Heads or Tails #21 - First or Last

Ok, well first of all - sorry this is late! It may even be the last H0T posted today...   :)

I'm not feeling much better than I was on Sunday - or yesterday (I took the day off and slept for 5 hours straight), so I'm headed into the doctor in about an hour to see if it's 'just' a virus or if there's something else going on. Thank you so much for all of the well wishes!

Yesterday was the first day of the new session for Hannah's cheerleading, which meant that I had to drag all 3 kids out there in order to get her signed up, even with feeling miserable.  Unfortunately, they've made a scheduling change since last session - Hannah's group (level one) now starts at 6:00 pm instead of 6:15 pm. Ok, well picking up the kids, getting home by 5:30 pm, feeding everyone and getting Hannah to cheer was difficult enough before, but to have 15 minutes less - pretty much impossible. Yesterday we went over there straight from daycare - by the time we got home, the kids didn't get dinner until 7:30 pm (it ran longer than usual because of registration for the new session), and then had to go straight to bed afterward.

I thought a lot about whether or not to even sign her up again, but she loves cheering so much that I didn't want to take it away from her.  We'll figure out the logistics somehow - we managed to deal with a 6:00 pm soccer practice for Abby last fall, which wasn't easy, but it worked.

With last night being the first day of the new session, parents and family were able to watch the kids practice. Which meant that I spent most of the time collecting Becca from the middle of the gym floor and bringing her back to the bleachers to sit with Abby and I. She'd run out there and plunk her little self down there with all of the other girls, not understanding why Hannah got to be out there and she couldn't. I ended up taking her out into the school lobby to walk around for a while - and she surprised me with an almost perfect rendition of the first cheer that the girls had worked on earlier.

Hannah may be the first cheerleader in our family, but somehow I'm thinking she won't be the last!

Check out other Heads or Tails posts at Skittles' Place!

Embracing my inner toddler - otherwise known as a whine-fest

It's been a really long day at the end of a really long week. I'm feeling the need to whine, so please bear with me.

I'm tttttttiiiiiiiirrrrrreeeeeddddd..... And I wanna eat chocolate. Lots of chocolate. And I want a vacation... Or at least a nap.

Wow, that does make me feel a bit better. No wonder kids do it so much. Does it annoy you as much over a blog as it does when your kids whine in front of you? :)

We've had something going on every evening this week so far. That's on top of a full day of work/school/daycare. Dinners have been on the run almost every night. Or we ate snacks on the way somewhere and a late, thrown together dinner when we get home. And even at church dinner last night, although I loved the baked chicken and mashed potatoes, my kids hardly ate anything. Well, Becca ate fine but that was after the major fit she threw when I tried to put her in the highchair. I couldn't sit her in a metal folding chair though - they have a tendency to fold up on her, she's just not big enough yet. She finally sat in the high chair, but she wasn't happy about it.

Monday night I was late after work because I accidentally locked my keys in my car (yes, again...) at work so had to wait until Ron could get there and open the door. He didn't come until almost 5:30pm (yes, I am going out this weekend and getting a duplicate key made to keep in my purse!). Then he had to head back out to work on another job. The girls and I ran home from daycare and ate a quick dinner before we had to leave for their cheerleading practice. This is a new activity for them and I think I'm going to regret signing them up for this one, but soccer is almost over and they really wanted to do cheerleading. It was the cheapest activity I saw, so figured we'd try it for a while. They love it but it does add another busy evening to our week.

Tuesday night was Abby's last soccer practice. I was gone in Detroit at a seminar all day and barely made it back in time to rush home, grab snacks and Abby's cleats and shin guards before picking them up and rushing to practice. I forgot her soccer ball - thankfully the coach had one she could borrow. We ate a late dinner at home afterward.

Last night was church night - Wednesdays are always long and busy. We got straight to church from daycare and ate dinner then Abby and Hannah had their bible school class and I worked in the toddler room for an hour with Becca and two other toddlers, one of whom wanted to be held the entire time. I do get paid to work in there on Wednesday nights for an hour - not enough to help with bills or anything, but the tiny bit of extra money does come in handy.

And then tonight. Abby's first solo counseling appointment. At 6:00, so we went straight there from daycare. Dropped Abby off and then I took Hannah and Becca to the food court at the nearby mall for dinner. We drove through Taco Bell on the way home for Abby's dinner. And then Abby did her homework quickly before bed. Hannah was upset because she wanted to go and play with 'the lady' too and couldn't understand why only Abby got to go. Becca was slightly warm when I picked them up at daycare and when I took her temperature at home later was up to 103.3 degrees. She felt better after some Motrin and was down and playing when Ron got home. We'll see how she's doing tomorrow morning - she's done this before, where she's spiked a fever and then been completely fine afterward, but if she's still sick at all, then Ron and I will have to figure out what to do so one of us can stay home with her.

Tomorrow night we don't have to be anywhere, but I promised the girls we'd put up the Halloween decorations. Which isn't a problem, except that means straightening and dusting the places where the decorations need to go...

Have I mentioned that I'm really tired?

I haven't even gone into everything that's going on at work right now - that's a whole other post. Let's just say that I haven't had much time for blog reading or post writing there lately. And there's a somewhat decent chance that I may not have the same employer after next June. Or possibly not a job at all. I haven't completely wrapped my mind around that one yet - we just got the details (as much as they know anyway) this morning. One thing that's definite though, is that I'm being moved to a different department because one of my co-workers is leaving for another job. It's not the easiest department to work with (and that's a huge understatement) and I'm just not sure I've got the energy to do a good job for them, especially if it's not appreciated anyway.

(But, hey - on the bright side, I will finally have a window to look out of at work. I am looking very forward to that.)

Ok, I'm done whining now. I just had to get all of that out of my system so I can relax and go to bed at a decent hour tonight. Sorry this post is such a downer - I should be back to my usual self tomorrow. After some sleep.... :)

Run, kick, score!

Or not. Yes, another busy Saturday of soccer. Yesterdays games were at 10:15 am and noon, so although we had time to make it to both without a conflict, it was a mad rush. And wow, was it ever hot out! You'd be hard pressed to make anyone believe that this is October - there aren't even very many trees changing colors yet either. Last fall we were shivering at soccer games and this year we're sweltering... Just plain weird.

Hannah did really well again yesterday - probably because she got to sleep in later again. She still wasn't the most aggressive player but she was running after and trying to kick the ball much more than in the past couple of weeks' games. All of the kids were hot and tired about halfway through so they were all dragging by the end and just wanting the game over. It was hot enough sitting and watching, so I know they had to be even worse off.

I call this next one, "Whoops!", LOL



We left Hannah's game at 11:30am. Abby had to be at hers at 11:45am at a different school. Which left us exactly 15 minutes to get lunch.

Wendy's, anyone?



Normally I would've driven through but Abby had to use the restroom so we all trooped inside and I ordered food while the girls ran and climbed and used up all of that energy that must've somehow been restored by the restaurant's a/c... Or something.

Abby ate her lunch in the car on the way to her game and the rest of us ate during her game after we got to the field. It was actually a good way to get Becca to sit in the stroller for the bulk of the game. Once she got set free though, she decided to play some soccer on the sidelines...


And she made it out onto the field a couple of times before I ran out and caught her, oops. Then she decided that the ball was more fun to sit on than to kick.


Abby had a difficult time at her game - probably mostly from having been out in the heat already all morning. She mostly stood around, even when the ball came near her:


Or walked around with her shirt like this:


I got tired of yelling to her to put her shirt down - I know it was hot, but she needed to pay attention to the game and not show off her belly to everyone. I finally told her that I was going to take a penny out of her piggy bank every time I saw her pull her shirt up over her shoulders and that helped some. She lost 2 pennies.

She played midfield for the first 3 quarters of the game, and got to kick off twice! I think it was almost the only times she touched the ball...



She did run around a bit way behind the other girls...


And right at the end of the game, she suddenly started to get into it and got some good kicks in while playing defense. They lost 3-0 again though.


Five weeks down now and next week is the last of the fall season. I'm glad in some ways because it makes for a crazy, stressful Saturday, but I'll miss watching them play. And the worst part is that they play at the exact same time next week. Ron has the day off so we can split the duties, but I don't want to miss either of their last games! I'm not sure how we're going to decide which of us goes to which game.

I know - you're just not going to know what to do with yourselves once I no longer have soccer pictures to post on the weekends, right? :)

'Musical' bicycles

We have 3 girls. Each girl has a bike. Pretty simple, huh?

Not always.

Abby got a 16" bike for her birthday when she turned 4. Ron insisted on getting her a slightly bigger bike thinking she wouldn't grow out of it as fast. I thought it was too heavy for her to ride easily. And for whatever reason, Abby has never liked riding it. Bike rides for her happen rarely and involve pedaling at a snail's pace.

Hannah got a plastic tricycle bike with a push handle for Christmas 3 years ago. She rode it all the time until last summer when she'd outgrown it. We borrowed a tricycle bike from Kristi and Steve's son Noah last year and then for Hannah's 4th birthday last fall, she got a new bike - this time we got a 12", especially since Hannah is smaller than Abby was at the same age. Hannah has ridden her bike quite a bit this summer.

We've put Becca on the plastic tricycle bike a little bit this summer, but she doesn't understand the concept of pedaling yet - or steering, so it's a bit difficult to push her on it yet.

So, we were outside the other evening and Hannah decided to ride her bike. In true, "I'm a big girl too" form, Becca went right for the other bike and refused to even sit on the little plastic tricycle.

Well Abby's bike was obviously too big for her, but Ron tried her out on it anyway, just for fun.


Then he tried lowering the seat on Hannah's bike to see if Becca could reach the pedals on that one. To our surprise, she could. She still had no idea how to pedal or steer, but thought it was a lot of fun when Daddy took her for a quick ride up and down the driveway.


Oh yes, she thinks she is 'big stuff'! LOL


Now, given that Abby hates to ride her bike and Hannah is outgrowing hers... Can you see where I'm going with this?

I asked Abby what she would think about giving Hannah her bike. I told her that if she decided that she wanted a new bike at some point, we would get her one, but she would have to promise to actually ride it if we did get her a new one (her birthday is in April, so perfect timing for that kind of gift). She was more than happy to give her bike to Hannah and has no interest in getting a new one.

However, Hannah has no interest in Abby's bike. She refused to even try riding it until Ron bribed her, just to see if she was big enough to ride it. She did take a quick lap around the cul-de-sac.


So I figure that we have until next spring to really get her excited about a bigger bike. Both bikes are 'princess' ones, and Abby's has really barely even been ridden so it's almost in perfect shape. And if Hannah still insists on riding the smaller one even then, that's fine too - I have the feeling by then it'll be pretty uncomfortable for her though.

And yes - I realize that none of our kids are wearing helmets in these pictures. They do have them and are supposed to wear them whenever they ride their bikes. We didn't put them on for the couple of trips up and down the driveway and Ron forgot to have Hannah put hers on when he got her to finally try out Abby's bike.

Catching up after the weekend

I'm sorry I haven't posted much this weekend, but Ron had both days off and we spent most of it doing family things and just spending time together. Having him around for 2 days in a weekend hasn't happened in close to a year, so we wanted to take advantage of it.

Not to mention that it just took me an hour to catch up on all of my blog reading that I missed over the weekend too. :)

The girls and I got home on Friday to find Ron already there - he'd managed to end up with that day off too, so it's been a much-needed 3-day weekend for him. Having him around for dinner was a blessing, but also created a problem as our grocery-starved house just didn't have anything to offer all 5 of us for dinner. Now we used to go out to eat a lot but over the past year we really don't very much, partly because Ron's never here and partly because we can't afford a nice sit-down meal. We do fast food more often than we should, of course, but it seems like birthdays or my mom's visits are the only times we actually have a meal served to us lately. So we took the opportunity of Ron being home for dinner for once and went out. Besides, I was hoping that Applebees would honor the 3 free kids meal coupons I had been hanging onto for a while.

The dinner was nice, the kids (generally) behaved themselves and the restaurant did honor 2 of the 3 coupons. Our server was incredible and we felt very pampered. All in all, it was a good experience.

Later that night, my friend Kristi picked me up for what is becoming a tradition of going out after all of our kids are in bed for some shopping, dessert and kid-free mommy time. We talk, we shop without having to hear, "Can I have that?" even once, and we have dessert at a restaurant without needing kids menus or crayons. I'm starting to really look forward to Friday nights! It will also come in handy in the next couple of months to be able to buy birthday and Christmas presents on these kid-free trips too.

Saturday morning involved a lot of soccer, like usual. This week we had Abby's game first though, since she played at 9:00 am. I noticed that her team seemed a bit more sluggish than usual and they lost 3-0. I don't think the early morning time is the best for them. I didn't get many pictures this week since Ron was with us finally (he's the reason I generally take so many photos to begin with since he hadn't made it to any games until now), and Abby played forward on the opposite side of the field from us, then sat out a quarter, then was goalie, and then on defense. Not much opportunity for good photo-taking. Nobody on their team is real aggressive as forwards - one reason why they didn't score at all yesterday. Abby saved a couple of goals but let one through. She did get two great stops while on defense though - the first time she's really ever even tried to kick the ball while playing defense.

(Abby as goalie in the red jersey, running the ball back out to throw it after saving a goal)

(This is mostly what Abby does while playing defense, but she really got in there yesterday when she needed to!)

After Abby's game ended, we had to rush right over to Hannah's. Our soccer games are played at a couple of elementary schools and Abby plays at one while Hannah plays at another. Neither of the schools offer any restroom facilities for soccer practices/games. This hasn't been an issue for us, luckily, until yesterday. As soon as we got to Hannah's field, Abby had to go potty. I am so thankful that Ron was with us! I was able to leave Becca with him and just take Abby and run over to WalMart - the closest restroom available to us. We got back and I dropped Abby off at the school playground and headed back to Hannah's game.

Hannah's been really tired lately. Her moods, fit-throwing and potty accidents have been telling us that. And I can tell on the soccer field too. Instead of being aggressive about going after the ball, she'll kick it and then stop instead of running after it. And she kept complaining yesterday about being tired. She did play pretty well considering all of that though.



Here you can kind of see what I mean - the other two girls are running after the ball pretty hard and Hannah's just kind of jogging...

They both said they had a good time though - and that's really the only important thing!

It was nice to have soccer over and done with by lunchtime - we were able to head home, eat and then do nap/quiet time. Afterwards we took the kids to the park with Steve (my friend Kristi's hubby - she was working) and his 2 boys, then we all came back here for pizza. More about the park later - this is getting pretty long already...

Two more weeks of soccer left for the fall season - as tiring and stressful as it is making sure we make it to everything on time, I will miss watching the girls play. There will be 6 more weeks again in the spring though.

Another weekend flown by - are you tired of soccer pictures yet? LOL

Sad isn't it, how slowly the weekdays go and then how the weekends just zoom right by... I can't believe it's Sunday night again already.

We had a good weekend. Yesterday was filled with soccer, of course - 3 weeks down and 3 more to go for the fall season. I think the girls were tired yesterday - Hannah had fun, but wasn't very aggressive about playing. She'd kick the ball but then stop instead of running it down to the goal. I asked her afterward if she was tired and she said yes. I think she's also been fighting a cold or allergies too, which probably didn't help any. She said she had fun playing though, and that's what's most important.

Here's a great shot of the ball being kicked right between Hannah's legs, LOL.


We were facing right into the sun and it was bright out. This was Abby during the first part of Hannah's game:


She did get up and run/jump/cheer/bounce around after a while though. She and Becca actually kicked the ball around a little bit together - it was really cute!



Abby's game was another exciting one - her coach is doing such an awesome job of keeping the girls focused and in the right places for whatever position they're playing. And Abby even got in a few kicks while on defense - she's never even tried to kick the ball when she's been playing defense before, she just usually stands there. There were 2 girls missing yesterday from her team so the 8 of them who were there had to all play the entire game. Even with that - they still won, 3-0! Abby was thrilled. During the first quarter, she was bouncing around so much - one of the other dads joked to me that we should stop giving her sugar to eat before the game. I had to admit that she's always like that - she just gets so excited and has trouble containing herself.

She played midfield for 2 quarters of the game and she did a ton of throw-ins, probably at least partly because she doesn't throw it very far and tends to throw it right to the other team, who would promptly kick it out again.



She did get in some kicks too, but I was wrestling a tired grumpy toddler (1:30 games are not good for our nap schedule!) and didn't get a lot of photos of her game. You get extra points if you can spot her in these (she's #4):



Becca, other than being tired and grumpy, did have a good time watching the big girls play. As you can see...

(It takes concentration to eat and pay attention to the game at the same time!)

(Abby's game action had her on the edge of her seat...)

("Ok, got my ball, I'm set to go! When's my game start?")

Not for a couple of years yet, little one! :)

They won!!

Abby's team won her game today! This is a huge deal for her because her team last year did not win any games at all, either in the fall or the spring. They only tied one game and scored only a few goals the whole year. The game today was really exciting - the teams were pretty evenly matched and the ball was up and down the field during the whole game. Abby's team scored their first goal of the season and it was enough to win since they held the other team off from scoring at all.

And Abby did so well - I was bursting with pride (not a common occurrence for me at her soccer games). I mean, she still wasn't nearly as aggressive about going after the ball, but she did have several chances to kick it up the field and she did more than just run around following after the other kids - she was actively trying to get in there and kick the ball. It was amazing. I only wish Ron could have been there.


Hannah did incredibly well today too - not one tear and no getting upset about other girls kicking the ball instead of her. She was dominating the field and really getting in there and getting the ball away from the other girls and kicking it hard. They added throw-ins to the games today and Hannah had several chances to throw the ball in. She scored 3 goals that I saw - nobody keeps score for the U5 and there are a lot of goals scored since they don't have goal keepers. The 'goal' (so to speak) of the U5 program is to get them used to playing as a team, get their feet on the ball and get them excited enough about soccer to want to keep playing. I don't think there will be any problem with that as far as Hannah is concerned.




In between their games, we had Abby's soccer photos taken and then we headed over to a nearby safety fair for (free!) lunch, balloons, face painting and the girls also got to play on some fun gymnastics equipment as well. I also got all 3 girls fingerprinted so we have a photo-id card for each of them with all 10 fingerprints and I can fill in the rest of their vital statistics so we'll have a handy reference if anything ever happens to any of them. We pray it doesn't, of course, but I think it helps to have things like this, just in case.

Here's Abby having her face painted:


And the final product:


And I love this photo of Hannah with her face painted - I think it's one of my favorite Hannah pictures of all we've ever taken of her:


Here is Becca on the trampoline:


And a couple more fun photos from soccer... Here's what Abby did this week during Hannah's game - it was cold this morning and she forgot her own jacket, so wore mine the whole time.


This was my solution to last week's water bottle issue - it worked very well since Becca couldn't dump these.


Even with the colder temperature, I had a hard time keeping Becca's socks and shoes on all day:


And here's my littlest soccer player!