Basketball 2011-2012

Naomi is in the middle of her first Basketball season! She's beginning to catch on very quickly! Check out her jump shot there!
(Yes, the coach IS taller than the basket!)

Check out Naomi's mad defense skills! Even Goliath didn't scare her off!

Nothin's gettin' past this girl!

Tate is also playing basketball this year! This is his third season. He is really starting to get pretty good!

So good, in fact, that he said to Dallas at his game on Saturday, "Now all I have to do is learn how to shoot." Yep! The kid has absolutely MASTERED every other part of the game, folks!

He scored one basket at his game, but his defensive skills were top notch!
(ps-I taught him "the strong arm.")

First Day! Twenty-Eleven!

First day of school Twenty-Eleven!

We have the Hills family veteran, Tate...the big brother and third grader!

We have our excited Kindergartener, Naomi!

Tate took great pride in preparing his little sister for her first bus ride!
(Probably because I failed to prepare HIM for HIS first bus ride when I sent him off to Kindergarten the first day, and because of nerves, he threw up on his bus partner)
We can stamp that mom failure with a momentous-"F"!

After explaining to Naomi a couple of times that the bus would take her to school, and Tate would walk her to her classroom, the bus pulled up. Naomi edged a little closer to my side, and I prayed, "Lord, God! Please don't let her puke on the bus!"

But, it was a great first day! Naomi came through with flying colors, thanks to her caring big brother, Tate!

TATE IS EIGHT!!!

Tate is eight!
For his birthday, Daddy gave him a BB Gun!
(Naomi's face is probably mimicking my own first reaction to giving him a gun, but I'm over it)
He learned how to shoot at Boy Scout Camp over the summer.

Everyone in my family loves Spongebob...much to my demise.
So, I laid my hatred for the poor sponge aside for one day and went nuts!

Then, the kids slid down the biggest, longest, steepest homemade slip-n-slide I have EVER seen!
(our backyard is STEEP!)
I underestimated how fast the kids would be going.
We clocked them coming to a grinding/flying/flailing/tumbling hault at about 30mph.
(joke)
(sort of)
This thing was probably about 70 feet long.
Now I know why slip-n-slide puts a disclaimer on their directions that you should not assemble the slide on a hill.
...and remember how slip-n-slides used to be WAY longer when WE were kids?!!
We went retro.
We live on the edge.
At Tate's party, we almost died on the edge.
That's how we roll.

Here's the birthday boy taking the first slide of the day!
(I thought about sending someone else's kid down first so the birthday boy did not die on his birthday, but thought that was not the best neighborly choice.)

...and sister cautiously slid down, too.
(note: You cannot actually see the top of the slide here. There's another 20+ feet up there.)
(note 2: No fancy camera tactics were used in the making of these pictures! This is the actual hill)

Happy Birthday, Tate!
We love you!
We are proud of you!
(I promise we were not trying to injure you OR your friends at your party.)

Disclaimer: If you try this at home and are injured, you did NOT see this idea here first!

TATE IS EIGHT!!

Happy 8th Birthday, Tate!!

It's been fun so far!!!

Enjoy this year, Tate! It's the last time your name and age will rhyme for twenty years!!

We love you! You are such a good big brother and son! Your funny personality and fun-loving attitude make life exciting!!! We are so proud of who you are!

Five Buks, Pleas!

Typically, our ridiculous comments come from Naomi. Last night, however, Tate "took the cake." Earlier yesterday, Tate asked me to buy him some new little lego sets. My answer was, "You can save up your own money and buy them." (These are the $5 ones we're talking about) I was sort of frustrated with Tate yesterday because his room literally looked like a tornado hit, and instead of cleaning it up, he was happily playing in the midst of the disaster zone.

Later on, as Dallas and I were getting ready for bed, I noticed these two curious notes on display atop our bed.

Notice the carefully "decorated" (torn) left page.

It says, "Mom and Dad."

The page on the right is the point of interest.

Can't make out what it says?

It says, "I love you Mom and Dad give me 5 buks pleas."

You heard him correctly. He wanted 5 buks. Oh, and he loves us. (Surely an aside from the main point of his note)

Creative, huh?!

Well, this morning, I go down into the kitchen. Dallas had left a note for Tate...AND...FIVE BUKS!! I mean, BUCKS! WHAT?! Tate was obviously pleased with the outcome. He said, "What's this?!" My answer? "Ask and you shall receive, my son." (I guess) I can just see the note when he's sixteen:

"Mom and Dad, I love you. Gimme a kar, pleas."

Frederick Running Festival-2011

We did it! Stewart, Elizabeth and I all met our goals!

Stewart finished 5 minutes under 2 hours.

Elizabeth finished! (in 2:23! I'm proud of her time!)

And, I didn't really have a goal, but finished in 2:16. I'm happy with that.

My little racers blew away their competition and had fun in their first race! They're both looking forward to the mile kid's run at the Firecracker 5K this July!
Me after my race and my kids getting pumped up for their race!


Tate sprints to the finish line!

Naomi breezed by, making running look so easy!

And...the half marathoners!

Water Wars

Two days ago, the high was maybe 65. Yesterday, however, the high was 80-WHOA! Did someone say, "EIGHTY"?!! Let's break out the swimsuits! Naomi has been begging to play in the sprinkler for weeks. So, today, I finally gave her the go ahead. Plus, we got these super easy-to-use water "guns" for Easter! So, I filled up buckets and she went to town. A lady, a bucket, and a water shooter. All alone=no problems!

Enter Tate. Tate arrived home from school to a fresh blast of ice cold water. Tate's happy-go-lucky enough to think that was AWESOME. He came inside, half laughing, and told me Naomi shot him and he was soaking wet. I said, "HURRY! Go put your swimsuit on!" I filled Tate a bucket, got his water shooter, and told him to swing around the other side of the house for a covert retaliation.

Naomi got blasted. Thus began the first (of hopefully many) water wars of the season. Aha! Time to myself! Darby's napping upstairs, kids are outside playing. WRONG! Commence the tattling.

Naomi: "Tate shot me when I was reloading!!!"

My answer: "Okay, (quickly whipping out our newly purchased sidewalk chalk) THIS is the 'LOADING ZONE.' No one can shoot from the loading zone or into the loading zone."

Then I quickly realized that I needed a "PENALTY BOX" if I was going to initiate a "LOADING ZONE." Right? Because there MUST be a PENALTY for BREAKING THE RULES!

Then I realized they'd pelt each other in the eyes if I didn't make a "SHOT BOX," but that, too, had to come with one rule: "NO SHOOTING IN THE EYES!"

So, now, with rules and boundary lines set, and consequences for breaking those rules or stepping across those boundary lines set, they are happily battling it out, and have even invited friends over, taught THEM they rules/boundaries, and now THEY are happily playing!

After a little while of playing, Naomi came inside shivering-remember, it's only 80, and it's only been that temperature for about 5 hours. She had given her brother and her brother's friend towels. One of the towels was her own. They were warm. She was not. How sweet is she to sacrifice her own comfort for her friends?!

So, go out and have yourself a WATER WAR---and let me know how it goes!!

Mom of the Year-2011

Ever have those "Mom of the Year" moments? Yeah...had one of those last night. Tate came down around 11:30pm with an earache. I cleaned his ears, gave him allergy medicine, some warm tea, water, and Tylenol. After I pumped him full of anything I could get my hands on, I looked at the Tylenol bottle: EXP 9/2009. Wonderful. So, I took Organic Chemistry 1 and 2 in college! No biggie, right? I just figured the half life of the meds in the Tylenol probably made the chemicals inactive at this point ( The Tylenol would be simple syrup). So, I began digging through my medicine basket again. SCORE! MOTRIN! Even better. This time, I looked at the expiration date first: EXP 4/2010. Well, that's getting better, right? And, since I used the expertise I gained at Texas A&M, I knew that I could give him MORE since I deemed the Tylenol null-and-void. So, I gave him maybe 1/2 of his dose in expired Motrin. (Atleast I'm making HIM feel better now that I've essentially given him a placebo, right?)

The problem is that I switched my major to Psychology after a couple years in Science, and so I know that giving someone expired meds is against the law and is considered drug abuse. So, now I'm torn. What's a mom to do in the middle of the night with nothing but expired meds?!

So, since my car's at the shop, I was thinking I'd keep Tate home from school today and take him to the doctor when my car gets back, but he woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed...ready for school! So, I sent him off to school! I think the moral to the story is this: Expired meds fix ANYTHING! haha! We'll see. I'm still going to try to get him in to the doctor since it's Easter weekend and I still think he might have an ear infection. Oh! And, I might go swing by CVS to get some fresh meds while I'm at it!

Tattle Tale

Last night, I heard Naomi just WAILING upstairs (you know, the kind that is TOTALLY for show). She finally realized that her tactics were going completely "unnoticed," and heads downstairs. Mustering up the most pitiful and completely flabbergasted voice, she proceeds to tell me this:

"Mommy! Tate says I don't like Princess Peach OR PONIES!"

I'll be the first to tell ya, Tate has SOME NERVE!

Tate in the Waynesboro Christmas Parade!

Goofy kids

Tate's first day of FIRST GRADE!

Tate's in first grade now!

We're old pros now, so we just pin a bus to his shirt and send him to school!

All the kids of Spring Run at the bus stop the first day!

Tate's 6th birthday party!

We celebrated this year at Cluggy's (which, both the kids called Clubby's) We had a blast in the batting cages and playing mini golf! A pretty easy party for mom after our big trip to Disney!

Tate, Nathan, and Jake wait their turn in the cages!

(Don't they just look like they're about to destroy the ball?)

Tate did really well in the cages!

Tate and Devin playing minigolf