Tennis time

My tennis team came in first place in our local league this year and qualified for the state districts tournament, which was held in Louisville this past weekend. David and Elizabeth came along to cheer for me, swim in the hotel pool, and go to the zoo. That list is not necessarily listed in the amount of excitement elicited from Elizabeth, as the pool (and her new fish float) definitely won that contest. But, it was still nice to hear her yell an occasional, "Good shot, Mommy" while I was playing.

The team did well. We ended up with a 3-1 record, and appear to have come in 5th out of 15 teams. Unfortunately, only the top 4 teams go to the semi-finals, so we just missed out on that, but that allowed our family to spend Sunday at the Louisville Zoo, instead of back at the courts. Based on how sore I was by that point after playing 4 games in 24 hours, I didn't necessarily consider that a bad thing.

In preparation for the weekend, we bought Elizabeth her first real tennis racquet and some foam tennis balls to play with. You can see her pretty, new, very pink, racquet in the picture at the top of this post. I'd put another picture here to show you, but Elizabeth wasn't really interested in playing with it after we gave it to her. Oh well...I guess she still has a little time left to become a tennis fanatic.

But, if you compare, I do think her stance has improved since her true first racquet:





She may not turn into a pro tennis player, but at least she's no longer trying to eat her racquet!

David's home!

And there was much rejoicing. :) It sounds like they had a truly wonderful experience on their mission trip to Arizona. I'll let him post more information about it when he gets a chance.

Elizabeth is very happy to have her daddy home again. She showed him lots of affection this afternoon by squirting him with water guns and spraying him with the hose. Oh, and with lots of squeeze hugs and smack kisses also.









David is all ready to go back again next year, and I'm all for it too - as long as I don't try to work the entire week while he's gone again. That was just a little too much for me!

Creative tag partners

Almost as soon as David left this week, I found out that I had made a parenting mistake of massive proportions. Not one that would hurt Elizabeth - but one that I truly regretted for me.

Last week, while playing in the backyard with David and Elizabeth, I got the great idea that we should teach Elizabeth to play "tag". She caught on quickly and absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, she loved it so much that she has wanted to play tag every night since then. This wasn't too bad when David was home, since he did 1/2 the running and catching. But, when it was just me, and I had already been working all day (and had even been up 1/2 the night on the day after Elizabeth woke up with nightmares), I was plumb exhausted.

So, last night, I had a brilliant idea. I convinced Elizabeth that Scar (our cat) would make a great playmate for tag. She LOVED the idea. So, she expended quite a bit of energy trying to get Scar to play. For those of you who have ever been around cats, you will probably realize how utterly unsuccessful she was. The conversation went somewhat like: "Scar...you're it!....kitty!kitty!...no, Scar, you're supposed to chase me!...like this!...Scar! I'm over here!....Mommy, I don't think Scar knows how to play." I was cracking up, and I'm sure the neighbors must have been loving it also.

Well, tonight, we (read: lazy mommy) got another idea. We decided to involve Lyra (the dog) in the tag game. And, since the Scar experiment was such a riot, I actually decided to videotape this one. For those of you with high-speed internet and a little patience, here's the link:



In the video, it actually looks like it worked pretty well, but I have to admit that was the one and only time that Lyra cooperated. After that, she quickly lost interest. And, if you can understand her at the end, Elizabeth is saying, "Run, Mommy," because she still wanted me to run with her, even if I wasn't the one who was "it". So, this experiment also failed, and I ended up playing tag and enjoying every minute of it.

I'm just glad that David will be coming home tomorrow to take over his 1/2 of the running responsibility again!

PS - For those of you inclined to read this and insert your opinion that Elizabeth needs a younger sibling to play with, don't bother! I know that running in the backyard every evening is no comparison to the exhaustion that comes from staying up every night with an infant!

The truth is out

There is a white van that travels through our neighborhood almost every day during the summer. It has pictures of all sorts of cold, tasty treats plastered on the side and it plays catchy music and rings a bell as it drives. You all know what I'm talking about.

For over 2 years, we managed to convince Elizabeth that this van was "The Music Truck." She would get so excited when it came around, all because she just wanted to hear the wonderful music it played. We thought that was wonderful, because it meant she wasn't nagging us to purchase anything everytime it came around.

We got a little nervous that our gig was up a few months ago when she started watching a Dora episode that featured, "The Ice Cream Truck." After that, she even went so far as to stop calling this vehicle "The Music Truck" and to start calling it by its appropriate name. But, she hadn't made the true connection yet.

This afternoon, Elizabeth and I went to the pool and had a great time. Then, this evening, since I'm playing single mom for the week, we both went to take Lyra for a walk. Just as we were getting back to our house, the ice cream truck arrived on our street. On a whim, I asked Elizabeth if she wanted some ice cream, to which she actually agreed (which is somewhat unusual, since she usually thinks ice cream is too cold). So, we ran to get some money, then waved the van down and I bought us some treats. I ordered her the quintessential childhood ice cream treat - the push-up. She immediately fell in love with it and started licking away. So, I took the opportunity to return a phone call to David. During our conversation, I put Elizabeth on the phone to say "Happy Fathers Day" to David. No sooner had she gotten that out, then she said something to the extent of, "Daddy, did you know that if you wave at the ice cream truck, he'll give you some ice cream, and then you can push it up and LICK it!!!!"

Can someone say "busted"?

Oh well. She had to find out the truth sooner or later...

Happy Father's Day

David left very early this morning (4am - ugh!) for his mission trip to Arizona. That means he'll be gone for Father's Day tomorrow. I figure there's nothing he could have done to make me appreciate him more on Father's Day than to leave for over a week. :)

He already got his Father's Day present before he left - a Native American flute that he can use during the worship services on his trip this week. But, today Elizabeth and I worked on another small present for him. He won't be able to get the full present until he comes home, but here's a preview. And, since he's supposed to have internet access while he's there, hopefully he can get a little surprise on Father's Day.













Happy Father's Day, sweetheart! We love you and we miss you!

Massive catch-up post

It's been a while since we posted...and I'm not going to only use my generic "Work's been busy" excuse, which is part of it. In addition, I'm going to also throw in the "We lost the camera cord and I couldn't download any pictures" excuse. Yes, lame but true. But, fortunately, David got us a replacement, so we're back in business again.

A lot has happened at our house recently. Jonathan graduated from middle school. He received academic recognition for keeping a grade point average of 3.5 or higher. He also received an award for Spanish. Here's a picture of him at the graduation program:



Jonathan left a few days after his graduation for a weeklong mission trip with some high schoolers from church. It was a small group (5 kids, 3 adults), but they had a great time and some wonderful experiences. The name of the mission trip was "Destination Unknown," and they (and the parents as well) literally had no idea where they were going. They simply prayed for God to lead them, then drew a direction and a distance out of a hat and started driving. They ended up doing a lot of yardwork and helping a few churches out, in addition to buying ice cream for firemen and a few other random gifts of kindness. Along the way, they managed to find places to stay each night and food. It was a really neat trip for all of them.

In the middle of that, our church had Vacation Bible School, which Elizabeth got to participate in for the first time since she's now 3 years old. She had a lot of fun singing, making crafts, playing games, and eating snacks. And, David and I got to go along with her, since they asked all of the parents to participate as well. She's now excited about starting her music classes next week, since the lady who did the songs at VBS is going to be teaching the class.





Elizabeth has also started an 8-week class at the YMCA called "Tots on Turf," where they run, kick, and balance, which she is really enjoying as well. We're hoping it will help her develop some of her gross motor skills and help her gain some confidence in using them. She also started a new Mother's Day Out program at the church her preschool is going to be in this Fall. In between all that, she's still spending a lot of quality time with her Daddy, who is taking a break from his classes to enjoy the summer and study for his PRAXIS exam. So, her schedule is very busy and she's loving every minute of it.

This past week, Aunt Beth and the Hobbs family came to visit. As always, the girls had a lot of fun playing together. Since it was so hot outside, they spent a lot of time playing in the sprinklers and the swimming pools:





Especially when Aunt Beth gave them some fun water instruments to play with:



Bridger even got in on some of the water fun:



The girls also had fun picking strawberries and playing at the local orchard:





Check out this comparison shot from their visit to the orchard in October 2006:



Bridger is now crawling all over the place, and he didn't seem to understand why he couldn't do everything the girls did! He's now been given the nickname "Giant Baby" and you can see why when you see this picture of him with Elizabeth:



At less than 9 months old, he is literally almost as big and heavy as she is!

The rest of the summer is going to continue at a whirlwind pace for us. Jonathan leaves on Thursday for Alabama, and David leaves for a weeklong mission trip at an Apache Indian reservation in Arizona on Saturday. We'll try to keep you posted!