M-A-X spells Max

It's amazing how much our Max has grown up lately. When I was first pregnant with Logan, he seemed like such a baby still. But, somehow during the last year he has really started to come into his own! Well, this week he learned how to write his own name. He's been practicing and practicing and he's getting pretty good at it. Here is a picture he drew of our "happily family". He put his name at the top.

Logan and Bananas/Max and Swimming

We bought a camcorder a couple of years ago. Not that we didn't already have our fair share what with our wedding videography business and all. This particular one was meant to be for family stuff. It's small and portable, but still shoots in HD so we can have high quality. At the time, it was quite expensive. Now, you can get the same quality and portability for a couple hundred dollars. To make a long story even longer, I love our camcorder. The only problem is in order to actually get the videos off the camera's hard drive, you have to use the software that came with it. Dave periodically likes to reformat our computers and "start over" to clean everything off. Trouble is, neither one of us thought about the software that was already installed on the computer and the disc containing the software went completely MIA. Instead of trying to solve the problem, it just sat as so many problems seem to do. So, for most of 2009, we didn't get video of our kids. It's pretty sad when you make a living by filming other people and yet you let your own life slip by without one minute of footage.

Well, we finally got a replacement disc!!! And, all it took was $30 and a two minute phone call. Go figure!

So, today I was playing with our video camera. It's sat so long, it feels like a new toy! So, here is a video of Logan trying bananas for the first time (I think it's rather appropriate that his bib says "Good Sport") and Max talking about swimming lessons. He brings swimming lessons up almost daily. Bria and Max took swimming lessons last summer and I had serious concerns that Max wouldn't even get near the water. But, he did great and apparently loved them so much that when we are going somewhere, he usually asks if we are going to swimming lessons.

Here's to hoping for more videos to come!

Jumping in a Winter Wonderland

Our kids love the trampoline. LOVE it. It's pretty much all they do during the summer. They have majorly missed it since winter started. They found out the hard way that jumping in the winter is not the same as summer. Right after our first snow they begged to play outside. The first thing they did was go to the snow covered trampoline and immediately take their shoes off to jump (since, of course, the same trampoline rules apply in both summer and winter, right?). After only a few minutes outside, both kids were crying and screaming and wondering why their beloved trampoline was no fun anymore.
Fast forward 6 weeks. We have had a very mild winter this year. Cold? Absolutely! Snow-covered? You betcha! But slightly, slightly warmer than normal. A few weeks ago while Bria was at school, Max spent the better part of an hour shoveling snow off the trampoline. I didn't tell him to or anything. He just wanted to play outside and that's what he decided to do. Well, his efforts (combined with a few warm days, but of course mostly his efforts) have paid off. We have a snow free trampoline!!! Add that to a couple of hard-knock educated children and I think we've accomplished some successful wintertime jumping! And they had a BLAST!

Rachel's Challenge

Can I first just say how AWESOME Dave is? I know I'm biased, but he really is incredible. We are really excited about Dave's new job! He has been working on his Master's Degree for the last 2 years so he can become a school counselor. He got a position as an elementary counselor 2 1/2 years ago, but he couldn't continue in that job until he received his degree. In the meantime, he has been working at the school district's day treatment program, which I can tell you is not an ideal job. He was really good at it, though. It's a program where the very worst students from the whole school district go because their behavior is so bad that they can't stay in regular class during the day. You can only imagine what kinds of problems that he and the kids had to deal with on a daily basis. Anyway, to make a long story short...Dave won't be finished with his Master's degree until May, but right before Christmas break, the school district offered him a position as a school counselor starting last month!!!! We're not sure how things will go just yet, but we are hopeful that this will be a permanent position. We are all very excited! This is such a perfect fit for Dave!

At his new elementary school, they are working on a program called Rachel's Challenge. It's really a neat program. Rachel Scott was the first person killed at the Columbine shooting. A month before she died, she wrote an essay talking about how acts of kindness can have a chain reaction and make a positive change. After she died, her parent's put together this challenge to share with schools everywhere. It's really cool. Dave is the one heading up the program and they had an assembly yesterday to introduce it to the students. The local news came and covered the story and interviewed Dave. Pretty cool, huh?

(if you can't see the video, here is the link to the article: http://www.kidk.com/news/local/83268717.html)