Are You Ready for Some Football?!

Bubba is in the center with the ball tucked under his arm


Bubba is #76 out in front


JP is #62 in the middle trying to shake off his blocker and down below, he got away from him

Well football season is officially upon us. The boys had their first official games yesterday. JP is on defense and his was at 11 am, then Bubba's was right after. He worked really hard and is a starting 4 back this year and gets to run the ball and even has a pass play. They're both doing a great job, and JP has been able to get around his blockers a lot to go in for tackles. We will have 3 conflicting games that only one parent will be able to go to. That's one of the drawbacks of having more than one boy in the same sport.

Bubba has also joined a band. One of the boys he played baseball with this season has a dad who has organized a kid band. His sons play keyboard and guitar, they have a drummer and a singer, and Bubba is learning to play bass. They learned the last half of a Cold Play song and "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves at his first practice this week. They'll start practicing on Fridays after school and they even have a gig lined up at a local cafe.

School starts after Labor Day weekend. Hooray for mom! They have been fighting daily and it gets hard after listening to it for 3 months! Coconut was going to go to preschool, but I have opted to keep him home until next year. He is finally peeing on the toilet! However, he's still having some fear issues with going poop on the potty. I even bought him his own potty seat. He sits on it with a diaper to go. Baby steps. He doesn't like how it feels in his diaper either so I'm hoping at some point soon he'll get sick of it.



JP had his first rain gutter regata for cub scouts. He was very excited and made a Boston Red Sox boat. He won the Best Sports Theme award.

Happy 9th Birthday JP!

None of that icing was wasted!


Birthday dance! Shake what your mama gave ya!


Hogwarts castle!


Expelliarmus!


Only took us two days to do. And yes, he did most of it. I handed him the pieces and he put them together unless he had trouble. (Big step for me, since you all know how OCD I get about doing it myself). How awesome is it?!

JP had a Harry Potter birthday party at the end of July to celebrate his birthday. We had a few friends and Grandma Randall over to our neighborhood pool for cake, presents, and swimming.
He wanted an ice cream cake with his new favorite Snickers ice cream, but when we saw that they were $40-50 at Baskin Robbins, he decided that he wanted me to make a chocolate cake and I bought Snickers ice cream to go with it (which was still uber expensive as far as ice cream goes).
He got the Harry Potter Lego Hogwarts castle from us, along with a cool magazine full of Harry Potter photos and articles. Meme got him a wand that lights up when you cast a spell (shake it). He also got the Deathly Hallows for Wii game from a friend, and a Hot Wheels racetrack thing with cars, and also lots of money from friends and family, which he has already spent some of getting Lego Pirates Wii game, and some "Cars" mighty beans. B joked the other day that Mighty Beans are for buying, since he'd never seen the kids actually playing with them, but I told him that they actually do play with them sometimes.

The day after the party, the boys all went to the farm for a week to hang out with Grandma Susan. They had lots of fun and Bubba got to go help do morning chores on a neighbor's farm so that he could work on his farm mechanics merit badge. They also got to ride a one of a kind mechanical bull. It is literally the only one in the world of it's kind. It comes out of a gate with you on it and then when you fall off, it chases after you. Fun stuff.

Football practices started Mon. This is JP's first year of tackle. I was a little nervous about it because of his arthritis, but also because the helmet and pads are heavy. They don't start practicing with pads until tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. Bubba came home crying the first week his first year because of the heat, and headaches from the helmet. JP had a check-up today and looks good, but the doctor has started him on some quad exercises because his bad leg is still a little "wimpy" as he put it. Plus, he'll be taking an anti-inflammatory daily to help with football. But he didn't have to do blood work, so he was stoked about that.

Well here's my traditional birthday ode-sweet boy, tenderhearted, helpful, loving big brother, salmon, lasagna, reading, Harry Potter everything!, Wii, football, baseball, hard worker, smart, Legos, swimming, bowling, corn nuts, Doritos, Mt. Dew, Spree, pastries, fluffy, buttery soft, mama's lovey boy!