Soccer started tonight!

John had his first soccer practice/game night tonight. I'm coaching an older team while Dave and Grace cheer him on. He had a great time. The Preschool team John is on has 23 kids all 5 years old. Dave described it as the coaches herding cats most of the time. John said he learned that "you never use your hands in soccer" tonight. He has 5 more Tuesday night soccer games.

The Pittsburgh Marathon

We did it! All six Humphrey kids ran the Pittsburgh half-marthon last weekend. What an exciting weekend! Here we are with our medals.
This was my first and Dave's second half-marathon. He met his goal and finished in 2:10! Nice work honey. I can't imagine running your pace.

Here are the girls (minus Grace who stayed home with friends).

Barb (Dave's mom), Danielle and Lydia (Aaron's wife and daughter), me, Kim, Ella, and Luci (Mark's wife and kids), and Carol (Danielle's mom).

And the guys (minus John who was home with Aimee's parents). Dave, Dan (his dad), Mark and Aaron.

Kim and I ran together. She's done many of these before and has even completed a full marathon. Fortunately for me she is 20 weeks pregnant and running my pace. Thanks Kim for asking me to run with you. I never would have signed up without you.

A very fishy Easter

We spent the afternoon visiting with Aimee's Aunt Terry and Uncle Willy, their sons and families and got to meet Malena, the newest Streby cousin. Grace was a bit overdressed for the afternoon, but didn't let that stop her from spending time with Papa Streby.

John got his first fishing lesson from Papa.

Dave proudly diplays his catch with the kiddie fishing pole.

Papa got one...

...and Uncle Willy (Aimee's dad's brother)...

...and John! He casted out, slowly reeled it in and caught a monster fish. Not bad for your first few minutes of fishing.

Papa was pretty proud too.

Grace had much more fun inside with the girls. Here she is holding her beautiful cousin Malena Mae Streby (Jacob and Carrie's second).

These are from earlier in the day. Just some shots of good looking kids.

John proudly displays his bow tie (hand-made by Nana Streby) and new shoes (thanks Nana Humphrey).

My mom made Grace this adorable dress and hat. The child spent most of the morning in front of this mirror admiring herself.

These are from a local Easter egg hunt.

John was explaining to Grace how the hunt works. She hangs on his every word. I can only imagine the things she'll learn from her big brother in the future.

John is reading!

John has been working on a computer program called Head Sprout Early Reader for about 9 months now. Dave's dad asked us if we would test out this 80 30-minute episode program with him. John loves it and so do we. It challenges him and he has fun too. I love how proud he is and you'll see it in his face at the end of this video. It's taken us this long to get throught the first 45 episodes, hopefully he'll finish all 80 before he graduates.

Grace's Birthday!

Now that we're well into March, here are some pictures from Grace's 2nd birthday. A Sesame Street theme.

My mom made this great pin-the-nose-on-Elmo. We kept this up for a week after the party. I found noses all over the house.

I have such a respect for cake decorators every time I attempt it. Grace recognized Elmo, and that made it worth all the work.

Grace models a princess crown from a new set of dress-up clothes.

and she was also very excited about these big-girl undies.

Thank you dad and Uncle Aaron for taking the time to untangle every wire and tag on these child (and sometimes adult) proof packages. You see Grace waiting very patiently here.

Cake and ice cream. We don't have one of these pictures from her 1st birthday because Grace had a cold for most of February last year. She had such a great time this year and so did we!

Sledding, snowman, ice skating and more!

Olivia and John had the best time last week sledding on the hill behind Centerburg Elementary School (right behind our house). The hill goes from the playground down to the football field. They were able to get that sled to go half way across the field! Grace went down a couple times too. She actually travelled under the other two on the sled and loved ever second of it.

Our first snowman this winter! Notice the four arms and two stick feet. And thank you Papa Humphrey for the perfect hat.

John jammin' in his friend Christian's room last weekend. I know the picture doesn't really fit here, but I thought it was hillarious.

We took the kids ice skating last weekend. Look at her little tiny skates!

Ice Skating at The Chiller in Columbus last weekend.

I think the look on my face says it all.

Dave, John, Aimee and friend Victoria as we moved slowly along the wall together.

Grace surprised us by wanting to skate too. They actually had size 7 skates!

John made it around the rink twice and was satisfied to say that he had learned to ice skate.

I just had a conversation, or rather listened to John have a conversation with me as he lay in bed trying to avoid the final "good night."

"Mommy can we play a game tomorrow? Not a game for little kids. A game for grown-ups. Well, big people...you know grown-ups and 4-year-olds-NOT -1-year-olds. (An obvious stab at his sister.) I know, I know! We could get out all those little things and play with them in the ....oh, no, wait. That will never work. We don't have a big enough tube. Unless...I know! We could use that one, you know that tube I'm thinkin' of. The one we played it with last time. Yeah, that will work. But we don't want Gracie to play with us because she might swallow the little pieces and then she would puke. (Who taught him that word?) And we love her and we don't want her to puke. So mommy can you make sure she doesn't play. Maybe we just wait till she's in bed. I love you mommy! (Great big hug.) Good night mommy."

How does he ever fall asleep this wound up all the time? This entire talk he gave with me just sitting on his bed, smiling at him. I have no idea what game he's talking about, but it seems he wants some one-on-one time with mom.