Sorry for the Delay!

Sorry it has been so long since the last post. I am happy to say that my travel is pretty much finished up, finally. This has been quite a season. More days on the road than the past, which was definitely good for preparing for this draft, but man am I happy to be home! I have a couple of more trips in the next couple of months, but they are short. It will be great to be home to play with the kids and for us to have some family time to do things...not to mention catch up on some sleep and get some great workouts in!

It has been a lot of fun to have more time with the kids the past few days. Austin really just wants me to shoot hoops with him. I think he could do it pretty much all day. It is nothing for him to spend quite a bit of time even alone in the basement just shooting and dribbling. It is pretty cute. He will tell you that he is practicing lots. I don't really care if he ever plays or not, but it is great to see him so determined at something. Sometimes he will kind of give up on stuff if he doesn't get it right away, but he will shoot a basketball all day long.

His speech is really progressing the past few weeks. It is amazing how the sounds are becoming more and more clear. We are very proud of him for how he really applies what he learns at school. He is doing great. The other day I took him to speech, and the teacher came in the waiting room to get him. He looked at me and whispered, "There is Ms. Tonya." He followed that up by another whisper, "Shhhhh...I will be right back in a few minutes." And off he went with her. It was very cute. After speech, he decided he needed to cut his hair down because it was too long. So, we headed to Daddy's hair cut place and he showed a great amount of courage by sitting on a booster and getting his haircut. This was the first time he didn't need to sit on my lap. He started a little slow, but by the end he was talking with the lady cutting his hair, and showing some of the huge personality he has when he wants!

Caitlin is doing her thing...She is big on all the letters and wanting to know what starts with each letter...She also can spell both her name and Austin's verbally and written. It is pretty good for a little one her age. She will also spell stop, go, dog, mommy, and daddy. Kim is going to start working with other sight words. She really only needs to hear something one time and she pretty much knows it. Everyday we are amazed at some drop of knowledge she gives us. She is very interested in dancing and anything to do with princesses. It is probably about time to look into some tumbling classes for her, and Austin, too. Kim and I think they would really enjoy doing that stuff, and it will be great for continuing to develop coordination.

I had a birthday the other day, and the kids gave me some hand painted crafts they made at a pottery decorating place. Austin painted a ceramic dino for me, while Caitlin painted a ceramic kitty...these things are on the mantle now, holding a very proud place in our home. They also both painted a ceramic holder for the pens and stuff on my desk at work. Caitlin signed it with her name, and Austin put a couple of A's on there. It is great. I hope that they will still make me things when I am 75, rather than buy me anything. I love to see their creativity and have something I can keep.

I will check to see what new pictures we have and try and post them tomorrow night. I have pretty much been out of the loop on that kind of stuff, but will see what we have.

Oh, for all the people that have ridden in the baby mobile the last 4 years, it is about 2 weeks from being retired back to the dealership. It is a little sad because we brought the kids home from the hospital in that van, have taken it from here to to Mt. Rushmore to Seattle to the Oregon Coast, to Florida, to who knows where, but the lease is up, and Kim did a very diligent search to find the car that she wanted to replace it.

That is about it...better get some sleep. Promise to get some pictures up tomorrow...