Jo's First Meet of the Season

We just came home from Jo's very first Level 5 meet of the season. She did very well and came in 4th place overall out of 16 girls in her age group. As she is progressing up a level, the skill is definitely harder but she is so much more polished, seasoned and prepared. She is fun to watch. I have to say it can be frustrating to watch when we've seen her do a routine beautifully in practice and then at a meet, she gets so nervous and loses it. Not so much this time! Her beam routine was BEAUTIFUL!!! She nailed it! I kept telling her not to get herself all worked up and all she has to do is impress herself! She did just that and Jon, the girls and I were beaming for her. Taylor exclaimed, "That was beautiful!" We look forward to 8 more meets this season with a grand finale at the State meet. I'll keep you updated with her progress.

Jordan is first in this very cute lineup waiting for the bars!


Saluting after receiving 2nd place for her 9.175 beam routine!

Integrity, Jo's gym received 2nd place for Level 5 out of 6 teams. I just happened to capture Mr. Baldy in front of me too!

Halloween

The girls are still very much into trick or treating and dressing up. This year Taylor was an old hag with Claudia. She kept calling herself a grandma but I told her I didn't think her grandmothers would appreciate that. Jordan was a bag of groceries (hilarious, loved it) and Tahlia was a "spa girl". One of our neighbors thought she was a desperate housewife. SO FUNNY!

Swim Meets and Soccer Championships

Hooray!!!! We've found a sport for Tali. She's a natural born swimmer. She makes swimming look nice and easy. She is really enjoying it. She has had two meets. The first one wasn't really a REAL one. There were no officials but had races to get the swimmers times. Today she had her first real deal meet bright and early. Her coach told her she's doing great, she just needs to kick faster and she'll be perfect. She hasn't quite gotten the concept of racing yet. I'd like to fly my brothers out to give her some private lessons. She swam her first relay and that got those legs moving. She said that was definitely her favorite swim, the relay. She was socializing on deck with her team before everyone screams like mad for you while you swim. It's fun to watch her although a little nerve racking to get her where she needs to go for each swim. I told Jon to take a picture of her buns cause it has her name embroidered on her right cheek. I teasingly told her that's how we'll know it's her when she swims butterfly, when her buns come out of the water. :)

Taylor did SO great in soccer this season. She learned and improved SOOOOO much and loved it. Her coaches were fantastic and the girls were great. They were so kind and supportive to each other. Taylor couldn't have had a better first experience. Her team ended up going to Championships and lost in a tough final game. So, they ended up placing 2nd in a league with 50 teams. She is going to now play indoor soccer and play outdoor on the same team in the Spring!

Fall Pics

LEAVES EVERYWHERE! This is how Tahlia passed the time at Taylor's soccer game. Her friend Camryn was further down in the tree. My children don't tend to have much healthy fear.

Dog Walking Business

Taylor, Jordan and Tali were off of school and had Reilly over to play. They decided to rake up the leaves in the backyard and had a big leaf pile to jump in. As they were raking they were chatting about starting their own business. Taylor thought it would be a great idea to rake neighbors leaves as a business. Reilly practically stated that it sounded like a lot of work. She offered, "why don't we start a dog walking business?" Everyone jumped on that idea and they ran inside to print up flyers for the neighborhood and were off to drum up business. They received their first customer with Boswell the Basset Hound across the street. Boswell is about 12 years old and doesn't necessarily like to walk but to sniff. He walks as slow as molassis and tends to poop a lot. The girls had left the house armed with poop bags because they understood the importance of being responsible for the cleanup. As the girls rounded the culdescac the second time, Taylor walking Boswell and Jordan dragging a bag behind her clearly weighted down with a significant amount of pooh, Jordan yells up to the house in disgust, " BOSWELL POOPED TWICE AND I THREW UP ONCE!" They had clearly come across the fact that this new job had an occupational hazard! :)

Taylor wants to add that now two weeks and lots of poop later, they have earned $40 and have split it between themselves! (the money not the poop)

Fall Is Here!

Fall has arrived in Ohio! It took a little while to get here. A little over a week ago we were sweating out on the lake in 90 degree temps. Since then the weather has cooled off. The mornings are chilly and then it warms to around 70. It's perfect. We are all loving it. The girls even picked out some fleece lined crocs yesterday to keep their toes cozy! The leaves have started turning and Jon and Taylor have done a considerable amount of raking. With this beautiful autumn weather came a visit from our dear friends, the Tomlinsons. They came for five days. We enjoyed a day on the lake, a bon fire, shopping, dinner out and a trip to one of the strangest pumpkin patches I've ever been to.... Heather is an incredibly talented interior designer and she gave me some WONDERFUL ideas and inspiration to decorate my house. Being the dolly she is she gave us all haircuts before she left and Jon was Guy's assistant while they cut down a dead tree in our yard that has been the neighborhood eyesore for months. Thank you Tomlinsons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had a wonderful time with our friends and now we miss them so much now that they have gone back to California.

Heather and I! A bon fire in the backyard complete with smores and wine. YUMMM!!!

The girls all took turns being statues in our little niche that I have no idea what to do with.... When mom was here she said I could make it a little prayer alter, so......Here you go mom! :)

ALL the girls on the water!

Jordan captured some beautiful fall colors out on the water. It really was beautiful!

IT WORKS!

Taylor came home from school a couple of weeks ago telling me about a conversation she had with Claudia. "Mom, Claudia said you CAN actually start a fire with a magnifying glass!" Claudia had tried it out and was able to successfully start a fire in the fire ring in her backyard, under her father's supervision, of course! Taylor ever since then has been begging Jon and I to sit in the driveway with her while she tries to set a leaf on fire. She is such a funny kid and I'm so glad that things like these seem to be much more facinating then boys for the moment. Well, Today is kind of a lazy Sunday and it is BEAUTIFUL outside. So here are the girls taking turns successfully burning holes in a leaf. Notice the water bottle within reach, just in case the fire got out of hand. Hopefully, I'm not encouraging pyromania! The experiment went off without a hitch and Jon figured that since everyone was outside he might as well clean his car.

The First Game

Immediately following the game Jon says, "The success of this season will be based in terms of improvement." Taylor went out there and gave it her all. She ran the entire time had a bit of an asthma attack, got back in the game and ran some more. Like Jon also said, It's like we're sending her out there expecting her to know how to play when she has never played soccer. I think all the girls on the teams have played for several years especially by the time they reach middle school. Anyway, she and Jon will do lots of practicing to get her up to speed. I told her I was very proud of her persistance.

Craft Central

Mom went home. We are ALL sad but we enjoyed her thoroughly. We could have kept her another week. Thanks Dad for letting us borrow her for an extended stay!! These are photos of her last night. She had the basement spinning with all the girls working on different projects. They were making sheets and blankets, flip-flops and headbands and hairbows. Mom is modeling one of the hairbows) It all turned out too cute and the girls loved it!

September Visitors

Jon's cousin D.J. came to stay with us 2 nights so he and Jon could go to the first Buckeye game together. They had a blast together. I know Jon was so happy to have a little reprieve from all the "girly stuff" that happens at our house. They went to the game, came home and watched more sports on TV and drank beers. Oops, with the picture of DJ and Jon I took the red eye out but I guess it also felt like leaving a couple of spots on Jon's face that weren't there. He really hadn't been playing in the ink.


Meanwhile, mom was downstairs in the basement having a jewelry party with the girls. They LOVE going through all the jewels. They put it ALL on!

Notice the shirt. This is SO true. Hey, did you know you can click on the picture and it will enlarge it? Several days ago, Jo asked to invite her new friend over to play. She is a little girl that is very nice and just moved into the neighborhood in July from Maine. She had never been over and I hadn't met her parents. When she came over, they played on the trampoline for a long time until it got quiet. I knew they had gone to the creek to explore which is fine but the silence was suddenly full of Jordan's laughter. The kind of laughter that only comes when she is doing something really naughty. I ran to the screened in porch and yelled, "Jordan are you in the mud?!" Silence. I said, "Jordan Schrock, come here!" Jordan and her new, soon to be former friend (because her parents had to have been horrified when she arrived home) slowly came out from the creek. When they were out in the sunlight I could see they were COVERED in mud. Sabrina was in her school clothes. They had mud top to bottom, front to back, so much so that they were having trouble opening their eyes. They had a no holds barred ,mud slinging fight. ALL Jordan's idea! Good glory child what is wrong with you? Being Jordan's mother is SO humbling, just picturing what Sabrina's parents would think. Sabrina's father greeted me later with a smile saying, "Are you the mother of the child who completely covered my daughter in mud?" I could have died.

Jumping on the trampoline with DJ in PJ's! They were funny to watch.

Here's the dog lady herself with Roxy. Mom has been visiting with us for a little while and is NOT a dog person! I have to say she has warmed up. So much so, that when she returned from visiting Ruth for a few days, she came back with 2 huge bags of raw hides and pig ears. She brought things to "keep Roxy busy". Roxy stays pretty busy doing things we don't necessarily want her to do, kinda like Jordan. Just kidding!! :)

Back to School

The first day of school came and went last Monday. I have to say I didn't even have to dab my eyes this year. I was and continue to pray for them as they transition to this very new and different environment. Boy do I have to say that I miss Legacy (their school in California). The girls are really enjoying their new schools and I have to say I am shocked that Taylor loves her new school so much! I think having a friend like Claudia helps. She is always excited about new adventures and very optomistic. Jo has made lots of new friends and Tahlia has made one. Well at least there is one. I know there will be more in time. I will continue to keep an open mind about their new public schools. It seems like there is lots more out to experience in school (different behaviors, socio-economic groups, english as a second language students) but its all about the choices the girls will make within this new framework. So far so good! The girls love wearing "Free Dress" everyday and Taylor feels like hot stuff in middle school switching classes, dressing for P.E., etc. She is doing great with all that!

More of Jon Getting Ready to Tour with the Pros

Another Successful Day on the Water

We took the boat out on Friday with a great family we have met here, the Shealy Family. We have a lot in common with them and our kids and theirs get along great! Anyway, their oldest daughter Claudia has been on the boat with us 3 times and has seen us wakeboard. We have been promising her she could try wakeboarding next time. Well on Friday, Claudia got out there to try it. She got up on the first try and stayed up like a champ. I guess Taylor had told Claudia that if she tried it, Taylor would give it a try. Taylor has tried and tried and tried for the past 2 summers and has gotten so frustrated and exasperated. Earlier this summer she vowed that she would NEVER try wakeboarding again! Well, she made this deal with Claudia and was so inspired with Claudia's performance that this time she was going to get up. Taylor jumped in the water and on the second try was up. She got up a couple more times and stayed up. When she got out of the water she was positively radiant!!! We are so proud of her persistence! Claudia tends to have this affect on Taylor. She tends to be a point of inspiration. What a great friend to have. Having said all this, I forgot to bring my camera on this trip, SO.......


Everyone was itching to take the boat out again yesterday after church. We went to the reservoir, no tubing, just wakeboarding. We were going to just go out for a couple hours. Well a couple hours turned into 6 almost 7 I think!


Taylor got up every time and wakeboarded forever working on maneuvering the board. Jo was working on her jumps off the wakes, too cute! Tahlia just rides and smiles. Jon of course just gets bigger and better. When he got out of the water, Jordan jokingly says in the goofiest voice,

"You're SOOOOO great, I'm your BIGGEST fan!"

She cracks me up! Seriously, sometimes it hard to be married to someone who is SOOO great at everything! ~SMILE~ No actually, he is my point of inspiration to get my butt out of bed. I've gotta try to keep up. Speaking of, I got out on my wakeboard and learned a very important lesson. Try like hell to never catch your front edge!! I smacked the water SO hard face first and my feet and board came up backwards to meet my head, bending myself in two, kinda like a taco. My back hurt so bad and knocked the air out of myself. Anyway, I'm having a little trouble moving today. I feel like the right side of my body has stoked out. Just kidding! Anyway, enjoy the pictures. We as a family had a GREAT day!!!!

The Vaulter

I was driving Jo to the gym today when she pipes up from the backseat, "Hey Mom!" Yes, I said. Guess what Casey (her new coach) says is my best event. I started guessing knowing which one it probably was without guessing it. Its the event that is the most improved and that she has REALLY been working on. VAULT, she says! Why don't you come hang out and watch! Her sisters just love when I hang out and watch. Jordan LOVES her new gym. It is brand new and bigger than I have ever seen and beautiful. They have a phenomenal boys gymnastics team, a girls rythmic gymnastics team, a tramp and tumbling team and and of course great girl's gymnastics team. Jordan's coach is terrific!

A couple of days ago I told Jo I would take some pictures of her doing gymnastics. Well I took a couple of pictures and realized flashes going off in the gym when gymnasts are working on flips and flyaways can probably cause a pretty good break in distraction. Jordan tells me later, one of the girls on my team said, hey, who is that lady taking pictures with flashes! Oops!!! Well, here is the 1 picture I got of Jo getting ready to vault.

The Artist

Jon says to me, "So are you going to feature one child a week on the blog?" In other words, shouldn't you do a write up on what each child is doing? He's right, It's just that I started with Tahlia and got distracted.

On Sunday, Taylor got very inspired that she would like to paint the naturescapes on canvas that would add just the right touch to the walls of her room. She now is very specific in her likes and dislikes. Gone are the days of me picking something out for her. She is definitely growing up. Anyway, Jon set up her easle and canvas and she went for it. She was one with nature and her sisters were inspired as well. Jo drew while Tahlia was her water cup holder. Her painting turned out great and is now ready to hang. We LOVE that she sees the world a little differently than the rest of us!

The House

Here are some of the pictures of the house. The front, front/right side (you can kinda see Jon weeding in the right side of the picture and of course Apollo forever by Jon's side) , the right side and driveway of the house and part of the view from the top of the driveway to the backyard. We are loving our new house and all of its spaces. The girls say its like being on vacation. We'll wait and see what they think when school starts! :)