No excuses!

Well, I have lots of excuses, but all that really matters is I didn't even manage to blog once in August.

So let's catch up:

We left Ohio and Michigan after a long and exciting summer with family. We got settled back into our new home on the Air Force Base. The boys quickly caught on to some new rules like how far they can go outside (around our house and the next house) and to stand with a hand over their heart when they play the National Anthem at 5pm each day.  When you go to a movie on base, before it starts they play a few patriotic videos and play the National Anthem.  

 

Pete learned to ride his bike without training wheels (all it took was one week of screaming and crying and stopping every few feet) and Chester learned to ride a big kid bike with his new training wheels. I picked up the Spiderman bike at Beverly Bootstraps Thrift Shop and it set off a new obsession in our house: Spiderman cartoons.  The first week Chester was learning to ride, he hadn’t yet mastered braking.  Riding home from the playground, he got going too fast and scared himself, but couldn’t slow down so he rode his new bike off the sidewalk, down the grassy hill and directly into a tree.  It’s a good thing helmets are required on base!

 

Ryan won an award with the Coast Guard for all the work he’s done with Optide and the Trident network.  We’ll be taking a family trip to Washington DC in October for him to accept the award.  But even with all his extra time on these projects, Ryan still had time to design and build a pirate ship in our new playroom.  The boys are in heaven.

 

Pete started at his new preschool and Chester, Marek and I started at a new Stroller Fitness class held on base.  We hadn’t been going long when Chester decided he couldn’t wait for a pitstop … and watered a tree while we were doing floor exercises in the park.  Meanwhile, Marek, fussy from cutting his fourth tooth, demanded food right in the middle of abs.  I suppose doing a plank over the baby while dangling a boob in his mouth will just have to do for today’s ab workout. 

 

Marek is crawling all over (including up the stairs so don’t forget that baby gate!), has four teeth and loves to eat.  His dislike for other people is still just as strong as ever, so it’s a bit challenging to keep him happy while I teach class twice a week at Salem State.

 

Chester and Pete are continuing with their swimming lessons and doing an amazing job.  Chester can swim all over with a bubble, and Pete can even float on his back without his teacher.  They both happily jump in with the teacher and can turn and doggie paddle back to the wall. 

 

I hit my goal weight and I’m holding pretty steady, balancing days with healthy habits and days where I eat three ice cream treats after dinner.  I’ve run a few 5Ks since Marek was born, with my best time just over 29 minutes, and next I’m planning a return half-marathon like I ran after Pete and Chester were each born.   

 

It seems like every week the boys do something silly that makes me think I should sit down and blog, but I never manage to find the time because I’m almost always on the iPad, or using two hands to wrangle the baby for food.  He had a brief spell of time where I could just sit down and feed him without holding him in place, but that ship has sailed again and he’s too wiggly to feed without pinning him down. 

And my camera battery is missing, so I can't take pictures to load on the blog.  Maybe I'll learn how to load them from my phone someday...