Little Swimming Fish

Both of the kids are still doing really great in swimming.  I forgot to post this last month, but both kids moved up a level.  Jayden went from level 4b to level 5, and Willow went from level 3 up to 4a.

The swim club has been going through some management changes and we have been trying to ride out the storm because with the director of the swim club leaving, so left some of my very favorite teachers that have been working with Jayden and Willow since the beginning.  And the teachers that they brought in to fill some of the gaps just were not good.  I try not to be too critical, because for goodness sakes my kids are young and it's not like I'm training up Olympic athletes, and if they are having fun, then I can be okay with that.  But I do have a problem when I'm paying you to teach my kids to swim and you sit on the side of the pool and gossip with a fellow teacher the entire lesson and not actually get in the water, and then have my son swim a 50 breaststroke and then tell him what he did wrong after he got back instead of stopping him in the middle and fixing it.  But this past session, both Jayden and Willow were in the same class because of teacher shortages, but their teacher was awesome!  She also happen to have her son shadowing her so he could start teaching swim lessons as well, so the last 2 weeks of the session, he took Jayden aside and started working on more advanced skills for him.  Both Jayden and Willow have talked more about swimming this past month than they have in a long time.  Good teachers make such a difference! 

Willow and Jayden both use snorkels for part of their lessons, I guess it helps with body positioning, but they look so darn funny in the things!

 Here is Willow working on her racing dives.

One of the last things they are trying to work with Jayden on is his 100 IM (25 butterfly, 25 backstroke, 25 breaststroke, 25 freestyle), and once he has that mastered, he can try out for the swim teams if he wants.

His teacher is actually the current state champion in butterfly, so Jayden is pretty sure he's going to be the one to teach him how to be fast enough to beat his Uncle Jordan in the pool at it.

Jayden Turns 7!

April 24th, 2013, the day we woke up on Jayden's birthday to snow!

Freaky Kansas weather!  Luckily the sun was already shining warm sun down, so the snow melted quite quickly.  We started off the morning with chocolate chip waffles and breakfast sausages per the birthday boy's request and then got to opening presents and using them as quickly as possible.  We put on warm coats and went outside to start shooting off stomp rockets that Jayden got from Uncle Gabe and Aunt Brynn.

Then we moved onto Kitchen Science Experiments where we erupted volcanoes and used a lemon to power a clock.
(check out Willow's face in the first one, she really thought the thing was gonna blow to the ceiling)

After a couple hours of building paper airplane and Jayden going into a lengthy, and by lengthy I mean a good 45minuts, of him talking non-stop and explaining and demonstrating to me the theory behind why certain paper airplane designs fly better than other ones, using words like air space, and wing span, and the force of air, and air suction, and gravity, and air speed over the tail, and motion in the wings,  I have a certain feeling he has been paying attention and picking up on some good buzz words during all those tours of NIAR's labs that he has gotten with Royal.  :)
Then we took a walk to the mailbox and Nana's present had arrived.
Hmmmmm, excited?

Hmmmm, preview of moody years to come?

He took his little ipod right down to the treadmill and got himself a little run in.  :)

And finally, finally, after all day of waiting, the present he has been begging for for months was finally charged.  The present it took me weeks to convince Royal he wouldn't kill himself on (Jayden better not prove me wrong!) and I managed to find a screaming deal on with free shipping!  I'm not sure what I was thinking, I should of unpacked it the night before and got the battery charged so it would be good to go first thing in the morning.  It was brutal waiting.  Brutal I tell you.  But I think he finally forgave me for my oversight when he finally got on it and went flying down the road.

And then he started getting a little crazy....

Happy Birthday, Jayden!  We love you sooooooo much!

Kid Quote :: 25

Jayden : I just love animals! I love to read about them and learn about them and just everything about animals! I think I would like to do that for work!

Me : So, like a zoologist? Or something like that?

Jayden : Yeah. Or a ninja. I'd like to be a ninja too.

Willow Sings :: J.O.Y. and B.I.B.L.E.

Here is a little snippet of Willow singing....or yelling...you decide!  :)  I love this girl.  :)

Willow's Happy Feet

Willow is playing soccer for Happy Feet this spring and today was her first practice/game.  She was really excited, especially when we went shopping for a new pair of shorts and shin guards and socks.  She loved the shopping, however, she was not that thrilled to actually have to have that many layers on her legs/feet.  Willow takes off all shoes and socks as quickly as possible, she lives for summer and flip flops and bare feet, so I'm not so sure soccer is going to be her sport just for the amount of clothing/gear you have to wear.  :)  But I wrestled them on her and told her she could take them off as fast as she could as soon as soccer was over and that seemed to make her feel better.  :)

So, we got to the field, got her checked in, and sent her happily running off to the field. 

Then they started warming up by running around the field and Willow didn't budge, she kept pretending to fix her socks and pull her ponytail tighter.

We were yelling, "Run, Willow!  Run!"  Until I figured out why she wasn't moving.  Willow is still very boy/man-wary, something I'm not really trying to discourage and am hoping it caries over into teen/adult years.  :) And the coach in charge is a male, so he was asking them to run and Willow was pretending that he didn't exist.  But as soon as the female coach asked her to run, Willow was all about it!

As long as Willow was standing by the female coach, she would do what the male coach was telling her and eventually she warmed up to him enough to give him high-fives.

 Then it was game time!

And Willow did awesome!  Even if she was trying to steal the ball from her own teammate!  :)

Easter 2013

Easter, Easter, Easter.....It's so loaded with memories, good and sad.  I woke up in the morning feeling pretty good, but as the day went on, I just felt sadder and sadder.  Sad that I spend Easter out here in the middle of nowhere, doing Easter egg hunts for my kids and it's just the two of them.  I did Easter egg hunts with ALL of my cousins, and there were a lot of us, and so much fun, and so many eggs that my dad would forget where he hid them all.  Holidays are so hard when you are so far away from the rest of your family.  But we did get invited to be a part of some fun things.  We spent the day before Easter at a friend's family's house where they have a tradition of deep frying turkeys and coloring Easter eggs and that was a lot of fun.  And we did get invited back out there for Easter day too, but we decided not to go.  I was already in a funk and probably would of spent the entire time crying in a chair while my kids did Easter egg hunts with other people's cousins and aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas.   Easter is just a big reminder of the family I've lost.  Even if I was in Washington and around my family, it still wouldn't be the same.  Who knows if we'd even be together, maybe I'd still be doing Easter dinner with just the 4 of us, and I'd still be sad that I had the potential to be surrounded by my family, yet I wasn't.  Willie died and I feel like my family exploded, and Easter is just a very vivid reminder of when it all started...

We went to church in the morning and Jayden got entered into a drawing down in his environment and he ended up winning a rip-stick!  Which I was actually quite pumped about because I've always wanted to learn how to ride one!   :)  Royal on the other hand kept trying to give it away because all he could envision were the injuries that were going to happen.  I think Royal's just a little timid after he tried riding Jayden's razor scooter and bit it hard!  So, when we got home from church, we spent a lot of time helping him learn how to ride the thing.

And we did an Easter egg hunt.  Jayden shook every egg looking for money.

It was so nice out, we spent most of the day outside and even had a Silly String fight.

And by the end of the day, Jayden could do this.

He's still working on how to get momentum while on it, but he can balance on it quite well!

I spent a lot of the day sitting or laying out in the warm sun and remembering how much fun we had back on Easter 2007 and how much I miss my family, but also trying to watch and participate and spend time with and enjoy my family that I have right in front of me.

Bed Bugs

Awhile back Willow started having nightmares about bugs being in her bed.  She would refuse to get back in her bed at night and since Royal is such a light sleeper, we'd actually tuck her into bed with Jayden, a.k.a heavy sleeper, who never figured out she was there until morning.  Well, this just wasn't going to work forever, I needed her to start sleeping through the night again.  So, I gave her this beenie-baby lion and told her that lions love to eat bugs, and this lion would stay awake all night and eat all the bugs that try to get on her bed, and I perched the lion on her pillow right above her head.  It worked, she started sleeping through the night again.   I went to check on her at night and found the Willow and the lion like this.

I asked her about it in the morning and she said she wanted to make sure the lion got all the bugs before they got to her head.  Good plan, good plan.