I EAT ALL MY ...

[Pause the music so you can hear the video.]

Libby has just been cracking me UP lately.

Tonight, she was declaring that she was going to eat everything on her plate. But she kept getting interrupted. By her brothers. After laughing at her ...

"TI - YIT." [quiet]

"TIIIII ... YIT!" [quiiiiiiiiiiet]

"TI - YIT, BEPP!" [quiet BRETT!]

... I had to try & catch a video. I didn't get her yelling "TI-YIT", but you can still see she's serious about finishing this statement. She's gonna be a bossy one, I tell you.

Wizards vs. Rapids

This past Saturday night we took the kids to their 1st Major League Soccer Game. My best friend [since a year old] & also Libby's Godmother, Carrie, invited us to her family's tailgate ... all the Noonans [minus little bro Michael] were in town to watch the Kansas City Wizards play the Colorado Rapids. Carrie's brother Patrick plays for the Rapids [you can read about him here]. I hadn't watched Patrick play soccer since he was in grade school [MLS games on TV don't count].

We had SO much fun tailgating with the Noonans before heading over to the game. We were approached by somebody asking if we could help him out with a participant in the half time show. We totally thought Davis would do it ... but he was shying away from the attention just at the mention of it. So we turned to Brett who is ALWAYS up for the spotlight. :) He got to go down on the field with Kyle and race the tractor tricycle. The other boy won, but Brett still got to keep the tractor tricycle, a Wizards shirt, a hat & he won 4 tickets to the wizards last home game. Not bad for 2nd place.

The game itself was a total blast. So fun to watch. Oh & I'm sure we were fun to watch hauling a tractor tricycle out of there ...

... and taking it on the bus.

Soccer's in Full Swing

Yep ... it's soccer season again. Brett had a double-header on Saturday with back to back games & Davis [with Kyle as the coach] had one game in the middle of it. So fun. We camped out at the soccer fields for a couple of hours. Brett even got a GOAL. It was the 1st goal of the 2nd game, so it was pretty special. It was awesome. He was on cloud 9. :)

First Day ...

The boys had their 1st day of school on Wednesday. Davis is now in Kindergarten & Brett's a 2nd Grader! It was pouring rain, so we had to do our "back to school" photo inside on the steps.

We then headed off to school, dropping off Brett at at the main school ... ... and then we headed over to the other side where Kindergarten in is. I pulled through the carpool lane as usual & like a gushing mom of a new Kindergartner, I asked if I could hop out "real quick" to take a photo ... as I asked, I quickly looked to see if there were other cars lined up behind me. You know. I didn't want to be "that mom" clogging up the carpool lane. Well. There was nobody behind me. I quickly realized I was the ONLY MOM doing a drop off on the 1st day of school. As you'll notice in the photo, um... it wasn't just moms doing a walk in.

It was dads, grandpas, extended family. :) ha Luckily, Davis didn't care or notice. My sister Leah & my nephew Eli were visiting us so I came home to these 2 little guys. They enjoyed playing up in the boys room without the big boys.

Later that morning, we switched visitors with my older sister Becky. Leah and Eli went up north to stay with the Lewis Family and my parents came down to stay with us. I told my parents about being the only bad mom this morning at the Kindergarten drop off , so they helped me make up for it at pick up. We arrived with not just mom & sister, but grandma and grandpa. Grandma even had her camera. We got a lot of comments from people with our big welcoming party, so I feel like I did redeem myself. Since the 1st day was just a 1/2 day, we then went to Winsteads for lunch, followed by a trip to the park.

Happy New School Year! :)

TWO Wheels ...

Saturday July 18, marked the day that the boys learned to ride a 2-wheelers ... aka NO TRAINING WHEELS. We biked in the morning, we biked in the afternoon ... then we celebrated in the evening with some ice cream. :)

I Love Summer!

We have thoroughly enjoyed our 1st week of SUMMER.  Last week I gave the boys a haircut with the clippers out on the patio ... then we got out the splash rocket; bubbles; sidewalk chalk; and ice cream. I am sooo happy SUMMER is here ... and that I remembered not to overbook us this year.  Last August when summer break was over, I was wishing we had had more days like this.  You know, the kind of days that you're so messy & dirty that you take a shower or bath before dinner.  :)

Flashback Friday ...

{May 16, 2007}

{May 9, 2008}

{April 29, 2009}

I took this pic of the kids a couple days ago ... it's my favorite pose, that I've kept up [without meaning to] every year since we've had the "final 3".

What's even WEIRDER is that for 3 years in a row, it's been within a 3 week time frame?????  [I can tell by the handy time-stamp since they're all digital photos]  I couldn't have done that if I'd tried.  That's just bizarre.  I hope we can keep up the impromptu, unintended tradition.  I love this shot & I love comparing their faces each year.  :)  

The "Silly Shots"

While in Florida, I wanted to try and get a nice picture of the kids on the beach.  This takes a lot of planning ... you know, outfits have to be chosen, packed & saved specifically for that occasion.  Then you have to pick the day you'll attempt to do it.  And you have to hope the weather cooperates.  And the kids, too, for that matter.  Oh & you have to try and remember to take the camera battery out of the charger plugged into your 7th floor hotel bathroom wall BEFORE you get all the way down to the shore.  That's definitely a key element.

Finally ... it all came together for us.   I got a lot of cute shots, but in most of them 1 out of 3 was blinking.  So this is my favorite of the bunch.

Although I do love Libby's face in this one... How could you not love those sassafrass lips?

After what seemed like hours of trying to get a nice one [but in reality it was probably 5 minutes], we let them "loosen up" & do a crazy shot or two.  Or nine.  And they came out pretty cute, too! 

Then we walked down the beach to the Palm Pavilion Restaurant for dinner, where the kids got treated to Shirley Temples.  :) Ahhhh ... VACATION.