in high speed

We had such a nice and relaxing Labor Day weekend. Here is a photo of Aunt Alisa and Liv:

And one of Uncle Kevin doing the "helicopter" spin with Hewitt:

In contrast to last weekend, I feel like someone just hit the fast forward button or something. Things have really gotten busy. Rob is starting to have a lot of different meetings (work meetings during dinner time/evening and lots of new church meetings in the evenings). Soccer is also taking up lots of time (three nights a week and a big chunk of Saturday).

Burke has spent the last couple of weeks researching his birthstone for a big school project due tomorrow. I'm so happy to finally have it done. It really took some great effort on my part to try to assist Burke with his project without taking over. I am realizing that I am a bit of a perfectionist and a control freak! It's hard for me to let him do things his way, but hopefully I'm getting better at it. He had to make some sort of "Rock Star Bling" to represent his birthstone and a poster too. We've worked on it every day and spent a couple of hours finishing it up yesterday.

Here are his "Emerald Bling Drumsticks" and the poster for his presentation:

Liv is convinced that she is a big girl. She is obsessed with climbing up on the stools and counters. I've moved her booster seat over to one of our stools at the bar because she was constantly up there. She is drinking from a regular cup now and getting a little neater when eating. I was trying to get her to say "shoe" the other day and kept saying it over and over and had her watch me say it. A couple of hours later, I said it again and she said, "shoe" as clear as a bell. Of course I have not been able to get her to say it again. None of our kids have been in a hurry to talk. She says "more," "mom," "bunny," and "bye" all the time now. The next word I am going to work on is "please." We'll see how that goes. I caught her coloring the other day, and when she heard the camera, she looked up and gave me her "pose-y" smile. I love that little face!

Tosh has been acting exhausted lately. He must be growing because his shoes are suddenly too small again. He took a nap both Friday and Saturday and it was like I had forgotten how happy he could be after getting enough sleep! I pulled out the Play-Doh for the first time in weeks and T and H stayed entertained until it all started drying out.

Hewitt scored some goals at his soccer game yesterday and was able to go to a birthday party for a girl in his kindergarten class. Rob took him to the party and reported that he played with everyone and seems to be somewhat magnetic. We're starting to talk about what to do for his birthday in a few weeks and every time I ask him who he likes to play with at school he always says, "I play with everyone!" We're not inviting the entire class, so we'll have to figure something out.

To wrap things up, I thought I'd show a couple of clips of the kids dancing that I filmed yesterday. The first one of Liv is really dark, unfortunately. She LOVES to dance and loves the song "Fireflies." Enjoy!