Gavin is a big boy now!

Gavin has been cracking me up the last couple of days....for example, yesterday morning he woke up pretty early and I went and grabbed him and put him in bed with us. Usually he will just cuddle me and we both fall back asleep. This time I fell asleep and he got out of bed without me noticing and wandered downstairs. So the whole house is asleep and the downstairs is dark, but he goes and sits himself at the kitchen table and starts yelling "Daddy, dadddddy". Matt finally becomes conscious and goes downstairs and flips on the lights and there is Gavin calmly yelling daddy and swinging his feet at the kitchen table! Funny kid.


Today he mastered the art of going up and down the stairs upright (as opposed to the crawling on hands and feet up and scooting backward on the tummy down). I don't know how excited I am about that, it still makes me nervous but he's got to grow up sometime right? :) He was soooooo proud of himself and yelled for Luke and Emma to come watch him. They were so cute and made a big deal about it, which made his face beam even more :)


The other thing that made me laugh was tonight at dinner he tore off a piece of french bread and held it up to his ear and acted like it was a phone and carried on a conversation for a little while :) Also today Emma said his name as she was trying to hand him a balloon, he turned around and as clear as can be said "What, oh, thank you". I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but he sounded so grown up! Also today as he was concentrating on building something with Luke's legos he started singing Outkast's song that says "Hey ya....shake it shake it shake it". We have a karaoke game and that song is on it and so he knows the chorus. It just seemed so funny to have a little baby sitting there singing absent- mindedly as he was working on something :)


Well here are some pictures of his stairs accomplishment...First here he comes down....

And here he goes back up....

Watch for yourself and don't mind my obnoxious cheering :)....down

and up....

My favorite Sunday....Primary Program Sunday!

Today was our ward's Primary Program and it was beautiful! They had all the kids wear white shirts and they all looked like little angels up there on the stand! It's times like these that make me realize how NOT shy Emma is (I hope it's not that she's love starved lol)...she was up there kind of dancing around to each song trying to get all eyes on her. She was at first kind of bouncing and then twisting side to side. It was funny because there is the cutest little kid named Nate that is in love with her in her class. He was fighting to stand next to her, this is during the program mind you! :) Her part in the program was "My job is to be a helpful big sister". She has had it memorized for weeks now and can say it with ease, but when she got up there all the kids before her had to have the teacher whisper their part in their ear...so Emma wanted to be like them and acted like she didn't know her part. She looked down at me and I rolled my hands like "Give up the act and say your part". She then proceeded to say it perfectly :) I was very proud of her!

I was so proud of Luke, his part was the scripture Amos 3:7 "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets". He had memorized it and said it perfectly. Matt was beaming :) I can't believe how grown up the kids are now! What a great Sunday!

These pictures were on the printed program...this is the Jr. Primary

This is Sr. Primary

And I think these must be kids that were missing in the big pictures (don't we have a HUGE primary???)

I have a plan....

We got to Luke's game on Saturday night and were surprised to find a family from our ward there who has a daughter that is 9 almost 10 years old. We wondered what they were doing at our field and then were shocked to realize that their 9 year old's, all girls team was going to be playing our poor little 6 year old boys who were missing our top two players and our coach! YIKES! The league they play in is a little unorganized and I don't think they have as many teams as they would have liked and so this girls team had to play us. To make it fair they made a rule that the girls had to pass 3 times before they could score a goal. So thankfully they only beat us 6 to 1 instead of the whooping it could have been :) After our one and only goal the boys were so excited that they were jumping around and Luke says "Hey guys come here I have a plan". So the boys spontaneously stop the game to huddle and hear Luke's plan! It was cracking us up and Amy caught the moment beautifully with her camera! I asked Luke what he was saying and he was telling them "I know you don't like to pass, but we need to pass the ball and go around these girls, so pass it to me". It was pretty funny....we only had 5 boys there and they play 4 on 4 and so our boys had to work SO hard!

Each picture Amy took Luke has a very focused look on his face! Here is a picture of Luke's "fierce" kick as Amy called it :)

Here they are after the game, you can almost hear Luke and Carver saying "We got beat by a bunch of girls!"

You have to get back on the horse!

Friday Luke road his bike to school with a couple of his friend's and my friend. Well they weren't gone but 5 minutes and I look out the window to see Luke walking back toward the house! I RAN out to see what had happened and he had big crocodile tears and my friend Beckie said he wiped out right around the corner from our house. You could tell he was more embarrassed than anything! It was one of those times you want to just bury your head in your mom's embrace and hope that it will hide you from the world. The 2 other boys he was riding with were big 2nd graders and so he thought he was so cool being with them and to have a wipe out really upset him. So I ran him upstairs and got the band aids out and gave him the pep talk about when you fall off the horse you need to get right back on. After his poor little knees were all fixed up he said OK mom I will ride right now! YIKES, I wasn't expecting that and time was a ticking and he was going to be late. But I didn't want to discourage him because he is very timid and unsure of himself on his bike and would rather ride his scooter anyway. So I agreed that he could ride his bike. I grabbed Emma and her friend that we take to preschool and Gavin and we jumped in the car and followed Luke to the school. When we got there we realized that with all the excitement we forgot his backpack! I told him to go to class and I would bring it a few minutes late. But he was already a bit emotional from the earlier wipe out and so he didn't want to go to class without his backpack and told me he would just wait for me at the bike rack until I returned. So I RUSH home, grab the bag and rush back, get all 3 kids out of the car and run to the sidewalk near the bike rack and I see these 5th grade patrols trying to talk poor little Lukey into going to class. I could see him shake his head shyly. I yell to him and it was a race to his classroom and we got him in JUST as the bell was ringing! Talk about a crazy morning! But I was so proud of Luke for getting back on the horse!

Luke's First Soccer Game of the Season...

How did I get so lucky to have a best friend that is a talented photographer!!!! Carver and Luke are on the same soccer team and Amy took these pictures for me at the game. With Amy around I don't need to bring my camera :) Their team name is the Sharks and they won like 6 to 1 or something! Fun game! THANKS AMY for the great pictures! You know she is starting her photography business and I can give you her number if you're interested! :)

EXHAUSTED!

The kids were so tired after our long day. We had to get them up at 5:45 to get to the race and so this afternoon Gavin fell asleep snuggled into Emma. (Look at the proud look on Emma's face...she was pleased to have her little bro. lovin' on her:)

Downtown Orlando Triathlon

Well our team did pretty well...we came in 6th out of 15 teams. Our total time was 1:26:25.....my swim time was 9:03......Marie's bike time was 37:36......and Matt's run time was 37:42.

Me, Amy Lopez, Andrea Rediske, Shanell Goodell, Tinae Goodell, Marie Winchester, Tracy Bosch.
OUR FAN CLUB!!!

This is Matt at the beginning of his run....Yes Matt has his shirt off! :) It was VERY hot! :)

Then we all jumped on a shuttle to the finish line....Gavin was being so funny and leaning on Kennedy the whole ride.

Here's Matt at the finish!!! We got off the shuttle JUST IN TIME!

Gavin didn't want to go to Matt until he put on his shirt and wasn't quite as sweaty :)

Emma wanted to run too so Matt grabbed her and they both ran through the finish line together! CUTE!

Matt, Me, Shanell Goodell, Mark Goodell (poor guy...he got a flat tire), Tinae Goodell, Tracy Bosch, Marie Winchester, Amy Lopez, Andrea Rediske. This is most of us...we are missing Robert and Andrew Bosch.

Amy Lopez is a GREAT photographer (OK her husband John took some too)...here are some pictures she just sent to me....

Team TriHard R&W!!!!!

Stretching just before we start

Here's the mass of people just before entering the water...can you see Amy and me in the back center???

Amy and I give one more smile and wave to our kids on the dock before we take off...we had to stay in the water for 2 minutes before the start.

Here we go!

Me coming out of the water.