Figured it out!

Hey, those of you playing the Fit Game with me...I just figured out how to post the PDF file for the Points Chart to my blog--check it out there on the right sidebar. Now you can download & print out your own charts to track yourself...

I haven't gotten point totals for last week from anyone yet, so I guess I'm winning by default! : )

Please post your points when you get a chance.

14 weeks old

14 weeks and we finally have a real 'achievement':

he rolled over for the first time completely on his own!

Happy day!

The bald spot has made it's unwelcome appearance...in a couple months when he's sitting & crawling, it'll be gone.

He's discovered his hands and has been sucking his fingers, though not in this pic.

This photo here cracks me up every time I see it--HA HA HA!

Caught him at a particularly chubby, squinty moment, ha!!!

Check in your points for week 1!!!

Anyone playing along with the Fit Game, the first week is over so share your points!

I admit my first week was not stellar...it was spring break for us here last week and so, um, yeah, I can do better!

I will post mine in a minute after I total it all up...just didn't want to wait any longer to get this up here. I have a few posts to share but haven't had time to sit & write 'em up & upload pics...so stay tuned. : )

2010 Oregon State Champions!!!

At the crack of dawn on Saturday, we piled all 5 boys, a day's worth of entertainment & snacks & clothes into the van and hit the road for Eugene where the 2010 Oregon State Gymnastics Meet was being held. (Eugene is 2 hours away...and we had to be there at 7:45! Yawn!!)

We made excellent time, and ended up getting there WAY early. We were able to stake out a prime spot on the bleachers, right in the middle in front!

4 of the 5 boys pose for a pre-meet pic:

And at last it was time to begin.

Aaron & Anthony were in 2 separate sessions since they divided up the level 4s by their age divisions...Aaron in the 6-7 year old division, and Anthony in the 8-9's. Anthony was going to hang out with us on the bleachers while he waited for the 2nd session, but his coach saw him there and invited him up to 'help' with the younger boys. I think the younger boys liked having him there as much as he liked helping...

Here he stood during warm-ups giving the boys each a high-five as they ran by...so cute!

At last, it was time for session 2...here are the 4 8-9 year old boys on our team lined up for March In.

I love this particular shot George caught.

Aaron had such an awesome meet! He has made some pretty incredible progress since his first meet in January! His All-Around was 83.5, placing him 10th among the 6-7 year olds (so he beat Anthony's finish last year--Anthony finished 11th at last year's State Meet!) The meet results haven't posted on the website yet so I don't know how he placed on the individual events.

And this boy here has proven himself to be the State Champ that I knew he was--he has shown consistent strength & skill in every single meet this season. He finished with an All-Around score of 91.5, his personal BEST! He came in 1st in his division and 1st of all the level 4s...still waiting though on the individual event placements as with Aaron above.

His teammates took 2nd & 3rd places as well, so no big surprise that the team took 1st!

With their proud coaches:

And I didn't ever get the pic since the babies were alternately taking naps while we were actually at the meet, but another mom on the team also has a baby boy & her daughter had this fun idea to make little shirts for the babies that said "GO OGA!" So the other baby's onesie has the words on opposite of Zachary's so that when they're together, it reads "GO OGA!"

I thought it was pretty cute. And Zachary is always pretty cute. Love this baby!!!

Love all my babies and SO PROUD of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***Blogger is NOT cooperating right now. I've been trying to upload one video forever now and it's not going up...so hopefully it'll work tomorrow & I'll try again. I've got plenty of videos to share of the boys' champion performances in action.***

13 weeks old

We hit 13 weeks on St Patrick's Day! So of course he's in green. I made the mistake of dressing him in his other green outfits in the days leading up to St Patty's so I was left with my least favorite little outfit...so I dressed it up with a funny hat!

The only "accomplishment" this week is that he has all of a sudden decided he's going to lift his head all the way up....it's opening up a whole new world of entertainment for him.

I love the expression in this pic:

This photo is just for my own chronicling purposes...he officially hit 3 months on Tuesday, so a "Here I am at 3 months." (Not that we really need it with the weekly photo shoots.)

The "Fit Game"

Ok, is that a better title? It won't all happen in March anymore so let's drop the March part anyway.

So we're going to officially start the game fresh on Monday. Now's your chance to jump in and join the fun if you haven't already.

Some rules to clarify too:

• No half points. You either get the point or you don't. (So if you only drank 30 oz of water, no point...if you drank 60 oz, just one point--just drink another 4 oz & you'll get the 2nd point!)

• You have to eat a full serving of the fruit/veggie in question in order to count it toward your 5 fruits/veggies for the day. (If you need a guide on serving sizes, I can point you to one.)

• The bonus/scoring on fruits & veggies consumption is as follows: If you eat 10 fruits/veggies, you get an extra 1 pt for the 5 additional, plus you get the 3 pt bonus for 9 or more, which gives you a possible total of 5 pts. If you just eat 9 fruits/veggies, your total is 4 pts.

Anything else to clarify? Any questions? It's pretty straightforward, and it's all under the honor system so BE HONEST!

Let's run it for 4 weeks, with check-ins at the end of each week (on Mondays) with your point totals. I still haven't decided on an appropriate prize for the winner. Everyone lives so far apart that it's kinda hard...if you have any brilliant ideas, suggest away. Certainly you'll win bragging rights and fabulous good health--those should be enough, shouldn't they? : ) No, there needs to be some prize so I'll brainstorm some ideas.

Best of luck to all of you with the "Fit Game"!!!

Remember it's "March means Fitness"?*

*George doesn't like my title. He thinks it should have been "March Madness"... : P

Ok, Maury & Katie...and anyone else who was interested in doing the fitness challenge with me...(which should be underway...I've already been tracking my points anyway...) Here is the new and improved point chart & score tracker which I've created. (And I sorta got myself into another fitness game with some friends...that one hasn't started yet, so until then, I carry on with this one. I don't see why I can't keep track of both since they have the same ultimate goal anyway.) I've added items for your spiritual health too...scriptures, Temple, family history...

If you have any ideas or anything you think I'm missing, just say so.

This is a jpeg image...if you want the PDF file, let me know & I'll email it to you.

Happy St Patty's Day!

A beautiful day off

Yesterday was a day off school for the boys...and it happened to be a beautiful balmy 65 degrees too.

We invited some good friends & went for a little hike (or jog, whichever you prefer).

That's a lot of boys, isn't it?

And one little lady:

And another little man:

The trail conveniently has picnic tables for the occasional snack times.

And best yet, there's a DQ right there on the way back home, so of course we stopped for some quick treats:

Good day!

Toy Room Improvements

It was time for a change in the toy room.

We got rid of the old stained loveseat that used to sit in there...and I'm getting rid of the train table (anybody local want it??? It's used of course but with a nice coat of paint it can be good as new.) It was a good idea when we got it but we found that the boys felt so confined building the train tracks there that they never did.

And look what happened with all the newfound floorspace--the trains came out!

(And they all played together happily...always makes a mom happy.)

And I moved the toy storage furniture around a bit...it feels a lot more balanced in there (there's a big red hutch you can't see to the right of the photo frame).

George also finally put up the rings the boys got for Christmas...and now they have a mini-gym with the dome in there to practice their gymnastics at home:

Now we just need a good gymnastics mat to place under those rings...that floor is pretty hard. George also wants to build a pair of parallets for them to practice with too.

Wish us luck in having the boys keep it tidy in there...

12 weeks old

12 weeks old...

And as you can see in the photos, he managed to scratch himself for the first time...he promptly got his nails trimmed. He's become really drooly this week...I seriously doubt there's a tooth on the way any time soon though--the earliest any of my boys has gotten a tooth was 9 months, and they've all been really drooly.

Also, he's got a 'half-laugh'...he kinda makes the sound you hear at the beginning of a laugh with a wide open smile but then it just stops there...we keep doing silly antics to try to entice that full-belly laugh out of him but no luck so far. I haven't been able to catch it with video yet but he does do a clicking sound with his tongue mimicking us...and he'll stick his tongue out too. Fun but he won't cooperate for a video.

All by himself!

Benno was SO proud of himself--he got dressed all by himself for the very first time!!!

Take a good look at his clothes...

...and...

yes, they're on backwards,

BOTH the shirt and pants!

Some baby photo fun

My friend knit this awesome little stork pouch & loaned it to me to take some pics of Zachary. Unfortunately, he's a little big for it now (too bad I didn't have it 2 months ago!) But he cooperated and we managed to get a handful of pics.

Another unfortunate thing is that George's nice Nikon is missing. Have no clue what could have happened to it--last I saw it was when we were in the hospital with Zachary but George swears he remembered to bring it home--anyway, the point is that I'm stuck using the little point & shoot for everything so my pictures are all limited by that.

Sorry if you get tired of my blurred edges--I do that on almost all my pictures, I know...(and someday I'll probably look back at these and cringe.) I played with the photos, not sure that I like all the tinting and all but the subject matter is cute. These all make me laugh so much with this big, chubby baby and his crazy mop of hair on his head!

Ok, I like this better--I cropped it in a little closer & re-saturated it, sweet drooly baby face!