Thank goodness they don’t go to an elementary school because if they were going off to a middle school next year I’d probably be freaking out a lot more. But as it is, they’ll be staying at the same school so it’ll be less traumatic for everyone. (Also maybe less exciting though they will get lockers next year at least.)
Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, when they started at their school, they looked like THIS:
Β (note where they come up to on the window)
and today they look like this:
Holy cow.
This year the bus picks them up in the neighborhood, which is exciting. There will be some kinks to work out, just like there were last year. It was 40 minutes late picking them up, for instance.
OF COURSE I brought my camera!
Well, it’s just as well the bus finally arrived because yesterday my van broke down. Hooray. So this was how I spent the latter part of my morning. Yippee.
The subject of King’s Dominion theme park came up this morning in conversation at work and so, as I do, I went to my blog to illustrate the conversation with photos, and *gasp* I realized I hadn’t really blogged about our trip that day! And it was a really fun day! I posted a bunch of pictures on social media, but that’s not good enough. So I hope you don’t mind a little trip down memory lane. Kristina and the boys might have to fill in some gaps for me later, though.
(I know it was 1 year and 2 days ago, thanks to FB reminding me Saturday.)
So let’s see…we were visiting Kiki at that point in our trip to Virginia, so we left Woodbridge and headed to wherever King’s Dominion is. I remember we stopped at a rest area and saw something on the news. Oh yeah, the flooding in New Orleans. π¦ Anyway, we got there and it was pretty empty, which was awesome! I think it was some day in the middle of the week, I guess that’s why.
I was excited to see that King’s Dominion was basically Peanut-themed! SO MANY LINUS PICTURES!
Anyway, we rode lots of roller coasters…that’s a lie. Kiki and the boys got me on ONE roller coaster and after that evil ride, I was like NO THANKS and stuck to things like the swings that go in slow circles and kid rides instead. Much better.
Before the evil roller coaster of doom
Miles was proud of the bloody lip he got on it!
Just Kiki and Linus on that one
More my speed.
Later, we headed to the water park area, where Linus impressed the hell out of me by going on this terrifying water slide where you stand on a platform and the floor drops out from under you and you fall down this tube and well no thanks, but I can’t believe one of MY children did that. (Also Kiki did, but she is super brave and makes me sit in the back car of roller coasters so I’m not surprised.)
Also there was a water slide where we all sat in a huge round tube together and that was really fun but sadly, no pics from the water park because my phone was in the locker and I didn’t bring my waterproof camera. DANGIT.
Anyway, we rode more rides after, and there was a cute part later where the kids got to drive around a tiny little town with roads and traffic lights and stuff. And then they got their caricatures, and then Miles kept falling down, and was getting really pissed, so we decided it was probably time to go, so we did. But it was a great day! Yay! And I’m glad it’s now been recorded on my blog.
I haven’t blogged much this summer. Mostly because we just haven’t done that much. I feel bad for the boys – they keep asking if we’re going to go somewhere. And then I keep reminding them that they’re playing soccer, remember? And soccer is very expensive. (Guilt trip much? I learned from the best!)
But don’t feel too bad for them. We are going on another big ol’ family cruise at Thanksgiving, and thanks to soccer, we’ll have a few small trips to soccer tournaments throughout the year. In fact, the first one is already on the calendar.
Unfortunately for me, it’s also the weekend I’m supposed to come back from this year’s Grand Meetup for work, so I had to get permission from work to leave a day early. Get this: the GM is in Orlando this year. So I’ll fly home Friday afternoon, load everyone in the van and drive BACK to Florida that very same evening for the tournament. Ha! At least the tournament isn’t also in Orlando – it’s in Pensacola which is just a few hours away.
So what have we been up to this summer? The boys went to camp for about six weeks. They didn’t love having to go to camp, but it got them out of the house at least. And they went to a few days here and there of soccer camp as well, which they enjoyed. Of course, nothing was close to home so I feel like I spent the entire summer in my van, and not in a fun road-trip kind of way.
Walking into camp
Tiny bench or giant Linus?
They also participated in summer soccer, which was two evenings a week for seven weeks. I think it was good for them – it was their first experience playing “elite” soccer, not just recreational. At first, they were kind of disheartened, but as the weeks went on, they enjoyed it more. It was mostly drills and scrimmages, so they learned a lot. Of course, thanks to our summer afternoon thunderstorms, there weren’t seven weeks worth of soccer, but whatever.
Goalie-ing
Soccer-ing
Sunset at the field
Another highlight was Aunt Jenny and Emily and Andrew and Uncle Rob coming to Baton Rouge to visit. We spent a few days at Grandee’s hanging out, visiting with my cousin Sara’s baby, and as a bonus, the boys got a haircut, which was sorely needed.
Cousins!
Me and Emily and Andrew
Baby Case!
There were also playdates and me breaking a tooth and having to get it pulled (so now I have two gaps in my mouth which makes me extra classy) and hanging out with coworkers in town with their family, and saving the world, and going to visit a giant mural of a French soccer star.
Post dental work
Playdate with Diego
Sandy and Jenn and allllll of our kids
We escaped!
Took the boys to see the giant mural
I’ve been sewing a lot when I haven’t been working. I took a class at a local sewing store (blog post to come) which was amazing, but have been mostly working on sewing up household goods to sell to help pay for soccer. It’s a win-win – sewing relaxes me and hopefully, it’ll ease the stress of the endless costs of competitive soccer. (If you’re interested, you can check those out here and here.)
Not an easy one, 128 months. Three shots in was this. (Titled, COME ON MOM HOW MANY PICTURES DO YOU ACTUALLY NEED TO TAKE WE SMILED ALREADY GEEZ COME ON CAN WE JUST GO TO THE PARK ALREADY?!?!??!?!)
So this is the best of the lot. You can see Oliver’s signature furrowed brow, as referenced in this video from four years ago.
I have a few little things I want to blog about, so I guess I should do that before too much time passes!
Last Friday, George and I went to go see the documentary Three Identical Strangers that was briefly playing at a local movie theater here. I had been hearing about it for a while, ever since it was making the rounds of film festivals earlier this year, thanks to the Google notifications I get for “identical triplets.”
In a nutshell, the movie is about a set of identical triplets that were separated at birth and reunited, just by sheer happenstance, 19 years later. It’s heart-wrenching and emotional and funny and sad and tears rolled down my face for the first thirty minutes and then I pulled myself together. It was just so good and so thought-provoking and if you can see it, you should. If only I could have worn a shirt that said “Mom of Identical Triplets” so I could have gotten free popcorn or something. Or a free daiquiri. The movie theater had daiquiris. I could have used one.
Later that day, I went to the first day of a sewing class at a local store, which was so amazing and exhausting. The goal was to make a box-pleated skirt. By the end of the weekend I had spent 11 hours in the store, and I still didn’t have a finished skirt. I still don’t. Still have some work to do on it. Heh. But it’s going to be amazing. And I learned so much! I will have an in-depth blog post about it later, once the skirt is all finished, but I have about 20 feet of hem to hand-sew so it might be a little bit.
And then the other day, my friend Jenn told me about a mural that a local artist painted last month on the side of a building of a French soccer star. Well, obviously I had to take the boys, so we went yesterday on the way to soccer. It was pretty cool! Oliver was less than thrilled, as this guy, Paul Pogba plays for Manchester United (when he’s not playing for the French national team) and Oliver is a Manchester City fan. Kids.
The other night I was looking for a specific old video clip and I was shocked to come across some old videos of the boys as newborns that I had never seen before. Well, obviously I had seen them at some point because I was the one recording them, but I have absolutely no recollection of them.
This is a video of George holding Oliver the night we roomed in with him at the hospital, the night before we brought him home. He came home two days before his brothers. The most special part of this video for me is the very end. I was always very sad that I didn’t have any “going home” photos of me holding the boys as they wheeled me out of the hospital. I still don’t, but this little shot of Oliver in his carseat as George jingles the keys to get the car made me cry a little, I’m not going to lie.
And I love this because it’s a video version of this photo that I’ve looked at a zillion times. It’s the first day they were all home together, December 17, 2007.
Soccer and flossing. This is 10 years and seven months.
The last ten July 4 pictures, just for fun.
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And bonus: I made these culottes/shorts for myself for the 4th.
The picture keeps freaking me out because the wood floor looks like my right leg, which is really behind my left leg. Anyway, you might not be able to see, but the fabric is navy with white stars. This was taken at my friend Steph’s house and I love how warm and New Orleans-y her kitchen is.
A few weeks ago – on the last day of school, actually, I got a call from someone at a local casting company. I’d submitted all three boys for a role as extras on Claws, and she was calling to let me know that Miles and Linus were picked to be on the show.
Uh oh. This did not go over well with Oliver. It broke my heart a little bit, I’m not going to lie. But such is life as stars in Hollywood South, I suppose. What can you do?
The following week, I had to take M & L to get fitted for their outfits for the episode. Strangely, the clothes were all vintage from the late 50s. Seems odd for a very modern show. Turns out, they were going to be in a scene that takes place in a Leave it to Beaver type dream sequence, complete with laugh track.
The next day, all four of us went to the filming. It was a long, long day of sitting mostly in a pool house that overlooked the private tennis court on a golf course. Fancy stuff! Oliver was quite the trouper, though, not complaining nearly as much as I would have. Anyway, about halfway through the day, one of the producers came to tell another mom and me that our kids were chosen to say a line, so we’d have to fill out contracts and whatnot.
Two words Miles had to say and suddenly we were in a world of SAG and contracts and trusts (so I can’t spend all of his hard-earned money on mink coats and sewing machines.) It was crazy.
Anyway, the episode aired last night, and unlike the last time Miles filmed a scene for Claws, this time it actually made it onto the show! Yay! They both did such a great job, I’m so proud of them! And now I’m going to only dress them in vintage clothes from the 50s and part their hair and grease it down. Okay, not really. But it was too adorable.
Here are a couple of pics from the day. You can see the first five minutes for free on the TNT website (fast forward to :49 to skip the recap of last week especially if there are kids around.) And if you want to see the episode, it’s on Hulu, or I bought it off Amazon Prime. Fortunately, it’s at the very beginning of the episode, so I didn’t have to wait too long to see them.
Β (note where they come up to on the window)
