Soccer activities

Julianne started soccer two weeks ago. Her very first game ever was last Sunday and she just had her second game today. She did an excellent job trying hard to get the ball and not being so passive this Sunday. She actually went for the ball and was more into the game today than she was last week. It was raining last weekend so I did not take any pictures but I took a bunch today and I got to capture her in action. Her first game she pretty much just ran after the ball and never really wanted to touch it. She was happy to just run and be by the ball but she did not want to steal it from anyone or have it to herself. Today she had about 10 seconds of her dribbling the ball down the field all by herself and I think it really helped her realize what soccer is about. D asked her if she liked it and she said that she did and she wanted to score after that. After those 10 seconds she was in the game. She would run after the ball and try to get more into the game. So we were really proud of her and glad that she is really having fun with soccer.

These are pictures from her practice and from todays game. I had a great time taking pictures of Mallory and Nathan during her practice. Nathan loves balls and he will play with them anywhere he can. Mallory had fun playing on the school equipment and playing hopscotch. She just loves school. She loves her teacher and we see her teacher all the time since her daughter also plays soccer with Julianne so Mallory loves seeing her and watching her take care of her kids.


















Nathan loved playing with his ball in the water.


This week and next week I am putting Nathan on a gluten-free diet. Since the skin is an organ and it is reacting to something going on either outside his body or inside I really want to find out what is disrupting his skin so much that he itches so hard that he makes himself bleed from all his deep scratches. I have been reading some stuff about diets and eczema and I have tried eliminating milk/dairy and that did not work and the only thing I have not tried is wheat/gluten. So that is what we are trying this week and next. So on Friday night I went and spent 65 dollars on gluten free food. Since he does not really eat too much I really just had to buy some cereal, bread, noodles, crackers/pretzels and I bought some small desserts. So we will see. We have been putting his prescription Elidel on his skin twice a day for the past two weeks because I kind of gave up on trying to holistically or minimally treat his eczema. So his legs look pretty good right now but we will stop using the Elidel for right now and see if the elimination diet works. I am a little hopefully since I loved that giving up peanut products got rid of the eczema on his head but I am not confident that this will work. So we will see.



This is Julianne at her second game. I know that she was nervous because she was sticking her fingers in her mouth.



I lover her tongue.

Now she is charging after the ball!!! Go Julianne

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Lovely cooler weather today
-seeing Julianne and her inner fighter girl have fun on the soccer field
-easy to read food labels for gluten free food (do you know how many foods have Gluten in them? A lot)

Nathan's first day of preschool

Nathan's first day of preschool was Monday. He was as excited as a two year old would be and he did very well. My friend is one of the teachers in the classroom so that helped him feel more comfortable. He keep talking about "going to school". So he had a great day and he is looking forward to going back tomorrow.





Julianne's friends birthday party was last night. She has three friends over and they decorated tee shirts and had a lot of fun. The shirts were very cute. We ironed on their name and other fun little designs. The girls then further decorated them with paint and markers. They are all planning on wearing them on Monday. So that will be fun for them. The girls stayed up probably until about 1:00 a.m. They were crazy and wild around 10:00 pm. and we had to send them downstairs. D slept on the couch in the TV room and I slept upstairs with Mallory. Mallory and I had our own sleep over in my bed. We went to bed around 10:30 pm. In the morning D fixed his traditional Sunday morning breakfast and they all loved it. One of Julianne's friends said she did not want to eat D's eggs becasue she only eats her dad's eggs. It was kind of funny. Another one of Julianne's friends told D that he could not make them go to sleep. He went down at 12:30 a.m. and told them that they could not be loud anymore that they needed to wisper and go to sleep and that is when she told him that. It was interesting.




This is the next morning. Julianne and her friend were the first to wake up so they came upstairs. We also got our new TV room couch and this is it. It is much larger, wider and more comfortable than our old one. We put the old one in the basement and took the old, old, old basement couch and put it in our garage for someone to pick it up. Our new couch is great because D and I can both snuggle and fit onto the new couch.

Here are the girl sleeping. Julianne is a little spoiled because she really wanted to sleep on the air mattress. Whatever happened to sleeping on the carpet? We all did that. Oh well, it was her birthday.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Running in the early morning.
-Having 3 hours on Mondays with just Mallory, she never gets alone time with me.
-Seeing Julianne interact with her friends.

Happy 8th B-day to Julianne

Well Julianne officially turned 8 on the tenth of this month. I can not believe that she is 8 years old. First of all, it seems like she is just growing up way to fast. Additinally, if she is 8 than that means that I am also getting older; which I am. So it sounds wired to say I have an eight year old. Oh well. She had a great day. Another girl in her class also turned 8 on the same day, which is wired becasue this girl is the daughter of Mallory's teacher. So anyway, small world. So she took in cupcakes and shared them at lunch with the other birthday girl. Then that evening she opened her presents from us and we decided to go out to eat on Friday since D had to work late. On Friday we took her to Dave and Busters and had a great birthday meal with tons to games and tickets. Sunday we had the family over and had a great night with cake and presents. One of Julianne's friends had a Barbie cake kit that I attempted to make. It turned out pretty good. I let the kids decorate it and they had fun doing that. Then you basically stick the Barbie head into the cake. So it was not very hard. Her friend birthday party is next weekend so I will share pictures from that next weekend.


Julianne got this cute bag and book from Gigi.

She recieved 4 Webkinz from Nana.


She recived a dog and a little groovy girl from Mallory, a jewerly making set and a game from me and D got her an outfit.


Nathan was oppsessed with the camera.

Yikes.

I'm fine.

Oh and there is a crowd watching me.

I've got it all under control.



This is what she blew out on her birthdate. I made cupcakes for her b-day and for her friend birthday party.

This is the beautiful Barbie cake that we made and decorated.

Love the tongue.

Love the Barbie!!!

She wanted to lick the Barbie. The adult men got a kick out of that. I will not elaborate on that issue. We have it on tape.

She recived some really cool gifts. A bag that you decorate from Aunt Eliza and Uncle Wes, a print screen tool for shirts from counsins Caitlyn, Andrew, and Jacob. Grandma and Grandpa bought clothes and shoes for her. Her favorite gift of all is her new DS from Mimi and Roger. Aunt Crystal and Brian already gave her a decorated box full of writing paper and pens so that they could write each other.

So it was a great week. Mallory is going very well in school. Julianne starts soccer this week so I will be intersted to see how that goes. Nathan starts school this week also so I need to get him ready for it. That is about it.

I also started work this week. The first day was the usual human resource talks and procedures. I watched videos on the history of the company, fire safety, sexual harrasment. That afternoon I recieved my computer and got it all set up and tried to figure out my e-mail and the network. Friday I met with the environmental engineer and talked to him for a long time about what he is doing and what he wants to see done. Additionally, in the afternoon we toured the plant and looked at all the trash and recycling bins and talked about all the stuff he deals with in the plant. So next week is a busy week with all the managers coming in so I will be attending some meetings and dinners and then I will begin meeting with departments starting next Friday. So we will see how it goes.

Nathan was bit by a bug or spider earlier this week and his cheek was very swelled up and hard. It was so cute becasue he kind of looked like a chipmunk. So I tired to captuer it in these pictures but could not really capture the breath of the swelling. I always swell up a lot from bug/spider/bee stings and I think his allergies do not help in these situations also.




Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing how excited Mallory was for Julianne to open her presents. They hearing her say that she "knew that Julianne would be excited about her gifts since she knows what she likes."
-Having an 8 year old daughter
-Starting to use my brain again at work.
-not having to use the air conditionar for the past two weeks. Great cool nights.

Getting settled

Well we are finally getting settled into our school routine. Well at least the girls are. Nathan does not start school for a few more weeks. Mallory has been doing great transitioning into Kindergarten. When I dropped her off on Monday she went right in and then came running back out crying. I think she ran and did not really see anyone and did not know what to do so she ran back out and became very clingy. Well the teacher got her to go back in and then I talked to her about it after school and she told me that she did not know what she was suppose to be working on so then she got worried and came back out. So the next day I asked her teacher to explain what she was suppose to be doing after we drop them off and while she is waiting for everyone to get there. So she told Mallory that she is suppose to be writing her name down and then graphing herself in (meaning signing herself in). So this helped and for the rest of the week she did really well. She loved the extra activities that they get to do in kindergarten such as going to the "book room" (aka library), gym and music. So she loves going now and there is another Mallory in her class and that has helped in the social aspect. They are now best buds and it helped her remember her name. She also has an Andrew and a Jacob in her classroom so that makes it easier to remember those names since they are also her cousin's names.

I finally finished the girls Oliver + S Birthday Party Dress. This dress took me three weekends of blood sweat and frustration. I pretty much understood all the directions and it was pretty easy to assemble except for the sleeves. For some reason I could not understand what they wanted me to do in order to sew the sleeves together. So I ended up hand sewing them and they turned out beautiful but I was still frustrated that I could not get the directions. Oh well. The dresses are one size larger than their measurements since the last dresses I made for them were a little sung. The girls like them. I will not say love because they really don't love them. Our conservative Julianne is worried that her butt will be seen with only the buttons in the back. So I am going to try to find a shirt and tights so they can also wear them in the wintertime. If I were to make them again I would try to line up the birds on Julianne's dress and make them more symmetrical. When you cut the fabric you place the wrong sides of the fabric together and make two sides from one cut. So I lined up the top one so that the birds were in the middle of the panel but I forgot to pay attention to the other side so that is they the birds are a little off. Oh well.






We also had our second annual campout in our backyard this weekend. It was a lot of fun. The kids enjoyed playing in the tent and roasting marshmallows in the evening with our neighbors. Nathan slept inside and of course I had to sleep with him so I slept in our bed while D slept with the girls in the tent. It was a cool evening so I know that it was comfortable for them.








D also passed his oral examine for his license. He is now officially a licensed phschologist. So we are very proud of him for all his hard work and determination for completing the long process to becoming a licensed psychologist. Now he does not have any test hanging over his head and is very happy for that reason. He started his new job at the two private practices and is so far liking his new found freedom of being his own boss (or I guess his clients are his boss).

I think that is about it. Julianne's birthday is coming up and we have not even planned her friend party. she wants to have a sleep over so we will probably be doing that within the next few weekends.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-D finishing his long process to becoming a licensed physchologiest
-Seeing how happy Mallory is with school
-getting back to a regular schedule