hana gymnastics

this week was hana's last scheduled week (i am a bit worried about the fact that we have nothing and i mean nothing scheduled in august... so if you feel the need to call and do something with us... PLEASE do ;) anyway i digress... where was i... gymnastics. so hana had gymnastics camp every afternoon from 2-4 this week (not a great time, but oh well). i was a bit disappointed in the camp. it did not seem to be very structured and i was hoping that she would learn more skills. they did not do anything today for the "performance" but run around and play on the equipment. let me add here that i am sure hana had a blast! it just did not seem to me that she leaned a lot... oh well lesson learned... on to the pictures :)

hana walking on the beam
doing a "spider hang" on the bar
again on the beam
brooke getting into it!!
brooke walking on the beam :)

again, i am sure hana had a blast... but we will see if gymnastic camp is for us next year :)

showered...

tuesday morning our moms group went out to breakfast to celebrate madeline's impending arrival. it was such a great morning to spend time with some great friends :) i am blessed to have them all in my life!! thank you girls :)

me and half of the table...
the other half :)

love you girls!!

hana's pics

hana got a kid digital camera for christmas last year. while she defiantly loves it, it eats batteries. it goes through a set every couple of days. so with our current budget, we are not able to keep it working at all times. and normally the pictures are of the floor or of the door or something equally unimportant. but today she did a good job and got a couple of brooke and daddy playing. so enjoy hana's photography skills...oh and the horrible clarity is just because the camera doesn't take a great picture... and she can never hold it still. but all in all they are pretty cute pictures!!

shaving cream or not

as a teacher i had always heard of teachers who helped their students write their letters by using shaving cream. not being in the lower elementary grades myself, i had never tried it. but it sure sounded like a good idea. i even had read about it on a preschool activity website...
so since i am big and pregnant, as we all know, i am staying home a lot more. but to keep the kids from being bored, i thought i would try the old shaving cream in a casserole dish. i mean the girls could write letters and draw pictures. fun. right? um not so much. i don't know what age this activity is geared to, but it sure isn't 2 year old appropriate. brooke lasted about 1 minute. she did not want to do anything except dig her hands in the SC and smear it everywhere. it was a little better for hana. she did get it and actually played in it for about 10 minutes. but my over all recommendation is to save this activity for a while...

nesting, nesting, nesting

let me begin this by fully acknowledging that my house is in NO way perfectly clean... but i have been nesting a lot lately!! i would much rather organize something than clean. therefore the "hidden" areas (ie closets and unused rooms) are clean and organized... the main part of the house, that sees mess on a daily basis, not as much. and unfortunately since this is hitting me relatively late in the pregnancy, my cleaning/ organizing spurts are short and far between. also knowing, at this point, there are a lot of chores that are pretty much impossible for me to do (pulling weeds, cleaning the tub, picking things up...)
but i am really really trying to avoid the same scenario of brooke's birth, so i am trying to hit those areas that people will see when they come to visit. now, if you come and there are things "laying around" i can totally blame that on the kids. but if the laundry closet is a mess... well that can only be me. get my drift? well whatev... i am trying to do my best to keep the house clean and ready for madeline's debut... whenever that may be :) and i am fully ready for her to come (perfectly clean house or not!)...

more swim lessons

as promised here are some more pictures of the girls swimming lessons. brooke got one more lesson... although she cried most of the time. hana continues to do great :) she has one more lesson to go. she seems to really enjoy it and is learning a lot :)

brooke floating
hana learning how to push off from the wall (after she jumps in ;)
holding her breath before swimming to the wall
swimming :)

feed um ducks

so we tried feeding the ducks again... and this time with much more success! (as you will recall last time the ducks were not hungry). this time they were much more cooperative :) it was a nice sunday afternoon.. just too hot for my pregnant self :)

we started out at the gazebo (my favorite place because the seagulls can not swarm on you). but alas they were not coming over to us
so we went where the ducks were :)
the girls checking out the ducks
daddy and the girls walking back to the car

madeline's room

being that i had brooke at 34 weeks which is ... NEXT week (actually it is in 3 DAYS!), i am trying to make sure that things are ready. now i am very aware that the chances of having another 34 week baby are low (and fine with me!). but i do feel like i need to be ready. let me tell you it is a difficult balance to be ready at 34 weeks but not expect it to happen then! but i am doing my best. so madeline's room is pretty much done. it is very similar to both brooke's nursery and hana's nursery. there are a few new things, but most of it is recycled. i got a new polka dot bumper which matches the rest of the stuff i had. we also got a day bed (thanks mom!) for those visitors that will be here in the first few weeks of her life. i still have not painted her name letters (which will go over the crib) or "adjusted" the crib for her (at this point brooke is still napping in the crib, minus the new bumper, so i have not raised the mattress to newborn level yet). but other than that i am pretty much done :)

view from the door
close up of the new bumper :)

former student...

sadly i have learned that a former student was victim of the first homicide in wilmington this year. it is sad to think that a boy i taught so long ago is no longer here. i found out a few days ago, but i wanted to make 100% sure that it was him. but after seeing a recent picture, i can still see the face of the boy i taught. i taught him in 2002-2003 (he is now 17!), it is hard for me to imagine that it has been that long.
please send any prayers out to his family.

swim lessons

this week is swim lesson week!! today was the first day that i was able to take the girls (monday it rained and wednesday jack took them because i had a doctor's apt). brooke got off to a slow start. she cried for quite a bit, but hilary was able to get her passed it and move on. the only problem with brooke's lessons is that she is having a hard time learning to hold her breath. and that is quite a problem when you are trying to swim. during the two lessons she has had, she has sucked down a moderate amount of pool water. we may give brooke's last lesson to hana... we will see :) we don't want brooke to drink the entire pool!
hana on the other hand is doing great! hilary says she listens and does everything she asks with a smile... nice ;) hana has 3 (maybe 4) lessons to go and i am confidant that she will make great progress. so here is what swim lessons look like...

brooke kicking... that she does really well!
still kicking
working on her strokes
hana floating on her back (her goggles kept filling up with water so she did stuff on her back today... not to worry, we will get her new goggles!)
post-lessons... so happy!!

yea swim lessons... more pictures will be a long as the lessons progress :)

funny happenings

A couple of funny things have happened in the last few days, unrelated to each other, that are worth sharing :)

• Today when the dr was checking to see if I was dilated (I am not!) the baby hit his finger :)
• We had leftovers from our dinner last night… while I was eating them jack tried to steal them, to which hana yelled… “step off mommy’s leftovers!”... not quite sure where that came from!
• The other day we were in the car going somewhere and I went to hook brooke into her seat. She asked me why she had to be strapped in and I told her “to keep you safe.” To which she answered “yea, I don’t want to fall out and hurt my big head.” (let me just add here that we have never told her that she has a big head!)
• The day after the 4^th of july, hana and I were in the car. She said “mommy, why is my skin a different color than josh’s”… um well honey, josh just gets a lot more tanned than you do… poor white hana :)

Ok that is it… thanks for laughing with me!

8 years...

today is our 8 year anniversary. i so can not believe that it has been 8 years! where did the time go? it feels like just yesterday i met jack. but oh so much has has happened in 8 years!! with the ups and down in life it is great to know that i have someone special walking by my side through it all!! i love you equal!

and of course i had to throw in some pictures to remember the day... oh so long ago!

small group beach cookout

yesterday we went to the beach for a small group cookout :) wrenn's parents let us crash their wonderful beach house for the afternoon so we could all hang out (we missed you bentleys!!). it really was a nice day, the kids swam and played in the sand. the adults got to kayak and have a great time! it was really nice to sit and chat :) so here are a few pictures of the afternoon.

maggie and brooke paying the pool pre-beach :)

hana and daddy playing in the water
amber taking hana for a ride in the kayak
just hanging out
jack and hana playing football... hana is kind of enjoying herself!!
jack playing with the little girls :)

it was a great afternoon!

ok lets compare...

well i thought it would be fun to compare pictures of myself at 22 weeks and now at 33 weeks. well after seeing the pictures side by side i am not so sure it was a great idea. but whatever. you deserve to see the truth... these are not edited... this is how i really look 33 weeks pregnant :) ugh come on madeline!

ballet finale

today was hana's ballet finale. i missed the one last year... so i was very excited to see the performance this time around. i knew that hana did not do very well last year, so my expectations weren't that high. but i have to admit, she did great!!! and i know that she is my daughter but i also think that she was the cutest one out there (that has been my favorite part of this... dressing her up in the so cute ballet outfits!!). mimi even made the trip to join us to support hana!! here are a few pics of the performance :)

hana pre-performance talking to mimi
looking cute
dancing in the performance
actually following the teacher and doing what she was supposed to!
jumping across the stage
the whole group dancing

picture from lunch at chick fla :) thanks mimi!

a short video of hana dancing

money saving tip number 5473 :)

ok this may not be very interesting to my *ahem* 5 faithful readers... but i do feel like it is worth sharing. we had been reporting what we are doing to save money, so a few months ago we switch our power bill to the "time of usage" plan (to recap... it is basically that you have 2 rates for energy an "on peak" time and a "off peak" time... right now off peak is from 9pm-10am and all weekend.). on our old bill we were on the balanced bill plan which (supposedly) took an average of our usage from 2 years and then charged us that every month. on that plan we paid $125 each month. now that we have switched plans i was fully expecting the summer months to be super expensive. i mean if our average was $125 and we only paid $75 during the spring then it would reason (stay with me here) that our summer bill would be somewhere in the range of $175... we got our first bill for the month of june, a really hot june, we ran the air a lot! and it was... $122! so our average on the old plan was more expensive than one of the most expensive months on the new plan. ok if you are still reading then i give you credit and you must really care about saving money! so i share all of this to say... switch to the time of usage plan (if you have not already done so). ok that is it! thanks for reading!!