Clean Sweep

Sebastian had his last meet of the season before State today, and it would suffice to say that he had a good day at the office. He had a fantastic meet and came away with seven gold medals!!! Yes, he won all 6 events and all-around! We are SO proud of him and the way he conducts himself!

Thought I would share a few of his routines with you...

Rings: 15.4


Vault: 14.9

Parallel Bars: 15.3


High Bar: 15.4


Floor: 15.5


Pommel Horse: 13.5

All-Around: 90.0

He has made it his personal goal to win parallel bars and high bar at State. He told me that one of his teammates explained to him that you only have to get first on one thing at state and they will have to call you 'state champion' for a year. *lol* I thought it was pretty funny that this little tidbit of information has motivated him the way it has! The state meet is the weekend of March 24th and 25th, so we'll see how it goes.

**********

sports nuts

We are going sports nuts around here! We're coming up on the end of the competitive season for gymnastics. Sebastian has a meet this weekend, and then we only have their State meets in March to contend with. I can see the light!!

Today I registered Isaac for lacrosse. I guess the season will be starting up just as gymnastics is winding down. And if that wasn't enough to add into the mix, Meagan is giving me pouty lips and puppy dog eyes, BEGGING me to let her play softball. Some of her friends at school are softball players, and she wants to see what it's all about. I get that. I talked to someone with the program this morning, and she said they usually have practice one day a week and games on Saturday. So maybe it could work, even with her gymnastics schedule. But there's no way to know for sure until we pay the registration fee and she gets put on a team. Hmmm... So we'll have to make a decision on that... registration ends Feb. 28th.

And speaking of sports, I have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to scrapping my sports photos. I did one layout this week, and it happens to be of Isaac playing football. Here ya go...

journaling: the concept of getting low for blocking and tackling was tough to get at first, but once you got the hang of it, you loved it! tackling & blocking drills against coaches and teammates became highlights of practices. it was great o see you having so much fun!

(Click here to view full credits)

**********

Project Life 2012: Week 4

Finally!! Week 4 is in the books...litterally. It took forever! I had SO many pictures (from 2 gymnastics meets, plus every-day life), and most of them were dark and icky... meaning LOTS of photo editing. Blech.

But here it is...


Some close ups...

I love washi tape... can I just say that I have a small addiction to washi tape. Amazon has tons of it, and I sometimes will just go online and dream shop in my mind. *sigh*

This week I also decided to add an insert of additional 4x6 photos to capture a bit more of their meets so that I had plenty of room in the main pages to capture the rest of the week.



Left side (and 4x6 insert):


Right side (and 4x6 insert):


And since you really can't see all of the journaling to get the meaning behind most of the photos, here's a recap of the week:
- after being U-Verse customers for a few years, we had Dish Network installed this week. Tired of paying so much for tv
- Banana muffins and homemade fruit roll ups for snacks
- The kids got to eat giant cookies for breakfast Monday morning
- Meagan drug all her doll houses and little creatures up from the basement. That stuff takes over the world when it leaves the basement.
- A pig. Just one of the many random things you can hope to find floating around our house at any given time. Random.
- And of course, 2 gymnastics meets... one on Sunday, one the next Saturday.

**********

seriously.

Seriously.

Having a job with hours in the middle of the day has really thrown a kink in my routine. I've got to really work on rearranging the way I use the hours I have available so that I can get a few
more things accomplished... including blogging. But honestly, I don't know what I can blog about that would be all that interesting at the moment. So assume THIS for all the days I don't blog: I got up, got the kids off to school, ate breakfast, did a wee little bit around the house, went to work, picked the kids up from school, took someone to gymnastics, made dinner, got everyone through homework and showers, went to bed. That pretty much sums up daily life around here these days.

Even so, there ARE little things in each day that make that day special. Today's special little moments...

* Meagan learned to tie shoes! She had to get new shoes, due to the fact that her old tennis shoes were completely falling apart. She chose shoes with ties. I showed her once, and Sebastian showed her once. After 2 tries, she got it! Now she's a pro. Love that!
* Sebastian got his kip on high bar at practice today! For many of you, this will mean nothing, but trust me when I say that kips are some of the hardest things to learn at first, and they're a foundation for almost everything else on bars. So the fact that he got this is major big! His coach made him a bet, and Sebastian won $1.50 for making 3 kips in a row! Sweet!
* I epically failed at dinner tonight. We had Wendy's. It was not so good. And of course, it never fails that someone's order was screwed up. Tonight it was mine. I swear 'no mayonaise' translates to 'extra' sometimes. *sigh*
* We're reading the 3rd book of How to Train Your Dragon right now, so that was our bedtime story. We don't get to read every night, but the kids always love the nights that we do get to read a bit.
* The day off of school for President's Day. I started gutting our master closet so I can make an attempt to organize and arrange it better. Right now, it's just a mess.

**********

Time Marches On

One more layout to share with you. This one makes me a little sad. Maybe not sad... maybe reflective? No, a little sad.


Journaling: 2 different pictures... the 1st was taken in 2010 on our front porch in Michigan. The 2nd was taken in 2011 on our front porch in Indiana. Even though these pictures have so many similarities, I can't help thinking about all that has changed in the time that flew by in between these 2 photos. So much has changed, while less has stayed the same. I am reminded by these two captured moments that I must treasure each and every moment, taking nothing for granted because time goes by so very quickly.

(Click here to view full credits)

**********

February BYOC

I am SO late getting these layouts up to share with you. So I'm going with 'better late than never.' How's that? Again this month, the Lilypad's BYOC is GORGEOUS! And I didn't have nearly enough time to use all the amazing stuff I wanted to use! MUST find time to go back and use everything at least once because I love it all!

I did manage to get 2 layouts done with it...

The first is just an everyday page of Meagan and her Pet Shop toys. Everywhere. They take over the house. But she loves them.

Journaling: 'pet shop love is still going strong. she still loves to get her animals out and set up shop in the middle of the floor.'

(Click here to view full credits)


The second, I did for a Digi Dare... 29 (because this year is Leap Year, so Feb has 29 days) reasons I love my kiddo... he's a pretty cool kid!

Journaling: "29 of the ten billion reasons I love you...

1. Your heart for God is inspiring 2. You look past others' imperfections 3. You see the value in each individual 4. You are patient 5. You are humble 6. Your imagination is incredible 7. You have a great sense of humor 8. You are super smart 9. You are a loyal and faithful friend 10. You befriend the friendless 11. You will go out of your way to do what is good 12. You take correction with a good attitude 13. You encourage others 14. You are slow to get angry 15. You're passionate 16. You can laugh at yourself 17. You draw awesome comics 18. You are a very talented writer 19. I love to watch you do gymnastics 20. You don't try overly hard to impress others 21. Your self worth isn't wrapped up in what others think 22. You still come in and snuggle me in the mornings before school 23. You put others before yourself 24. You are unselfish...(most of the time) 25. You have a gentle spirit 26. You are generous 27. You dare to dream 28. You love to have fun 29. You make me happy"

(Click here to view full credits)

**********

weekend

So much has happened since last Tuesday... we've been on the go go go in quite the non-stop fashion, so I've not had time to sit and post anything.

Circle of Stars was this weekend. Friday I picked up trophies and dropped them off at the meet venue... then went straight to work... then went straight home to get Bas off the bus... then straight back to school to pick up Isaac and Meagan... then we had to go to the store to buy a birthday gift for Meagan's friend (party on Saturday), and then home for dinner, which I didn't get to eat because I didn't get it done in time before I left to take Sebastian to gymnastics. Then at 10:00 we (my mom and I) went back to the meet venue to help set up the awards stage. We were there until almost midnight. *sigh* It was quite the day.

Saturday was the 1st day of competition or Circle of Stars for the boys. 3 sessions. Long day. Very fun to watch the level 9 and 10 boys compete. Plus, I saw an old friend from childhood... a guy that I went to gymnastics with, grew up with, went to school with, etc. It was really REALLY odd running into anyone from my hometown HERE. But cool.

Sunday morning Sebastian competed. And did GREAT!! He ended up winning 1st on High Bar, Floor, and Parallel Bars, 2nd on Rings, 3rd on Pommel Horse, and 1st All Around!! Yea! He did fabulous! And I would share some of the videos with you, except I managed to lose my camera case at the meet, and thus the adapter that lets me transfer images from my camera to the computer. Boo. Not so happy about that.

We left Sebastian's meet and went straight to Meagan's meet. By the time we sat through his meet, though, she was wiped. She didn't feel great. She barely ate lunch (a few nibbles), then complained of a stomach ache and fell asleep in the van on the way to the meet. No bueno. She had a good meet actually, although you wouldn't know it by the scores or awards. But she had set 4 meet goals for herself, and she made 3 of them... 1) bridge kick-over on the floor, 2) body position on vault, 3) stay on the beam!! She scored an 8.7 on beam, and got an 11th place award, so at least she didn't walk away empty-handed... after her brothers morning of cleaning house in the medals department, I don't think that would have been too pretty for her to get nothing.

So yes, we had a LONG weekend. And I have a lot to get caught up on... not the least of which is sleep, or groceries, or laundry. I might see if I can get something accomplished before I have to leave for work. Laundry and grocery list maybe?

Oh, by the way, I've finished the 1st 2 books of the Hunger Games trilogy, and am dying to download the 3rd to finish! I am super surprised by how much I've enjoyed this story so far. So maybe I'll try to squish some reading time in there somewhere. I hope.

**********