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!

Typical summer day around here. Games strewn about on the floor, Wii on in the living room. Oh yeah, and a little boy with no pants on.

Baseball finally ended. We made it all the way to the final game of the District tournament. We were ahead 9-0 for almost the whole game and then had a bad inning and lost 10-9, so we won't be going to the State championships this Sat. We were bummed, but it's nice to have more than a two week break before football starts on Aug. 7th. Next week we'll go to another of our minor league team's games then Grandma Randall will be visiting. The week before football they'll all be off to the farm to visit Grandma Susan. Yes, all 4 of them!! And my mom and I will take our annual mother-daughter trip. Not sure where we're going yet, most likely a spa on the west coast somewhere for a couple of days. I need a beach, even if it's not to go swimming.

Baseball Summer

The past two weeks have been insane with baseball tournaments. This past weekend Bubba had 6 games-1 Thurs. night, 3 Fri. and 2 Sat. We lost Thurs. night because the boys just didn't play. They got a reaming for that and actually showed up to play Friday and won all 3 games (one of which was against the team we lost to the night before and we creamed them!). Sat. they won their first game by one after going into two extra innings. The second game started literally 10 min. later after a short drink, shove food in your mouth, and pee break. So they were a little wiped out because it was so hot and they'd already been playing for a couple of hours, but they did great and only lost by one. Bubba got a triple on his first at bat in that game and he's our leadoff hitter so that was a great way to start.

This week's schedule-
Mon.-actually enjoy a summer day free of anything related to baseball. Shooting in the morning, BBQ at friend's house with fireworks later and then sit across from our Minor League's field to watch the big fireworks.
Tues.-practice for Bubba 5:30-7:30, the rest of us are going to a minor league team game that starts at 7:15 and then dad and Bubba will come over after. We got free ticket vouchers from the summer library reading program and they can only be used certain days so we're picking Tues. as our first one and the 2nd at the end of the month.
Wed.-JP is signed up to do a baseball camp with the minor league team at their stadium 8am-12pm, Peanut swimming lesson 6-6:30pm, first District tournament game for Bubba 6:30pm, so Peanut, Coconut and I will be late to that.
Thurs.-JP camp from 8am-1pm, Bubba game 6:30pm, JP and mom's date to a minor league game at 7:15 (that we'll be late to since we'll watch Bubba's whole game first). So with JP's camp he gets lunch with the team both days, a t-shirt, instruction from the team, 2 tickets to Thursday's game (hence the reason we're going on a date), and an autograph session with the players. Bubba went to a game with dad and his team last Mon. night because it was our little league's night and they got to go on the field for the National Anthem. He caught 2 foul balls and discovered that if you wait until everyone is gone and the players have all showered, when they come back out, they'll sign them. He got every player to sign them and gave one to JP the next morning. Such a sweet boy. But what he also discovered is that they give away their broken/cracked bats from that night's game. He got one, but had to give it to another kid on his team, so I think JP and I will stay and try to get one this week.
Fri.-Bubba 6:30 game and Peanut swimming lesson at 6:30.
Sat.-1 pm game and possibly more if we keep winning. If we win District we'll go to state up north at the end of the month.

Happy Father's Day!

On Bubba's special day


Muscle Man Peanut


Sweet baby Coconut


Fluffy Baby JP

Happy Father's Day to the greatest man I've ever known. You are the best husband, father and friend that anyone could ever hope to have. Thank you for baseball, football, shooting, camping, fishing, catch in the backyard, haircuts, tickles, rides down the stairs on a crib mattress, rides on the side of the grocery cart, yummy dinners, priesthood example, baptizing two boys (so far), hugs, kisses, cleaning wounds and puke, and so much more. We love you so much Big Daddy!

First of Summer

Baseball Allstar tryouts start tonight. Practices will start tomorrow night and be every night with games on the weekends versus different leagues throughout our state. If they make it all the way to the state championships, we'll be headed up north about 8 hours away at the end of July. Then he'll have a two week break until football practices start. Poor guy, but we can still do fun stuff during the day. He's had baseball camp this week from 8:30-1:30. Tomorrow will be his last day.

My sister stayed with us all of last week while her husband was in training for the forestry service up north. A couple of her girlfriends and her and I celebrated her birthday with Cheesecake Factory Mon. night and we all (minus dad) went bowling that day since we signed up for the Kids Bowl Free program again this year. You only have to pay for shoe rentals and you can literally bowl two games everyday if you wanted to. My mom was here from Wed. until yesterday. She got to see JP's and Bubba's first tournament games that they won! And then on Sat. we had both of their final games at the same time! I stood in between the two fields and could at least see who was in the outfield so I could run back and forth. I've been scorekeeper for JP's team all season so luckily I was able to get a dad to sub so I could watch both. I saw both of them hit each time and stood and watched each game for awhile at a time. Bubba's team lost by only 2! They did a fabulous job. They went from last to playing in the championship game! They all got t-shirts and then the coach had ice cream for both teams. Then B and Bubba got to come over and watch the rest of JP's game that was tied forever. They kept going back and forth so it went to the bottom of the 8th inning (when they normally only play 6)!! We had a kid on base and our biggest hitter hit a home run! Then dad and Bubba came over to watch the rest of the game. JP's team all got t-shirts that said "Champions" on them.





We also went swimming several times last week. Captain Fearless aka Coconut thinks he can swim now since our floaty vest fits him. He just jumps right in. He even 'swam' the entire length of the pool and back the first day.

Peanut's Graduation!

So my little Peanut graduated from preschool on Thurs. It was a fun event and both big brothers left class to come support him. We also each got a photo slideshow DVD (that he's already watched several times). I'm looking forward to having two mornings a week next school year all to myself. That is if doh-doh head Coconut ever has a desire to potty train!