verbal vomit

Welcome!  In this post you will find nothing earth-shattering or insightful but instead you will find that I simply regurgitated the contents of my life onto the page.  Verbal vomit, I like to call it. So read on and then you can consider yourself informed.

So I am sitting here at 5:11 am.  I know, it surprised me too.  But believe me, I didn't get up this early because I wanted to.  I just returned from taking Nate to the high school for swim practice.  He is on the team this year (which I think is so cool and I am so proud of him!) and he practices every morning at 5, has a class period every other day for swim, and then has after school practices.  That's three to four hours of swimming.  Every. Day.  Thinking about it makes me feel tired.  But the good news is that at least one person in our family is incredibly in shape!  Woo hoo!  The rest of us are a bunch of slugs, but whatever.  He has his first meet today and he is so nervous.  He looked like he wanted to throw up when I dropped him off at practice.  But I am excited to watch him compete for the first time.  He is an awesome kid.

Onward with my life!  Next up...Abby. What can I say.  Abby is...Abby.  She had her birthday the other day and the day was interesting, I guess you could call it.  She was sooooo excited.  We had a family party planned and when she wasn't running around the house screaming "I'M SIX!", she was asking me how many more minutes until her party that night.  Six hours is a looooong time when you have an hysterical six year old waiting to open her presents.

Here are a few Abby quotables from the day:

"Mom, I wonder what these presents are.  Do you think they are the ones that I ordered?"

"Mom, I want the party to start.  When are my people going to be here?"

"Thanks Aunt Amy for the dress.  But I wish I could get some more presents that are cooler."

.....sigh......

I guess this is normal for a six-year-old.  The combination of self-centeredness and the inability to control what they say is par for the course.  But it's horribly embarrassing!  And kinda funny too.

Here's a picture of the cutie to make up for her social faux pas:

Next up is my Seffers.  I love that kid!  He is 11 which happens to be one of my favorite kid ages.  Kids this age are funny and smart.  They haven't turned into teenage monsters yet, but you can have extremely intelligent, although somewhat odd conversations with them.  They still tell you about their day.  They still hug you when they come home from school (well, at least mine does).  I wish I had a recent picture to share, but for some reason I have been absolutely terrible about taking pictures lately.  I have a new camera, not to mention a GREAT camera on my phone, so there is no excuses for me.  I guess I will have to settle for a selfy he took the other day that I found on his iPod.  Don't tell him I did this because he would DIE.  But he is so funny!

Since I already told you about Nate's swim stuff we will move on to Alex. I don't know if I blogged about this already, but Alex had the opportunity to travel to New York last May with a really cool jazz band that he plays in called the Voodoo Orchestra.  They played in several places including Dizzy's Coca Cola jazz club and a little place called Carnegie Hall.  Yes, you read that correctly.  CARNEGIE HALL, PEOPLE!!!  

Here are some pictures to prove he was there :)

Three of the bands that are part of the Caleb Chapman Music group were able to perform their own night at this amazing venue.  The main band, who headlined the event, is called the Crescent Super Band.  Voodoo orchestra and La Onda Caribena both played 20 minute sets before Crescent came on and played for about an hour.  Unfortunately, Shawn and I weren't able to go on the tour with him. We were able to save up enough for Alex to go, but it was too much to pay for all three of us.  But that's ok!  I am just so glad that he was able to go.  All of these bands are part of an organization called Caleb Chapman Music down in American Fork, Utah.  They have 15 different bands made up completely of Junior High and High school kids.  And they are really, really good!  Alex is so lucky and blessed and totally excited that he got the chance to be part of it last year and go on that amazing tour.  He auditioned this year for Voodoo and is able to be part of it again for another year.  I can't tell you how much this group has helped this kid.  He has learned so much;  not just about music, but about how be good at life in general.  Words cannot even express how proud I am of his accomplishments.  If you're interested, here is a link to a review of the concert that was posted in the New York Concert review:  http://www.nyconcertreview.com/blog/?p=2360

As you can see, life stays interesting here at the Shipley house.  We are running every which way as fast as we can and sometimes, honestly, it gets a little out of control, but we have much to be grateful for.  We have trials and problems like everyone else, but for the moment, life with the Shipleys is pretty sweet.