Kids

Our fab nanny Miss Ashley took this picture of the kids last week on the trampoline. Notice her cute little baby bump ... she's having her own baby in August....I can't wait to find out if it's a boy or a girl!

WORLD CHAMPIONS

Kayla competed in the World Cheerleading Competition against EIGHTY OTHER COUNTRIES.  They came back with two gold and a silver.  AMAZING!!

Way to go Kayla … what an experience!

 

View Full Album

Go Team USA!

The U of MN dance team was chosen over all the other colleges in the United States! When you think about how many colleges, students, etc. - it's truly amazing!! Congrats to Kay and team ... what an awesome experience!!!

2010 Dance Team Selected

The dance team from the University of Minnesota – Minneapolis has been selected as the 2010 Team USA Dance Team. The team will represent the United States at the 2010 International Cheer Union (ICU) World Championship this April 22-23 in Orlando, Florida at the Walt Disney World® Resorts.

Approximately 60 nations are expected to compete at the ICU in cheerleading and dance in a variety of categories. The dance team portion of the event will include three categories, Pom (Freestyle Cheer Dance), Jazz and Hip Hop.

The ICU World Championship is the largest international cheerleading and dance team competition in the world. The ICU is now comprised of more than 80 member countries fielding a national cheer or dance team.

USA Cheer is the governing body for sport cheering in the United States, and Team USA Dance and Team USA Cheer are the representative National dance and cheer teams. Last year’s teams won a combined six gold medals.

The University of Minnesota dance team is coached by Amber Jackson, who has much experience with international dance teams. Last spring, the coach took her team to perform in China where they were chosen for a television program in the region of Changsha.

“The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis dance team was the best overall choice to represent the long tradition of team dance in America,” says Dani Rein, Director of Team USA Dance. “The UM team is well known for their strong technique in jazz and pom, and we know they will impress the many different nations competing in their categories.

Jump...jump.....jump up Jump and get down...Jump Jump

Yeah, we got our kids a permanent wear 'em out machine ..... a trampoline! (We're smart, don't ya think??? A couple hours on the trampoline a day....we're thinking sleep in, sleep in, LOL)

They always play on the neighbors, but we can't see them so we have to actually be in the neighbors yard to watch them ... so we decided to "spring" for it (no pun intended, haha).

The kids love it, and I'm so happy that Zachary can read now. When Sam first put the trampoline up he was doing flips and somersaults (same as he always tries to get away with on the neighbors). We told him don't do that Zach, you could break your neck and die, he's like "nuh-uh" ........ so ..... there is a very large warning printed right on the padding of the trampoline. I took Zach over to it and had him read it (I had to help him with the big words) but it said "doing flips or somersaults can cause serious injury including paralysis or death." He said death? I said, yes, die. It means you could die if you do a flip and land on your neck the wrong way. So now, no more flips. Ask Zach what he's not allowed to do on a trampoline and why and he will tell you no flip or somersaults or you can die. We told them about the dangers of playing too rough and landing on their neck, etc. and one time Addie fell (well I think Zach knocked her down in a "battle" which is their newest game) and she said "Zach you broke my neck!" lol! (not really LOL but it was funny to hear her scolding Zach!!)

Yes, "battling" is Zach and Addie's new game. Notice I said Zach and Addie - Avery wants no part of "battling." They pretend they're "Pokemon" characters and take each other on right down to moves that look like wrestlers, and they're usually laughing the whole way. (Of course, sometimes one of them gets poked or pushed or prodded the wrong way and there is tears, but we tell them if you want to battle each other, you're going to have to deal with it.) Oh, and Zach is always a character called Chimchar....which apparently has something to do with fire??

Funny thing happened when Sam was putting the trampoline together - I had picked the girls up at dance and we had to get a few groceries and we stopped at the new "Dollar Tree Market" to see what was inside. They had everything normal dollar store would have, plus groceries, HBA, produce, etc. One of the things they also had were a zillion different mylar balloons. So I let each girl pick a balloon (and they also picked a football / baseball one for Zach) and we left. Avery's was a purple (her fave color) star and Addie's was pink with princesses. Well, they wanted to take the balloons outside in the backyard while daddy was putting together the trampoline and we both said it was not a good idea to take them outside. Of course, mommy and daddy know best...because two minutes after coming outside, Avery lets her balloon go and it's stuck in the trees - way beyond reach. Sam said to her, well Ave, we told you not to take it outside so now it went to baby Sammy. She came inside where I was cleaning and threw the mother of all temper tantrums. Kicking her feet, banging her fists on the floor about losing her balloon and she says out of the blue - and Baby Sammy never gives our balloons back why does he need so many balloons. How do you explain to a 4 year old that when we "let a balloon go" to baby Sammy we're really not "giving him the balloon to play with." And I tried to explain it the best I could but she was not getting the fact that baby Sammy was not "keeping" all her balloons. Oh, from the mouths of babes. :)

We told her she could take a dollar out of her piggy bank (well it's a collective piggy bank between the 3 of them) and we'd go the next day to get a new balloon and she finally (finally) calmed down. So after brunch on Sunday (which BTW the kids think is the funniest word) I took her to get a new balloon and she handed the girl her money and was so happy. She decided it wouldn't be a good idea to take this balloon outside. Hmm, where did I hear that before?

Have a good night y'all!

xoxoxo,
Rachel

Hippity Hoppity Happy Easter!

 

Hey everyone – I know, I said in my last post I was going to be better at posting.  Ok, Ok, I lied.  Well sort of.  I *want* to do better but this crazy schedule for work has me beat (Sun-Thurs in MD) and on the weekends, it is just mass chaos getting cleaning done and hanging out with the family.

So we had a nice but not relaxing Easter … the kids did their hunt in the morning (I got striped eggs for Zach, polka dotted eggs for Ave and flowered eggs for Add) and they had fun finding their own and helping each other find the eggs.  I had them on a goose chase for awhile – I thought each package had 12 eggs, turns out each package had 10.    They’d come back with their basket and ask how many more and we kept saying 2 … and after the 3rd kid asked and the answer was 2 … I realized that the plastic egg packages only had 10 eggs each!  LOL!!  

They had fun, though, and after the egg hunt and a short nap on the couch for momma, we got the kids all dressed up in their Easter outfits and took them to breakfast.   Here’s the pictures I took – I’m just downloading them all because it will take me too add them individually :)  Then we got to come home and spend the afternoon cleaning and in the yard (yay!)  <—not so much.  And of course I had to come up to Baltimore last night……..didn’t get in until almost 1AM thanks to DC traffic!!

 

View Full Album

 

Anyway hope you all had a Happy Easter.  I only have 4 more weeks of this crazy travel schedule left so hopefully next month things will be “more” back to normal! :)

Xs and Os……….

                         Rachel