Swimming Lessons

Last month we put Jeter and Jerzi in swimming lessons for their first time ever.  It was definitely time for them to learn.  I was recommended to the Houston Swim Club by a couple different people.  It is way overpriced, but we (meaning I) thought it was worth it.  Mainly just cuz I want them to learn not only how to swim, but to swim correctly, and good.  I never had swimming lessons and didn't really have tons of opportunities to go swimming.  

I always wished I would have.  

Like on the day our 6th grade class went to Porter Park to swim for our end of the school year party.  All my friends were jumping off the diving boards, having swimming races across the pool, or having diving contests and I just had to hang onto the edge in the deep end and watch while they played. 

Or all the times I've actually been seriously afraid for my life in the water. 

And right now I want to do a triathlon so bad, but I'm a terrible swimmer and know that I couldn't make the swimming portion of it. :(

So with all of my fears and insecurities about water, I went ahead and paid the ridiculous price they asked, and for the most part have been pretty happy with the results. They both started in a beginner level and got moved up after 2 weeks. 

The last day of their beginner classes.

I LOVE to go and watch them learn and see how good they're doing!  I texted Had all throughout their lessons play by play to let him know how awesome they were doing too. I know I'm a little biased, but both kids were such little studs, with no fear.  Both their teachers told me that they are ahead of the other kids in their classes by far and are both going to be awesome swimmers.  And Jerzi actually talked to her teacher!  I was a little afraid of how that was going to go down, since she won't ever talk to other people, but whenever she was asked a question, she would answer.  YAY!!! 

(That's big improvement for her.)

Jerzi is pretty lucky.

 She got good hair, good skin, and she looks cute with her gut poking out.

Quick story.

One of the kids in Jete's class is named Sy.  Well one day his teacher was asking them if they've ever watched Duck Dynasty cuz "Uncle Sy" is on that show.  All the other kids looked at the teacher like "huh?"  Jete was all excited his teacher knew that show and told him "Oh yeah, I love Duck Dynasty!"  Then Jete pipes up..."Do you ever watch Larry the Cable Guy?" 

(Of course he doesn't mention its Larry the Cable Guy's "Only in America" show.)

His teacher laughed, and as Jete swam, asked Jete what other kinds of shows he watches.  Awesome!  Luckily, he answered Looney Toons and Tom and Jerry.

 Proud parent moment....oh wait, not so much.

So normally the parents would sit on the other side of those 2-way windows.  The kids couldn't see us, but we could see them.  But on the last day, we got to come in and watch and take pictures.

Each class only has 4 kids in it.  This is Jete's class.  The black guy was his teacher.  

Jete's the one that is already at the wall.  In Jete's class they taught him how to kick, glide, how to use his arms, how to swim by himself using proper technique, and side breathing.

Jerzi's class was to mainly teach them safety.  Like if they fell in, how to roll to their backs and float, how to move themselves along the edge to the steps, breath control, feel comfortable with their faces in the water.  Jerz got the floating thing down!  We love to watch her do this.

So proud!

The bad thing now...they're both way too confident for the skills they have.  So on to more swimming lessons.

Memorial Day/Weekend

When you're not around family's or friend's graves, what are you supposed to do on Memorial Day?  Had didn't have to work the whole weekend.  So we had to take advantage, and I'll tell you what we did.  We "hauled our cookies all the way to the beach". (movie trivia?)  We packed a little lunch and snacks and had a lot of fun.  It was a cloudy day, but still like 89 degrees, so it was good.   

We played in the waves, rode boogie boards, swam, people watched, and Had attempted to surf.
The beach is always a good time.
 Jeter and Jerzi only asked about sharks a handful of times.
Maybe it wasn't the greatest idea we ever had to let them watch Soul Surfer with us.

The kids got sand castle building supplies for Easter and have been dying to use them.  So right when we got there, we got to work.

Here it is, all said and done.
I love how proud Jete and Jerz both look.

Oh wait, not done. 

We have to add water to the moat, of course.  What was I thinking?

And when we got all done, they immediately wanted to wreck it.  

Ugh...all that work, gone in an instant!

This was actually Saturday that we went to the beach. Sunday we went to church, took naps and played corn hole and bocce ball out in our yard with our neighbors.  Monday me and Had played a few games of tennis while Jete and Jerz played in the splash pad, and park.  Then we came home and did yard work, then all crashed.  It was such a great weekend!  We love holidays Had doesn't have to work!

Family Fun Run

Our stake puts on an annual family fun run day, complete with a 5K, 1 mile fun run, games, prizes, bounce houses, and all sorts of treats.  We went to it last year, and had a good time.  Jete loved racing last year, so we did it again this year.  Had was able to join us this time, so it was even better than last.

I have to mention this first because I think it's of importance, not really for me, but for Jeter.  The night before we ran in our races, we rode an 11 mile bike ride.  Jeter learned how to ride his bike with no training wheels this spring, so he rode the 11 miles all by himself!   (And we took Flat Stanley with us cuz he/she wanted to see Texas.) 

Before the big race

Had ran the 1 mile with Jete and Jerz, so I could do the 5K right after.  He said they were going too fast to even let Jerzi get out of the stroller this time.  This is a little bit before the finish line, when Jete started to "pour it on". 

Done.  Yay, good job Jeter!

So after riding 11 miles the night before, Jeter still woke up bright and early and rocked his race.  He did sooo good.  We were so proud.  He got 5th overall and his time was 6 minutes, 15 seconds!!!  We couldn't really believe it.  That's a fast mile for anyone, let alone a 5 year old.  Me and Had didn't believe it actually, but they claimed it was 1 mile.

Me on the other hand, well lets just say I can't be as fast as I used to be if I don't ever run.  HAHA

I seriously didn't do much of any kind of running before this.  Maybe like 5 times in the month and a half before this.  I kept thinking, "ahh, it's only 3.1 miles.  I don't really need to train."  Then the day before the race, I started getting all nervous, like I would before my races in high school and college. 

 Everyone kept telling me, "It's just for fun.  Why would you get nervous over this?"

When I would tell them that I wanted to do good, they were like, well if you haven't trained, then just run for fun, and train for a different race.  Well, people that say that don't know me and my fam well enough I guess.  We don't run in races for fun.  We're much too competitive for that.  We run in races to do good, to get a good time, or to win.  It was a sad day for me to run this race when I'm not in good race shape, when I can't get a good time, and I definitely wasn't gonna win.  But I ran it.

Here I am, sadly, not "pouring it on" as fast as I should have been right before the finish.

I did get a medal.  

Not that that means anything to me though.

My time was no good

I knew I wasn't fast.

My next race I enter, I will for sure train a little bit better, so I can be a little more proud of myself, and not accept a medal feeling ashamed of myself.

Here's the real runner.  He was awesome.  He deserved the medal!

Oh, and me and Had were just sure that wasn't really a mile, so we went and clocked it.  Yep, not really a mile.  It was .82 miles.  HA  I think 6:15 is still pretty awesome for a 5 year old.

Sunday Tradition

My family and I have found a new hobby.  We can't get enough of it.  We all get anxious, nervous, and excited for it each week.  It's supercross/motocross!  It's on every Saturday night.  Usually it comes on here too late, so the kids are already in bed.  They hate that they can't stay up and watch it, so occasionally, we let them stay up, but mostly we just record it.  It has become a Sunday tradition after church.  I hate to admit, but sometimes even during church, we''ll take bets on who we think will win, get 2nd, 3rd, etc.  I know, it's bad, but we all can hardly wait!  (And sometimes me and Had really can't wait and watch 1 or 2 races the night before).  

So right when we get home from church, we rush in the door and turn it on before we change our clothes, before we eat, before we put away our scriptures, etc.  We all pile on the couch, bust out some chips, and immerse ourselves in the thrill of the races.  What makes it even funner for us.... we all like different riders, so we all want our guy to win, so we're yelling, and cheering, and griping the whole time.  Well, they race all over the country.  When we found out they were coming to Houston, we knew we had to get tickets.  SOOOO GLAD WE DID!!!

It was seriously one of the funnest things we've done here.  We were all dying the whole time we were there, lovin every second of it.  We watched them practice on the track first, then went out to the pits.

That's Ryan Dungey's pic on the left, and Justin 'Bam Bam' Barcia on the right.

I love Dungey.  Jeter likes Barcia.

James Stewart on the left and Trey Canard on the right.

Jerzi loves Stewart, Hadley likes Canard.

Jete and Jerz rockin their supercross gear.  (Jerz was kinda forced to wear Dungey's shirt.  It was way too big and we had to tie it up in the back, plus she doesn't like Dungey, but we (meaning me) are not gonna just leave a Dungey shirt home.  I even tried it on to see if I could pull it off as one of those little t's.  It didn't work, dang! )  Haha

We all had to get pics with our guy's bikes.

Jerzi with Stewart.

Jeter's with Dean Wilson (a 250 rider), who didn't race cuz he got hurt.

Had with Canard's bike

Since I'm the one with the camera, I took lots more pics of the guy I like.  :)

GO DUNGE!!!

Jeter and Jerzi both LOVE Villopoto.  

To say Jete was excited is an understatement!

Gettin ready to start, fireworks all over the place!

And they're off!

So exciting!  The races were long and went past the kids bed times and it didn't even phase them. 

The 450's kept us all screaming and cheering the whole race.  All of our guys did good, except for Stewart, who had to quit the race after wrecking.

The Top 5, 450 Supercross Results: 

1. Ryan Villopoto (Kawasaki) 

2. Ryan Dungey (KTM) 

3. Trey Canard (Honda) 

4. Justin Barcia (Honda) 

5. David Millsaps (Suzuki) 

We got to meet Wil Hahn (the Champion 250 Rider of 2013) and talk with him.  He seemed so nice and cool.  He's all of our new favorite 250 rider. (Jete and Jerzi both had some stuff to say about why he didn't have a shirt on, and his tatoos.  Luckily, it was after we walked away from him.)

We had to keep up with our tradition on Sunday and watch the races that we were just at.  And while we were watchin, we saw ourselves on TV!  So of course, I had to take pics of the TV.  Haha  

Jerzi was up on Had's shoulders.  

Well, sadly Supercross has come to an end for this season.  Villopoto got 1st overall, Millsaps 2nd, and Dungey 3rd in the 450's.  Wil Hahn got 1st overall in the 250's East, and Ken Roczen 1st in the 250's West.  It was a good season.  We loved every second of it. We're all kinda bummed out  that it's over, but Motocross starts up again in just a little bit. Can't wait, wahoo!

Jeter and Jerzi

I know I will forget all the little things about Jete and Jerzi's personalities as they grow and turn into little mini adults so I want to document some of them before I forget and they're off to college somewhere and I'll be wishin they were little again.

.

Jerzi is a funny little girl.  She shows her crazy little personality to me, Had, and Jete.  Then when she gets around other people, she won't talk at all, (or look at them for that matter), or show any kind of anything.  I'm hoping she'll grow out of that soon.  When other people ask her questions or talk to her, she just blinks at them.  She's been doing this for a long time, like over a year.  I have been pretty concerned about this, but what do ya do?

  She would also throw these massively huge freak-out fits where she would scream, yell, kick, and cry.  There was nothing I could say or do to calm her down.  It had to be all on her own, and usually ended up with her running to her room, slamming the door, and freaking out in there for a good 30-90 minutes, and then coming out with a football jersey on, and a smile on her face.  Even though she is still afraid to talk to people, I am so happy to say that I think she is finally over the huge freak outs!!!  Don't get me wrong, she still cries, but not like 30-90 minute episodes where I can't calm her down.  It's like having a new child!  I think she's fun now, and funny.  I can focus on the good things about her personality now, instead of always just trying to prevent a freak out.  One thing that I love is her passion for football.  My mom made her this stuffed football and blanket for Christmas.  I love to come in at nights and check on her and see this.  It makes me so happy to have a little football girl!

Jerzi is also one tough little stink.  When she falls, hits something, gets hurt, or runs into corners of walls like she did to get this black eye, she hardly ever cries.  We saw her run full speed into the wall, and heard the loud smack, and she just gets up, smiles at us, and acts like nothing happened.  Total opposite of Jete.   :)

She's always really good for me so I can do her hair.  She has been since she was a baby.  Lately she's starting to pick what kind of hairdo she wants.  This is the "mohawk" she had been begging for for weeks.

She sings primary songs when she's just walking around the house (but don't worry, she won't sing one single word in primary to any song ever), and she does a funny little dance move when she eats, where she puts both hands up and then slouches and sits up straight over and over again.  She's very independent and wants to do everything herself, which includes putting on at least 5 or 6 outfits a day.  I used to tell her she couldn't wear lots of the stuff she puts on, cuz she looks like a rag muffin.  Then she started telling me, "Mom, I like to look like a rag muffin."  Awesome!  She won't sleep in her covers because she always wants her bed to be made.  Numerous times I have been woken up in the middle of the night by her yelling frantically that she needs me, only to come in and find out her bed got messed up as she was sleeping, and she needs help making it again.  Yeah, sometimes I get a little ticked in the night!

Most of all, I love that she loves her brother.  She wants to do everything that he does and can't stand it when she can't.  Every morning, and after every nap, if she sees me before she sees him, she says, "where's Jeter?" in a grumpy voice, like "ugh, I'm so annoyed to see you, I only like him."  When I drop him off at preschool, she always tells me, "This is NO FUN!!!  Jeter makes everything fun."  I'm dreading when he starts kindergarten in the fall and he's gone all day long.  But hey maybe it'll force her to come out of her little shy shell.

Then there's Jete.  He's such a good little boy.  He seriously is always trying to do what he is supposed to.  He is a pretty obedient kid, and never wants to get in trouble.  He is a good big brother to Jerz.  She's a little boss, and tells him what to do all the time.  I usually get sick of it and tell her to stop before he does.  Most times he just goes along with it.  He takes her out to play with him and his friends, and for the most part watches out for her pretty good.  He's started doing this weird thing lately where he likes to talk like a baby, and he's always hanging his tongue out of his mouth.  It's weird.  Hopefully he'll be over it by the time he gets to school.  Ugh!  Oh and he is constantly hitting his forehead on things and getting huge goose eggs.  I used to give him neck exercises to do cuz he acts like he has no neck control.  His head is always floppin around, slamming into things.

He is obsessed with his daddy, kind of like Jerz is obsessed with him.  He wants to be everywhere that Had is, and do everything like him, and wear his clothes like him, and get the same kind of shoes as him.  It's kinda cute.   Things I've noticed about Jete lately....he's a lot like me in a lot of things.  In preschool, he's a perfectionist.  He is always the last person to finish any kind of craft project, cuz it has to be done perfectly.  He makes sure his letters are the exact way he wants them.  And he tries as hard as he can to not color outside of the lines.  He has pretty much no imagination, just like me...and Had, yikes!  If he's not playing some sort of sport, he doesn't know what to do with himself and wants to watch tv.  Sports and competitions are really all he thinks about.  He is pretty amazing at math.  At least we think so.  I don't really know what to compare him to, since we have no kids in school, and he's a little bit older than the kids in his preschool.  But he does math in his head sometimes faster than I can. 

One example of this: The other night I told him we were going somewhere in a few weeks as I tucked him in bed.  He said, "Wait, how many days is a week again?"
I told him 7.  And before I got out the door of his bedroom, he says, "Oh so we're going there in 21 days?"  What little kid can do that in their head, before they are even in kindergarten?  It's crazy I'm tellin ya.  Sometimes after I put him to bed, I walk past his room and I can hear him counting and doing math problems.  HAHA
He's usually afraid to try new things, and when we force him to, he loves it. He wants to play every sport, but we only let him do one per season. He chose to play soccer this spring and loves it.  He gets pretty intense.

He shoots, he scores!

A little bull ridin, arm whippin action too!

Great box out Jete!

A Surprise Package

A few weeks ago, I came home from an activity for our Young Women's, and Jeter and Jerzi were all excited to tell me I got a package.  I asked them why they hadn't opened it yet and they said, "It's for you Mom!"  

"What do you mean it's for me?  I don't get packages that are just for me.  I don't think it's for me."

"Just open it!"

"Who's it from?"

Had chimes in, "Cin, this is for you, open it!"

So confused and puzzled, I carefully opened the box and found the sweetest thing ever inside.....

A little box of sunshine!

My sweet, thoughtful sisters and mom sent me the most fun, cute, and awesome package to brighten up my day.  That it did!  It is a good feeling to know that my family is always here for me, even when they can't be right here with me.  And would ya look at all that fun/good/yummy/cute stuff?  I love it all!

So as promised, I took pictures of our silly string fight we had.  It was so much fun!  I love looking at all these pictures and seeing the smiles and looks on everyone's faces.  I am so lucky to have these three in my life.  They are everything to me.  Days like this we will remember for a long time!

Thank you so much for my box of sunshine Linds, Bird, and Mom!  

It means more to me than you know.  I love you guys!