Always our CHAMP!

Yes, I know that I've been MIA - blame Facebook!

I have to get out there and write about my sweet, strong, and amazing daughter. This girl of mine has had an entire TRANSFORMATION in swimming the past month or two. She has gone from someone out there having a good time to being a girl on a mission to become the best that she can (while still having fun!). She has dropped well over a minute of time on her combined events over the last month alone.

It recently became clear that she excels in the Breaststroke (just like her brother and mama!). She dropped 30 seconds on the 50 Breast since the beginning of the season (September). After our February home meet a couple weeks ago, she was within 4 seconds of a champ time in the 50 Breast.

Her last chance to get that state time came and went this past weekend. On Sunday, she swam it and missed the champ time by .20 of a second. Ouch! She had the opportunity to do a time trial in it at the end of the meet, giving her another chance. My girl had it in her, and dropped another 3/4 of a second, earning that champ time. Unfortunately, as I watched with shaking hands and tapping feet, I knew that this time drop was not going to give us the result that we wanted. As an ex-official, I am quite in tune with technique and was watching her and the officials closely, so I saw that she'd been disqualified, which meant that her time wouldn't count. My heart was broken for her, and it was so hard to watch her as she became so excited to see her time and then rush to me with the biggest smile on her face that I've ever seen. I had tears running down my face. Tears of pride, tears of joy, tears of disappointment. I hugged her as hard as I could and told her how simply AMAZING she was and how proud I was of her, hating that I was going to have to break her heart but knowing that I couldn't let her go on thinking that she'd be going to state.

She is disappointed. I think that I am possibly even more disappointed for her. The kicker is that the time standards change in April, and as of then her legal time will be a champ time... qualifying her for state automatically in August... BUT she ages up in June, so that champ time won't count. She's a hard worker, an amazing swimmer, and I know her chance will come. She's our champ.

Here she is with her finals shirt, she took 2nd place in the 50 Breast:

More awards, and a certificate for her first EVER A time!

We had a special celebration for her last night. It was fun and made her happy. Wish I could get over it as easily, this mommy has guilt. If I'd bought her a new suit for the morning session, maybe I pushed too hard, maybe we shouldn't have tried to teach her the underwater pull... But amidst all the heartache, one factor remains. She's our champ, and she's made me proud.

Santa 2008

In one of my "lets get organized" fits sometime last month, (about the time I was making a zillion dr./dentist appointments), I had the foresight to make our appointment to see Santa Claus. No kidding, at the Mall of America, you can now schedule your time in advance! Of course, I couldn't forsee that we'd get our first dusting of snow on that night, which meant that the usual 45 minute trip to the mall turned into an hour and a half... sigh. Oh, well!

I was dismayed to find out that the "appointment" Santa wasn't quite as santa-ish as their regular "stand in line for hours" Santa. I guess if you have to wait you get the real deal. This Santa was great with the kids, but a little small. Way to skinny, and I think William was taller than him.

One thing I like about the Santa(s) at the MOA is that they actually take time to visit with the kids. They all sit on the floor and have about a 5 minute dialog before they do the pictures. During this dialog, Santa reminds all the kiddos to be good and mind their parents, and eat their vegetables. Santa asked each kid what their favorite vegetable was:

William: "Peppers." (This kid definitely got the hot and spicy Mexican genes that seemed to skip me over)

Madison: "Broccoli" (also known as trees, it's been her favorite since she was 2)

Caden: "French Fries." (insert head smack)

Yes, I suppose that technically real french fries are a vegetable. I have a feeling that he was talking about the McDonald's variety, though, and I'm not so sure about the vegetable content in those. It got quite the belly laugh out of Santa and a giggle out of Santa's elves, and anyone else that heard him. Yes, Caden is so far my only picky child. Doesn't touch much for veggies, and doesn't eat his dinner (or lunch) half the time. Thankfully, he's a big fan of milk and breakfast cereal, so he won't starve anytime soon.

Here's this years Santa pic, I think it turned out nice! Merry Christmas!

Utter Exhaustion...

Yikes, so I didn't do so great on the blog front last month... this is such a busy time of year! When I re-entered the work force, I knew that there would be a trade off with my job - the seasonality of our product would allow me to spend lots of time playing with the family in the spring/summer, but time is at a major premium this time of year. I'm ok with this, but after weekends like the one I just had, I really question my sanity. The store that I work for opened at 10 PM on Thanksgiving night and stayed open for 24 hours. I headed over around 8:30 pm and was surprised how crowded the area already was. I planned to stay until around midnight to make sure that things got off to a smooth start, but that was not to be. I didn't get out of there until after 3 AM, and I'd been planning come back at 8 AM - that got pushed back a bit. I had a bit of a run in with mall security, who (being the bullies that they are) were trying to tell customers that they couldn't turn down the road that accesses our parking lot because it was full. (Our store is situated directly behind the outlet mall). Freakin' idiots. They were actually sending people away that were saying they were trying to get to us. It was utter madness, I cannot fathom the number of people willing to go shopping at that ungodly hour, but we made it through. Only a few more weeks, and then we get to make the trip to UT to see Grandma and Grandpa Bradford, The Hensons, and lots of friends - we're ALL very excited for that!

In other news, the television that is up in our room died. It had a nice long life, I bought it with my ex when William was just a baby - it was time to replace it. Brent got a steal of a deal on a 46" Sony LCD (thank you Slickdeals). I have to say that Caden is in heaven not that he gets to watch his Wonderpets in the evenings on HD. Actually, I'm probably lying, I don't think Noggin broadcasts in HD - but you get the picture.

Kids are all doing well. Madison has a swim meet this Saturday and her first piano recital this Sunday. William is done with club swimming and started with the Middle School swim team today. Caden is excited about Christmas. We have an appointment to see Santa and get pics at the Mall of America this Friday - he told me that he want Lightning McQueen and a Butterfly toy (???) for Christmas.

Here's some pics of the kids from Thanksgiving - I wish everyone a safe and Happy Holiday Season!

9 Appointments in 7 Days...

Yes, I know you always knew I was crazy. I haven't been around much, and this is why:

Since "my" store traditionally is a big crazy blur between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and because I've been putting off several appointments for way too long, last week I decided to just make them all. So I did. 9 appts in 7 days - Caden's 3 year check (2 months late), 4 dentist appts, 2 eye dr. appts (plus another follow up for a contact lens fitting for Madison, an ADD checkup for Madison. All this in addition to our regular hectic schedule of swim team practice, swimming lessons, and piano lessons.

I'm about halfway through it all, wish me luck!

Halloween!

Sorry for the lack of bloggy news, life has been crazy as heck lately. I promise I'll do some news soon, but for now, here's Halloween pictures. Caden was adorable this year, he was so excited and a week later wakes up each morning asking if he can go trick or treating again :)

He loved pumpkin carving once he got over Daddy scaring him!

Please pray for my Dad...

I got a call yesterday and learned that my dad is in the ICU.... he has more than one significant health issue going on and could use all the PPT's that you can spare.

My Dad is a selfless and wonderful person, hard working, intelligent, the ultimate problem solver. I'm so much like him in so many ways (both good and bad, I'd say... I definitely got my packrat tendencies from him!)... The compassion and selflessness that he models towards those that he loves is the foundation of the type of person that I try to be. He's one of the good ones, the really good ones, and I'm so lucky to have him. I may not be able to solve all the worlds problems, but he did show me that I can strive to leave the world a better place for my having been in it. Dad, please know that you have done that for me and for countless others a million times over, and you continue to do so every day. I love you.

Update on us and Apple Orchard...

Sorry for going so long without an update, but it's been a busy several weeks. Business at the store is picking up, swimming is in full force, so we spend several nights per week traveling back and forth to the store. We've managed to squeak in plenty of Fall Fun, and even a trip to the ER on Friday night. I'll give you ONE guess who it was for.... sigh.

Caden had one of his toes very nearly cut off on Friday night, after an unfortunate run in with the recliner that Brent was sitting in. When Brent leaned forward to pull Cade up on his lap, the mechanism under the chair clamped shut, and Caden's poor toe was in the way (he'd been climbing up to get on Daddy's lap). It was absolutely horrible to see his poor mangled toe (I'll leave out some of the words I can say to spare you the visual that still haunts me)... We were at the ER for several hours, but fortunately he was spared any bone damage. But 8 stitches on a little toddler toe is A LOT of stitches to sew a tiny toe back together :(. Caden is fine, of course, resilient as ever. His toe will never be the same, and his toenail bed was damaged to the extent that it'll probably never come back... but he'll be ok.

Now that we have that unfortunate business out of the way, I'll leave you with some pictures from our recent trip to the apple orchard. Mmmmmmm.... Apple Cider and Honeycrisp Apples, I LOVE this time of year!