Kreitzer Boot Camp

Dave and I are doing an intense workout series (P90X) that involves a lot of push-ups. Last night at dinner, Alex proposed that if he could do 100 push-ups, then he could have dessert. Dave said, "Sure. You can have dessert if you can do 100 push-ups, but I'm going to have to watch and count." Well, after dinner, he set out to do those push-ups. Dave and I were doubtful he would make it too far. Heck, I can't do very many myself. Well, Dave still didn't cut him very much slack, but Alex kept going. He was working so hard, but he made it! I couldn't believe it. He was just so determined. He was so cute because at 89, he fell to the ground, but he got right back up giving himself a little pep talk, "I'm almost there. I'm almost there." I was so proud of my little man. I gave him his choice for dessert, and I even made him an ice cream mixture a la Cold Stone. Of course, Rachel got dessert, too, because she had eaten her dinner!

Mr. Matthew's set in his ways

I really wanted to capture part this part of Matthew's personality. That boy has to do things the same way he did them the last time. And that applies to everything. Here we are playing HyperDash, and he is setting up the targets in the exact same place where he set them the first time. I guess this makes it very easy to remember, but it just seems a little too strict for me.

He also has to sing Old MacDonald the same way every time, including stopping to ask "he had a what?" just as his teacher does and remembering to say "Ummm, a cow". He definitely knows what he wants and sticks to it. It can be a challenge but I hope that these will be great traits later in life.

Bleeding orange and blue

Yesterday, our family went to the UVA vs. Wake Forest women's basketball game. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. We are definitely raising some big UVA fans. We've been to many football games, but this was the kids' first basketball game. It was a super exciting game that really got the kids into it. We got to sit down low and really experience the game.

Matthew was obsessed with CavMan (the mascot). He watched him move around the arena constantly pointing him out and waving to him. Whenever the band would play, he would shout (and I mean shout), "Go Hoos Go". It was so cute. I wish I had had my video camera.

Rachel was even into the game. She thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Alex couldn't take his eyes off the game. He was completely mesmerized. Every time the whistle blew, he would have to figure out what happen. When UVA was coming back in the 2nd half, he was cheering. He even kept cheering in the last minute of the game when UVA was up by 15 and Wake had no chance left. He just loved it.

Zack was fascinated as well. He sat at the other end of the row from me, so I didn't talk to him much during the game. But, one time I turned toward him and he was super excited. He was saying, "2 more points to free chicken". If UVA scored 70 points, we got a buy one, get one free chicken at a local chicken place. Apparently, he had been focused on this during the game and was so excited about it. Given that all his food is free, I found this very funny! But, this is definitely in keeping with his personality as you'll see in the Christmas DVD (arriving soon!).

My little girl or is it wild child?

People always comment to me about my family. They assume that Rachel must be a big help with the little boys (she's not as much as you would expect) and they comment on how crazy boys are and how hard it would be with 3 of them that close together. Most say that, "At least you got your little girl."

Now, Rachel has many of the wonderful traits of a girl. She loves to shop, wear pink frilly clothes, sit quietly and draw for hours, but she if by far the most daring and full of hare-brained ideas child that I have. She, not the boys, was my wildest toddler and still today remains the one that is most likely to break her bones pushing the limits.

Here she climbed up Grandma and Paka's tree until Paka noticed her and told her she was getting up too high. She did something that she rarely does - she got scared. Of course, Dave and I are totally immune to her antics. Dave sent Paka in to get me to take pictures, and I debated turning on the video feature to capture her falling if it happened.

With Dave's help, she was able to make it safely down. But, no surprise, the next day she was right back up in the tree trying again. She really never learns! Oh well. Hopefully, one day that determination will serve her well in her life. I can keep hoping.

Appreciating our kid-decorated tree

Last weekend we got the tree up and decorated. The kids were so excited!

My camera was left in the car and got foggy, but I think this is cute. Rachel's idea!

It was all I could do to get the ornaments out, hooks on, and try to keep the little ones away from the irreplaceable and breakable ones - good luck, right? My children are very energetic (to put it nicely), so with all four working, it was pretty chaotic. We blew threw the ornaments in record time and sat back to look at the tree. It was about the ugliest decorated tree! The kids had put ornaments all together on parts of the tree. This weighed down the branches and left huge holes in the tree. I think it drove Dave a little crazy, but I thought it was fun to watch the kids put the ornaments wherever they wanted. Rachel has a "more the merrier" personality, and you can definitely see that in how she put her ornaments up. This was one of her sections. They were all right next to each, but she thought that looked beautiful.



Here we have 9 ornaments on one branch!



My crazy Zack!

Ho Ho Ho

Well, we went for our annual photo with Santa at the mall. I try to remember to get there in November, but, alas, that was not to be this year. The kids got out at noon the other day, so we decided to try to beat the public school kids to the mall. We had to wait 30 minutes. Not too bad, and I got all 4 kids in a Santa picture. That's a first!



While at the mall, I decided to do some shopping that I could only accomplish at the mall. Amazingly, the kids were pretty good. Of course, we get one nasty lady muttering loudly as she walked away, "what misbehaved children!" I wish I had yelled after her, "Merry Christmas to you, too!" In her defense, Matthew did kick in anger as she walked by and hit her packages and my other three were having a great time riding the mechanical horse machines at Brookstone (very fun!), but I just had to laugh because it had been such a pleasant time at the mall so far. Oh well.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday!

I love Thanksgiving. There's nothing to do except eat - maybe watch some football (although this year it was hardly worth watching), play some football, especially with the perfect weather we had this year, and hang out with family. I love cooking and hanging out with my mom in the kitchen. And, Thanksgiving gives us the perfect opportunity to just do this.

This year was particularly fun and a little more hectic because we had my brother's 5-month old triplets with us.

Josie, Mia and Marcus

The babies were a little off schedule in the night, but they were perfect little angels during the day. They always had someone to hold them and new people to look at. They are so sweet.

Mia and Marcus

Alex was really interested in "the boy." He just kept asking which one was the boy. That was the only one he wanted anything to do with.

Marcus

Rachel lived the girls - big surprise! She really got Josie laughing at her here. It was so adorable.



We spent a lot of time and effort trying to get all our group pictures. Getting 7 kids to cooperate was quite a challenge.