Candi

Our schedule has gone from crazy to insane. At the end of Chase’s 3rd gymnastics class last week the teacher pulled me aside and said that he recognizes talent when he sees it. He said that he had talked with one of the other instructors and he thinks Chase needs to be moved up to a training team. I just can’t believe that this is happening so soon. I am excited, but nervous. He is so little and has no fear and I don’t want him to get hurt. Starting today he will be going twice a week for an hour and a half and will be training with 4 other boys that are around his age. We had to move Blake and Chase’s catechism classes to a different day. The same day as Andrew’s football games. I don’t know how we are going to pull this off really. We are taking it week by week. Now Ken has to pick up Andrew from football on Chase’s gymnastics days instead of me. Andrew will be eating his dinner warmed up in the microwave while Ken is at football with Blake and I am at gymnastics with Chase. Of course Karli goes wherever I go. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder how in the world we thought we were going to be able to pull off having 4 kids. I know they don’t all have to be playing sports and such and we create these situations ourselves. I do feel like my life revolves around my kids activities most of the time, but that is what we have always wanted – a big busy family. I feel grateful that our kids are able to do so much and are athletic and interested in doing more than sitting around doing nothing all day.

On the way home from gymnastics last week Chase asked me if I still have my gold medal. I was like, huh? Here he had told his gymnastics teacher that I have an Olympic medal! OH my! I told him that I never said that I was in the Olympics. I had told him that I had competed in gymnastics when I was about 12 years old and obviously he got a bit confused. Funny!

Chase had his first gymnastics class on Thursday. We decided to do a “trial class” and make sure he was going to fully participate before paying the class fees. His brothers have been giving him a hard time about gymnastics being gay (not FOR gays…just gay). They are cruel brothers I know.

So they put him with a group of boys that looked pretty close to his age, but their skills were not quite as good. Chase is much better when it comes to the floor skills, but when it came to the horse, rings, and parallel bars, he was pretty even. The kid can’t even walk through the mall without doing cartwheels. I actually have to thank a young girl next Saturday at Andrew’s baseball game. She is the one that taught Chase how to do a cartwheel like 2 years ago. I will have to get a picture for the video montage that will be aired on television years from now when Chase becomes a famous gymnast. LOL!

Here is an example of how Chase was able to lift his legs while practicing on these blocks of wood. They use these to prepare them for the pommel horse. I was so proud of him, especially when I heard other parents say, “look at that boy and how good he is doing!”

I also took a couple of little videos with my digital camera so Ken could see what types of things they were doing. After they did cartwheels the coach had Chase demonstrate to the other boys how to do a cartwheel the right way. It was adorable! Okay, I mean it was so awesome and cool! Here is a little snippet of Chase doing cartwheels. He is in all orange.

The boys are at a football game and Karli and I are having fun playing Parcheesi and watching a chic flick.
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Last night was Open House at the kid’s school. The Kindergarten students were invited to come early to meet their teachers before the school got crazy insane. We visited Karli’s class and she was super shy as usual. She walked up to her teacher like a little penguin. I hope this year will help her with her shyness. Her teacher is the same teacher that Chase had for Young 5’s and she is very kind and gentle with the kids. The exact personality that she needs I think. Karli is really excited to start school, she is most looking forward to all the art projects.

Chase got the teacher he wanted as well. He got the same first grade teacher that Blake had. She is also a very good friend of the teacher that Chase had last year so he got to know her last year a little bit. He feels very comfortable with her and she is great with younger kids, the perfect first grade teacher. Last year Chase’s Kindergarten teacher got married and this year his first grade teacher is getting married. Chase said to me, “It’s like I have a marriage disease!” I told him he wasn’t a disease, but a blessing! Another funny about Chase, we were in the car talking and he was saying how when he gets done with elementary school, then he has to go to high school (he skipped junior high), and then college, and then become a parent. I told him that you don’t have to be a parent, that it is your choice if you want to have kids when you grow up. He said, “just like it’s my choice what kind of job I have?” Then he asked, “Is college going to teach me what to be when I grow up?” And then he said, “I think I am just going to pick something that I am real good at because that will make my job the easiest”. He said, “If I am fast at driving, I might have to be a race car driver”. I said, “I sure hope not because that job is dangerous!” He goes, “I will have to think more about safe jobs so you don’t have a heart attack, or maybe I should just be a doctor so I can take care of you!” Gotta love him.

Blake unfortunately did not get to meet his teacher at Open House. He had to leave before she arrived because he had football photo day. I stopped by his classroom before I left to drop off his school supplies and luckily his teacher is the same teacher Andrew had for 4th grade and she remembered me and is excited about having Blake. His teacher is taking maternity leave for the first 2 months of school though. The sub that he will have is one of the school’s reading literacy coaches and he knows her as well. We are so thrilled with all the teachers that the kids got this year.

Tomorrow we are taking the day off work. We are taking our traditional trip to BD’s Mongolian BBQ for our last dinner out before back to school. It’s a silly excuse to go really. We just like to fit it in whenever we can. It’s about an hour away so we make a day trip of it and shop and whatever else we feel like doing that day.

I had to take Chase to the dentist because I thought his adult tooth was loose. He lost his top front tooth about 6 months ago. It came out early due to being knocked so many times while playing and/or wrestling with his brothers. Finally it looked like the corner of the front tooth was coming in. Last night Chase came downstairs with a tiny piece of tooth in his hand. He said it came off the tooth that was coming in. I was almost in tears when I felt the tooth that was sticking out of his gum and noticed it was loose. Sure enough, $76 later, after a visit to the dentist and an x-ray it is his baby tooth. It was probably a portion of the baby tooth that was still up in his gum and is now moving it’s way down. The adult tooth is safe and sound inside his gum.

Today in the mail we received notice that our health insurance (we are self employed and carry our own insurance through Blue Cross) monthly premium is going up 25%, to $473 a month. I know, that doesn’t seem that high to some. But considering our deductible is $3000 a year, we are basically paying for health insurance on the off chance one of us becomes injured or majorly sick. Otherwise we don’t even use the insurance! Well the kids well visits are covered, as well as my yearly pap. Yippee!

I have a crazy amount of paperwork, health cards, info cards, etc. that are suppose to be filled out for 3 kids by their Open House tomorrow night. Why can’t this school get computerized? It is almost 2010 for goodness sake!

I leave you with another one of Karli’s photographs. Whenever she sees my little digital camera laying around she starts snapping pictures. This is the view from her bedroom window. The rest of the photos she took were of toys in her room. She says she wants to be an artist when she grows up…too cute. She colors all the time, like pretty much every day. The other day she told me that she is going to be an artist, not because she chooses to be an artist, but because God made her this way.

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You know your husband is a better sales person than you when you take your kid to the Pediatrician and he is giving the doctor our business card and telling him that we have openings if he knows anyone who is looking. I could never have enough guts to do that! It’s just so pushy.

Blake’s exam at the Pediatrician was fine. The doctor thinks that it is a mixture of anxiety and also that he isn’t warming up enough before he starts running at full speed. He was told to take it easy in the beginning and see if that helps. Blake is only in his 25th percentile for height and weight. Why did Ken and I have to produce such small boys? Geez.

Andrew had to get new cleats for football today. He is now at the point where he needs different cleats for football and baseball. This sports crap is getting expensive.

Karli just came upstairs and said Shaggy, our fixed male dog… “was on my back and shaking his booty all over me!”