Mother's Day

My cute boys playing in the yard on Mother's Day.

I'm trying to catch up from all our adventures this summer. I'll start back in May. Mother's Day was great. Tim and all my boys made me breakfast and it was wonderful. They had worked together to make so many different things. I couldn't even finish it all. Each of the boys had made me handmade presents: cards, bookmarks, coupon books, etc. Jared made several gifts from school and I particularly like my ABC book all about me. He had drawn a picture for every letter and wrote something for each one. Awfully good cook, Been with me when I'm scared, Cares for me always, all the way to Zebras aren't as funny as you. Thanks to all my boys for making my day special.

In the afternoon my parents and my brother and his family came over for a BBQ. It was a nice day and we enjoyed everyone's company.

Kid Adventures

Who is this? It's little T. standing up in the hole that the kids dug in the backyard. I wanted to get a picture that truly showed how deep the hole got. Here's all the boys showing off all their hard work.

A friend of mine has a baby lamb and she invited the boys over to see it. Baby T. thought it was great. They were fascinated with the lamb but also just as fascinated with her dogs.

Dad's special Cake

One night while I was at a meeting, Tim made a special cake with the boys. They all thought it was so much fun!

Visiting Grandma & Grandpa

In April we had gone to visit Grandma and Grandpa. This picture of all the boys turned out SO GREAT! Look at all those fabulous smiles! Thanks Mom and Dad for all you do for my family. On the same day my boysmade a giant snake out of

these interlocking lego things (can't remember what they are

called). They were so proud and wanted their picture taken.

Big T.'s birthday

Big T. had his birthday back in April. With our computer down for a while I'm just now getting caught up on all our happenings. It was his 6th birthday and he invited over several friends. We played traditional party games and then hit down the pinata. Big T. made that one all by himself (well I helped with the paper mache). He was very proud of it and enjoyed painting it too. One of his friends had come over a couple days before the party and she helped with the paper mache too - a little messy (ok, a lot messy) but they had fun. Unfortunately, the other kids didn't get a turn to hit the pinata. The pinata was strong but the coat hanger holding it up wasn't in very good. One hit and the whole pinata came out of the coat hanger and cracked open on the ground.Big T. got to choose whatever cake he wanted. He changed his mind several times and then saw a "money" cake on the internet. That sealed the deal. His little brother wanted to help out though so here is Baby T. (or little T. now) "helping" with the cake. (I didn't purposefully give my one year old son a bowl of frosting, he climbed up to the table when I wasn't watching and tried to polish off what was left in the bowl).
The "money" cake.

Soccer Season

The boys all did soccer again this season. I must say that this was a much easier season than last year. The two older boys got put on the same team (they are 2nd and 4th grade) and that made it so much easier. Yes we were at soccer practice a lot but not nearly as much as the previous year. Plus Tim with his new job was able to come to all the games and help out occassionally at taking kids to practice. This is little J.'s "game face". When he is into the game he is really into the game. He gets a very serious concentrated look on his face and he gets very focused.
Big J. was a good forward this year. He really seems to have improved a lot over the last year. Both the boys worked really well together on the team. They were good at passing to each other and working together to score. It was fun to watch their games.

Big T. was on a different team than the older boys and he really had fun playing with some of his friends. He is pretty good and he is only in Kindergarten.

Big T. playing soccer.

My older boys acting silly. They were both chosen to be on the all-star team. I'll do another post about that wet, fun game.

No lions, no tigers, but there were bears

Last weekend we camped at Twin Lakes and made a trip into Yosemite. Bears go through the camp where we stayed (isn't that the case with everywhere we camp?) We are extremely careful about keeping any food things and smelly things in the car - even so much that we put the dirty laundry in the car (in case kids got sticky marshmallows on their shirt or anything). We even covered our ice chest in the car so a bear wouldn't see it and try to break into the car. The first night we heard the bear banging on the dumpster and pulling it to try to get it open. The second day we were in Yosemite and we were of course vigilant before we left but when we got back after dinner time we saw our bucket of pots, pans, paper products, and other kitchen supplies dumped over and spilled about in our camp. The bear had already been through and I guess our large plastic bin looked a little too much like an ice chest. The lid was ripped off and torn and our paper towels and paper plates had nice claw marks through several layers. While the kids stayed in the car (we told them we needed to get their sleeping bags and the tent ready so to just wait), Tim and I put all the stuff back. We didn't tell the kids about it until the next day - no need to freak them out. Although we were a little frustrated and mad that the bear wrecked our bucket and some of our paper things, we were very fortunate it was just some stuff. Oh, the joys of camping