Mental Blog Stress

Lately, I feel like it's been difficult to keep up with both my own blog and the blogs I read. When I started blogging four years ago I had three children, none of which were school age, no dog and a house half the size we have now. My cousin was the only blogger I knew, and I probably read 10-15 blogs and didn't really comment on many of them.

Fast forward four years...I have five children, three which are school age, one dog, and a house twice the size to keep up with. There are 80 blogs in my bloglines, many are bloggers I know personally and many are blogs that I like to comment on.

I guess it's really no wonder It feels a little overwhelming lately.

Plus, there is the whole "thinking up posts" issue.

My sewing and reading blogs are easy because they involve no "thinking". This blog is different. While it does not take much time to type out a post, it takes a lot of time and energy to think them up. Probably only about 10% of my blog posts make it from my brain to the computer. What kind of blogger are you? Do you just sit down and "let it all out", or do your posts go through a careful mental screening? Do you feel guilty if you don't keep up with blogs? Do you feel guilty if you don't post often enough?

I love blogging, and even if I had no readers I would continue simply to chronicle my children growing up. Sometimes, though, I can't help but wonder where some of the fun went.

Anybody relate?

Fall

The calendar still says August, but you can definitely feel Fall in the air. I think we're probably done swimming in the lake until next summer. Time to trade the sandals for shoes and start thinking about sweaters. It seems like we just had our end of the year picnic with out home school group, now it's almost time for the beginning of the year picnic!

We have a lot of plans for this school year and we will be ready to start next Tuesday. And Sadie has the cutest sweaters just waiting to be worn too.

Gotta love Fall.

Except for the leaves. I'm so not ready for those again.

Was this not the most boring post ever?

Olympics

• I think Michael Phelp's mom got more t.v face time than half the Olympians.
  
• A 33 year old gymnast won a bronze medal on the vault...how cool is that? Not to mention the 38 year Romanian woman who won the marathon, and Dara Torres the 41 year old swimmer.
  
• I just saw a headline that spoiled an event I was going to watch tonight. I have to say, though, Yahoo headlines has been pretty good this time about not declaring winners unless you click to read the article.
• I love that NBC has Bella Karolyi commentate on gymnastics. He is so entertaining...when you can understand him.
• Why do gymnasts still wear scunchies?
  
• I managed to catch the trampoline gymnastics finals last night. That sport just looks too fun to be, well, a sport.
  

Go U.S.A!

We, along with most I'm sure, have spent some time the last couple days watching the Olympics. I heard on the radio earlier that 15% of humanity watched the opening ceremony. This is the first year that any of my boys are old enough to really comprehend the Olympics. They like the swimming and bicycle races and the weightlifting, but mostly they can't wait for the track and field events next week.

I love the Olympics and it's always fun to reflect on how much has changed in my life since the last Olympics. For instance, last time I watched the Summer Olympics in a different house with only 3 children. In fact, I've lived somewhere different for the 92, 96, 00, 04 and now 08 games!

Next time, I will have a 12 year old! Sadie will be five by then, and will no doubt have more of a say in her Olympic outfit.

Three!

Jonah turned three today. Normally, I would post a picture of him with his cake but his cake sort of fell apart this year. He doesn't care though, you can still see the dinosaur on it and his main concern is that he gets to blow out candles.

Of all our children, Jonah is the one most likely to be marching to the beat of his own drummer. He has no problem playing all by himself. It really doesn't bother him how many people might be around, if he wants to start dancing or all of a sudden be spiderman crawling on the ground, or start fighting in an imaginary sword fight, he will. We're looking forward to a great year ahead with our 3 year old.

Snorkel Sam

I thought I would post a video of Sam snorkeling in case anybody was interested in actually seeing him. Our camera takes video, but unfortunately there is no sound.

Oh yeah...a couple people asked about the "fruity pebbles" cake. It's not really a cake, it's just like rice crispy treats only you use fruity pebble cereal instead.

Five

Sam turned five today. I remember when Isaac turned five, it seemed like such a milestone. Now, my third has already reached it!

This year he had a "fruity pebbles" cake. It was really good.


You should see this kid snorkel! He swims around like a fish, breathing through his snorkel for the longest time. It's so cute to watch, and very impressive. He is our easy-going, lovable, snuggable Sam.