ARE YOUR FINGERS PRUNY YET?

Bryn's second swim meet was a lot of fun. She did the 25 and 50 meter freestyle again and the 25 meter backstroke. She is definitely not as competitive as her dad, but her form is great! She is still the youngest swimmer on her team, and loves it. She has worked really hard on her start, again form is incredible. We are so proud of her.

Our BIG announcement and a quick update

We are very excited to announce that baby number 3 is on the way!!!

The due date is June 11th, and as of now we are not planning to find out the sex, however, we'll see what happens when we have the ultrasound ;)
I am 14 weeks along and have been pretty sick again.
This time around I have not been able to drink anything with carbonation, or eat anything with beef. I haven't really craved anything, at least not yet, I am still just trying to eat anything that doesn't make me run to the bathroom.
The kids have been great, Kyler prays every night that I will feel better soon, and Bryn is always asking me if she can help me so I can go rest.

By way of an update:
Erick has now finished 5th semester and is preparing for the first set of National Board Exams. We are just planning to stay here in Michigan while he prepares for the exam and while we wait for the results. At this point it doesn't look like we will be able to stay here in Michigan as we had originally hoped. The program here only begins every September, and we can't wait for September before we get started on the next phase.
So, after Erick gets the results from his Step Exam, we will find out where we will be living for the next two years during which time Erick will complete the third and fourth year of medical school which consists of rotations in family medicine, pediatrics, psychology, surgery, internal medicine, OB-GYN, and then any electives that he is interested in exploring. This is the point where students try to narrow down the different areas of medicine and try to figure out what they want to go into.
The kids are doing great, Bryn had her second swim meet on Saturday ( stay tuned for video of that soon!) Kyler is signed up for basketball and is VERY excited for that to start. Bryn has started an accelerated reading program at school, she gets a book at the beginning of the week and she reads it every night until Thursday and then she takes a test on it. Last week was her first week doing it, and she got 100% on the test. She was so excited when she got home from school to show us.
We have had the swine flu as well as the regular flu at our house, so we are hoping to avoid any other bugs this season.
We also had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We drove over the Pennsylvania to Lee and Jandi's house. My parents were able to come out and we had a great time. Thanksgiving was great, and then we drove to Niagara Falls and did some sightseeing in Erie. The kids had so much fun playing with cousins and getting to see Grandma and Grandpa again. My parent took ALL the kids to have a sleep over one of the nights and Lee, Jandi, Erick and I played Guitar Hero most of the night. It was so fun to have a night like that, thanks mom and dad!
Things have been busy, and now we are just getting ready for Christmas!

SAGINAW STEELERS WIN The TITLE

Is there anything more exciting than watching your favorite college player streak down the sideline for a touchdown at "The Big House", "The Swamp", or "The Horse Shoe"? Yes, watching your 3 year-old do it at the YMCA little league field! Kyler played his first season of football this year with the 3-5 year-old STEELERS, and quickly became a fan favorite. The local media was a frenzy with Kyler player cards, team photos, and heroic tales of last-second comebacks. Somehow during all of the excitement we neglected to video all of his accomplishments. We did get a few pictures, but that is all. The season is now over and the STEELERS finished with a perfect record 6-0 (all other teams had the same record as well. Guess that is why the parents keep score).

THE RUNDOWN: They played for 6 weeks with practices and games on Saturday mornings. Kyler played defensive end (like BIG uncle Trent), and tailback 2 plays per game. Each player on the team had an opportunity to be tailback, the rest of the time they were on the line as a blocker.
THE RULES: Coach Booker did a fantastic job teaching Kyler what he needed to do at the various positions.
Rule #1: If you have the ball run faster than everyone else.
Rule #2: If you have the ball, run faster than everyone else in the right direction.
Rule #3: If you don't have the ball, pull the guys flag that does.
Rule #4: If you don't have the ball, and someone else on your team does, DON'T pull their flag.

THE SCORE: Kyler scored a touchdown in 4 of 6 games, and became very proficient at pulling the opponents flag. When he wasn't running the ball himself, he did a great job sealing the end, so his teammates could make touchdowns too. Way to go ......Ky-BEAR. (Yellow shirt, Black du-rag, gray pants)

SHARKS In The Water

After watching the 2008 Summer Olympics, Bryn decided that she wanted to be on the USA swim team. Her nickname in Dominica was "little fish", and when we moved to the Bahamas we had our own pool that she could practice in. Luckily there is a local competitive swim team here in Saginaw that she has joined. She is the youngest one on her team, and she loves it! Today, was her first meet. She participated in two heats the 25 and 50 Freestyle. She did such a good job. While we were waiting for her to race, Kyler told me "Do you know what I think of Bryn? She is the best swimmer in the whole wide world!" We tried to get him to say it on camera.....but he became a little shy. GO SHARKS!!!

Games only a DAD can play

There are some things that only a Dad can do and this is one of them at our house. The kids LOVE to wait for Erick to get home and then "attach" themselves to him ankles. They will just sat there and wait, what are they waiting for? For him to walk. He will literally walk all over the house pulling them behind him. I MIGHT could manage on the hard wood, but he pulls them on the carpet too, everywhere he goes.
The funniest thing is to listen to them, they are holding on for dear life, and whispering to each other, "I think he's going to move" and then just crack up laughing. Erick will make them wait for a few seconds so they think he's not going to move and then all of a sudden he will take off. They think it is the best thing ever.
Kyler has tried to get me to play, but it is one of those games for Dads!

Last Friday....

Last Friday Kyler and I were downstairs going through a few totes. I was looking for something in particular and Kyler was "just looking", he got into my tote that has some pieces of material in and a few patterns and things. There was a piece of material that I had gotten 2 year ago. It was a sports piece of material and we latched on to it. He wanted to use it as a blanket. So I told him that I had gotten it to make him something. So he wanted me to make him a blanket! I showed him a pattern of PJ pants that I had and told him I could make him pair of those. He got so excited and wanted to go make them right now! We went upstairs and got out my sewing maching and everything we needed. While I was getting my machine out he was looking over the instructions. When I came back out he said, "are you sure you can do this?" Laughing I told him yes, I could make them. I started to cut out the pattern and then the put it on the material and cut it out, again he asked me if I could really do it. From start to finish it took me about 2 hours and in that 2 hours, I think he asked me 5 times if I could really do it. When I got the legs sewn and pretty much put together, I wanted him to try them on before I did the waist and hem the legs. He kept telling me they were too big and didn't fit. When he took them off and handed them to me he said (under his breath) "I sure hope you know what your doing". Well, I got them finished and he was so excited he wore them the entire day, and this was at 10:30am!!
To top off the day, while I was sewing, I gave him some grapes to eat. He ate most of them and then when he was finished eating he took the rest of them and squished them on the table and the floor. When I finished sewing and saw what he had done, I made him clean them up. He of course didn't want to and complained for about 5 minutes before doing it. I went to put my sewing machine away and before I came back out I could hear him thowing up in the garbage. This kid has the worst gag reflex. He was throwing up because they were "all squishing and mushing" accoring to him. Well, how to you think they got that way??? So I gave him a paper towel to pick up the rest and he managed to get the job done.

Bryn's hair cut

Last Saturday, we were heading out to get Erick's hair cut and on our way I ask Bryn if she was okay if we checked with them to see if we could get her hair trimmed. She said she was okay with it, but that she wanted it cut short. Both Erick and I asked her a few times if she was sure and she kept saying yes, she was. So when we got there is got a cute little A-line. Here are a couple pics of the new cut.