TAGGED AGAIN!

Well, we got tagged again! Actually, the kids got tagged this time, so it will be more exciting. I am supposed to tell you eight things you may not know about each of the kids. That translates to twenty-four total things, and I am not sure I have that much brain power! (That’s why it took me a few days to get this post published! Sorry Jill!) Anyway, we’ll give it a try. So, I present to you twenty-four things you may not know about my kiddos.

Staring with the oldest….

Hunter!
1. Hunter is a sports FANATIC. Most of you already know this, but may not realize the extent. While his sisters are listening to calm music at bedtime, Hunter is listening to sports radio and any game he can find. He has checked out the Sports Illustrated for Kids 2006 Record Book seven times from our library. He knows more stats at the young age of seven than I still do, and can name more players than I ever will. He’ll watch football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, tennis…anything he can. On Saturday mornings, we’ll get out of bed to find that he has been in the family room since 6 a.m. watching Sports Center by himself.
2. Hunter is a voracious reader. He will often read a chapter book a day. He’ll find a new series of books from the library that he enjoys, and then we have to request them six or seven at a time to keep up with him. I LOVE this about Hunter! He enjoys The Magic Treehouse, Secrets of Droon, The Hardy Boys, and sports books by Matt Christopher, to name a few.
3. Hunter does a great Elvis impersonation. He can swing his hips like a pro. It is actually very funny to watch.
4. He may not admit it, but Hunter is a High School Musical nut. He was the first at our house to love the movie, and he knows every single word to every song from both movies. He was ecstatic when he found out that HSM 3 will be released in theatres.
5. Hunter is a huge fan of the University of Michigan. We’re not sure why, but we think it may stem back to when he was very little and his favorite animals were wolves, easily confused with Wolverines, the mascot of the U of M. So to this day, he’s a diehard fan. He follows all of their teams, and all of his art projects come home from school blue and yellow.
6. Hunter is actually a very young second grader. We worried about this a little when we sent him to kindergarten. With a birthday at the end of August, he’s usually the youngest in his class. He’ll be 17 when he graduates from High School. However, he is a great student and by the end of first grade was reading at a fourth grade level. So I have stopped worrying quite so much!
7. Hunter is tied for second tallest in his class at school, and is the recess soccer captain every day.
8. Hunter eats A LOT of food. I am talking tons! At dinner, he routinely out eats me. A typical breakfast could be yogurt, a bowl of cereal or oatmeal, and then a granola bar or breakfast cookie in the car on the way to school. I won’t even talk about dinner, this post would be too long!

Lily!
1. Many of you that didn’t know us when Lily was born may not know that she was what I like to call my “NICU baby”, because she spent eight days in the neonatal intensive care unit after she was born. The doctors thought it would be two or three days, which became four, then five… and on and on. It was the longest eight days of my life. I look at my beautiful energetic girl and can hardly believe that she was that sick little baby. She was finally released from the hospital on July 4th- which we now fondly refer to each year as “Lily’s Independence Day”.
2. Lily LOVES chocolate. She would eat it all day every day if I would let her. For Christmas she got a shirt that says “I Love Chocolate”.
3. Lil is my well rounded child. She loves anything pink or sparkly. She loves princesses and fairy tales and tutus and lace. She is also one of the messiest, most hand on kids I know. Every article of clothing she owns has to be treated for stains EVERY time she wears them. Lil is never afraid to get down and dirty.
4. Lily has great aspirations for her life. She informs me that when she grows up she wants to be a ballerina, a violinist, and a tennis player. When she is “old enough to play sports” (her words), she wants to be a swimmer and a tennis player.
5. Lily is my little chef. She LOVES to help me (or anyone else) in the kitchen. She will cook or bake anything. She is really quite good at cooking, and never misses an opportunity to don her pink apron.
6. Lil is a newly minted snowflake artist. She learned how to make the paper flakes at school a couple of weeks ago, and it has been a blizzard at our house ever since. Lily really likes to show off her craftiness with a multitude of projects.
7. Lily goes to preschool two days a week. She is the only kid I know who cries when it isn’t a school day.
8. Lil is the snuggliest of the snugglers. I didn’t know that recliners were made for two, but Lil will wedge herself into the recliner with me all the time. She loves to snuggle any time, anywhere.

Sophie!
1. Sophie is obsessed with shoes. She often tried to get us to put her crocs on over her sleepers, which is quite a feat. If anyone leaves their shoes laying out, she will bring them to you – and then stand there until you put them on your feet. If you aren’t going to wear them, she will.
2. Taking after her older siblings, Sophie is the only one year-old HSM groupie I know. She calls it “Na Na Na Na”, after the words in the song “You Are the Music in Me”. She asks for the CD at bedtime and naptime every day. She can even sing along with some of the words. When she sees any picture with a cast member in it, she goes crazy. She is seriously not in the demographic for this movie, but she sure is a fan.
3. Another one of Sophie’s obsessions is babies. She sleeps with three of them. She probably says the word “baby” 500 times a day. She has three baby cousins, and she loves them half to death. We can’t pass another kid smaller than Soph without her yelling “Baby! Baby! Baby!”
4. Sophie has a new obsession with putting things down her shirt. It started with her after school snacks, (pretzels and goldfish no less), then graduated to toys. She stuck a bunch of toys down her onesie, then climbed out and said, with her arm down her shirt, “Uh oh! Stuck!”
5. Her favorite toy is a squirt bottle. She’ll play with one forever. The only problem is, she (and anyone in the vicinity) always ends up soaked.
6. Sophie loves lotion. I mean LOVES lotion. She loves to pump lotion and put it on herself. She will squeeze it out all over the place. When she gets lotioned after a bath, she tries to lick the lotion off of her skin. It’s actually a little disturbing.
7. Sophie also likes dry lettuce. So weird. When we have salad with dinner, she yells for lettuce until we give it to her. Dry. Plain. Gross!
8. Sophie (who I am now realizing has an obsessive personality) LOVES her baths. If you say the “B word” out loud, she flies like a bat out of you know where. She’ll try and climb in the tub fully clothed. She is also obsessed with brushing her teeth, the other “B word” we can’t say out loud or she’s outta here. Apparently, personal hygiene is very important to Sophie!

OK, wasn't that fun? More than you ever wanted to know. Many thanks to my sweet hubby for all of his help with this post. I told you he was the brains of the operation! So, now I tag Manda, Allie and Sam. (Allie, you'll wish you waited til TOMORROW to debut that new blog!)