Update

Ok, ok. So I'm not an "everyday" blogger. I am fine with being an "every once in a while" blogger. The important thing is that I update every so often- or at least often enough that my mom and Shannon get off my damn back about posting some pictures. So here is the update:

Fletcher had his last soccer game of the season on Saturday and here are the stats: Games won- 8
Goals scored by our team- 127
Goals scored on our team- 2
Goals scored by Fletcher- 0
Times Fletcher actually touched the ball- 5
Out of those 5, times kicked in the right direction- 2
Times Fletcher told me what a great soccer player he is- too many to count.

He was so funny to watch because he literally just ran up and down the field as far away from the ball as he could possibly get. The very first time he touched the ball it was only because someone kicked it directly into his shins. That counts in our book. I am happy to take a break until next season- it is a little bit of a beating watching kids at this age play any sport. Go Junkyard Dogs!

We had quite the Halloween this year. Cali was the cutest 50's girl with her yellow poodle skirt, Macey was the best Harajuku girl even though no one knew what she was, and Fletcher owned his hamburger (NOT cheeseburger) costume. I swear he put it on and actually became a hamburger. Every year we have friends over and eat jack-o-lantern shaped pizzas before we head out to go trick-or-treating. About 10 houses into candy begging, Macey comes up to me and tells me that she is ready to go home. I made her push through for a few more houses until I finally realized that she didn't feel good. She had a fever and said her throat hurt. I sent Cali on with her friends and the rest of us got in the car and headed to the kid's urgent care. Yep. Strep throat. The good news is we were in and out of that place. Not a lot of kids at the doctor on Halloween night. So to bed she went. And Fletcher too. Apparently trick-or-treating really took a lot out of him. He kept complaining that his legs hurt from walking so much and his arms were sore from carrying his bag of 10 pieces of candy. Note to self: start pushing Fletcher down to try and toughen him up.


Cali and Macey have a cheer competition next weekend and they are busy practicing for that. They have yet to do the routine to the music and have not been able to hit a stunt, but I have been assured that it will all come together by Saturday. I'm pretty sure it won't. Entertaining blog to follow.

Ben started playing ice hockey and I am so excited he has found something he loves to do. I have yet to see a game because his games are at 11:00 at night but I believe him when he says he "has a hockey game". As long as his fingers all stay in tact it's all good. Another note to self: make sure disability insurance is current.

As for myself, I took a couple of weeks off from running due to burn out, and am now paying the price. It's like starting over which is good and bad. All my runs seem very hard now, but I also love that I "feel it" again. It was a much needed break for me.

So that just about sums up the last month at the Edmunds house. I am counting down the days until my family comes for Thanksgiving. It's always a good time when we all get together. Especially when lots and lots of food is involved.

It's A Good Thing He's Cute!

After 15 minutes of begging and bribing, Fletcher finally played in his first soccer game today. Apparently soccer is only fun when you shoot at a pretend goal (usually the front door) and you score every time. Poor thing was not prepared for other kids coming up and taking the ball from him. Welcome to the real world little man. Go Junkyard Dogs!!!

So this is how I spent my day today- putting snacks and beverages in perfect rows. This is how I spend every Monday. I go to the grocery store (if you think this is OCD then you should see how I have to line up my groceries on the scanner belt), and then come home and do laundry which consists of putting outfit after outfit in Ziploc baggies. It's exhausting.

Trick or Treat

Mid September always brings the dreaded question of "What do you want to be for Halloween this year?". Dreaded because anyone who knows me knows that I can't just A. let my kids be whatever they want to be because it is usually not cute enough- or in Macey's case usually too frightening or slutty-or both- for a young child to wear, and B. purchase a costume that comes in a bag. Or if it does come in a bag I have to tweak it somehow so that they don't look like every other kid out begging for candy. I have a very hard time not making a big production out of most things I do that involves my kids. It must be in my genes because Shannon (Katalyn) is the same way. Go big or go home, right? So yesterday marked the first of many Halloween costume discussions. Cali is going to be a 50's girl with a yellow poodle skirt (the skirt HAS to be yellow), and Macey is going to be a Harajuku girl. However, Fletcher cannot decide on what he wants to be. We have narrowed it down to 3 and he is willing to let the blogging world decide his Halloween fate. Before I announce the 3 choices I need to mention the costumes that he wanted that were vetoed: Ariel from the little mermaid, the movie star princess, the giant mask that is as big as his whole body, and the ladybug. Ok. Moving on.
Here are the nominees:

1. Scooby Doo


2. Ironman (which Ben took him to see...bad parenting, I know.)


3. Superman


So there you have it. If you have an opinion feel free to post. 6 weeks and counting... On my list of things to do today- find a yellow poodle skirt and a tiny hat for Harajuku girl. It could be a long day.

Fresh Start

With school back in session I feel like I can finally breathe again. I absolutely love having my kids home with me all summer, and the first day of school always brings tears to my eyes. I have no problem admitting that I stalk my kids on the playground from my car for the first 3 days. It's a little creepy, I know, but whatever. Now that we are back in a routine I have no good excuse for not writing. I have been in a blogging slump for a while and am really trying hard to suck it up. I want to be the kind of person that cares about blogging. I do. I will try harder. Let's just call this the start of a new and improved blog.

I had an interesting conversation with Cali tonight about her name. I was curious as to whether or not she liked her name. Luckily she does. Apparently she LOVES her name. As a parent that is nice to hear. A lot of energy and thought goes in to naming a child so it would have been a little devastating if she had said she did not like her name. But being a girl I knew that deep down she wished she had a different name. When I was her age I really wished my name was Crystal. That's right. Crystal. Crystal was so much cooler than Sharalyn. And when I talked to Shannon the other day she revealed that she wished her name was Katalyn- pronounced Kate-A Lyn. And then she would have gone by Kat for short. How different life could have been...? So I knew deep down Cali had an alias. When I asked her she got a funny grin on her face- like how did I know? Her name? Emily. Interesting.


**The goal for the next blog will be to include pictures. Baby steps.

Weekend O' Fun

Ben's family invited us to go to Atlanta, Ga. for a little weekend at the lake. Ben and I decided that it would be fun to make it a road trip. Only 12 hours there and another 12 hours back- how bad could it be? We also decided that we should rent a mini van for this trip because it gets better gas mileage and we didn't really want to put the miles on our cars. So Wednesday morning I pick up the van. I opted not to get the insurance and spent an excessive amount of time looking around the car making sure to write down every last bump and scrape on the car so that we can't be blamed for anything. I spend all day packing and getting everything ready to go. Clothes, check. Toys, check, Movies, check. And food, check. We are off. It is 4:30 pm and very trafficy. About 6 miles out of our neighborhood BAM! We end up in a 5 car pile up. We are car number 4. The car behind us never hit their brakes. It was very scary. It took a minute for it all to sink in. Cali and Macey were a bit hysterical and I had to actually yell at them to calm down for them to realize we were all ok. We all get out of the car and wait for the police to arrive. Did I mention that it was 95 degrees outside? 50 minutes later (yes, 5-0) the police show up and get everything sorted out. The lady in front of us has no driver's license, no insurance, and did not speak English. This should be fun for the insurance companies to settle. I was figuring our trip was over at this point but the nice people at Avis tell me they will send another van to the house and sure enough by the time we got home there was another van waiting for us. We re-pack the new van. It is 8 pm now as we give this tip another whirl. Just a few hours behind schedule. So we're driving along and things are going great. The kids are sleeping and I am full of energy because I think I am still on an adrenalin rush from the accident. What else could go wrong, right? Well at 10 1/2 hours into the trip I decide to pull over and let Ben drive the rest of the way. I'm feeling a little bit sleepy. We stop in Lincoln, Alabama. It is a tiny town with one gas station. We get out and let the kids go to the bathroom. As we are putting the kids back in Ben lifts the back of the van up to put something away. Next thing I know he is walking to the front of the van with his hands covering his head and blood is just GUSHING from under his hands. He says he hit his head and it is pretty bad and we need to call someone. I run in the gas station and tell them to call an ambulance. Ben is ghostly white and about to pass out. He sits down and I hand him Fletcher's t-shirt to stop the bleeding. He bleeds through that in seconds. The ladies inside the gas station come out with a towel and he is able to get some good pressure on his head. There is blood everywhere- all over his face and down his arms, down his legs, puddles on the ground. I have never seen this much blood. The girls are freaked out. I am freaked out. Ben is freaked out. It takes the ambulance 15 minutes to show up. They look at his head and tell us that he has a pretty big wound and needs to go to the hospital to have it looked at. The hospital is 8 miles back down the road. To save a little money I opt to take him there myself. So now we are sitting in this tiny hospital in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. I call Ben's mom to come get us. He goes back to get worked on while the kids and I try to eat some breakfast that consisted of red bull and M&Ms. Luckily we beat the rush in the ER and it only took an hour for Ben to get his head stapled shut. Apparently there is a really sharp corner on the back of the van and he hit it just right and really hard. This is a picture of the damage:
It's a little hard to see the staples but trust me- they're disgusting.

So Ben's parents meet us to help us drive the rest of the way. I have never been so happy to see two people in my whole life. We actually had a fun trip once we got there. And the drive home was incident free. Unless you count Cali throwing up once and Fletcher peeing in his car seat incidences. I must say I am happy to be home. And I'm pretty sure there will not be another road trip in the near future.

Slowman

So the other day I took Cali and Macey and their cousin Bella to get their nails done. They were all very excited and each one seemed very particular as to which colors they wanted and what design they were going to get. Half way through Cali's pedi, her nail girl (we'll call her Ming) asks her a question. I can see on Cali's face that she has no idea what Ming is saying so I go over and try to translate. I believe she said "She want ma vi ba?". My answer: "huh?". Again Ming says "She want ma vi ba?". And again I answer with "huh?". It is at this point that Ming calls over Macey's nail boy (we'll call him Vee) to help translate. She talks to him in Vietnamese and then he says to me, "does she want chocona on her toes?". My answer: "huh?". And once again he repeats, "does she want chocona on her toes?". My answer this time: "Sure. She can do whatever she wants." I still had no clue as to what they were talking about. I figured she was asking if she could paint some kind of flower on her toes but I know she knew the word flower so I was very confused. But Ming got back to work and spent a tremendous amount of time working on Cali's big toes. After about 45 minute passed I went over to see what she could possibly have been painting. This is what it was:


It's normal to have snowmen on your toes in June, right? The best part of this story is that after I saw what was on there I said "Oh! You mean snowman." And then Vee starts laughing hysterically. He starts talking in Vietnamese to Ming and then they both start laughing. A few more nail girls come over and look at Cali's toes and talk in their language and then all of them laugh and laugh. Finally I said "Hi. Um, what is so funny?" Apparently Ming was trying to say snowman in Vietnamese but was actually saying sLowman. They all thought it was hilarious. And I still have no idea what chocoma is. But I am sure it is equally as funny. Merry Christmas.


PS. And yes, Cali does have freakishly long toes. I get it, Shannon. They look like fingers.