MMA Workouts

Last March when Kevin ran the St.Paddy's day dash down Greenville 5k race. He ran without any training, and only because he wanted to say partook of the famous green drink at every mile in the race...

I challenged him to do something that is actually impressive, and not a joke the morning he left for the race...

Well congratulations Kevin, you have impressed me.

For the past four months Kevin has been diligently waking up at 5:00 AM so he can go to a trainers house and let this guy beat him up and tell him how he can fight back when someone starts beating you up.

Well....that's how I interpret what he is doing at these workouts anyways...

They are Mixed Martial Arts workouts and from what Kevin says, they have lots of cardio and exercises that strengthen your core, and build muscle.

He even came home with a battle wound a few weeks ago, and I will say again, Kevin....waking up twice a week at 5:00 AM to workout is impressive for a man who goes to work for ten or eleven hours a day, and you don't need to get wounds to be impressive, so fight back harder next time! ;) Just kidding...that looks like it really must have hurt....

Penny Pick up?

Find a penny, pick it up and all day long you'll have good luck....

              This old saying obviously doesn't have place in our house, although I don't think it would be bad if it did....Brooke seems to think that taking even something of as little value as a penny would be stealing.

She found a penny on the ground the other day and said, " Oh, I found a penny. Can I have it Mommy?" I said, " Sure". It was like she was quizzing me because she said back with confidence in her voice, " Well I am not going to take it because that doesn't belong to me, and someone might come back for it."

I told her probably no one is going to come back for a penny and we used to have the saying about getting good luck from a penny you found. She said again, " Well if it's lucky should I take it?" I said, " It's up to you Brooke, that is just a saying. Luck isn't something that just comes, it is made. "

She seemed to have a aire certainty that she was making a good choice when she put the penny back on the ground and said, " I don't think I should take it. It isn't mine."

I said, " That is very good you know you shouldn't take what is yours."

I love how Brooke follows her own feelings about what she thinks is right and wrong. There is no middle ground for Brooke. It is black and white and she consistently stays in the white, every time. She has an amazing drive to do what is right and although it was just a penny....She wasn't going to take the chance that she might be stealing something....

We are blessed everyday to parent such an amazing little girl. We love you Brooke!!!! You are inspiring!!!!

Change Jar over night to Choctaw

Doreen gave us this change jar for Christmas that counts the change you put into it. You would be surprised at how much change you collect. Seems like about every six months we collect one-hundred dollars or more.

So Kevin used to leave candy bars all around the house to see how long it would take me before I cleaned behind a picture or something. He knew I was an avid cleaner and normally I would find it the next day.
I don't clean nearly as much anymore, and I don't eat candy bars everyday like I used too...So now he leaves change to see how long before I put it in this jar. We call it the weekender jar....The rule is that the change is only supposed to be spent on doing something spontaneous and fun. That rule gives us happy thoughts whenever we put change in the jar.

Well Kevin was having a really bad week, a few weeks ago and I said, " I know what we need to do Kevin...we need to cash in our change jar and do something fun! " It was 2 pm on a Friday and I was shocked, but I talked him into it!

Kevin was home by 3:30pm. I got everything packed and ready that quick...( including Will's food in a cooler ) and we were at our ( best kept secret )weekender destination Choctaw Casino and Resort in Oklahoma by 4:30 pm...

We spent the rest of the night swimming, Kevin snuck Will onto the big water slide, we played in the kid's arcade and grabbed dinner at a cafe inside the Casino....It's a great deal this place. It's like you got on a plane and went to a Mexican resort style pool  for one-hundred dollars....       

When I told Brooke we were going to Choctaw spontaneously she started screaming, " Yeah!!!"

           

Emily's Quick Cuts for Hair Cut Haters

I got a call from Kevin yesterday and he said, " Well I guess you did it." I said, " Did what? " He said, " You have accomplished your goal. "

He said that the Target clerk made the comment to him, " You look like someone....Oh yeah, It's Bradly Cooper....Your hair looks exactly like his. "

I said, " She really said that about the hair? " May be Kevin was just trying to make me feel good? He said, " No, I promise she said exactly that about my hair."

I guess having real hair cutting scissors that Terri gave me after reading my last hair cut entry, really helped with the cut. It was a lot easier to get it precisely how I wanted it, and this time I used a picture of him, not a moving movie screen of " Limitless. "

I cut Will's hair with the new hair cutting shears Terri gave me too. They are so sharp I cut my self and it was pretty stressful getting Will to sit still for me to give him a new look, but I knew exactly what I wanted, so why go pay someone?

Kevin probably wished he never made that comment to me about what the Target clerk said. I was following him around trying to catch a pic of my accomplishment when he said, " I guess I don't have to wonder what it would be like to be Bradly Cooper...I know what it's like to have the paparazzi follow you around. "

Sweet Tooth Sleep Over

With summer coming to a close we had a few things in mind to say good bye with a bang.

               Brooke has six little girls in our neighborhood alone that go to her elementary school and are in her grade.
               Brooke got very excited when I told her that she could invite every one of these girls to have a swimming and sleep over party at our house a few weeks before school starts back up. I did make it very clear to her that she will NEVER have a sleep over at someone else's house, but she can have many at ours. I explained that we don't want to make anyone feel bad and since there would be some of her friends I would be comfortable with her sleeping at their house, but not others...there is just a rule that the sleepovers go on only at our house, where I can supervise all night, and even sleep very close to them...

 Brooke the party planner that she is started planning all the things in her mind that she wanted to do at her party. It ended up being a " Sweet tooth sleep over ." I am sure you can imagine that with Brooke as the host, and her as her Mother's daughter.

I was shocked there wasn't any fighting at all, unlike the sleepovers I had as a little girl. There was however lots of drama. One min. from the next there was a splinter in some one's foot, or someone that had a head ache, someone couldn't find their special toy, etc. and then there was Will chasing after all these little girls, dying to be a part of all their games.

They had a great time playing " Marco, Polo " in the pool, eating pizza, ice cream , candy and winding down with Rapunzel as a bed time movie. All the girls were so in love with Brooke's pajamas. Luckily Grandma Pack has bought her almost every pair the Disney Store has ever made. She had enough pairs for every little girl there, and enough plush Disney dolls for each girl to cuddle up with....

Craw Fish Catch and Release

Speaking of strange ideas...

                          A while back Kevin said he had a surprise for us one day and that we had to go pick it up at the local grocery store Kroger...

                          He walked out of Kroger with a frozen bag. He said, " Emily please hold these, we need to pay attention to the movement."

                           I said, " What movement? " He said, " I heard Kroger was having a great deal on their frozen craw fish, so I ordered pounds of them. "

                           I looked at the package....said, " Craw fish...oh no, we don't eat craw fish...that means these things are alive???!!!!????"

                            He said, " Well they will be alive in a few min. they will wake up and then we can release them into our lake!!!! "

                            He thought we could be responsible for stocking out lake with craw fish if we just bought some at Kroger every time they were on sale. And you may say, why would we want our lake stocked with craw fish? Well the answer actually happened about an hour after we got the craw fish in the lake and we were talking to some neighbors walking near the lake and one of the little boys of the man we were talking to ran up to his Dad with a craw fish and excitedly screamed, " Dad, I caught a crayfish!" That's why we want to stock the lake with fish or craw fish.....

Will loved the craw fish...He loves bugs. He kept yelling, " Spider Man, ewe! "

Takin a Break with Legos

Sometimes Kevin and I just don't grasp the way each other are thinking.
      We were driving past a new restaurant the other day. Kevin said to me, " I really want to take you there,  ( as he pointed ), they have comedians come in on Friday nights and they are supposed to be good. " I said, " That sounds good, but is it dirty? " One of his eyebrows raised as he looked at me and said, " The place just opened two weeks ago...It's really clean, I am sure." I told him I meant if the humor was dirty? He scoffed.

We loved going to this Lego exhibit about a month ago. Will and Brooke really loved it...Well Will did get bored after about thirty min. of getting frustrated with trying to build something with tiny blocks. After he knocked over Kevin and Brooke's buildings many times and the shrill of Brooke screaming, " No Will!!!" got old, he decided to lay down on the floor and try and take a nap. It was bizarre to see Will actually lay down in such a play place and crowded environment like this.

So I knew Kevin loved this exhibit as well, but I wasn't aware of how much he liked it until we were in the parking garage and we were leaving. Kevin said, " I think I am going to look on Craigslist to see if anyone is selling a Lego table like they had there, ( he paused ) I could put it in my office. "

I didn't say anything only because I was picturing Kevin getting frustrated and scolding a sales rep, then steaming off to his Lego room where he began using his Lego's as an outlet.....I did think it was weird, but it wouldn't be the first time that Kevin , or I for that matter, have had some strange ideas...

We get all the way home and he is still talking about this Lego table and how the kids would like it. I finally said something that cleared things up. I said, " Well it's not like the kids come up to your office very often Kevin." He was very confused. He said, " I wasn't talking about that office Emily, I was talking about the one in our house." I said, " You mean the room that you call your office that is completely empty besides a desk and table with your stereo system on it? " He said, " Yes!" Then I explained to him that I thought he wanted to take his breaks at work by building Lego buildings in his back room.....