I Heart Faces--Silly

I can't believe it! I got 6th place for my rotten little monkey urchins and their uncooperative nature :) I never thought that I would place in the Top 10, what a treat! To see all of this weeks winners, click on I ♥ Faces-Winners Week 5

"Say Cheese, not Cheesy"

For all of this weeks entries into I ♥ Faces
go to www.iheartfaces.com

Groundhog Invitational 2009

yup, she heard the shutter open ;)Jared getting his head in the game...uh the DS game that is ;)

Ready for warm ups...I LOVE this picture...LOOK into her left eye, what do you see????A shot of the pool, I was trying to get Jared at the end and she hopped in...camera hog
I had to put this one in here, there was a better shot with her only, but I wanted y'all to see how much littler she is then the other girlies that she swims against (these are the 8 and under girls, last time she swam the 10U's). They are all so sweet to her and love on her, she LOVES the big girls.

It's that time of year, we get to head down to Columbus Georgia for the Groundhog invite. We love this meet, it's smaller, there are trophies for top 15 and the sound system is easy to hear. It's a bit dark in there and I am not allowed to use a flash so the pictures are not the best. I tried really hard to get some pics of Jared, but he was busy playing games. Ryan on the other hand heard the shutter and came a runnin. Both of them did FANTASTIC!!! Here's the scoop:

Ryan
25 Free--27.60 (took off 2.5 seconds)
25 Back--32.52 (group had a false start, swam the entire thing and had to reswim, boo, +2 sec)
25 Breast--35.77 (took off 1 second)
100 Free--2:28.11 (took off 8 seconds)

Jared
100 Free--1:41.55 (took off 7 seconds)
50 Back--52.22 (took off 2 seconds)
50 Breast--56.57 (added 3 seconds--but PLACED 12th!!!:):)) today was still faster then last meet :)
200 Free--3:33.11 (took off 32 seconds--yes, thirty two--AND PLACED 11th:):))
100 IM--1:50.03 (took off 2 seconds and placed 19th)

Just FYI, when I say they took off time...it's from their personal best times. That means that Jared broke 4 out of 5 personal bests and Ryan broke 3 out of 4. What a great day!!

My Pinkie GirlJared doin' his breast stroke

I Heart Faces--The Eyes Have it

Auburn's "Ramsay" little Plainsman

Yay! It's Monday, that means I can post a picture to I Heart Faces. This weeks theme is The Eye's Have it and they added a Pet category. The kitties are my favorite subjects after the kids, so this was fun for me. It was hard to pick just one. One picture was awesome for technical elements, the other is one of my favorite shots--I can't wait to see what other people have posted.


Ryan Auburn and Izzy Rose
I loved this one for kids The Eyes Have it...Ryan and Izzy's eyes are so close to the same color...

Grandma Lou
For my Adult The Eyes Have it, I picked my Grandma. I'm always in peoples faces with my camera and Grandma wasn't immune. I finally looked at her and said, "you can either smile and I can get a good picture or I can keep chasing you". This was what I got. Less than a year later she was diagnosed with cancer and was gone in 4 weeks. This is the last picture I took of her. I chose it for that reason and for the fact that she had a little freckle in her left eye and you can see it in this photo.
Click on the button below to take you directly to the I Heart Faces (www.iheartfaces.com) page

You can click on the button and go to the site to see all the entries for this week...

I Heart Faces---JOY

The theme for this week is JOY.
Nothing says JOY to me more than this picture of our kids. I was having a hard time getting all of them to smile...Ryan was in the goofy face phase so I tricked her by asking her to imagine that Santa brought her everything she asked for, and click, there you have it.

You can click on the button and go to the site to see all the entries for this week...

Home Brew 1.0

Merry Christmas Rob. Yup, today is the day that he used his gift from my brother Rick, a home brew kit. He has taken this new hobby very seriously. Since December he has been doing all kinds of research and acquiring all the necessary skills for makin' beer. His friend Josh is very proficient in home brewing so the boys have become worse then school girls with a crush--on the phone all the time, going over recipes and swapping ideas. Josh has beer tastings a few times a year, I would imagine we will also. So, if you like beer, let me know-we'll shoot you an invite. :)

I never get a good shot of Rob, I had to include this one since it actually turned out :)

Coach's Invite Meet

What a great weekend! Jared was really on his game for his first two events. In his 50 Freestyle he beat his personal best by 6 seconds. He continued the streak with a 6 second jump on his 100 Breast. Wow, great, two personal bests, and then he had his 50 Backstroke...ok, so he added half a second to his best time. Today in his first event he was three seconds off his best time for the 50 Breast, kind of a shock since that's his favorite. He rallied back to sink his 100 Back time by 6 seconds. He got a DQ for rolling over too soon on his flip turn so the time won't post. At least it was 10 seconds faster then the last time he swam it! :) So his last event was the 100 Free, he was half a second off his best but he posted 8 seconds faster then the last meet. All in all he did fantastic. The best part of the weekend was when he got 1st in his heat on the 50 Free! Yahoo!

Little Ryan. Let me say, as I always do, that she was one of the smallest there. The ante was upped this meet because it was a 10 and Under meet. That doesn't mean that only the little kids are there, it means the little kids swim up...so she was basically swimming kids that could be about to turn 11. Yeah, that's right...BIG dogs. Our little chihuahua took on the mastiff like it ran off with her favorite toy. She didn't back down and she had a great time. First on the docket was the 50 Free and she got a personal best by a half second. Next up was the 50 Back. She was off her best by 3 seconds, BUT, she beat the last post by 14 seconds...not too bad. Today she had the 50 Breast (her favorite) and she absolutely BLEW her best out of the water by 20 seconds. Maybe she'll get the "whopper dropper" award for this meet. It's kind of like a most improved. Last but not least was the big one. End zone to end zone, I'm talkin' her first 100. She got on that block with kids that were already developing if you catch my drift and held her own against them. She probably posted the slowest time but she didn't sink, she posted a time (no DQ) and she came out of the water smiling. That's a girl!

This meet had 1100 entrants so the kids were limited in their events, 3 each day for Jared and 2 for Ryan. Otherwise we'd be there until July. It was a good meet and it's fun to see progress, especially after all the time they spend practicing. Best thing for them is that they're forging friendships, gaining confidence and they're staying healthy. Maybe I'll take up the sport...If I wasn't afraid of being beat by my kids :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!!

HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY RyRy

We love you!
Mom, Daddy, Jared and Kevy

Are you ready for some football???

Yes, you just can't fight fate...Kevin is built like a linebacker. He plays soccer like a defensive tackle. The only thing he asked Santa for was a football. See where I'm going with this!?!? My dad is going to be SO happy, I'm going to be a nervous wreck!
Registration for Fall is in April but I need to start research on teams etc. since we're new at this. I also need to take out a loan for registration, jeepers! The best part is that we are trying to work it out so that he's on the same team as his best buddy Jackson. This would help me with a carpool and it would keep the boys motivated. Football camp sounds brutal, so it'll be good to have someone to go with. He'll have weekly games (that we have to pay to get into--hello???) a homecoming, and cheerleaders (Ryan will love watching them!). It should be an exciting time! Stay tuned. You think he can ask for #34???
Kevy on Christmas after he opened his football. Showing us how he was ready to play...

Christmas photos

Rob and I got sick Christmas night so I didn't get a chance to post these as soon as I wanted to. After a week of hanging out at mom and dad's (see previous post :)) I had to get to work on my Kick-Off for the Relay for Life. Now that's over and I finally have my head back on straight.

Enjoy the pictures!Christmas Eve with the reindeer food from Grandma & Papaw HarveyJared figuring things out. The one with him getting his Santa gift was cool, but I love this look on his face, he does it all the time.Ryan with her ornament from Gran
I LOVE this shot of Kevin. He never shows emotion when opening a gift. My brother hit the nail on the head with a RC boat that has a fishing line attached so you can fish in the middle of the lake.Ok, so my brother strikes again, Rob also is one to hide emotions when opening a gift, but he couldn't help smiling when he saw what he got, a home brew start up kit. We will have a beer tasting soon...

Thanks for the Ride!

We decided to take the training wheels off of the kid's bikes over the Christmas break. My parents and my brother each put up a $10 incentive for the first one to figure it out. Ryan was the first one out there, ready to go. She rides a lot so she had a good shot at "winning". Kevin followed shortly thereafter and really was close. Jared decided that the house was lonely and decided to give it a whirl about 30 minutes into it. Right around the time Jared came outside, Kevin got it. Not stable, but he just needed to tweak it a bit. Ryan and Jared tried and tried and tried. They didn't quite get it before it got dark.

The next afternoon my folks and Rick went to the store. While they were gone we decided to give it another shot. Especially since Ryan was determined to get her "30 bucks". Guess no one told her it was the first person to get the hang of it...she was bound and determined to beat Jared. In the 5 minutes it took me to grab a sweatshirt and my shoes, she got it. Really, she was off like a shot. Something clicked and she was gone. Jared came out with me, scratched his head at his sister's remarkable improvement and decided to give it another go. He had it within a few minutes and they spent the next couple hours honing in on their mad biking skills. We decided to "trick" my mom and dad and we all ran back into the house and sat where we were when they left a few hours before. As expected my dad made a comment to the effect of, "have you guys even moved?!?!" Ryan was able to convince Gran to come outside even though it was really close to dark and dinner was not going to make itself. The look on her face was priceless. I'm talking about Ryan's, my moms was memorable too, but RyRy was SO proud of herself, she just giggled and giggled. Not only did she trick Gran, she beat Jared to the 30 bucks! Enjoy the video and Happy New Year!