Eleven!

So it's the day!!

HAPPY 11TH BIRTHDAY TO OUR BABY D!!! Ha...he's not so little anymore! He is practically as tall as me and wears a bigger shoe size than me already!!

I vividly remember the day we brought him home from the hospital. Two terrified newbie parents! I didn't know what we were going to do or how to do it!! Ha ha...Dev cried literally the whole first night we had him home. Mike and I kept passing him back and forth trying to console him, feed him, change him, whatever might work. We made it through and each night got easier. Now 11 years later...wow...those long sleepless nights are hard to remember. Devin is such a sentimental young man. He is very caring, sensitive, thoughtful of others, athletic, intelligent, curious and laid back. I love every trait about him and I could go on forever. We are so proud of the young man he is today and looking forward to the man he will become in the future. It's hard to watch him grow up and become more independent, but at the same time it makes me feel proud.

This morning he woke up anxiously to see what surprise I might have in store for him. His breakfast chair was decorated with balloons, a card, some gum and a snack for school. I made him a huge pile of pancakes and even used my smiley face pan. He loved it....I haven't used the pan in forever so he had forgot all about it. Bryson loved the pancake faces also!! We sang Happy Birthday to him with candles all over the pancakes. He also took cookies to school to celebrate with his classmates. Tonight we are going out to eat for his birthday at the place of his choice...Cheesecake Factory. Ok, no complaints from me!! yum!!  He will also get to open his gifts, that he is also waiting anxiously for! :-)

I love the pics below. Yes these are him as a newborn! He was so big he practically took up the whole basinett! LOL... Love him to pieces!!

This Saturday we are having a small birthday party with a few of his friends. He is very excited! I hope the weather cooperates since the kids will be swimming and playing soccer and basketball!

Toodles.

Cooking girl and soccer galore

Well I spent a good part of a whole day prepping up meals for the freezer. The bad news...it was quite a tedious process!! The good news... it's working out really well. I have more than 2 weeks of dinners planned out probably closer to 3 weeks!! Amazing...it's been great. Yes it's a lot of pre-planning and prepping, but then you can relax for a few weeks. I've tried a few new recipes that have been pretty tasty but needed a little more seasoning for our tastes. One recipe was a flop but not necessarily for  the recipe. We had it in the crock pot all day and our crock pot apparently cooks really hot. The meal was totally overcooked and didn't taste very good. I'll have to try that one again and make sure it doesn't over cook. I guess  I'll have to try to start designating a weekend to cook stuff up for the month!

Soccer update...Dev made it on the developmental soccer team! He is very happy!! This is in addition to his school soccer team! His school team has had 2 more games and he has scored in both games. He told me they announced his name at school for the morning news that he had scored goals. He blushed....but I know he was proud of himself. The school team will be finishing up around the 3rd week of October for the season. He also played in a tournament this past weekend for the developmental team. I missed the Friday night game, the team won and he had 2 goals! He played again on Saturday and they lost. He still played great. Sunday's game his team lost 1-0 and only to a penalty kick...what a bummer... they were playing hard against the other team. Needless to say we had a full weekend of soccer!

Bry starts his soccer practices this week. He is very excited to get out there and play since he's been watching Dev play the last few weeks. He will have a busy schedule with TKD 3 nights a week and soccer practice one night a week with games on Saturdays.

It's Dev's birthday week! Wow!! He told me he wants red velvet cake for his birthday and that it doesn't have to have any decorations on top just the icing.. ha ha... I guess he's growing up!! I hoping the weather is nice for this Saturday for his party. He invited a few friends from school and a couple neighbor friends also. I'm planning a pool/soccer party in the field. It's getting tougher to figure out what gifts to get him...he told me a few things he wants. I'll take any help he will offer!

It's getting time to put out fall decorations! The funny thing is that here it's much harder to know that the season is fall. Nothing has changed, the weather is the same!! We are still adjusting to this weather...in a good way. But it makes it harder to know what season it is and they sneak up on you when the weather is pretty much the same year round!! Again...no complaints on the weather though!! LOL...

Funny kid sayings:

So the other day I was showing Bry a picture of a cake a girl made. It was a minecraft themed cake that she said was very tedious to make. I was telling Bry that the cake was around $100 because she had to cut each piece out by hand..., He said.." Wait , don't you mean she cut them all out by knife!"  LOL... too cute!


Hoping this week goes by fast! I'm so ready for Disney!! Only 9 more days!!!

Accomplishments and Productivity

Hard work and determination are paying off!!  

I've lost 31.5 lbs!! I'm so thrilled!! I was stuck at the 20 lb mark for quite awhile and finally changed things up, intensified things and became more dedicated! So since August I've finally broken through the plateau and started downhill again!! yay!! I'm thrilled!! I still have a little more to go, but I'm feeling great!! Only 2.5 more weeks till the Disney race and I'm so excited! I'm excited for the race and excited to see my girlfriends!!! It's going to be a blast!!

On another note we had another tooth fairy visit this week! Dev kept saying he had a loose molar. Well a few days later after dinner I heard him in the bathroom making some strange sounds and then he comes running out. He pulled out his molar!! Wow! I was impressed. I knew it was loose but never expected him to pull him own tooth out at 8pm at night!! Not much time for the tooth fairy to make a house call!!  Dev was very happy with his prize from the tooth fairy though. 5 gold dollar coins, each with a different president on them!! He was so happy, and so was I!!  :-)  :-) He reminded me that he even remembers one of the very first tooth fairy visits where he got a flashlight and some hot wheels cars! What a memory!! 

Well not too much planned for this weekend which is a good thing! I'm hoping for some organizational time around the house and probably lounging around by the pool. One main thing on my agenda though is something new. I am going to attempt to pre make some meals for the week. Mike and I talk about this all the time but we never seem to get it done. So....I figured this is a great weekend to start. I'm planning up some menu items for the week and then I'm going to spend some time this weekend cooking, splitting out portions and freezing up some meals. This will help tremendously with our busy weeknight schedule of soccer and TKD practices. Like I said, we always say we want to do it but just don't get around to planning it all out. So I'm planning a very productive weekend ahead! I'm also excited to make up some quick heat and eat healthy snacks to help keep me on track towards the rest of my weight goal. It also helps that the boys tend to like many different foods, they will usually try just about anything we cook. They don't always like it of course, but sometimes they do and it even surprises them! 

Ha ha! Happy Friday and have a great weekend!!

Lotsa lotsa

OK so here are some pics...

I really like this saying!!

Also you can view my shutterfly album of some of anniversary fun just click  HERE

Once on the link click view album and then slideshow, this is the easiest way to view them :-)

It's quite a few pics, hope you enjoy....

AND GUESS WHAT DAY IT IS??!!

Part II

Well I'm back with what we've been up to the last couple weeks. I don't have the pics to post yet to go with everything so I'll have to upload into an album hopefully night to share.

The second part of our anniversary celebration was wonderful. Mom watched the boys for us and Mike and I spent Sat and Sunday in Miami. Wow...what a city!! We drove over early Saturday morning and went to a Museum/Botanical Garden. Wow...truly breath taking! It was gorgeous!! The house was about 32,000 square feet and right on the bay. Fabulous! We took the audio tour and it was well worth it. Instead of just wandering around marveling at all the beauty we at least got to hear a little history about the house. It was such a great tour!! Then we headed up towards Ft. Lauderdale to have lunch at a great little place right on the A1A which is right on the ocean except for a street between the restaurant and the beach! It was another gorgeous view! The lunch was great too! We got to enjoy our lunch with a great view and also watch some crazy expensive cars go by and interesting people walk by. Mike had actually been to Ft. Lauderdale many, many years back and remembered taking a great water taxi ride to the mall. We called about it and then walked to where we needed to be picked up. It wasn't far at all from where we had lunch. The water taxi pulled right up to like a sea wall type spot and picked us up. We rode it to the next stop which was the one to get off and go to the mall. We walked around the mall a bit and did a little anniversary shopping  :-)   then we headed back to the water taxi. We decided to take a little longer tour on the water taxi so that we could see the million dollar homes and yachts. Well let me tell you.....what a site!! The houses were unbelievable but for me the yachts were the spectacle! I have seen mansions, but these yachts were huge! The water taxi driver gave us some history as we were riding and one of the yachts were 52 million! yes..52 million!! Crazy!! We also saw a yacht that had a helicopter pad on it, two small boats, 3 or 4 jet skis and a 3 man submersible submarine!! Really??!!! Crazy!! It looked just like this!!

Our day lasted longer than expected in Ft. Lauderdale but we had a great time.  We finally finished with the water taxi around 8pm, only because we had missed one of the pick ups but that's ok. We enjoyed the sites and the weather while waiting on the next one. We were spending the night in Boca Raton so we drove up to our hotel, changed clothes and headed out for dinner. Needless to say the evening went fast and we were exhausted. Morning came early and we enjoyed  a wonderful poolside breakfast at the hotel restaurant before he headed to Miami South Beach to check out the sites. It was pretty hot, so I'd really like to go back when it's a few degrees cooler. It would be more enjoyable to take in the sites and we could explore a little more with more time. We walked up and down Ocean Drive and saw fancy cars, crazy people and a $45 drink! Ha! No we didn't order it! Are you kidding, we got up from that street side cafe and kept walking! ha ha!! It was a fun experience though and we had a great time!!

Well Dev made the core soccer team at school!! yay!! We are very proud of him. He is one of only two 5th graders that made the core team!! His first game was last Thursday. He played great and even had a shot or two on goal. He didn't score but he had great effort.  After the game another kids parents approached Mike about Devin joining the developmental league. He had seen Dev play and wanted to see if Dev was interested. Dev stayed and played a scrimmage game with the team. I wasn't there for the scrimmage but Mike said they played a U12 girls team. Dev is U10. He said the girls were awesome and played hard against Dev and the team. Dev did score a goal in the scrimmage though..wow!! Great job. We will find out a little more information this week about the developmental team and see if Dev will join them or not.

Devin also had his first week of safety patrol at school last week. The fifth graders rotate in helping the other younger kids cross the street at school and even walk the really young ones to class. I hid in the parking lot one morning after I dropped him off so I could snap some pictures! Ha ha!! He knew I was going to be doing it, but I wanted to try to stay out of sight so I didn't embarrass him in front of his friends. He really likes helping the younger kids.

This past Saturday Bry competed in his 2nd TKD tournament. We are so proud of him!! He did great!! He fought two matches and won both of them. The 1st match he won 3-1 and the 2nd he won 10-0. So he won 1st place in his division. I could really tell that he wasn't as nervous as he was for the 1st tournament that he competed in. Bry will start soccer practice in a few weeks and I know he is ready to play again. He has been wanting to play more tennis at our clubhouse. Who knows, we might need to find him some tennis lessons! He told me he wants to do other sports so he can be good at more than just soccer. Love it!! Bry was also student of the week last week for his class  :-). The boys are doing wonderful in their new school!!

So only 2 1/2 weeks away and Dev will be 11 yrs old!! Wow!! I think we are going to have a pool party for him at the club house with a few of his friends and some snacks and cake.

4 weeks and it will be my race in Disney! yay!! I'm so excited!! The boys and Mike will also be in Disney that same weekend visiting a friend of Mike's. I'm hoping maybe Sunday I can meet up with them and weather depending we can go to Blizzard Beach water park. Yes, I know it's October but we are in Florida remember!! The last time we went to Blizzard beach our day was cut short by thunderstorms. The boys are much better swimmers now and enjoy the water slides even more so it would be a blast!

While cleaning out some boxes this past weekend I found some old VCR tapes. I also found our VCR so after some trouble shooting and replacing a fuse we actually got it to work! Fun! We watched an ultrasound of Devin in my stomach, some of our wedding reception, part of a Jamaica trip, and some old TKD tourney and testing stuff of Mike and I before kids! Wow! Now I need to get these all transferred onto DVD before something happens to the tapes!

Well I think that's all for now. I'm hopeful to upload some pics to share tonight. Toodles!