September Fun

Since Spence learned to ride a bike in June we have been looking forward to getting the entire family biking. Several times this summer Spence and I have biked on the nearby greenway. We already had a bike trailer for Jeremy to haul the little ones and we decided to get a tagalong so that I could haul Spencer. Also I decided to get a "mom" bike. Our new bikes came in Thursday night so Friday night was our first chance to ride them. Of course it rained Friday. But we were too excited to be deterred. We loaded the family and went to the greenway. We were the only ones biking the baths. Spence loved riding with me. I didn't hear a single complaint about how wet he was. He cried when we left bc he wanted to continue.











They play really well together. Here Preston is painting for the first time.

























Here are Aidyn and Spence watching a movie in his room. It was completely dark in his room when I sneaked in and took this picture.

First Soccer Game

Today Spence had his first soccer game. His team is the green dragons (although Spencer insists that they should be the green beetles). Today five boys were on his team. They played four on four, with a bit of three on three. Spence and another boy played the entire game with only water breaks. The other three boys took turns subbing in and out. The games are supposed to last an hour, so Spence was a tired boy at the end of the game. He thoroughly enjoyed playing. At times you could tell he wants to play goalie, but in the 4 year old teams there isn't a goalie. Several times he dove after the ball to stop it from going near the goal. And once he ran and stood in front of the goal, holding his arms out wide to block balls. Jeremy and I laughed hysterically.
Our favorite part is when he chased down an opponent, passed him, flung himself onto the ball with one long fluid roll, scooping the ball up as though it was a football fumble. Parents of both teams were laughing wildly. Unfortunately I didn't get any of the highlights on video. I was busy using the film camera most of the game and near the end of the game realized how to use the digital camera to take close up videos. So here's the best footage I captured--from the last minute of the game.

Preschool's Back

Hooray, preschool is back in session. Our lives have been crazy all summer with many trips and weeks of hosting company. But some things will settle down now that all three kids are going on to preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Spence goes on Wednesdays too.

Here they are at Sneak-A-Peek where they spent a partial day getting to know their teachers while mama moved from room to room watching them. Spence has ten total kids in his class, Aidyn has eleven with two teachers, and Preston has eight with two teachers. All of them will have music class with two music teachers. All of them will have recess on their playgrounds. Aidyn and Spence will have PE in the gym, and once the babies are a bit more able Preston's class will have gym time too. Preston is the baby of the school as he is youngest kid enrolled. Each day they will have Bible lessons and preschool skills lessons. And during his extra five hours on Wednesdays Spencer will also receive art lessons, Spanish lessons, and an enrichment class for safety rules. (Jeremy picked Spence up from school today and Spence announced that he had Spanish class today for the first time and that he didn't sing any of the Spanish songs the teacher taught them bc the songs were "just crazy").

Preschool gives Marsha ten Kid-Free hours a week. Plenty of time to run errands, do house work and help Jeremy with his classes when possible. He has an insane amount of articles to look up so i'm hoping i can do the research for him at our public library--would be sooooo much easier to buy a textbook than to drive all over town looking up 30 some-odd journal articles??? what are these business profs thinking?? He is taking six hours this semester so he won't be home til 10:00 pm on tuesdays and thursdays. i don't have a photo of jeremy on his first day back to school. :)

Olympics

Our kids enjoyed the Olympics. We got an Olympics shirt for Spence when we were in Guangzhou and he has been wearing it for a long time. We have been telling him about the Bird's Nest since we saw it in 2006. And since xmas we have a Wii game that features the Beijing Olympics so the kids have become familiar with many of the Olympic sports and arenas. So when the real Beijing games began, everything came together for Spence and he made sense of the sports competitions and the nations competing. The kids enjoyed seeing the Bird's Nest and the Ice Cube lit at night, especially with fireworks; and they liked the opening ceremony. Spence asked to watch events almost daily; i think fencing was his favorite. And Aidyn liked gymnastics. He never has been much of a singer, but he has been running around the house singing the Olympics anthem and the Star Spangled Banner. And for a couple of weeks both Spence and Aidyn were playing imaginary drums in slow-motion, using huge wide arching movements like those 1800 men of the opening ceremony. Was really funny. Aidyn of course loved hearing about "Chi-Chi" on the tv daily. She gets that she was born there, just as Spence came from Atlanta. Jeremy and I of course had very mixed feelings on the whole ordeal. Makes us sick how much money the government spent to show off to the rest of the world, when their welfare system seemingly couldn't take proper care of our daughter and the many kids waiting now for surgeries and families.