Happy Time Change Weekend!

Hi everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your extra hour this weekend. Turns out we really needed the extra hour to pack in all we did this weekend. Cliff, of course, is crazy busy, but managing to keep his head above water and trying to keep looking for the proverbial light at the end of the fall semester tunnel. Life's been good here overall, despite the kids being in a continual cycle of "have a cold, get over a cold, get another cold." Here's a look at our last few days.

HANDSOME BOY: I look at Nathan these days and realize how much he is growing into a little boy (rather than a toddler). He really is a charmer these days, winning over the hearts of everyone from the child watch workers at the Y to our regular checkout lady at Walmart. We had friends over yesterday, and the wife kept telling Nathan he was going to be a heartbreaker, to which Nathan replied in his innocent little husky voice "I know." Isn't it great when they're too little to come across as vain, but simply sound cute as hell??



BUSY SATURDAY: Laura has officially started back into swim lessons at the Y, and she is in a much smaller class than she was in last time, so she will get much more attention. She did great for her first day back, managing to swim across the pool with the assistance of a float belt (but w/o her teacher's assistance) both on her stomach and on her back. This is very good progress for her. After swim lessons, our friends came over, and we walked to the East Campus Union to bowl. This was Nathan's first time bowling, and only Laura's second. They had a blast, of course. The bumpers helped them knock a few down too. As for the adults....some did better than others. We'll just say it's been a long time for me!

Nathan totally dug the hand blower!

Bowling was followed by food and Husker football at our house, and then an evening baby-sitting the neighbor boys before our kids crashed for the night.

SERIOUSLY, THIS BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE: Laura has been developing her reading and writing skills very quickly both at school and through lots of work at home. She now knows about 20 sight words (I, my, dad, mom, etc.), and she's been working at school to sound out the words she doesn't know in order to build sentences. Today, while Daddy was iChatting with Uncle Kevin and Mommy was making brunch, this is what our industrious girl came up with:
It totally melted my heart. When Dad got off the computer, I had Laura show it to him, and it made me tear up all over again watching her read it to him. What a sweetie!

HUSKER BASKETBALL: One of my fabulous water aerobics ladies at the Y has season tickets to the Husker women's basketball games, but couldn't go to their exhibition game today, so she gave the tickets to me and the kids. What a great treat to go and watch Daddy run the pep band!
And the biggest coup of the day was...........getting to meet their favorite mascot, Lil' Red up close and even get a picture with him!
I also learned today that when you take cute kids to a sporting event, you can end up on the jumbo-tron a lot! The kids and I (well, let's face it....the KIDS....they weren't filming me, I just happened to be in the shot) got on the big screen at least 3-4 times today. Cool!

Gina