. She is a single working mom and expressed how this time of year can stress her out finding ways to make juggling everything even more difficult. And to her surprise, her amazing friends took care of it for her by organizing who could help out when with her kids so she could enjoy and have a less stressful holiday. Truly amazing.

It seems like daily that I get asked "4 kids? How do you do it?!" And quietly, to myself, I often think, how do YOU do it? How do any of us do it? The answer is always the same, we just do it. Single moms/dads, working moms, stay at home moms, moms of special needs kids, etc., we all do what we have to. BUT, none of us, and I really mean NONE OF US, does it alone. We've all heard the saying it takes a village. Well, after reflecting on my friend, her amazing friends, the constant question of how do you do it, this year I would like to give thanks to My Village.

My Village consists of so many that I'm sure I'll forget more than one, but I hope that everyone understands whether I mention you or not, you are important to me and you are the reason I can do it.

My family 

Immediate or extended you give me help and support daily. From Rylan giving me my morning motivation to go workout, Brenden out of the blue with a hug or I love you, Jake getting Miles up and fed in the morning, Chris arranging his schedule to be home so I can coach, my mom and Chris's parents coming to stay when I or Chris need an extra hand, or my brother keeping my kids fully outfitted in Michigan gear, this is what keeps me (relatively) sane day in and day out. Without my amazing and often under appreciated family, I don't know where I would be. Most likely I'd be completely lost and in search of myself.

My friends

Near or far you remind me who I was, who I am, and who I am capable of being. You are the ones that I know I can turn to whenever I need to laugh, cry, scream, vent, or be silly. And more importantly, you know and understand that even if I haven't talked to you for a year that doesn't matter. I know you will be there for me and I will be there for you whenever the moment calls and that's what true friendship is about.

My Diving World

Current or former divers, coaches, and families you have allowed me to follow my passion for the sport that I have been around for over 30 years. And I know that I will continue to be around it for many more to come because of the wonderful people that have pushed, supported, and loved me in the various capacities I have been apart in the diving community. 

And all of the other people that come and go - teachers, babysitters, athletes, coworkers, therapists, random acts of kindness people, etc. I may not know you well, or at all, or you may have been around for years, you fill in the gaps. Whether we know it or not, all of us make this work. I know I fill in the gaps for other people when I smile and say thank you or volunteer to help at school or whatever. So even though we may not exist in everyone's everyday life we are all part of other peoples villages whether we know it or not. We have all helped to do this.

So Thank You to My Village, I am truly thankful to you and all you do.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We Have a Walker!

Well, we sort of have a walker :) Miles has been cruising around the furniture and anything he can get his hands on for the past few months, so I have been trying to encourage him to learn to walk. The boy is so darn big I'd love to have him walking sooner than later, my arms in particular would like this. He didn't show much interest - why would he? He is a super fast crawler and can get anywhere he needs to on all fours. Well, a little over a week ago he started to give the whole walking thing a little more consideration. If I was within a few steps he started to try and got some quick success. And over the weekend he took it to the next level. If he was up and where he wanted to go was under five steps away he would walk every time. He is also willing to get up in the middle of a room without anything around him and try a few steps. Wooo Hooo! We are all very excited and Jake and Brenden have had fun trying to lure Miles to them :) I don't think it'll be too much longer before he's racing around after his big brothers and sister!

Here's a quick video I got of him going from the ottoman to the sofa :)

Halloween

Halloween is not high on my list of holidays. In the midst of crazy falls it always seems to sneak up on me and makes me feel even more crazed. Well, this year Chris took the lead and I have to say I like it a lot more that way! Chris took the boys shopping for costumes and handled the trick or treating duties. We both slacked on getting pumpkins, but no one complained too much. Jake finally decided to be a skeleton. Brenden wanted to be the soccer player Leo Messi, but couldn't find his jersey so settled on being Ronaldinho with and afro wig. And Rylan was, of course, a princess. If you're wondering about Miles, well I don't dress up babies. Kids get costumes in my house when they are big enough to ask for a costume :)

Due to some weather concerns trick or treating got delayed in Anderson by a day. Even though the kids were a bummed they had to wait another day for candy, it ended up working out great. The weather was perfect and we ALL had a great night.

Chris took Jake, Brenden, and Rylan to Leo's house (one of Jake's best friends) for a neighborhood parade for the kids to show off their costumes and the parents could get pictures. They then proceeded out in Eagle's Watch for about 2 hours. I met up with them about half way through with Miles in tow after I got back from coaching. Once the boys had gotten enough candy, we all headed back to Leo's where all of the neighbors gathered in the cul-de-sac for adult beverages, candy gorging, and some music. I was only able to stay until about 9p when Rylan and Miles had had enough, but Chris and the older boys stayed until 11pm and we all had a great time.

You be the Judge

So a week or so ago I put up Brenden's 3rd grade school picture and got quite a few comments about how much he looks like me. So I got to looking through some old photos and had an "Oh My God" moment when I came across this picture of me:

So what do you think? Does he look like me? :)  - we even have the same haircut, thanks again for that Mom!

Has it really been 2 months????

2 months since my last post......where has the time gone????? Between school starting, soccer, coaching, work, traveling, etc, etc, etc, my fall is nearly over! It's been a wild and crazy fall. I'm not sure I would say I always handled the challenges the best, but somehow I managed to make it through and  in as close to one piece as was possible.

Let's go one at a time for a recap.

Jake - This fall Jake moved into 3rd grade at Wilson. He is getting a taste of what school is going to become as he continues on. After a couple of weeks of telling me he didn't have any homework he came home one day with a D on a test he took. He found out really fast that studying for tests and the information they are covering in class IS his homework. Since this incident he has been coming home with steady A's and giving me much less grief about studying his flash cards and study guides.

Jake has continued to show a love of reading. He has slowed down on the Harry Potter series, he is still on the 5th book and has started the Percy Jackson series. The series has 5 books and he is on book 4. He reads almost every night and is usually bummed out if we don't let him read before bed each night, but he's learning to get his bedtime routine taken care of quickly so he can read for at least 15 minutes, definitely takes after his dad with his love of books!

This fall also brought select soccer and playing for Cincinnati United. The season had quite a few ups and downs and Jake is learning that it takes dedication in order to be the best. They practiced twice a week and had games nearly every Sunday. Most of the boys on Jake's team had played Select before so he had some catching up to do. He has been praised by his coaches at practices and there has been a very visible improvement in his playing skills. My offensively minded boy has become quite the good defender and his ball handling/dribbling skills blow me away at times. He has worked hard to become one of the best players on his team. They ended their season with a victory despite a very difficult season and he's hoping to play futsal this winter to continue to work on his ball handling skills. And in the spring he will continue with the same team.

Brenden - This fall brought 1st grade and one more year with Mrs. Yeatts. We were all very excited when we found out that Brenden's kindergarten teacher would be moving to 1st grade and Brenden would have her for one more year. Brenden continues to excel with her encouragement and has become quite the reader and seems to be really enjoying math as he has mastered his addition basics and is doing great on subtraction now.

Brenden played on his same soccer team this fall. The Cheetahs had another fantastic season winning nearly all of their games. Brenden continues to be a defensive minded kid, but when he gets a break away he is almost always sure to score. He got the MVP Dribbler award for his team even though all of the players thought for sure he would be the defensive MVP, apparently there was quite the uproar at their pizza party when another kid was named best defender :)

Earlier in the fall Brenden, out of no where, proclaimed he wanted to play tennis. Well, I work at a tennis facility so it was easy enough to get him signed up. He had his first lesson tonight and seemed to enjoy it. The lessons last 10 weeks so we'll have to see how it goes before we sign him up for the next session. I'm excited that he wants to try something new and something that he doesn't have to compete with Jake, it'll be interesting to see how he does without that constant competition with his big brother.

Rylan - It was finally time for Rylan to give school a try! We started her at the Village Preschool. She seems to enjoy it despite her initial pleadings that she start Kindergarten and ride the bus with the boys :) The Village is strictly preschool, it does not do childcare like a lot of preschools. She goes M-W for 2 1/2 hours in the afternoon. We carpool with our neighbors which she loves, quite frankly she gets a little mad some days when I tell her that I am taking her and Avery since she would rather have Stephanie drive her :) She has been doing well, but she did pull some Rylan stubbornness in the beginning by refusing to do her projects. However, once she got daddy to ask her to do her projects she seems to have come around. She's been talking about the friends she plays with and singing some of her songs to us from school at home. I think it has all been very good for her....and for me!

Miles - My little Smiley Miley Man isn't so little anymore! At his 9 month appointment he was nearly 22 lbs! He was around the 75th percentile for height and weight, my biggest kid. He is a silly boy and thinks he's hysterical as he loves to laugh at just about anything. He's still cruising around, but no walking without holding onto to anything yet. Today I did see him twice take a step without holding onto to anything, but it was only to grab onto the next thing. I'm hoping he'll start walking soon because he is seriously heavy! Its no surprise how big he's getting when you see him eat. He can eat as much as the other kids and seems to want food nonstop. I would say 9 times out of 10 if he's grumpy about something its because he's hungry. He's officially done with baby food and loving just about anything I give him.

Chris - Chris has been quite busy with work as the fall is usually a busy time with the change of seasons and sales meetings. Despite his busy schedule, I think this has been the most he has been home in the month of October for a few years. Generally I can count on him being gone nearly every week in October. And although he did have to travel a lot, he only had to be gone one week and we even got him home on his birthday this year. One of the perks of moving here has been less overnight trips which has been great for all of us. And if he hadn't been here as much as he was I don't know how many games and practices Jake and Brenden would have had to have missed or not had a parent there to watch. He continues to amaze me with all he does for our family and what a great dad he is to our kids.

Me - I'm a crazy mess. This fall I took over operations of the diving team I have been coaching by starting my own LLC so I now own the team. This was something I thought I would do eventually and it has been quite the process. I have a lot of respect for those that own their own business, there is a lot more to it than I had realized. We got everything finalized last week when I was able to open a business checking account and receiving my final LLC paperwork. Its still a little unreal to me.

I have obviously been coaching, but I also went to Tucson in September to get my FINA judging certification. It was a very interesting process and I'm not sure how much I will use the certification, but I figured if nothing else it makes me a better judge which can only help my coaching. For those of you that don't know, FINA is our international governing body and having the certification makes me eligible to judge international competitions as well as other National and Collegiate competitions in the states.

Along with my coaching and running kids around to practices, school, and games I have managed to continue my workout regimen in an attempt to regain my pre-pregnancy body. After nearly 9 months of workouts, I am currently 132 lbs and fitting into all of my clothes - YAY! I continue to run and take fitness classes and have also added Yoga to my weekly routine. I ran my longest straight run of 5 miles a few weeks ago and I find myself feeling like I'm slacking off if my run/walk workouts are less than 5 miles total. I definitely feel like I'm getting super close to my final goal and I'm doing my best not to focus on my weight, but rather how I look and feel. I'm also contemplating training for a half marathon since I seem to be doing alright at this whole running thing, we'll see how I feel after the holiday and birthday craze that's about to start :)

So that's about it, at least that's all I can manage for now. Sorry its been so long, hopefully I'll be able to get a routine going again to keep all of my fans informed on our crazy lives! :)

And here are some pics from our crazy fall, I seemed to have done a much better job of taking pictures of the little ones, Sorry Jake and Bren!