Story of a Swimmer

Connor made Sky View's swim team this fall.  Go Connor!  We need to thank Aunt Karen for starting us on this path.  About two summers ago, while watching Connor swim across the beaver pond at Wildhorse, she commented on what a pretty stroke he had.  Said he should be a swimmer.  I had tried to get Con to try swimming a couple of years before, but he hadn't been interested.  That comment got both he and I thinking about it again.  That fall he took one more set of lessons, then starting swimming for an age-group team called the Gators.  One year of hard work later, he made the high school team and he LOVES it.  So THANK YOU Karen.  Chase and Katie are both swimming for Gators now also.  Things we love about swimming:
  1.  It keeps you in awesome shape
  2.  You can do it your whole life.
  3.  You mostly compete against yourself.  My kids don't do well with the pressure of a team sport like soccer,
         etc.
  4.  You're still a part of a team.
  5. It's both boys and girls, so you can make lots of friends.
  6.  It's competitive (you give it your best) but not too much.
  7.  It's not about winning and losing, just getting your best time.

It's so fun as a parent to have my kids be excited about this.  I don't have to make him go to practice.  He wants to.  It's a big commitment.  He swims everyday after school and three days before.  He is definitely learning to budget his time and to work hard.

Meet Billy

The first of October, Mike and Chase came home with Billy.  Chase had found him at a garage sale and bought it.  He was giddy with excitement.  He set it all up in the yard, found tent stakes to make sure "he" wouldn't fall over.  That day saw an elaborate game with all the neighbor kids with one team protecting  Billy and the other trying to "kill" him by turning off his power source.  I personally really, really don't like yard blow-ups.  However, I pretended to like Billy-the things you do for your kids.  Chase made sure he was one every night all month.  Sadly, Billy is now gone.  Till next year, Billy.

Halloween

Once again we had some interesting costume choices this year.  My favorite thing about Halloween in seeing what my kids come up with and then figuring out how to make it happen.  I didn't think Connor would dress up this year, he didn't trick or treat.  But a couple of days before our ward carnival, he decided  he would like to be Jack Skellington (think Nightmare before Christmas).  He really likes Jack for some reason.  He bought 2 jack shirts in Disney World.  Anyway one trip to D.I. for a women's blazer that I added tails and pinstripes to and Poco Loco for a swim cap and he was done.  Yahoo.

Next, Miss Katelyn wanted to be a black ghost.  Ok.  So one black sheet and I added white eyes to a baklava.  She ended up looking a little scarier than I thought.  The bad thing was she couldn't cover her face for the carnival.  Instead she wore a black stocking hat and had me paint her face black.  She looked like a cat burglar that night.  She loved it though.

Chase opted for Shaggy for Scooby Doo.  Super easy costume.  The hardest part was finding a goatee.  However, not many people knew who he was so he was a little bummed.  

Last is my perennial princess.  I made the dress for her in June.  She uses it for dress-up also.  Unfortunately,it was  a bit long and took a pretty good spill while running from house to house.  We had to pin it up and the Belle dress has a few holes now.  Ah well.  I guess I can't forget Zombie Mom.

  My Saturday morning Zumba class had a costume contest.  Marianne let me borrow this awesome costume she had made, so of course I won.  It was fun.