Sunday, November 02, 2008

Trick or Treat!

It's that time of year again... more candy than we need or could ever eat!
Here's our little trick-or-treaters - this year we have Juliet, a Chinese princess, and a Storm trooper, although he refused to wear the helmet!




















Also joining us were Cleopatra and a little black cat!
They all had fun and of course, got way too much candy!

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Monday, October 27, 2008

Like ... Totally!

This is not a very good picture, but I just had to post it! This is Saturday - before Halloween and some friends in the neighborhood are having a Halloween party! Can you guess the theme? Yep, 80s! I didn't take my camera 'cause I was told after the party last year that NO cameras would be allowed. Apparently, things got out of hand last year and the photographic evidence was somewhat incriminating! However, there were several cameras there and hopefully I'll get some copies of the more mild pictures!

And don't even think that we're done with Halloween... not in this neighborhood! We have another big party on Halloween night, so there will be more pics to come!


John, Cindy, Lachlan, Kristen, Mitch, Kelli, Greg and Me!


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Our new hobby...

Now we've found a new hobby! Rock climbing - of course here in Florida that means indoors on a climbing wall, but it's still fun. Jake was invited to a 'rock climbing birthday party' and that was where we got our first taste. Now I try to go at least once a month and Sara has been begging to go too! Jake's not too sure about it, but had a good time at the party!






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Back to School!

Yes - I know it's been a looooooong time since I've updated this site! Too long! And I don't know how it happens... since I don't have a real 'paying' job, but I always seem soooo busy! So now the kids are back in school... that should help, but then again maybe not. I still seem to keep busy - trying to stay fit, walking the dog everyday - running on occasion, and I've been totally book-obsessed lately! But enough about me... this is the 'livelykids' blog afterall! So here they are! Ready for a new school year, even though they had to start a day late because of Hurricane Fay! Sara is in 5th grade, Anna in 3rd grade and Jake in 1st grade. This year is actually a little sad for me... this is the last year that they will all three be at the same school. Sara moves on to middle school next year. Can't stop them growing up!

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Horse Camp!

OK - I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes! My girls wanted to go to horse camp this summer! Thanks to our great neighbor, Cindy, it worked out perfectly. So Sara and Anna went to horse camp 8:00 - 5:00 everyday for a week and they absolutely LOVED it! They never once complained about the heat, about the dirt, about the smell, about the work they had to do or even about scrapping the horse poo off the bottom of the horses hooves! MY LITTLE PRINCESSES SCRAPPED HORSE POO WITH A SMILE! Unbelievable - so now I guess this is something we're going to have to do...
























Anna loves Trudy!




























































Sara rode several different horses during the week! Both girls did fantastic!




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Thursday, July 10, 2008

Brownie Invasion at the Nick Hotel!!

the Nickolodeon Hotel in Orlando hosted their annual 'Girl Scout' month in May (giving special discounts to girl scouts). Our ever ambitious Brownie troop took a weekend and went to check it out!





























Seven Brownies and seven moms (and one big sister, Sara) checked in on Friday and had a weekend full of wet, wild fun!















We started around 9:00 am - and we were practically the only ones at the pool!















Of course by lunch, we had been joined by hundreds more!

Monday, July 07, 2008

New Beach, Old Friends

Some of our dearest friends from Idaho were in Hilton Head, SC recently! When friends from Idaho are that close (relatively speaking) - you gotta go visit them! This is the first time we've seen these guys in over three years! So we drove up and barged in on their family reunion!




















Sara and Maddie - boogie board babes!
















Anna and Sydney
















Jake and Conner















All these kids and I still didn't get them all in the picture - missing about 4 more! Talk about a FULL HOUSE!
We had a great time and I have decided we should make this an annual event! ;-)

More Swimming!

Thanks to our wonderful neighbor - we have some more great pictures from swimming!




















Super Dad - serving as a volunteer timer! (Dark shorts, straw hat)











Anna doin' the backstroke!




















Jake and Carly





















I have become a swim mom! Yikes! (that's a bad angle...)



More from Jake - and when I say more... I mean more.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

One place in Florida that stays cold year round...

That's right - we went ice skating! Well, I shouldn't say 'we' because there was no 'me' on the ice!
Sara and her buddy Jenna decided to have a combined birthday party since their birthdays are only ten days apart! So they invited all the girls in their class plus a few and of course, their siblings!















Sara and Savannah - through the glass - not a good way to take pictures!















I was surprised how well Sara and Anna did - they definately didn't get the ice skating gene from me... so that must mean Greg has done some figure skating that I don't know about!















Waitin' for the zamboni to finish...















Happy Birthday Sara and Jenna!

WHAT A DAY!!!

Saturday June 7, 2008 - What a crazy day! It started out with the first swim meet of the season. All three kids are on the swim team - so we were up and out of the house by 7:00am. Our swim meets typically last til around lunch time! So we finished up as quickly as possible and Greg had to leave with Jake to get him to his last baseball game of the season that started at 1:00. The girls and I were about 1/2 hour behind, but we made it in the middle of the first inning. Jake's games last around 1 1/2 hours so as soon as his game was over, Anna and I left to go horsebackriding with the Brownie troop. It was a long hot completely FULL day!















This is Anna about to take off in lane 4. She's wearing green goggles!
















This is Jake in lane 4 - he's also wearing green goggles! He won his heat - swimming 25 yd freestyle for 6 & under.















This is something we may not see again for a while! That's Sara and Anna at the far end getting ready to swim a relay together. Sara swims with 9&10 year olds and they had a freestyle relay but one of the swimmers on their relay team had to leave early. The coaches asked Anna if she would swim in place of the girl who left. Even though Anna swims in 8 & under she did great! She held her own and their team finished in second place! Unless she's asked to fill in again - the next time they might possibly swim together on a relay team is when Anna turns 13!












My little mermaids!
All three kids are doing fantastic at swimming, Greg and I are very proud of them.

So next we move on to the final teeball game of the year. Jake refuses to call it teeball - so I should correct that and say the final BASEBALL game of the year. Jake's team is the Phillies and they've done pretty well this year. Of course there's no official score keeping, but every parent at every game knows who's winning! Even though it's teeball, the coaches pitch to them - the rule is they get 2-3 pitches and if they don't hit a pitch, then they hit off the tee. Jake has been doing great and most of the time hits pitches. He sometimes plays pitcher (he doesn't pitch the ball, just plays the position...) and will stop grounders and make great throws to first base. His only problem is catching the ball - guess we can work on that during the off season!















He looks more like a soilder...















What a cutie!




Here's a video of Jake... gettin' a hit and makin' it to first base! That's my boy! And yes, my big mouth can be heard loud and clear!

On to the next event of our marathon day... Horseback riding with the Brownies!


We had to split the troop into two groups - we chose the group that started later for OBVIOUS reasons!






























My little cowgirl! I had a video of her riding - but I think it's too big to upload. Anna will be pissed!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Visitors!!!

FINALLY! We have had our first visitors! I should qualify that 'cause we did have some friends stay with us one night and that was nice, but this is the first visit we've had where our visitors stayed more than one night! One of my best buddies, Lisa and her two kids Chloe and Tucker stayed with us for a week! We had a great time - hope they did too!















Anna, Chloe, Sara, Tucker & Jake
















The kids got to swim with the dolphins for FREE! Chloe and Sara also had a wildlife encounter with a manatee!















Anna and Jake did some snorkeling!















The kids enjoyed having friends stay with us and were extra glad they got to take a couple days off school!