We were all trying to remember tonight what we did for Dad's last birthday. Mind you, this was only 6 months ago and we couldn't remember so we pulled it up on ol' blogger.com and there it all was. I guess with Mom and Dad aging rapidly, we better keep up on this thing. It is so nice to be able to pull up a memory with the stroke of the keyboard.
So suffice it to say, the past three-four months have been a *tad* busy. Sam is a baby and babies take time. Sam is a little high-maintenance. Not as labor intensive as other members of the family were, *ahem*, no names mentioned. Zach. But he is still a far cry from textbook. At four months old, he is much happier and content for longer periods of time. He's still Mom's little velcro baby though...sleeping with her at night and can be found boobside most of the time. He's definitely more aware of the rest of the family now and in more of a routine. No teeth or rolling over yet, but he enjoys sitting in his highchair and observing everyone. He also loves, loves, loves Zach to pieces. Zach knows this and has really been an awesome big brother. He's such a help to Mom during the day and is very patient with Sam. Zach gets put on the back burner a lot between my hours of homework and Sam's needs, but he's doing really well.
Speaking of Zach, he's been going to preschool M,W & F this year with tumbling on Tuesdays. Thursdays are the "nothing" days that him and Mom enjoy the most. All of a sudden this past month or so, he's taken a huge interest in learning and is really making progress on counting, number/letter recognition and phonics. Mom was starting to wonder if he was going to show some interest and has not been pushing anything. Fortunately he came around on his own and is doing well.
I am doing pretty well myself. My first nine weeks yielded all A's and one B+. Our grading scale is tough... 94-100 is an A and I missed that last A by less than one percent! I'm working really hard...probably too hard in Mom's opinion but the demands in the classroom this year seem higher than ever. Mom has a lot of mixed emotions about it but I am enjoying learning and excelling. We definitely weren't expecting this year to be so tedious, but we're adjusting. I had soccer this fall and scored my first goal! I am still doing piano once a week and Girl Scouts as well. Scouting has probably been the most fun thing this year. We're super lucky to have awesome leaders that provide us plenty of fun activities and teach us plenty of great lessons.
My birthday party was great this year. We had an Angry Birds party. Susan made an amazing cake and we had a great, hot day to play outside on the waterslide! On the day of my birthday, Nana came to visit and spend the night. I got my ears pierced (ouch!) and went to Chuck E Cheese with Nana, Mom, Dad, Zach, Sam and the neighbors. I got lots of cool things like the Wimpy Kid books, craft supplies, American Girl doll clothes and fun games.
Mom and Dad are just in survival mode right now trying to keep the ship afloat. They had their anniversary last week and celebrated with a nice meal at home and a new washer and dryer...woohoo! Dad got a new job right after Sam was born. He's still with CAT but is now a supervisor in IT ... whatever that means. He is working a lot more in the evenings and is balancing managing people instead of projects but the new challenges are good for him. Mom is hoping now that Sam is a little older to get back into her routine, helping out at our schools more and getting back to the gym a little more. She ran her first 5K last week which was a pretty major accomplishment considering her training time has been limited! We finally took a trip to WI last month and got a little farming in as well. Sam went through a really rough patch of hating riding in the car, but he's way better now and we're able to travel a bit.
Halloween was a blast this year! I was a cheerleader, Zach was Optimus Prime and Sam was a ninja. Sam and Zach both won medals at the Firehouse Contest. We had fun trick or treating with our neighbors and the weather was perfect for it.
That's our fall in a nutshell. Hopefully we'll get the chance to give the blog a little more attention in the next couple of months.
Mom ALSO decided this year we're going to start getting real Christmas trees. She must be on a Holiday kick now that we're getting older. I protested profusely because I didn't want to cut down a tree. After some convincing and promises that a new one would be planted in the old one's honor, I reluctantly agreed. We were lucky the temps were in the 40s and all we had to deal with was a little mud. We found a place about 5 miles from the house which worked out well. They did not have a great selection of trees, but being our first time, we weren't very picky. Mom and us probably would've been happy with one of the first dozen we saw, but we spent about half an hour chasing Dad around the fields so he could have a look at every single one. It's a good thing because I'd have to say we did end up finding the perfect tree. It was HUGE but we helped Dad cut it and he tied it down the best he could. The car ride home was nerve wracking as the darn thing kept sliding backwards off the roof and Sam (who was VERY good during the process), was screaming at the very tippity top of his lungs the entire ride home. Not to mention the line of cars behind us on the highway, not happy to be going 30mph on a 55mph road!! Mom kept singing and smiling. Zach had his ears plugged. I was frowning. Sam was screaming. And Dad was just trying to ignore it all I think. He had to pull over once to tie 'er back down but we made it home finally! One last trimming and it was up in the house. We decorated it later that night and it smells amazing. We all agreed after the fact, it was definitely worth it!
