Big Stage Debut

This past weekend Mils gathered her courage and performed 'on stage' at our church's Christmas program. Our wise and experienced youth director had the small group of preschoolers perform two opening songs before the bigger kids performed their play. Not a lot of time for them to sit around and think about what's about to happen or generally wreak havoc backstage. Look how cute they are!

Millie and her two friends, Hazel & CJ, after their successful performances.

Millie was an old pro, having just performed on stage at her preschool's open house. Sadly, I forgot to bring the camera to this event (photo courtesy of a classmate's mom), and the camera batteries ran out at the church event. I'm sure it was a sign for me to just sit back and take in the magic of it all. We have entered a new phase in parenting (kids' performances) and I'm so excited about it!

"The turkey said 'gobble, gobble, gobble'" (wave fingers under chin)

Wait a minute...you're fun!

Action Shot! Pony tails are flyin'!

We have hit a great milestone around here. The kids are playing together and actually enjoying it. Until now, they have played in each other's general vicinity; they've colored together at the same table; they've built block towers and screamed when the other knocked it down. But this weekend, thanks entirely to a plastic wagon that we brought inside from the garage, they have been laughing and yelling (in a good way) and spending long, long stretches of time (I'm talking like a whole 15 minutes) interacting with each other without mom and dad to referee. YEEEAAAHHH!

Playtime, complete with fort (aka blanket covered table) in the background. Simon's just nuts.

Millie has also started to read her books to Simon. She'll set up a stool to sit on and hold up the book and 'read' the pages to him. The other morning Christopher walked in and found her sitting up in her bed, holding a book up in the air and reading it to him in his crib across the room.

Story time.

Not only is it sooo sweet to watch and hear, but it makes me feel like I just got subbed out of the game for a couple minutes' breather. Oh, I'll be back in for some more play-time action, but for now, it's nice to watch from the sidelines for a bit.

OK, not a great shot of Mils, but check out the smirk on Si's face. This is just classic Simon. He's pure rascal.

And it seems as though we are really nearing the end of an era around here. More and more, Simon is choosing to walk instead of crawl. He's been pushing his animals around the house in Millie's baby stroller pretty much non-stop for about a week, and I think this has lead to his new love of upright mobility. Since I am such an emotional roller coaster, I am instantly nostalgic for his cute little butt-shaking crawl. I hope he holds out on the walking for another day or two so I can at least get the crawling on video.

Boomerang

We got the news a few weeks ago. We're moving back east next summer. Charlottesville, Virginia to be exact. Yep, the east coast / west coast sling shot continues for us. Christopher has the opportunity to spend a year getting an advanced law degree, so we'll be moving sometime mid-summer so he can report for classes at the beginning of August.

Seriously. I don't know why I continue to be shocked when news like this comes down. I mean, Christopher's in the MILITARY...that's what we do, move around. But this move has really rocked my world. We (me especially) just kind expected that he would get a different set of orders next summer that would keep us here for another three years. I have been really digging in to make a full, meaningful life for us here. We are loving our church, and have made great new friends there. I love Millie's preschool and had just assumed it would also be Simon's. We've made other friends here in town and in our neighborhood. Heck, we signed a two year lease on our house this past summer. So my last few weeks have been spent in denial & processing. I'll move into the acceptance stage soon, I think. Maybe after the holidays when my to-do list clears up.

There's lots and lots to be very thankful for with this news. Most importantly, Christopher will be home with us. He'll be going to school all day, which is going to be hard work for sure, but it won't involve a deployment. I am just so thankful for that. Also, we'll be so close to our families. Back in the land of weekend trips just for the heck of it. We'll be close enough to our DC friends to make day trips for birthday parties and last minute GET ME OUT OF THIS HOUSE playdates. And I think this is the closest we'll ever get to live to Richmond, my college home-town. I'm imagining lots of walks around campus with my college friends and our kids.

This kind of stuff flashes me back to my childhood. My dad was in the Air Force, so we moved around every few years. I don't know if my parents were intentional about breaking the news to us, but it always seemed to happen the same way. Dad comes home. All four of us kids are called into the living room (the fancy one with the couches we weren't allowed to jump on; not the family room with the tv and toys; uh oh...this is serious). "We have something we need to talk about," one of them would start. And then they'd explain to us how awesome it was going to be to move from Omaha to New York or Maine to Kansas. Then they'd have to explain where Kansas was. Then they'd have to promise to try to find us a house with a swimming pool so that Kansas would seem like an exotic paradise to us kids. Anyway, I finally feel like I'm inching closer to this reality for my own little family. Mils has a very loose comprehension of time (yesterday and tomorrow are about the extent of it), so we'll wait a while to discuss it with her. Which is a good thing. I want lots of time to soak in the beauty of life right here where we're at.

Knotts Berry Farm

Talk about some good, old fashioned fun! The adults played hooky from their jobs on Friday and we all took off for Knotts Berry Farm, a great amusement park up in Anaheim. We went with our friends David and Becky, who turned out to be KBF experts, having visited the park with their own families growing up.

Millie and "Cooper". We have no idea why she decided to call Snoopy this, but she insisted.

What a cool day this was. First of all, it was nearly free (The park gave free admission to military veterans and one guest, so we just had to pay a little bit for Millie. David's a JAG too, so he and Becky got in free.) Plus, it had an awesome combination of adult roller coasters and fun kids rides. And on top of that, the park started out as an actual berry farm 75 years ago and is famous for it's chicken dinners. Score. We had a huge, awesome lunch.

After lunch, Millie wanted a picture with the giant chicken!

But I think my favorite part was watching Millie just fall in love with David and Becky. She adores them, really. Way before we even left the house she had determined that she was going to ride the "spin wheel" (ferris wheel) with Miss Becky. She couldn't wait. And all through the park she held their hands, sat on their laps, and chatted them up. It was sweet. I think Simon probably thought they were cool too, but he was pretty busy screeching and squirming out of the stroller/our arms/the highchair/the train ride to really get involved in much else!

On the spin wheel!

What an awesome group shot! What a great day!

Christopher's a Half-Ironman!

It's just really beyond words, what Christopher accomplished on Sunday. He completed the Silverman triathlon in Henderson, Nevada (their tagline: "The world's most grueling triathlon.") in 6 hours, 45 minutes (15 minutes under his goal time).

What this means is that he swam 1.2 miles in 31 minutes (a REALLY fast time):

The swim start in Lake Mead. It was beautiful...the weather and the scenery.

The kids played in the dirt during the swim.

He's coming out of the water. It's tough to see him: see the red flotation device on the ground there? Look just above the left side of it. C is running in his black wet suit with a yellow cap.

This was FASCINATING. The people in the yellow shirt are 'wet suit strippers'. They pulled the racers' wet suits off of them before they transitioned to the bike. Christopher is lying on his back on the ground...you can see his feet peeking out to the left of the red sign.

Another funny "perk" of this race: sunscreen applicators. Christopher's on the far right of the picture getting sunscreen applied by three volunteers.

Then he biked 56 miles in 3hrs, 35 minutes:

Climbing the hill at mile 35.

Happy to see the kids. Ready to be done.

Waiting for Christopher at T2 (triathlon-speak for the bike-to-run transition). This was the ONLY sleep of the day for either kid: Si's 20 minutes in the stroller. Rough.

Rolling into T2. He handed his bike to the volunteers and then ran to a tent to change for the run.

And then he ran 13.1 miles in 2hrs, 30 minutes:

Mile 4.5 and feeling the pain.

FINISH! Amazing!

Christopher totally snuck up on me (I didn't expect him to finish so fast), so this was the only shot I got at the finish line. I was wrangling kids when I saw him running in, so when I pulled out the camera to take a photo, I ended up shooting a movie instead. It's really not for public viewing since half of it is me "asking" Millie not to throw rocks/run in the street/hit her brother. Whoops.

Still standing AND carrying kids (after lots of coke, juice, potato chips, at least 4 donuts, and some pasta).

Apparently, the race organizers did the impossible and found a run course that was almost entirely uphill. He said it was just killer. And though the bike course was beautiful, it was also rolling hills nearly the entire race. He finished in the top half of all competitors, which is awesome for his first race at this distance.

The kids and I had quite a day...our own marathon of sorts. The race set up was awesome for us to be able to see Christopher a number of times during the day. We caught the swim start and finish, drove and parked on the side of the road to cheer him in the middle of his bike, saw the bike-to-run transition, and saw him twice during the run before we made it back to see him finish. Overall, the kids were really great. The back of the car was trashed, their shirts were totaled before 9:00 am, and lunch was cobbled together from all the random snacks stashed in the backpack. It was a fun, emotional day watching the culmination of months of dedication to a goal. Congratulations, Christopher!

In Other October News...

We managed to squeeze in a few other events in this awesomely full month:

I took a five day trip ALL BY MYSELF! No kids! Christopher, in full hero-dad mode, took two days off of work, and my sister rolled up her sleeves and gave up lots of her free time to help take care of Si and Mils. I got to fly back to Richmond to meet Claire, Whitney and Andrew's new daughter. Whit and I went to college together and our friendship is layered with stories from all the subsequent stages of life. I could not have been more thankful to be able to spend those days with my friend and her new family. Claire, by the way, is just a gorgeous baby.

Whitney with baby Claire; Sandy with big boy Gavin. Wait, weren't we just 18 and living in the dorms together?

Claire all snuggled up for an outing. Our friend Jean loaned this to me when I had Millie and I passed it on to Sandy. Does she realize that now four of us have snuggled our babies in this cozy cover?

Julie sent this pic to me on my phone halfway thru my trip. Somehow, I wasn't surprised that this is what was going on. Love it!

A few months ago Christopher set out to covert a couple more of his buddies to triathloning. Lots of training swims & rides later, the guys completed their first race. Just as impressive as the guys' awesome finish times were their wives, my friends Chrissy and Betsy, who woke/dressed/fed their SEVEN kids and made it to the race before 7:00 am. Yes, between them they have SEVEN GIRLS! It was such a fun morning for all of us.

Dads and daughters and Simon, pre-race.

Triathletes.

And there were first haircuts for all! Si really needed a professional touch on the mess I had made of his hair a few weeks ago, so we joined forces with pal Brynn (and mom Jill) to get all the kids a trim. Millie, of course, was a dream. She sat patiently, played with toys, felt proud to be a big-girl. Si squirmed for his life, trying to escape my grip with some kind of death roll/kick combo. Hence, no photos for him.

Proud AND crazy.

Lastly, we are headed to Nevada this weekend for Christopher's big Half Ironman triathlon. This is a huge deal. He's been training for months. So if you happen to think of it on Sunday morning, he might really appreciate a prayer on his behalf.

Happy Halloween!

Ready for Halloween Picture-Palooza?

Millie and Brynn

A sweet neighbor, Bev, tells the girls their fortune: she revealed they would have fun and get lots of candy!

On Friday night we had our friends David & Becky over for pumpkin carving. Christopher continued his carving dominance by sculpting "Millie" and "Simon" into our pumpkins.

Millie's preschool class. The school had an "Imagination Parade" on Thursday so the kids could show off their costumes.

Mom and Millie at preschool.

She's Three!

My girl turned three on Sunday, and boy did we celebrate. When I say 'celebrate', I mainly mean eating our favorite foods while wearing fun hats. And oh yeah...opening LOTS of great gifts! Yammy and Poppa and Uncle Monkey flew in so we also had some great days with them at the beach, pumpkin patch and preschool. My Dad was the official photographer of our weekend and I haven't seen his pics yet, so these are mine and are not the best photos, but you'll get the idea:

Yammy and Poppa went to preschool with Millie on Thursday. She celebrated her birthday with her class by picking out this book and donating it to her classroom.

Birthday lunch at In N Out!

Millie opened her gifts from Gamma & Gampa Greer while chatting with them on Skype.

Gamma Greer made this AMAZING quilt for Mils. It's the Hungry Caterpillar! She loved it instantly and set up a bed right there in the middle of the floor. She has slept with it every nap & night.

Rockin Out.

If Millie didn't love this gift so much, I might consider some serious retribution for my little brother. Who else but a crazy Uncle would buy a toy that 1) lights up; 2) plays piercing music at high volume; and 3) has a bonus electric guitar feature that puts out some screeching, deafening noise when her fingers hit the strings? Oooohhh, I'll get you Matty.

She's so excited right now because out on the sidewalk, just behind her birthday crown, is her new BIG GIRL BIKE! It's the real thing, a two-wheeler with training wheels! Boy is she proud to ride it around the neighborhood. My girl has never looked so grown up as when she pedaled away from me on that bike. Knocked the air right out of me.

"Hi...Welcome to CiCi's" Perhaps I should be embarrassed that we went to an all you can eat pizza buffet for my daughter's birthday, but it really was the perfect end to a busy day/weekend.

What was NOT a perfect end to the day was when our otherwise angelic dog Casey jumped up on the kitchen counter to knock Millie's birthday cake to the floor. AND THEN SHE ATE IT! I'm not even kidding. She devoured nearly the whole thing while we were putting the kids to bed. I cried just a bit because not only had this cake taken me all afternoon to bake (a butterscotch layer cake with caramel cream cheese frosting) but NONE of the adults had tried it. Thankfully, we sang and gave Millie a slice before Casey got to it, which is the most important part, of course. Casey and I weren't on speaking terms for a few days. Oh well.

Millie is just blowing my mind these days. She is incredibly friendly and gregarious (has lots of her dad in her). She will introduce herself to anyone, respond perfectly to adults who start conversations with her, and sit down and play with kids of all ages. She lights up when she sees her friends from preschool or the park and just slides right up beside them to say hello. Millie is SILLY. I mean, you've seen the outfits she puts together for dancing. She makes up games to play with Simon (which have involved a lot of scotch tape lately, much to Simon's dismay) and just harasses Casey with her love. She's got this crazy vocabulary that she busts out on us all the time (her favorite big words: Actually, Dangerous, Exhilarating, Available). She's a great rule follower and and excellent rule-stretcher/negotiator. She doesn't seem to have much brattiness in her thus far, which I am so thankful for. I love spending my days with this little personality. She keeps me laughing, makes me proud, and really just takes my breath away.