Break the Cycle

In our home, everyone helps out.  My kitchen has white cabinets (I hate them).  So lots of time is spent wiping them down.  My oldest has turned into an excellent helper - both in the kitchen, and other general household duties.  My second oldest thinks she's lots of help in the kitchen.....  its debatable. And Adam is a champion boxer - one of these days, I'm afraid he's going to put that little fist right through the TV ! For me right now - normal means cooking, cleaning, laundry, more laundry, a quick dip in the swimming pool while clearing/cutting/trimming/picking up the yard and taxiing kids back and forth from swim practices, tennis lessons, and swim meets.  I'm anxiously waiting for August to come - so that my days will be filled with nothing more then the waves hitting the beach.....

One nice thing about a blog - it'll help me remember what I did for each child's birthday - so one doesn't get "more" than another .....  because they certainly never forget.  We kept things very subdued for this birthday, since the 2 of us will be spending a few days at Penn State University together in a few weeks.  She got a few little gifts - she mainly wanted spending money for Penn State - so that made life easy.  She liked the ring her sister picked out, but really loved the necklace. We did got bowling ...  too bad I forgot the camera - but Leenah won game #1 and I won game #2 - so it was a perfect day (oh, and Adam and Leenah got the claw machine stuck while working, so we also ended up with an entire bag of plastic animals, as well as a bowling trophey that Adam talked the owner into giving him.... so it was really a great day)

Leenah had another great weekend swimming.  All the kids who qualified and came did really well. Leenah set 2 new meet records - the 200 IM and the 100 Fly.  Really proud of her.  She also made 6 more 11-12 yo JO times.  We are both very excited about going back to Penn State - and NOT just to visit the creamery again ! We had a very long talk over the weekend about nutrition.  Since she is moving up to the 11-12 yo age group, it's time she began to take her swimming a bit more serious (even though she does very well, it's been all fun and games up until now).  We've decided that we both are going to go 3 weeks with no junkfood and eating better nutritional foods.  We will finish up the birthday cake that's in the fridge, but nothing else.  I know I will lose weight, but I'm hoping better nutrition also gives her more energy to swim faster times, and she continues on with a healthier lifestyle.

One of the blogs I faithfully follow inspired me to buy a new camera.  No way I could afford a fancy one - so I picked up a used Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20 on ebay.  I only had one night to quickly read through the directions - much different then my normal point and shoot - but wow - what a difference in picture quality! This is Adam's second swim meet - he's all pro now.   My oldest has become a very good long distance swimmer.  The only bad part about dual meets - no long distance - so she's content swimming 50's and 100's like everyone else.  She's made some pretty good friends on the swimteam - they are a really nice bunch of kids. This is her swimming fly at the bottom of the picture.  I really love how high she can get up out of the water.  Amazing.   This is Adam waiting for his first race to start.  He's flanked on one side by the teams head coach, and the other by his big sister.  He's concentrating on the r...