4th of July

So I started this post months ago-seriously! I have had such a hard time remembering to upload these pictures taken with my sister-in-law's camera. I almost skipped the post entirely, but our 4th of July celebration was way to good to miss.

Tucker and I are incredibly lucky to have families that have become friends and so we don't always have to choose who we want to be with-we can be with both! Ideal, I know. We all got together at Tucker's parent's house for a delicious barbeque, some great conversation, lots of playing, and a fireworks show put on by the boys. Great families combined for a great day!

Capri and Sophie-these two had so much fun together:
My little Karoline in her 4th of July best:
Me and the hubby:
The boys, Luke and Roman, enjoying their meal over the waterfall:
The masters of the show, Austin, Tucker and Richard (who seemed to be a bit afraid at the moment :P):
My mom and dad cuddling up:
Cody and Cheri and more cuddling:Grammy, Tiffany and Karoline (who did great watching the fireworks!):Everyone loved the show except for this one, Capri. The fireworks were "too loud, mommy" but I didn't want her to miss out completely. So, we stuck her in the back of the suburban for her to watch from the safety of the car:

The whole gang-don't you just love that setup?!

Karoline's 4 month update...

Post edit: I just realized I had her stats incorrect. Her weight puts her in the 70th percentile and her height in the 60th percentile. Still pretty chubby though! Our fattycakes on the 4th of July-isn't she the cutest?! I know this is beyond overdue, but Karoline turned 4 months on the 5th so we took her for her check-up and here are the stats:
Length: 70%
Weight: 80%
Head Circumfrence: 90%
So yes, just like her brother and sister, we have a chunky baby with lots of brains! She gets the big noggin from my family, but my mom has convinced me that all the models and movies stars have big heads as well...hmmm, I may need to look into the validity of that!
Besides just being a girl that loves to eat and grow, this baby is an absolute dream. Her cooing herself to sleep, laughing at her brother and sister (Capri has become the bestest little entertainer), and smiling for anyone and everyone makes me a very happy mom. We are constantly amazed at what she has learned already-rolling over now both ways (that just as of yesterday), grabbing for toys and putting them in her mouth, and all around incredibly responsive to the world around her. I love when she grabs her toes, coos out loud just to see how loud she can be, tries to hold her bottle, and rubs her hand back and forth across my chest while she is nursing. Love, love, love this girl and so does everyone that sees her and gets a smile out of her.
Karoline is still the queen of cat naps and I don't love that, but she sleeps through the night no problem. She usually wakes up around 6:00am, eats for 10 minutes tops, then goes right back down for another 2 hours. Hence, I haven't tried to do any kind of sleep training and I won't even attempt that until I know I can be consistent with her schedule...aka when summer is over. We have had way too much fun playing til our hearts content to worry about routines so more about our summer coming soon...

Getting old...

Maybe it's because my birthday is around the corner, or maybe it's because my feet are all taped up just like my Grandma's were, but I am feeling old! It all started a couple of weeks ago when my sister-in-law Jesse asked me to play on her soccer team. They were hoping to add a couple of substitutes so I thought I would help out. I figured I was in good enough shape and a little friendly competition on the field never hurt anyone, right? Wrong.

Let's start with game #1. Not only did we not have any substitutes, we were a player short! Five of us against a team with eight. Not good. By the time we hit half-time, I thought my lungs were going to explode. It's sad to say, but every time they scored in the second half (which they did 3 times!), I was actually glad simply because it meant we got to rest for a second as we set up to start over. Pathetic! It didn't help that the girls we were playing were pretty dang good. I was thinking to myself, I haven't played soccer since 9th grade and here I am going up against girls using their heads to get the ball downfield-not my kind of game.

By game #2, which came immediately after game #1, I was done. How could I endure anymore of this? Fortunately I didn't have to. A couple of girls from another team must have felt sorry for us and offered to play and two other team members came-hallelujah. At least now we had subs and that made a huge difference. Too, I had the best little cheerleader ever which really kept my spirits up. Capri would yell for me every 5 minutes until I looked over, waved, and then she would wave back. So cute. I had always played half-back or forward growing up, but I tried out playing defense and had a great time. It can be fun to take out all of your stress and aggression on someone in trying to get that ball. I took a few hits for the team, one leading to an insane bruise and cleat indents on the knee, but it seems worth it when they don't get a chance to score. I will always remember my dad screaming "CHARGE!" to motivate us to do this very thing, but when you are 8 years old, talking to your friends is so much more fun-Nicole, I need that footage!Anyway, we still lost 0-1 and I was wishing I had my soccer pals, Erika and Julie, with me to make it a win. Girls, didn't we have so much fun freshman year?!

The big bummer of the day, however, was the fact that I really screwed up my feet. (You are all thinking how I am getting back to my point of getting old and here it is...) I have always relied on orthotics to prevent pain in my arches, achilles and bunnions, and they have worked great. Unfortunately, I didn't wear them that day because my cleats I borrowed were already too small and I didn't want to make them smaller by using my orthotics. Bad idea. I was limping like an eighty year-old for the next week and to compensate, ended up hurting my knee as well. Nice. So, now I have ankle booties of tape that I get to wear for the next week. I have had them taped for a day and already want to rip it all off! I am also seriously bummed because I can't exercise at all, let alone race in the upcoming 10k planned for the 24th of July. Hopefully I will get going soon so wish me luck!

Our team, the Hot Tomales, getting a pep talk for game #2:

Not the greatest quality, as my dad took these pics with his phone, but here I go:

Here I am actually near a ball!

How we roll...

Yep. That's a single AND a double jogger we get to push now. Nothing like some extra poundage to keep your runs that much more challenging! I actually love taking the kids on our runs to the lake because there is plenty for them to see and they really enjoy the ride. I just don't know how much longer we will be able to pull that off as the kids will only get heavier! You can tell how wasted I was in this picture and we had only run 3 miles...hmmm, not pretty, but it proves my point. At least I don't have to worry about that for the next week or two as I am not allowed to exercise at all. More on that to come...