Friends we met in NM

Sierra and Nick Willis were our first friends in New Mexico. Tim meet Nick in the apartment gym. If I remember correctly Nick was critiquing Tim's running style and they were comparing injuries. By the end of Tim's workout he found out that Nick was an Olympic medalist in the 1500m. You may or may not know that Tim and I don't like watching sports but we love the Olympics. The first thing Tim did was Google Nick when he got home. It was very exciting. Nick and Tim started working out together. For some reason Nick only had my phone number, so every time he would call I would pass over the phone to Tim and say "it's your boyfriend". It was fun to tease Tim because he would go on and on about how great his workouts would be and how much he would learn from Nick.

It took awhile but I finally got to meet Sierra and Nick after bumping into them during a walk. Sierra and I did a free yoga class together. It was the slowest yoga class ever. Sierra and I agreed that it should be called geriatric yoga. We got to go skiing in Santa Fe together which was really fun and a nice break from home.

Audric was a big fan of Nick because he loved Star Wars too. They would talk in detail forever about it if we let them.

Sierra and Nick were only in New Mexico for six weeks for altitude training. They are very real, down to earth people so we got along well. We were sad to see are only friends in NM leaving. The picture is the only one I had of them. They were so funny cute about getting Henna done.

Nick's story is pretty interesting (google him). They are in New Zealand right now with a big race planned where they are going to present him with his silver medal. Tim and I hope that he will continue to do great with his races so we can see him and Sierra during England's Olympics.

Sarah Marie in the Kitchen

I don't get to volunteer much at Audric's new school so when I had a chance to bake for the bake sale I went all out. Two batches of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (7 dozen), two batches of rice krispies, one batch of strawberry rice krispies and two batches of chocolate chip cookies (7 dozen). I love to bake and it was nice not to have all the left overs at home for me to eat. The best part was that I didn't have to buy much because when our friends moved back home they gave us all their pantry goods; score!

My little helper.

From the heart

Every time Tim comes home from the gym he is dripping in sweat. This time it just happened to come out in the shape of a heart. Some people wear their heart on their sleeve, Tim wears his on his stomach. I wonder if anyone at the gym saw it?

Please don't look too closely at the messy house in the background.

Who's kids are these?

I love that my kids are starting to enjoy each other. It used to be 50/50 between fighting and playing next to each other. Now I find them playing dolls, Star Wars, pretending they're animals, hide-n-seek or stuffed animals . Usally it's only at night when Audric reads now he has started reading to Julie all times of the day. I love watching and listening to them play. They are very cute.

dread locks

Julie let me twist her hair into little "dread locks" during her bath. Maybe not such a great idea because she, now her own, started puffing on her watering can. She looks like such a pot head.

Happy Valentine's Day

Interesting valentine's day morning. While getting Audric ready for school and baking muffins for his snack I hear a yell. Audric is now 5 and has decided that he no longer needs to announce when he's going to the bathroom and when he's done. Needless to say the yell was from the bathroom. But not "I'm done" or "come wipe my butt" I heard "come look at my red poop". Yes, red poop! the red velvet cake the night before came right on out and kept its color. This was the first time I saw Audric excited to wipe his butt.

The odd thing was that same day Julie's poop was bright green from the green frosting she ate two nights before. Audric, as you can tell is more regular.

Five! 5!

Audric turning five seems like such a huge deal not only for him but for Tim and I too. I understand that all the kids in Audric's class are five or six so being the only four year old wasn't fun for him. For Tim and I Audric just seems so grown-up.

We were lucky to have some good friends in town and over to dinner and cake. As you can see Julie didn't like our singing to much.

Meet my Five year old. (not to brag)

Audric is one of the most caring, Loving, compassionate kids I know. He thinks of everyone and is sensitive to other's feelings. Sometimes he can be too loving. He always wants to hug and kiss me that in public that I have to limit him to one kiss or else it can look like he's trying to make out with me.

The thing that blows my mind is that he is so smart. He comes up with his own thinking's that are stuff that Tim and I couldn't think to know. He is a sponge that never dries up. Right now Audric is reading 30 page books with about 100-150 words at a first grade level every night before bed. He's very good at writing although it's not one of his favorite things to do. His math is awesome. He has been able to count by one's, five's and ten's to one hundred + for about six months. He's up to 30 with counting by two's and he just learned how to read and write in roman numerals to 39 (I didn't know how to write 50). He knows how to add and subtract double digits but because they aren't working on that at school it's hard to work on it more at home. I do feel bad about him being in school all day until 4pm and then making him learn after school too ,so I limit extra stuff to the weekends.

He is really into Star Wars like most children his age. He can remember all the names and details of all six of the movies. He is very good at making all the sounds that go with the movies too. He got some legos for Xmas and his birthday. He's very good at making his own star ships with them.

Audric has this natural ability to be great at everything. The only problem is he doesn't like to try new things. He would be happy staying at home everyday. He also doesn't like to do things in large groups (soccer, music, dancing...). He doesn't say but we believe it's because he doesn't want to mess up in front of everyone. With both of his teachers there was concerns on their part that we push Audric to only being prefect. He would get so upset that his work wasn't prefect he would stop and not finish his work. If you know Tim and I we had nothing to do with this. Audric is so hard on himself (when he was little he would put himself in time outs). With time he has gotten better.

Audric is a wonderful son. He cleans up after himself and helps with chores. He loves to cook everything. He also loves to eat. some meals he eats more than Tim. He must be growing because most of his size five pants are getting tight and short. One of his favorite things is to know what he is eating and what it does for his body. We never limit the amount of information we give him. He likes to tell others too that meat has protein that goes to make muscle and milk gives you calcium for strong bones.

Audric's favorite color is still red. His best friend is Kate in Washington DC (which he says he is going to marry). He like Julie best when she's asleep but still loves her. He wants to fly and build planes when he grows up. He also wants to have a farm with lots of animals. The best part is when I am old and all my hair is grey he said he will drive me around where ever I want to go!

good moves

Audric ate a lot of meat for dinner which of course gives him instant muscles. He did this whole exercising routine x3 and then decided he wanted us to video it. This video was taken after he had already done about ten minutes of exercising. We added the music for effect. Then he liked the music so much he started to dance and then added lights to have a light show.

Happy day!

Tim decided to take the kids out to pick up some donuts for breakfast. It was so nice having the morning to read my book without interruptions. When they came home I had a knock at the door with a delivery boy and a box of donuts on the other side. Audric wore that hat all day. We also got a package in the mail from my parents for Valentine's day and Audric birthday. Julie got this skirt. I can't even get her to wear pants most of the time let alone a skirt but because it was grammy that gave it to her so she loves it. Sorry about the red eyes. Tim's lap top doesn't make it easy to remove it so I don't.

Snow days

We were part of the snow storm last week. We had four no school snow days. I tried to keep the kids busy doing crafts and having friends over the first two days but that seemed to just wear me out more than it was worth. Tim had off two days and was excited about the four day weekend. We did a family hike in the hills. Audric loved looking for animal tracks. He was the leader up until he found out we weren't headed to the tram which was about six miles away from where we were. Within a minute he went from happy adventurer to "I'm tired, I'm hungry, I can't walk". Julie was pretty much unhappy the whole time. How could she be unhappy with someone carrying her? She did fall asleep which made everyone a little more happy to not have to hear her whine.