Chess club trip

I accompanied the Chess Club from our school to the Virginia Scholastic Chess Tournament in Charlottesville a few weekends ago.  I have to say that the kids did such a great job, and I was so proud because I still managed to stick with my triathlon training while I was gone.  I also learned my way around Charlottesville much better, even though I've been there many times.  

The kids were excited about the bus ride...even though the forecast was for SNOW!

They got to see our family home on our first day in town, called Brookhill. It was purchased by my Great-Grandfather, who was a Professor at UVA, and it was my Grandfather's boyhood home.  The students were amazed at how many books they saw.

One of my cousin Dayton's dogs...Windsor....loved the attention!  Thank you Dayton for letting us come over and visit!  

When we arrived at Monticello HS, the students started to get intimidated.

Rows and rows of chess matches.  It was amazing to watch.

Mr. W and T warming up before her match.

Our kids were very competitive.

We weren't allowed to take many pictures in the match room.

One of the students "styled" my hair...I had to keep telling her not to pull so hard!

Some of our kids won their matches!

There were ribbons given out, and trophies.

so tired

I'm too tired to write much right now, but I wanted to throw on a few pictures really quickly that have accumulated over the past few weeks.

During a time of nicer weather obviously.  Mdx and Daddy took a walk.

Then we played in the backyard.

We got an awesome deal on a very large berber carpet remnant and covered the rest of the play area/Dining room.  Work in progress:

Once we were done, Mdx approved! No more slippery cold floor!

I suppose we can thank the gymnastics class for this:

Gymnastics class

Today I joined the ranks of People-who-drive-their-kid-to-an-activity.  You know, not quite a soccer Mom, and I don't want a minivan....but I'm SO proud and happy to say that Maddox's first Tiny Tots Gymnastics class was today!  It meets every Tuesday afternoon at the Y.  Today was an introductory course, the teachers showed us what everything is, and then let the kids play with all the equipment.  It's a parent-participatory class, and let me tell you, I got some extra exercise chasing Mdx around the gym!  She was so excited, she just ran from thing to thing.  After class she was so exhausted she could barely eat dinner, and practically begged me to put her in bed at 7PM!

The gym getting set up.

Mdx loves to climb over obstacles.  She needs a little leotard like that cute little girl!

Working really hard.

This was one of the best!!

Hanging out.

The super-beginner balance beam.

Jumping through hoops.  Well- stepping, she can't really jump yet.

Ball-throwing she CAN do!

Crawling through the tunnel.

On the video you can see that she really just never stopped moving the entire time.  I think being 18 months old she has discovered that she can explore every little part of life, every corner of every room, every minute of the every day.  It's so intense!

Snow day!

I woke up this morning to a few inches of snow on the ground.  I took Maddox outside for a walk so she could enjoy the snow, but she seemed to think it was more of a nuisance than anything else!  Her shoes kept getting snow stuck all over them and I think it was hard for her to walk.  

What am I supposed to do with this?

Right before she almost face-plants in the front yard.

Spring cleaning

See, I told you February was a pretty cool month- so cool it is already over!

I've been doing some cleaning out of closets, organizing, etc, while Marshall is on this TDY.  It's not that I can't get things done while he's here- of course it helps to have him here to take care of the baby so I can do other things....BUT for some reason I'm just so darn distracted when he's around!  :)  Wink-wink.  I normally make a big mess when I'm trying to clean, so it is actually good that he is not here to witness that.

I went through and sorted by size and item all of the clothes that Maddox has outgrown.  When you see it all spread out, it doesn't look like that much.  

I donated SO MUCH stuff, and still, there is all this left that I want to keep!  Some of it could be worn by a little boy, but there's a lot of pink in here still.  All of this is the 0-6 month clothing:

It is: 12 pairs of pants, 1 pair of overalls, 1 swimsuit, 29 onesies, 16 sleepers, 11 dresses, 6 outfits, 2 shirts, and 7 sweaters!  A lot of this came from my awesome friend Tamara, who has passed to Mdx the clothes that her daughters outgrew.  Add that to what Emily, and all our generous family and friends gave us, and we have clothing galore!

Here is the 6-12 month stuff:

To be exact, it is 4 skirts, 5 shirts, 2 sweaters, 12 sleepers, 14 pants, 5 pairs of overalls, 17 onesies, 10 dresses, and 10 outfits.  

Of course, the baby had to have shoes!  And these are the ones I'm keeping:

It really is amazing to see the volume of clothing that she went through in her first year of life!  Once she hits another growth spurt and is in 18 month clothing I get to do it all over again with the 12-18 month stuff.  But, I've learned a lot about children's clothing over the past 18 months.  For instance, some of the cutest little things have the dumbest arrangement of snaps, buttons, ties, etc.  I can now recognize that before trying to get it on Mdx!  Also, I never trust the size label on anything anymore, all 9 month olds are not the same size!  And, it really is worth it to buy quality clothing, because it will last longer and look good, and fits much better than super cheap stuff!  Once we are done having kids I will definitely pass a lot of this on to another lucky child, but until then I better hope to have a house with plenty of storage!