Happy 4th of July (a week late)!!

A very belated Happy 4th of July to everyone! We hope the weekend brought everyone great weather, great food, great time with friends, and good thoughts for our troops that are overseas defending our country. The 4th is a wonderful day of celebration, but also a time to remember those that have fought for our country in so many ways to allow us the wonderful freedom we have! Thank you all!

Our 4th of July was absolutely fantastic! We started the day off by meeting up with friends at Lake Wilderness Park in Maple Valley. What a wonderful and gorgeous complex! We kicked the soccer ball around some, had a picnic lunch, and then headed over to the lake. The kids all had a BLAST and the lake was just magnificent. Oh, and the weather? About 83 degrees under clear blue skies - perfect!!

Todd, Hudson and Sophia head out into the lake for a dip.

Very safe to say that Hudson might have had the best time out of everyone playing in the sand and wading out in the lake with Dad.

Isabelle and Gracie take a break from swimming to play on the beach with Sophia and Hudson.

After our time at the lake, we headed home to get showers for everyone and then a quick nap for Sophia and Hudson. After a yummy dinner of Juicy Lucy burgers, we headed over to enjoy fireworks with Tia and Sep and their family. The kids all had a great time with the fireworks...running through the colored smoke bombs, oohhing and aahhing at the mortars, and drawing their names in the air with sparklers.

Isabelle enjoying her sparkler.

Sophia...obviously having a great time playing with fire. :)

We look back on this 4th of July with pure happiness, and hope everyone else had as great of a day as we did. Until next year...everyone stay safe and continue to pray for our troops.

Lion tamers

Isabelle's soccer season came to an end this past weekend, which was good and bad. Good because now we get three days of our week back (until coach pitch baseball starts next week) but bad because our girls had such an awesome season and all have so much fun together.

Our last game of the season was played against the Lion Queens. We played this team twice last year and probably lost by about 15 goals each game. It was a mess. We knew how good our team was now, and how much we had improved, and we were all prepared to take on the team that had pounded us last season. And not only had they pounded us, but the coach of the other team is a complete ass...always encouraging his team to "keep taking it to them, score on them again." Suck it, asshole.

To make a long story short...WE WON!!! Our girls took it to the Lion Queens and beat them 5-2. It was a hard fought battle, and all the girls were exhausted at the end. Isabelle got things off hot with a goal (her 10th of the season, which led the team) and they just never gave up from there. We were all so proud, and the girls were ecstatic. Go Monsters!!!

Here's Isabelle taking on all three Lion Queen girls..."Watch out you big blonde girl, cause I'm about to score on you!" (which she did!!)

After the game we had the end of season party at our house. It was potluck style and everyone brought some delicious food. Our team is very ethnically diverse, which showed through in the foods that were brought.

Parents and kids sitting around eating and enjoying the beautiful evening.

The girls enjoyed eating their dinner picnic-style.

Our Monsters (and our little Monster mascot!)

Bend it like Isabelle

The weather was beautiful in Seattle this weekend, which was a real treat because we haven't had too many nice days as of late. Friday night Isabelle's soccer team had a great practice in 70 degree weather, and I actually got to take one of the dogs to practice so he could hang out with us. Saturday we had a wonderful day of playing outside with the kids, and a great dinner on the deck that evening.

Sunday, of course, was Isabelle's soccer game. Her team is doing outstanding this year, and Isabelle has been a true all-star, if I do say so myself. Her skills are tremendous and her coach (and Dad) is very happy. Not too bad for a girl that we thought wouldn't be playing soccer about a year ago. At any rate, we played under gorgeous weather this afternoon and the girls had an awesome game. We ended up winning 13-2, and Isabelle scored THREE goals! To top it all off, one of them was a left-foot shot, which had been one of her goals to accomplish this year. We were so proud of our girl! To this point in the season (6 games) she's had 8 goals. We still have two more to go, so hopefully the hot streak continues.

Here she is gearing up for a big left foot shot. She's the only girl on the team that can switch from one foot to the other with complete confidence.

Here she is throwing up the "L" sign. No, it's not for loser, but her sign for "left-foot goal."

Here's the third goal headed for the net.

Again with the "L" sign for the left-foot goal. She was so proud!

Running through the victory tunnel at the end.

GO MONSTERS! No game next weekend due to Memorial Day, but we play the two weekends after that to finish off the season.

Hope everyone else had as wonderful of a weekend as we did!

Mother's Day weekend

This weekend we were blessed with gorgeous weather, which hasn't been a regular event these days. And no better weekend for it, as we were able to get out and celebrate Mother's Day with great family activities. Saturday we started out with Sophia's soccer class, and then headed out to the zoo to explore the new penguin exhibit. The kids had a blast, and all caught a quick nap on the drive home. That evening we had our dear friends the Cappalongas over for dinner. Tia is one of the best mothers I know, and a great person to celebrate the weekend with. She has five wonderful kids that are all amazing in their own individual ways. She is really one in a million...oh, and just an awesome person to be around. :) At any rate, the kids all wore each other out playing until late that night, but did sleep in the next morning, so we couldn't complain.

The next day Todd cooked omelets for everyone and then got all our bicycles prepped for a family bike ride while the little ones were napping. After they awoke, we headed off for a ride along the Cedar River. The weather was still good, though a little overcast, but not too hot or cold so we couldn't complain.

Todd and Isabelle off and going. The hilly path that Isabelle is riding towards is the one she crashed down at the end of our ride. No better way to finish off Mother's Day than scrubbing gravel and dirt out of your kid's knees in the tub with a loafa. Good times.

Isabelle cranked along with us the entire ride, which probably consisted of about 3 miles. She's awesome on her bike, and really enjoyed us all being out together.

A nice view of the Cedar River.


Sophia and Hudson ride along in their bike trailer behind Todd. They love looking out the windows and generally grappling with each other in the tight quarters.

Little faces peeking out at me as I ride by them. Too cute!

I hope all the mothers I know had a wonderful weekend like I did. I feel truly blessed to have three wonderful children that are happy and healthy, and that give me the title of "Mom."

Hump day is *the* day

Whereas most of us look forward to Friday, and the end of a busy work week, my little ones look forward to one day...garbage day. Our garbage day is Wednesday, and it's the best day of the week in our house. Sophia loves the garbage man to the point she yells at the top of her lungs when she sees one while we're out and about "Garbage man!!!" Hudson has two Tonka Wheel Pals garbage trucks (one small and one large) and they happen to be the same green as our garbage trucks. Needless to say, the two of them ALWAYS play with the garbage trucks. We weren't so sure about this new obsession, but upon talking to other friends, it seems the love of the garbage man extends to all small children. Good to know, as we were starting to think Sophia already had a career in mind...

Perched on the sofa...anxiously watching the street for the first sighting of the garbage man.

Since we sit up on a bit of a hill, from our front window the kids can watch the garbage man collect from about six houses. Bonus!

They are so focused the entire time this is going on...neither moves at all, except to wiggle their butts back and forth with glee.

Bye, bye garbage man! See ya next week!

Today's activities:

Work
More laundry
Get to UPS to send some returns back (not holding my breath on this one)
Isabelle's soccer practice

Tonight's menu:
I'm stumped!! Not good.

Two Little Monkeys

On a daily basis, it's the little things that make me appreciate being a parent and truly make me love my kids to death. Yes, they run me ragged, and both Todd and I probably look like walking zombies most of the time, but there are moments during the day that just make my heart melt and make me realize why the dark circles under my eyes are totally worth it.

Sophia's new favorite game is to go into her brother's room while he's still sleeping, scale over the side of the crib, and wake the poor child up by jumping all around him. This occurs in the morning, after nap...it really doesn't matter. If she can sneak past me and get in there with him, she's all over it. Fortunately Hudson finds the whole thing just as fun and exciting as she does, so...well, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Poor Hudson is still trying to wake up here...and Sophia is in full effect.

Sophia gets her full bounce on...travels the length of the crib in one bounce.

I couldn't capture it in a picture, but when Huddy gets real excited he starts head banging.

Yes, they've crashed into each other and bounced off the rails of the bed. And no, neither cares in the least when this happens. They simply both laugh, hop up, and start bouncing again. Siblings...gotta love them!

Today's activities:
Laundry...did three loads, it wasn't nearly enough
Sorted through baby toys that we're keeping and getting rid of...sniff!
Work
Isabelle's soccer practice

Tonight's menu:
Calzones (I used this recipe as my jumping off point...my final product depends on my mood and what I have available to put inside. And I use pizza dough, not white bread dough.)
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Unbelievable-Spinach-Calzones/Detail.aspx

Sophia's swim class

Tuesday night Sophia had her first swimming class ALL BY HERSELF! She's been in the parent-tot class for about a year, and her instructor finally said it was time to move her up, even though the PS1 class technically is not for kids under the age of 3. That being said, Sophia will go under water by herself, knows basic strokes, and had completely outgrown the toddler class. The biggest question with Sophia was whether or not she would get in the water without Todd or I, and if she would go to her teacher or scream the entire time. Check out the pictures and see for yourself...

The PS (preschool) classes stand on tables under the water, which Sophia just loves. She spent the entire class, when she wasn't with the teacher, jumping up and down on the table.

Swimming out to her teacher, Karmina. As you can see, the other kids in the class are significantly bigger than Sophia. The class is for 3-5 year olds.

Here she was doing "reach and pull" with Karmina. She had such a great time!

Such a cute little thing sitting on the side of the pool waiting for her turn to jump in the water.

Her final jump in the water. We were SO proud of our little girl. She did an awesome job!! We have our second class tonight, so we'll see how it goes.