Updates

What a nice way to start the new year's blog. The Steelers return to the Super Bowl and I found this great pictures of Emmy and Tyler at a younger age in there Steeler best. I will highlight some updates of each kid and their parents from youngest to oldest.

Tyler: This guy is keeping busy. He has a record of 7-7 in wrestling this year with 3 coming by pin. He has won a match at every tournament and has not been pinned this year, all losing coming on points. The most recent tournament Tyler took second meeting his goal for the year of a second or better at a tournament. He has also been active in Tiger Cubs taking second in his den at the Pinewood Derby race. He has started playing basketball this year and is super excited. It has moved to his favorite sport with wrestling and football following behind. His flag football season was great. he also played soccer in the fall and has decided that was his last go round with the round ball. He has one more tournament for wrestling this year and then will have basketball. In school, Tyler is doing really well all As. He has read over 700 books, his goal is 1000 by the end of first grade. Tyler is also singing in the Little Angels Choir at school

Emmy: Our sports nut. Emmy has been playing travel soccer this year, mostly playing against 9 and 10 year old boys. She loves it! She has started her second year of basketball and had really improved over last year, making 3 baskets in her first game. She will be continuing with soccer with a travel tournament in St. Louis, that she is really looking forward to. She is currently playing soccer 4 days a week and basketball 2 days a week. She is looking forward to summer soccer and softball. She is also doing amazing in school earning As in most subject and 2 B+s. She is enjoying being a Brownie after 2 years as a Daisy. She also is singing in the Little Angels Choir.

The Parents: We are happy, proud, and tired. Carrie continues her work with the American Cancer Society and loves being a sports mom. Brian has taken a position with Child Care Connection as a Provider Services Manager and loves the new role and challenges. The family has had great vacation this last year from Vermont to Disney to Gulf Shores. Traveling continues to be a passion of all of us. We are always on the look out for the next place to go.

Disney Day 2

Well, we began our morning early again and getting to Epcot for the 9:00am opening. I run over to Soarin' for fast passes, and plan to meet the family at Test Track. The line to get fast passes is 10 minutes (crazy). We walk on at Test Track. We were a little worried about Tyler until we are zooming around the track and he yells "THIS IS AWESOME". The kids are bounce as we get off, a cast member sees Emmy's B-Day Pin and asks if we would like to ride again. No waiting and we are back on Test Track flying around to corners. We head to Innovations and Spaceship Earth before Soarin. After Soarin', off to Food and Wine Fest in the World Showcase.

Emmy and Tyler enjoy their first taste of Food and Wine. They eat a dark chocolate dessert that they love. Carrie has a few tastes and I have a few beers. We finish with a Kim Possible mission before heading back for homework, swimming, ping pong, and air hockey.

We ate at Fuddruckers before our Pirate and Pals Fireworks Cruise. This was awesome. The first time for the Newmans and it was worth every dollar. We start with cool pirate bandannas and an amazing snack buffet. We get to meet and greet with Capt Hook and Mr Smee before heading out to the Seven Seas Lagoon for a picture perfect view of Wishes fireworks. The return to dry land is meet with Peter Pan. We all agree this maybe one of best things we have done in Disney. Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party tomorrow

The Trip to Disney and Day !

Well we were "welcome home"ed today. those who know me know how good this makes me feel. We had a very uneventful drive to Orlando, nice hotel last night, Orlando Vista. We ate at the Ale House, Zinger Melt and Yuengling's beer, a little slice of heaven. We were able to check into Boardwalk this morning. The room was ready at 8:30 am!!!!! I know this means very little to some but to check into your room this Early at Disney and have it ready is amazing. On to Hollywood Studio aka MGM...

I was a day of first for the Newman children. The plan was solid. Toy Story Mania fast pass, got them at 9:05 am for 11:05 am. It is amazing how quick this went. This is a good ride but not a fast pass out by 11:00am for the day and 190 minute wait. We shoot over to do the Backlot Tour, first time for the kids, then walk over to the new Disney Channel Rocks Show, first time for everyone, it opened Friday. We got to have our picture taken with Lots O Hugs Bear from TS3. It has time for TS Mania, Daddy wins with 180,800 points. We leave the park, grocery shop, swim, make tie die shirts and get ready for Rock and Roll a Coaster. Tyler decided o bail on this Emmy and I get ready. She is jumping up and down the whole way because she is so nervous. SHE LOVES IT! Tyler is ready for Fantasmic. This is a show we have never seen with the kids so it was also their first time and great reviews from the kids. Home at 10:00 pm and everyone but me asleep by 10:15. Big day in Epcot tomorrow and Pirate Wishes Cruise

Quick Update

We have just finished our second flag football season with Tyler. He loved it and played really hard. Emmy and Tyler will be finishing up soccer in the next two weeks. Tyler has loved getting treats but not so much soccer. Emmy has been a real trooper this year, this was the first year she had to be a leader and work really hard to help everyone else. We only had 6 girls on the team and may times were playing short handed. She has scored in every game and every girl on the team has scored a goal this year. I coached Emmy for soccer and Tyler for football and both have been some of the best experiences. Emmy will be playing indoor soccer, basketball, and continuing tumbling this winter. Tyler will be wrestling (his favorite sport) and playing basketball this winter
I am so proud of both of the kids, they are dong wonderful in school, Tyler has read over 350 of 500 books he is to read this year. Emmy has been awesome in second grade and enjoying everything. Emmy and Carrie will be attending second grade Pioneer Day, both are very excited. Tyler and I had a great time at Apple Blossom Farm for his filed trip. Tyler has also started Tiger Cubs this fall and is already earning badges.
We will be making a fall trip to Disney this October and will try to blog from there. Love and prayers out to everyone

How Do you spell Jesus?

So we're in the car yesterday on our way home from school talking about spelling words. Emmy was telling Tyler that she knew two of his Super Spellers for the year. He asked if one of them was Jesus. If so, that was easy because he already knew how to spell Jesus...J E L L O. Close buddy, but not quite!

School has been going well. Our big excitement each evening is hearing who in Tyler's class got their clip moved for misbehaving Last week poor Joey got his clip moved two days in a row to red! Luckily, we have seen no clip movement for Tyler. He is pretty excited that his clip has not gotten moved (So are we!)

Tyler's first outdoor soccer game was Saturday. Secretly, we were hoping that he wouldn't like it because doing both soccer and football is turning out to be more than we bargained for. Unfortunately, he loved it. His coach told him that he "was an animal on defense". I wouldn't exactly call him an animal, but at least he kicked the ball the right direction which is more than I can say for most of his team!

Emmy's first soccer game was last night. Brian is coaching and I think he may have been running more than the girls. They all seemed to enjoy themselves and they came close to winning. Most the girls have never played before, so it's been a bit of a challenge!

Catching Up (again)

Once again, just realized it has been quite a while since I posted. We've had two teeth lost by Tyler since the May post. The first was lost as he swallowed his dinner. We had to write a note explaining to the tooth fairy that there is no tooth, but he still really wants some money! Luckily, she obliged!

We've had softball, soccer camp, cheer camp, basketball camp, and wrestling camp this summer. We had an awesome vacation to Vermont. I really need to post a separate entry on our trip with photos...but I will say at one point Emmy said "Mommy, I hate to say this, but this might be better than Disney."

School started Tuesday. Tyler is in 1st grade and Emmy in 2nd. I will also try to post pictures from the first day of school at some point.

We are now in the full swing of things with Soccer (Emmy and Tyler), Football (Tyler) and Gymnastics (Emmy). Brian will start teaching at ICC next Thursday so things could get a bit crazy.

You may ask...why am I posting after so many months? I was motivated by reading a friend from college's blog today so my goal will be to at least update weekly if not more often.

The Best Mother's Day Ever

So I just realized it has been over 4 months since i posted. It has been incredibly busy, so I guess the time just slipped away. I'll try to catch up in this post starting with yesterday and going backwards.

So yesterday was Mother's Day and I just had an awesome day. We actually started celebrating on Saturday because the kids couldn't wait. Tyler made me a great cookbook at school and Emmy made a cool totebag that we are going to use as our library bag. The best part was the card that Emmy made me. It was one of those fill in the blank sheets, but the first line was "My mother loves"...and she wrote family. I immediately started tearing up. I try so hard to make sure my kids and Brian know how important they are to me and it meant so much for her to get it!

Anyway back to my great Mother's Day. I got to spend the morning in bed reading while Brian made chocolate chip pancakes with real maple syrup (yummy). After that I just kind of picked up a bit and baked a pie for dessert. The Newman's came over for lunch and after they left we headed out to Kennel Lake to fish. I actually got the catch of the day with an 18 inch channel catfish. The kids were so excited especially Tyler because I was using his pole so he figured that it was actually his catch. We finished up the day with S'mores over the fire back at home. I couldn't have asked for a better more relaxing day!

Now to catch up on the past 4 months. We have been working a ton at our regular jobs, and other saving up for our upcoming trips. A few weeks ago we headed up to the Dells for Tyler's B-day trip. We stayed at Hotel Rome on a timeshare deal. They actually ended up paying us $1 to come and stay...not such a bad deal. Now I wouldn't recommend staying there if you have to pay, but it was awesome for free! The kids had a blast. The hotel had an indoor theme park, indoor water park and outdoor water park. Despite the fact that it was 40 degrees and rainy, we rode go-karts on a gigantic track. We also played plenty of games in the arcade, rode the indoor rides and rode on a few water slides.

The Trojan Horse was the Go-Kart track and also Brian and the kids standing by one of the biggest roller coasters in the US.

Other than that trip we haven't really gone anywhere this Spring. Mom and Dad did take all 4 kids to St. Louis in March. Other than losing Tyler at the City Museum they had a great time! Also this Spring, Emmy has learned to ride her bike. It has been within the last couple of weeks that she has gotten the confidence to ride up and down our street on her own. In fact yesterday, she rode her bike up to the street to the house of a little girl on her softball team and they ended up riding bikes together and playing. Tyler would much rather ride his scooter. Even the promise of a new bike will not increase his enthusiasm for bike riding...maybe next year!

Emmy got her ears pierced on April 17th. She and I were having a girls day out at the mall and we went into Claire's and she decided to go for it. Of course she cried before they even started, but once it was over she was really proud of herself.

Tyler went to the doctor Friday and measured in at 47.25 inches and 51 lbs. We are working hard at getting both kids to 48 inched by July, so they can ride the Alpine Slides and Ziplines in Vermont. Unfortunately, I think Tyler has overtaken Emmy by about a 1/2 inch or so, so we may have a ways to go!

I'm going to throw in a few pictures from some of our Spring Activities, but otherwise I think I'm relatively caught up. Emmy has her first Softball game tonight, but it's supposed to rain, so we'll see!

Here are Emmy and Tyler in their Easter Outfits

Tyler's 6th B-day Party

After the School Musical

All caught up...I promise to be better about updating!!!