Dolphins, Vampires, and Tigers

BLUE DOLPHINS
Here is our "little" Tanner in his first year of soccer. He was amazing! Look at the concentration on that face!

Tanner amazed us all with his skill in his first season. He dribbled the ball down the field and scored several times each game. I think the lowest number of goals he scored in a game was 3 and the highest was 8. But he scored every game. The cutest thing he did was after Coach Dad told the team that they needed to pass instead of just shooting it into the goal since we were totally killing the other team, so Tanner did it and helped one of the other kids who hadn't scored before score a goal. He was so proud. After the game when we were asking him how many goals he had that game (it was 5), he said "yeah but did you see me pass it to Gavin and he got a goal -that was so cool." Teamwork - he is learning it at this young age! Yippee!

VAMPIRES
Scary but true Dawson's team choose the Vampires as their team name! I love this action shot - Dawson is just about to boot that ball!

Dawson did incredible this year. We saw such a big change in his skill level since last year. He was so aggressive and had good ball control. It was really fun! I was a proud parent but of course I tried to keep my pride in check. He had a funny coach this year that would tell him after every game that he was the best player, the MVP, and how great he was doing. The coach even hugged me after a game and said how great Dawson was. I thought "did he just hug me?" (Don't worry he was hugging other parents too!) It was just funny! But really was had such fun watching him this year. He scored every game and just played awesome. Go Dawson!


BLUE TIGERS
Now here's our Under 10 Josh! Yeah we finally made it to the big fields with all the rules! It was really fun to watch Josh this year with the big changes that Under 10s brings.

Josh had a good year. He even got to play goalie a couple of times. Oh boy was that a stressful one for mom and dad. I don't know how my parents handled that when I was goalie in highschool! He did really good at it though. He also scored one goal this year and I missed it! I had just left the game to take Dawson to practice and he got his goal. Bummer. But I did hear that it was a great one! Josh also made some great improvements in being more aggressive and going to the ball! It was a great year!

10 hours +

Marissa did it! YIPPEE!!!!!
After my complaining on Thursday - I took aggressive action. The boys all went out on the Fathers and Sons campout on Friday night so I decided that I wouldn't get a better time to not worry about waking anybody up so we had at it! Bedtime as usual - then at her usual 2:30am waking I just let her cry. I would go in every little while and lay her back down and give her the binky. She would be quiet for a bit then start up again. This lasted for seriously and hour and a half. Of course she wasn't screaming the whole time or I would have caved. But by 4am I thought maybe she is thirsty - so I got her sippy cup and gave her a sip of water and then after that she finally went to sleep. So it was a rough night. I was thinking that this would happen again Saturday night but nope - she slept till 4am (skipped her 2:30am) - I nursed her than back to bed. Then last night - I was expecting crying again - but she slept till 6am -AMAZING! I fed her and then back to bed till 8am. I am in heaven today. That one night of crying is all it took! I am sooooo thankful. I hope this continues - sleep is wonderful!

Sleep - What is that?

So I just wanted to WHINE and COMPLAIN just for a minute. Oh how I love my sweet little girl but you know what I NEED sleep. Things just aren't going well. I am totally frustrated. I know it seems petty but sleep really is extremely important. We started 2 weeks ago today with the letting her cry it out. Well she falls asleep fine by herself but waking up in the middle of the night several times is still happening. For the first week we had Tanner sleeping on the floor of Josh and Dawson's room so she wouldn't wake him up when she cried it out in the wee hours of the night. Well she is still doing it. When I let the boys cry it out all they had to do was cry at bedtime for about 45 minutes for 3 nights in a row and they were CURED. But you know this little girl is doing everything DIFFERENT. From weighing 10 pounds at birth and being sunnyside up, to not rolling over till she was 6 months old, to being the baby I nursed the longest, to not liking solids (that is finally changing at 9 months), to not sleeping through the night! What do I do with this girl? I thought I had it all figured out and then WHAM - in comes Marissa! Well we are praying hard that we can figure this thing out because Mommy Zombie is not really the funnest person to be around. Example - I had only 20 dollars bills and I needed some smaller bills to pay Josh's piano teacher. So since Josh had a good stash from his birthday and mowing the lawn, I asked him and explained to him that I was going to give him a 20 dollar bill and I would take 19 from him. He understood and I made the switch. Well as I am trying to get him to get his shoes on he says "Mom but I had 32 dollars and now I only have 27. So I tell him what I did again and was getting a little frustrated. Me "Josh I only took 19 dollars I wouldn't steal your money." Josh (crying now) "but I had 32 now I only have 27." Mom (raising voice maybe about yelling) "I only took 1 10dollar bill, 2 5dollar bills and 4 ones - Oh wait (not yelling anymore - feeling very sheepish for yelling) did I take too much - oh I'm sorry Josh." I should just put a big sign on my forehead "2 hours of sleep here - Please excuse anything out of the ordinary. Thanks!"

LIVE STRONG!!!!

I just wanted to ask for prayers for my Daddy and my niece. Both have just started chemotherapy for cancer. My dad has lymphoma and JD's sister's daughter Brinley has leukemia. It is going to be a long hard road but we have faith that things will work out. Here's my Daddy - love you dad!

Here is little 2 year old Brinley Marie. She is a little doll! We love her.

LIVE STRONG!

We love Marissa!

So Marissa turned 9 months old on the 20th of August.

She loves swimming even when the water is freezing cold. Splashing is her favorite!

We all enjoyed our August cousins birthday party at the Novaks! So glad we know someone with a pool - even though it is 45 minutes away. It was definitely worth it.

A couple of days before that I caught her plunking away on the piano. I was in the kitchen and didn't realize it was her until I thought about it and figured that no one else was in the house.

She has to stretch to reach but now she is always at the piano. Daddy is so proud. Tonight at Grandmas she crawled all the way into the living room to see who was playing and ended up joining Dawson. No picture for that but it was cute.

Marissa is a joy. She is letting her needs and wants known these days with a very loud noise - I'm not sure how else to describe it. This last picture is of her new cheeseball smile that she was doing the other day all day. It was so funny!