4/15 - The past week

I left last weekend on Friday and drove down to Florida to attend the Alumni Gymnastics Reunion and also watch the Regional Meet which Florida hosted. It was a fast trip but fun trip. Here is a group shot of most of us. The picture is a little blurry. I'm in the bottom row, third in from the left. Quite a few of my teammates showed up which was great. It was fun visiting with them.

 I left a package at home for the boys and it was the giant floor dinosaur puzzle. Brad sent me a picture of it once Aiden put it all together.

Here is a picture that Brad sent me on Saturday night. The boys went to McDonalds for dinner and Aiden was a little distracted and was cleaning the slide!!! 

While in Florida, I stopped at Jacksonville on Friday night and stayed with my friend Sue. It's always great to see her. She sent back a few goodies for the boys. I drove back to Alabama on Sunday morning and made it home right after the boys went down for naps. When they woke up I got some massive hugs and then showed them what Mrs. Sue gave them. These are small tennis racquets (kid size I guess). The boys had a blast. Eli is actually pretty darn good. Aiden does a great job making contact as well but he gets discouraged quite easy. Eli was a champ and kept practicing and made a few pretty good hits. 


Sue also gave us a small basketball hoop. It's actually a pretty big one but it can adjust to be short. The boys enjoyed playing with that too. She even gave us a basketball which is smaller than normal. We have lots of outside stuff to keep us active outside now. :)

Sue

One of the other goodies Sue gave us was the Hallaballo game. I've been wanting to get it and she said she had it and didn't use it anymore so she passed it down to me. Aiden was having a blast doing it. You put all these discs with pictures down on the floor and turn on this machine and it tells you what to do. "Twirl to a red pad" or "hop to triangle."We played it as a family quite a few times.
 
The boys took pictures at daycare a few weeks ago. It was an old-time theme and I finally got to see the pictures that were taken. They turned out so cute. Here are just 3 of them. Eli looked so stinkin' cute in all of his pictures. I just love his fishing one below and how his little toes are curled up. Aiden liked the one of him with the gun (rather than fishing pole) and it also had a slightly-less-forced-smile than the other one too so that's the one I got of him.

The boys are doing such a good job at becoming more independent. They have toothbrush timers and know that they have to keep brushing until the go off. Here is little Eli getting ready for bed. It cracks me up that he doesn't actually like to us his light-up timer toothbrush to brush; he just wants to use the timer function on it and use another brush to clean his teeth. Aiden is NOT a fan of timer although I'm not sure why because he likes concrete rules and such.

We got 2 new games this week. I've been researching games to get and finally figured out what I wanted. One of them is called 'Hiss' and Aiden is playing it to the left. It's a fun game where you get to make snakes using colors. He is in love with this game and Brad and I have both played it at least a half dozen times in just a few days.

The other game that I got is called Sneaky Snacky Squirrel. It's a game that Eli can play and works on color matching, motor control, sharing, and taking turns. He is at a tough age because he's just starting to realize that he has to follow the rules for the games. He would rather just take the pieces of the game and mess around with them and use his other toys to store them in. He eventually defaults back to Mr. Potato Head. He LOVES that toy and has decided that he will have a Mr. Potato Head birthday party. I think that could be lots of fun. Aiden has chosen a dinosaur theme this year for his birthday. Back to Eli, here is a picture of one of his latest creation. He said this was an a "sad crazy" Mr. Potato Head." 

I've recently realized that I don't really have any short/short-sleeve PJ's for Eli. I guess Aiden just skipped a size. I recently had to get Aiden new PJ's because he outgrew (for his comfort level) his 4T jammies that are supposed to fit snuggly. Here are a pair of his new pj's which I just LOVE. 

We went to IHOP on Friday night for dinner. The boys love this place and they especially love the music that plays out by the front door. We got there and they just started dancing for a while and all the people inside were laughing. It was too funny. Once we were done eating, we let the boys dance for a while. Here is a video of their dancing skills. They crack me up. The each had their own bench which they called their stages. I have no idea where Aiden has gotten some of his dance skills. They are very unique. 

On Saturday, we went to Pratt Park (castle park) in the afternoon. The boys wanted to show daddy a new path we discovered the last time I took them there. Eli headed straight for the water of course and started throwing rocks. After we explored for a while, Eli and I headed back up towards the playground and Aiden and Brad stayed down in the new area and continued to explore. Little Aiden could walk all day exploring and be perfectly happy. One day he and Papa are gonna have a great time walking around on dad's property and Aiden will ask Papa a million questions (and Papa will have the answer to all of them probably).

Eli had fun back on the playground. We played race cars for a bit. Here is Eli working on the track (it's a finger maze) and while he did that, I ran around to the other area of the playground and then ran back. This is a great method to get the boys some exercise :) Aiden and Brad finally wandered over to the entrance but then saw some other kids playing in the canal. Aiden said he wanted to go down in the water and Brad told him that was fine but he had to take his shoes and socks off. Well, that didn't go so well. Aiden said he wanted to wear his shoes and socks in the water. It was pretty gross water so I'm glad Aiden didn't really get in.

Sunday was picture day at church. We all went to sunday school and then church. Once we got home, we had lunch and played for a bit before rest time. The boys had on cute matching outfits on sunday. They are so precious.

Eli takes a while to wake-up sometimes and he decided he would curl up and cuddle with me while he was trying to wake up. I know this won't last forever and soak up every minute of the cuddle time. Eli is turning in to such a caring little boy. If ever I ask him to pray for me, he will and it's so cute. Brad's back has been bothering him and I've prayed for it with the boys before and then Eli will just randomly asked Brad "how is your back daddy?" He has started to melt my heart with a new saying he has picked up somewhere. He'll ask for help with something and I'll help him and then he responds with "it's good to have a friend like you." It makes me smile every time. 

9/12/11 - Club Gymnastics Reunion

On Saturday, we had a reunion for our old club gymnastics coach, Mary Linnemeyer. I reconnected with Mary a few months ago (she lives in Jax) and thought it would be great for all of us to get together. We met in St. Pete at Harvey's 4th Street Grill. There ended up being about 16 girls that came throughout the meeting and about a dozen parents. It was great catching up with everyone. The first picture is Mary with all of the former gymnasts that were there at the beginning of the meeting (around 11:00am).

We also took a picture with the parents and Mary. With as much traveling and time spent with Mary, many of the parents became quite close to her. Oh yeah, Mary is wearing a black shirt, black pants, and has long hair.

As many of the girls and parents will attest, she looks exactly the same as she did 10+ years ago when she coached us. Below is a picture of Breck and I. We were on optional team at the same time.

Below is a group of some of us. I was the oldest one at LaFleur's (it's now called Tampa Bay Turners) and was in a lower level than many of the girls younger than me. I started gymnastics really late and only competed for 5 years (1990 - Level 5; 1991 - Level 6; 1992 - Level 6; 1993 - Level 8 (93/94 was a double season for me), 1994 - Level 9) and then I graduated. Many of the girls in the picture below were in Level 10 for almost as many years as I competed total. Anyway, it was great getting to see everyone. Two of the girls below went you University of Illinois and competed, two went to UF (myself and Krissy - in the gator outfit), and Breck went to Nebraska for a year.

My mom went for part of the time too which was fun. This is a good picture of both of us even though she hates her picture being taken.

Here is one more group shot at the table I was sitting at.

In the picture below is Tiffany, me, and Kelli. We all came from a different gym back in 1991 and were together for a while.

This picture is awesome. Below is myself, Mary, and Kelli. I'll have to post another picture (once I find it) of all of us about 15 yrs ago. Kelli and I were great friends and really competitive. In the year that we competed a double season (August - December for Level 6 and Jan - May for Level 8), we won the awards Optional "Re" and "Pete." One of us would learn a new optional skill and then the other would quickly follow!

And finally, here is a picture of Mary and I. We butted heads because we were both hard-headed but Mary was a good, tough coach. She did make her gymnasts the best they could be. Because I started gymnastics so late, I had lots of learning left so I thankfully got to walk-on to the University of Florida team which I never thought would happen. Level 9's don't go to UF, even to walk-on.

Brad kept the boys by himself from Friday afternoon to Saturday night, which is when I returned. I'll post some pictures of the boys tonight or tomorrow. Eli turns 2 in just a couple days. Where has the time gone??