This and That

oh friends. I have gotten dangerously close to giving up on blogging. Remember how gung ho I was just a month or two ago, but now I see why so many friends have fizzled away. Its not even that I am too busy, in fact things feel a bit slow around here. And really with this crazy crew around here, I do have things to blog about. But its more the feeling of, I don't really feel like it. But I will not give up, cuz in general I am a major giver upper. Ritch and I even laughed at this thought when we were considering enrolling Parker in scouts, well, if he is anything like us, he'll give up eventually. We kinda took comfort in that too, I know weird. So I will try my hardest to not give up.

Also I can't find my camera charger, so my camera is not a trusty friend to this blog these days.

But here are some things that have been going on. Cooper celebrated his much anticipated generic bday at Chuck E Cheese. It was wonderful. It was at 3 o'clock on a Friday and there was't another soul there. Which was great cuz keeping up with the 10 five year olds was enough on its own. A funny story about this was that as always I went cheap. I didn't want to pay the $11 per child just so they could have pizza and a personal visit from Chuck E. so we just brought our own cake, drinks, chips and bought some tokens for everyone. Except for the fact that that fee also reserves you a table and that they didn't let our drinks and chips in, whats wrong with piling toddlers in a couple booths and not having any drinks to wash down my amazing light saber cake. Ritchey said it served me right being a cheapskate. But hey, I saved $100, thats not just chump change folks. Anyhoo, it was a sucess. My mom was in town and the fact she survived a chuck e cheese bday party and living in my own personal chuck e cheese of a home for a long weekend was testimony to how great our weekend was. (minus the fact that her new tradition is to let each child pick out their own bday gift, which is always disasterous. Cooper picked out an entirely new bedroom linen set, yes starwars, nasty scratchy comforter and matching sham and all, it is gross)

Also that weekend the boys had their first rapides junior runner race. This is the first athletic competition or group activity we have ever enrolled Cooper in, so we were curious to see how our little waif child faired. (he is 2T in waist size) And it had been a while since Parker tapped into that drive I know he has somewhere. Well, they both did great. Cooper shocked us all by coming in 4th place out of like 44 boys (6th out of 131kids), he ran the whole 1/2 mile, (with Ritchey jogging along) was beet red at the end, but loved every minute of it. And Parker also did great. He was more aggressive in his starts, and even propelled past a couple people in the homestretch, he too got 12th out of 68 boys. Ritch and I, and my mom, were so excited and so proud. What a funny feeling watching your kids work their hearts out, sweat, painful faces, achy bodies, and do so well. I was almost in tears.

And finally another great parenting idea going on here, not mine, so I can brag. My kids have gotten crazy unruly, disrespectful and disobedient (not out of malice but out of shear energy and inability to even here me barking at them). So we went back to the basics of yes mam and yes sir, no mam and no sir at every level. Because this basic level of acknowledging us, respecting and answering us, really could solve a myriad of issues. So my wonderful early educ. friend gave us the idea of the marble jar. its all about rewards with her, not removals. So every time they replied with yes mam or no sir, or whatever, they get a marble in the jar and when it is full, which it basically is after less than 2 weeks, they get to go to the dollar store. it has been genius. And it is a family jar, so Parker keeps encouraging Cooper to say yes mam as to rack up more marbles. From maybe one yes mam every couple days by our eldest only, we are at at least 10 a day. Its actually kind of annoying at times as they battle for marbles, but it is doing the trick. The energy isn't down around here, but the following guidance and answering me and doing what I ask is definitely getting better.

Here are some pics before I lost my camera case.

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That last pic is of my race for the cure 5k. I love 5ks, just hard enough to work for, but not painfully difficult. I wish they were free, I'd do one every weekend.  I kinda look like I am floating on air here, I normally look this happy and gracefull while exercising :).

ok, so thats that, my wonderul nailbiter of a blog. Sorry I never got that knowing God quote for you. Just go buy the book, it is a classic and a great "going back to the basics with marbles" kinda thing for your faith. Off to bed, alone, Ritch is off on a soul searching retreat. Its good for him, and in the end, good for us