Halloween and More

December 9, 2013: The Fall has been rolling along quickly. Hockey has started and the kids are enjoying skating and seem to be improving. Julia has finally regained most of her range of motion after breaking her elbow and can now join in on hockey. She had her first weekend of hockey ever wearing full gear and she loved it. Molly also loves dressing up in her sister's older gear and once she can brave the cold and work on her skating more I think she will like it a lot too. Molly continues to crack us up with her almost nightly performances. She gets dressed up and has Casey introduce her. Then she dances and sings about anything and everything. Some of my favorite lyrics include, "my heart is filled with beer." Casey is continuing to do very well in school and is enjoying hockey. The kids loved Halloween. Casey was Doc McStuffins, Julia was a cowgirl, and Molly was Spiderman. Molly hid and ate most of her candy very quickly, Julia worked on hers over time but gave away a lot due to not liking chocolate and Casey is saving hers and has most of it left still. We went to Florida for Thanksgiving and the kids had a ball, as usual. We didn't spend too much time on the beach because it was very windy that week. But we spent hours in the pool and biking. Julia and Casey biked all the way into town and back (over 6 miles round trip and Casey went even farther and did about 8 1/2 miles). Molly can basically swim. She can swim across the pool by herself. It is so cool. She is not even 3 1/2 and is riding a bike (with training wheels), swimming, and also great news is she is potty trained at night now! Poor Julia still wears a diaper at night so I feel badly for her that Molly was night trained before her, but according to the doctor, because Julia sleeps so soundly she will take longer. James and I ran the NYC marathon on November 3rd and had a great day. I've started coaching at GA so the afternoons are crazy, but Eddie picks the girls up every afternoon and keeps them for an hour until James gets home from work.

Fall so Far

October 24, 2013: All is well in our house this Fall. The kids are in the full swing of school and very happy for the most part.

Molly is loving nursery school. She is always excited to go and happy when she gets in the car at lunch time. She is talking more and more, especially when she has your full attention and her sisters are not around to compete with. She uses her hands and facial expressions to add color to stories and will go on and on to describe stuff. She calls cupcakes 'cup capes' and I will have to think of other funny mistakes. Julia provided the most excitement this Fall with a broken arm. I was out doing a training run for the marathon and was in the middle of nowhere when I got a call from the school nurse. I ended up hitching a ride from a construction worker back to my car and zoomed to pick her up. She fell on the playground at school from about 6 feet up. She walked right through the hole that the fireman pole goes through. Her elbow was incredibly swollen and sore and we went to the ER. When we saw an orthopedic specialist the next day he informed us that it was fractured and put a cast on from her knuckles to her bicep. Julia chose a bright red cast and a few days later Brian Shepard put the finishing touches on it to make it look like a Spider Man cast.

She loved it. She was in a lot of pain the first few days and had difficulty sleeping but eventually she got used to it and it was as if the cast was not there. She wore the cast for 3 weeks and then had it off. Now we are working on her regaining full range of motion. Julia lost her first tooth. Julia is playing soccer this Fall and loving it again.

Casey continues to amaze me with the work she does at school. Her reading is improving so much and she is doing a lot of writing and math. She gets homework Monday through Thursday night which is generally a little math worksheet and some reading. At school they use the computers to compete against classmates in a math game. She sometimes calls a friend from school and does a few math games on the computer at night which just cracks me up to hear her talking on the phone to a friend.

Skating started up with GA and will start up next week for Greenwich Skating Club. We've had a lot of birthday parties, play dates, walks in the woods, trip to the zoo, a fair, we've played some tennis with the girls which they enjoy. We took the kids to their first movie in the theater which was "Planes" in 3D. They liked it a lot.

Back to School

September 9, 2013: Today was a monumental day in our house, all three kids went to school!! Last week Casey returned to GA as a first grader. She made the move up to the main campus, got a locker for the first time, and is eating lunch in the cafeteria. Julia started at GA in pre- Kindergarten, known as PC at GA. On the first day she would not let me walk her in, she wanted to be dropped off and ran right into school. They break the little guys in slowly and for the first two weeks they only have half days. All the reports coming from Julia have been positive. She seems to be loving it so far. She is adorable in her uniform. And today Molly went to her first day at Round Hill Nursery School. I wasn't sure what to expect from her, although she seemed excited. My mom wanted to join us for the drop off so we walked her in and she was walking ahead of us, eagerly searching for her class room. We put her bag in her cubby and she met her teachers and sat down to color. We took a few pictures and said goodbye, the teachers did not want us to linger. I couldn't wait to pick her up at lunch time. She cried because she was not allowed to bring her bag home with her (apparently they only bring them home on Friday). She was mad at the teachers because they wouldn't let her do the monkey bars or the wiggly mushroom steps and as she said "I'm a big girl!". But besides those disappointments she gave a good report of playing with dolls, eating crackers for snack and telling the teacher when she had to pee.

Summer Wrap Up

When we got home from our summer trip we had been on the road for about 6 weeks. We were only home for about four days before we headed off to Martha's Vineyard with the Duvals. The kids had an amazing week with cousins. They are getting so much older and more independent, they just bomb all around together in a pack. We spent lots of time swimming off the dock right at the house and going to the beach. After a week in the Vineyard we headed to Scituate for 3 weeks. We had beautiful weather there, spent many days at the beach and the kids have a new love for riding bikes. Our house is at the end of a quiet cul de sac and they rode bikes all day long. Julia learned to ride a two wheeler and she was zooming around at high speed in no time. It was amazing to see her go from wobbling while we had to run right next to her, to doing it in a controlled way in the matter of two days. Molly is on a bike with training wheels and loving it too. It was a big summer for us in terms of milestones too. Molly learned to swim which is so great. We obviously still need to keep a sharp eye on her but she can really get around the pool on her own now. Casey moved to a booster seat which she is very excited about. I still think she has to be soaking wet to weigh in at 40 pounds but she did not want to go to first grade in a car seat. Julia is on her two wheeler, finally learned to do the monkey bars and is wiping her own bum (sorry if that's too much information), all great news in our house.

Homeward Bound

July 18, 2013: we spent two great nights in St Louis visiting with julie and Sid. We revisited Grants Farm again. The kids loved playing with the goats. The goats get pretty aggressive when the milk bottles are out and Molly was nervous so she asked to be put outside of the fence. They could have stayed there brushing and petting them for an hour. They loved the snow cones and we liked the free beer. I forget if I have mentioned that molly has basically learned to swim in the past week. It is amazing. After St Louis we went to Columbus, Indiana to see our friends from Taft, the Orbens. They showed us a great time. We went swimming in another fun pool with fountains and slides and had pizza dinner the first afternoon. The next day we explored Columbus playgrounds and saw some of the famous architecture in the city. We spent the afternoon at their lake house which was great to beat the heat. The next day we headed to Granville Ohio to stay with the Parsleys. I met some of my cousins for the first time!  It was great to see Tara and her kids. She took us for a ride in Bobs 66 mustang convertible to get ice cream. The kids loved that. 

Fun on the Way Home

July 13, 2013: Since leaving Vegas we have been putting in longer hours in the car in order to get home but not without fun stops and places to stay with friends. So far we have stayed in Boulder where we caught e up with old friends from high school and college. It was great to see Heather Frantz and her family. Our girls hit it off right away and had fun swimming and exploring in Boulder. We have visited two very old wooden carousels made in the early 1900s. The detail, wood carving and artwork is incredible. We stopped in Gage Park in Topeka, KS again for a carousel ride, train ride and a few hours at the fun water park. Casey overcame her fear and doubt and tried the water slide that has a high drop off. She was very proud of doing it. Of course Julia was dying to do it but was not tall enough. Now we are off to St Louis for a fun visit with the Holthaus's.