Serena's First Swim Meet

Hi to all! I am finally stepping into the high tech world. I just wanted to let all of you know that Serena has joined the DACC swim team this winter. She has found something that she is really passionate about....and....oh yah, she is pretty good at it too. Now that I have a blog I will start posting more often.

I would like to add her video to this, but I am not that good yet....ha ha.... I am going to try really hard to keep in touch as to what is going on in our lives through this. Since I have not had my childrens pictures taken in almost 2 years, I guess I will find some candids to put in this.

This picture was taken in Sept 2008 at the Great Escape. The girls had begged a few times this summer to get their face painted and so I finally gave in. The adult in the picture was the artist who painted their faces. Then there is Serena with some sort of green flowery type paint, Alexis with hearts, Gabrielle with a big pink fish, and Anthony with a blue bat. They were all so excited! A list of our gang that was there on this day: Charity, Serena, Gabrielle, Alexis, Nicole (Shayne's girlfriend), Briana (my niece), Jason (my cousin and his family), Lizzette, Anthony, Nicolas, JJ.

It was really nice to have the cousins and great friends be able to share these good times together. I feel blessed that they have each other.

We recently hosted our first ever pumpkin carving party. The plan was to meet at the pumpkin patch and then come back to my house to let the kids all carve pumpkins together and have some pizza and hang out. Of course because I planned this event you all would have to know that it was a crappy day out. I think it was rainy all day long. Needless to say that we did not go to the pumpkin patch at all this year. Everone just came to my house instead. We all had such a great time. It is really hard with all of the craziness that people have in their lives to get together as much as you would like. Think about how many times each one of you has said to someone who they truly care about that they have to get together sometime soon, and to call you. In your head the reality is that you will not get together at all. I have started to realize that maybe that toilet doesn't really need to be scrubbed, or that just hanging out in the house doing nothing is not a necessity for me anymore. I want to spend time with the people that I care about more.

Now, don't hold me to this......I just want to, and that does not mean that I don't still get exhausted by 6:00 every night. Taking care of 2 infants and my 3 girls and being the taxi cab, and still cooking and cleaning gets tiring. By the end of the day I just want to veg, as they say. I would like to make a real effort to visit at least on person a week though. Back to why I started this tought....the pumpkin carving party was GREAT!!! We have decided to do this every year. The people who were in attendance: Charity, Ed, Serena, Gabrielle, Alexis, Shayne, Nicole, briana, Terri, Keith, Jason, Lizzette, Anthony, Nick, JJ, Robert, Heather, Sarah, Jeremy, Daisy, Karla, Dick, Hunter, Hailey.

Obviously this picture is from the spring. Sue took this one, I think. Serena, Gabrielle, Briana, Gram Coons, Alexis. Yes, Briana is grabbing Alexis and pulling her in. Not much has really changed there. They still can't keep their hand off of each other. The only difference now is that when Briana grabs you to pull you in she usually is pulling you in for a quick little bite. Gotcha! It is still kind of cute. She does give kisses too, mostly to her favorite cousins though. My girls just adore her. I do too. It is nice to have a baby around that I can take care of and yet when she is sick she stays with her mom, and when she is cranky she leaves, and I don' t have to fight with her to sleep at night, and I can just love her to death all day and send her home at night. Yah for me! Takes care of any baby urge that I might ever have. Again, yah for me!

I guess that this is it for my first blog. I am going to as Robert if he can post the swim race on the blog for me on Thanksgiving. Maybe he will know how to do it easier than me. I love you all and am wishing you all a safe and happy holiday season.