Check it Out. I Blogged.

Hi, I'm Kristin. Nice to meet you. Have we met? You might not remember me because it's been SO LONG! Let me introduce you to some of the people in my world. Hopefully these faces are familiar.

First, we have Chad. He is living out his days in the corridors of Klein high school. He deals with many stressful situations every day. This past week was a doozy. Ask him for a story sometime, he's got some really good ones.

Next, there's Aubrey. She is playing volleyball with her team, the Jammers. At first slightly uncoordinated, unable to serve the ball over the net, and generally scared of the ball, she has accomplished a solid serve and a good assist in recent weeks. She is enjoying herself, but has admitted that it has been harder than she thought. She is also still doing piano and currently memorizing some Harry Potter music. She got accepted onto the school UIL team for Writing, which none of us are surprised at. The things she writes (and says) are hilarious. And she's still reading late into every night. She finally lost her top right tooth a week or so ago. I say, lost, but actually, forcibly removed is more apt: it got so disgusting, hanging by a thread, the conversation went something like this:

Me: Aubrey, that tooth has got to come out. It's gross. You can either let dad pull it, or, I'll sit on you and dad will pull it out.

So, she went with the first option. None of us were sad to see it go, it had been hanging in there since the beginning of the summer. Did I mention it was gross? Because it was.

Then, Andrew. He's so cute. He just turned 5 on the 19th. For his birthday we invited some friends to play at the park. We've done the park so many birthdays, to not do it, seemed wrong. We celebrated with Andrew's good buddy Jameson, whose birthday is also on the 19th. These two boys have become quite the pair and it is so funny to see them together. They share the same obsession for technology... any given playtime, they will be passing a DS, wii remote, iphone, ipad, or computer between them, sometimes more than one at a time. We taught Andrew the song from Napolean Dynamite, that Kip sings, "I LOVE technology..." because it fits him (and Jameson) so well. (In fact, Jameson and Andrew both sometimes go by the following names: Kip, Mario, and/or Luigi). If you think all he does is loaf around and play games till his eyes glaze over, now would be the time to tell you he also goes to gymnastics once a week. This has been very fun to watch and it is hilarious, to see these little people doing handstands and pushing themselves up on the midget sized parallel bars. He loves it. He also started preschool 3 days a week, same as last year, at Chad's school. He loves this also. And next year he will go to KINDERGARTEN. Whoa. What the heck? I was just barely swaddling him and changing his diapers. Time goes by too fast. And as then as now, he's still trying to gain weight. At 5, he weighs only 31 lbs and we are still trying to get him to eat something, for pete's sake. His pickiness and oral aversion has limited his intake and thus his growth. He is now taking a different appetite stimulant which is the boss of appetite stimulants, and it's working pretty well. Today at McDonald's, he ate his whole Happy Meal, which I have never seen him do, ever. In his whole life. So I think, and I hope, we are turning a corner. Just please don't tell him I am sneaking pure butter into almost everything he puts into his mouth.

And there's me. People ask me what I'm doing, and what you see is my life. My life is my children and my husband, and my life is taking them to their various activities. Sure, driving a million miles every day can get old, but we're livin' life and making memories. (Okaaay, it's probably not a million miles, but sometimes it feels like it.) The only other thing I can claim as mine is running. I have been really enjoying this physical activity as often as I can fit it in, which is usually 3 or so miles, three times a week. I'm not trying to increase mileage so much as improve my pace. I can comfortably run 3 miles in about 28 minutes, which is a 9:30 mile, the fastest I've ever been able to go. Last week, I did do a 8:30 mile but I almost died. Not really. The fact is, a lot of the time, running is hard and in the middle of it, sometimes I don't like it, like, at all, but I'm always really glad when I'm done and I did it. Doing hard things is good. 9:30 isn't that awesome, compared to some people, but for me, it's an accomplishment I am proud of. So I'm not comparing. Go me.

So, there you go. I'm glad we've gotten reacquainted. Come back soon.