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You were warned...

Sorry to be such a lazy blogger. I know I'm sure to get a kick in the pants note from BlogHer any minute now. We've just been super busy around here with all the minutia of life. Here's a quick sampling, you know, in case you have NOTHING else to do.

Fin and Dash just finished swim lessons. They do them boot-camp style out here - 30 mins a day, every day for two weeks. That's a lot of sunscreen, changes and schlepping for us. But so very worth it. Fin can swim just about across the pool and even graduated to trying out some "freestyle arms" by the end and Dash, well, Dash learned to keep his mouth closed under water. And THAT made for some terrifying diaper changes let me tell you.

[Image]Happy Swimmers

Fin has also been keeping us busy with Tball. I have to say that I LOVED football and REALLY enjoyed soccer. Tball is just not my bag. The games move slow, the field is hot and the season is long. Just to keep things interesting, Brooks is also coaching this season. We weren't sure there would ever be this level of planetary alignment allowing him the time commitment and so far it's been wonderful - I know it will be something Fin always remembers. And if he doesn't, you better bet your hiney we'll be there to remind him how his Dad gave up every Friday night for practice and got up at the crack of dawn every Saturday for his games. Snicker.

[Image]Happy Playahs

Dash is eager to do all the things that Fin is up to with one notable exception. The kid could care less about the potty. I know his general schedule, so to speak, and if I make him sit on the throne, he will deign to fill it. Otherwise? Doesn't care. That stack of underwear I tried to bribe him with? Sitting there. The stack of toys in the garage I told him would be doled out for clean-pants days? I don't even remember what the hell is out there anymore. I guess he'll do it when he's good and ready. But that better be soon.

Big boys are learnin' up a storm too - Fin has a renewed interest in all his "homework" books and will sit and do page after page. He's also asking more for us to help him read his books. All good things, but with his planned extra year in Pre-K, I'm in no rush. I know he'll learn it all in plenty of time. Dash is working on learning his colors. So far he has mastery of blue, pink, and purple and occasionally he'll pick out green. Anything else is black. That kid cracks me up. When Fin sits down to work, he asks to work on his "homework" too. He is beyond excited to start school next year and will get his first taste of everything when he does camp with Fin this summer.

Kell is sitting like a yogi and shows little interest in crawling. And who can blame him, he has four slaves who will bring him anything at the slightest hint of a whimper. He's loving all foods - and will get extremely jealous if he isn't offered tastes of everything the big kids are enjoying. He's a pretty happy little guy but still demanding of everyone's attention. He loves his brothers like nobody's business and is finally happy sitting and playing with them for stretches. I still get sad seeing small babes in arms, but I look forward to seeing how his personality fits into our family.

[Image]Happy Sitter

Brooks and I have been keeping ourselves busy too. Work has taken off for him and it's nice to see him coming home excited about what he's doing. We're also in the midst of the Couch to 5 K (C25K) challenge. The idea is to get those of us who think running is pointless and boring off our hineys. We're on week 7 now which has us running 25 minutes at a stretch. And what I mean by that is we're SUPPOSED to be on week 7 and SUPPOSED to be running 25 minutes at a stretch. Brooks thinks that the three-times-a-week-work-your-way-up workouts are for sissies. He prefers to just jump in when the mood strikes. And because he's NUTS, he goes with sharp inclines and hand weights. I'm following all the rules and hoping it gets easier soon. All this has of course inspired new attire and gadgetry. We both now don our Nike+ fancy shmancy tennies to do our runs so that we can track our progress through our i-devices. My first run I was reminded to "calibrate please." And this was a reminder for me that, although "the device is calibrated to average running stride", my stubby stumps are SO not average. The damn thing was a 1/4 mile off!! I also realized that while wearing your pants a smidge larger then necessary is comfortable, not so much when you'd like them to stay up while running. So I grabbed a pair of the tightest ones I could find off the rack (literally, I think they were called "super tight") and a size smaller than I'd prefer. I got them home and couldn't get them past my CALVES without doing a shimmy. I'm stubborn, so I finally got them on and started my run (hoping to regain circulation below the knees with some movement) and do you know what? The damn things STILL fell off my waist. But not my knees. Picture me running in bloomers. Yeah. So if you have a favorite pair of running pants, help a sister out.

So that's the update. We head out for our annual beach pilgrimage this weekend. I can already feel the sand between my toes...