Tad Pole Hunting 5-17-2009

Ever since the trees started growing their leaves back, the boys have been itching to go back to the "Frog Pond" to try their luck at catching the tadpoles. This year, Brandon was able to bring one of his little friends with us. All the boys had great luck and I think the total that we left there with was around 12 or so. Last year we were able to see most of the tadpoles that we caught grow into adulthood, but for some reason this time, we lost most of them within the first week of getting them home. The boys had a great time though, and they are very much so wanting to go back so that we can try again. Our summers just don't seem to be complete at our house without a tub full of frogs in our backyard after all!
After hunting for oh, not too long we made our way down the path to the park and played there for a while before making our way home. It was quite hot outside, but overall it was another great "Frog Hunting" experience!

May Grandparents Night

On the 16th of May Grandma and Grandpa came over for our "Monthly Grandparents Nights" (Ok we try and make it monthly, but really it has works out to be as often as we can). It is a lot of fun to have one on one time with Grandma and Grandpa, and we will take it as often as we can, because it is fairly rare in a family this size! It is a good time for the boys to tell them all about what they are doing at home, making out of their own creativity, or participating in outside of the house.
This time was a little different because I had the boys think of a question that they might want to ask each one of them. In spite of them being kind of shy at first, it sparked a pretty interesting conversation!

Brandon of course asked them, "Who was you favorite superhero?" to which their answer was yes that they did watch "Superman", but by far the cowboy characters on TV were the super hero's of the day.

Kevin asked Grandpa "How did you get so good at making thins?" His response was, "Desire first...I used to build tree houses and go carts and I used my Dads tools to build things." This sparked it's own conversation on how to build a go cart! Kevin was all over that! :-)

Logan asked both of them "Did you ever go fishing?" Grandpas reply was "yes" and Grandma's reply was "We would be driving in the car and my Dad would see a little stream and pull over and drop his line in. We would wait in the car."
I thought that was funny! :-)

We asked some questions of our own like:
How much were movies? "$.25 when we were kids"
How much was gas? "$.18 per gallon (can you believe that?)
and quite a few others that made for a really fun and interesting conversation!
It is awesome to be able to speak to people that are a little farther down the road than we are because we really can learn a lot from their experiences! Thank you Mom and Dad for sharing some bits and pieces of your life with us and with our kids! I know they really enjoyed talking with you and we did too!! We love you both and sooooooo appreciate who you are!

Here is Kevin discussing his tackle box with Grandpa and of course discussing fishing with him!

Here is Brandon giving Grandpa his "sloppy kisses." Grandpa is being a great sport!! :-)

"We love you Grandma and Grandpa! Thank you for a great Grandparents night! " (Sorry for any misquoting! Please let me know if there is anything that we need to correct! :-))

Kevin and Brandon Wrap up Their Soccer Season

On May 15, 2009, Kevin and Brandon had a great time playing their last soccer game! They are bummed that the season is over, but a break with be nice for them too. They are already looking forward to the next season though ! :-)
Kevin proved again this year that defending the goal is still his favorite position, and he did it very well! Brandon true to his nature, was just happy running around out there with his "Team" and of course cheered every time a goal was made no matter which team made the goal!
It was a lot of fun for us to watch them play and are very grateful to UpWard for making this another great season for our guys!! :-)

Crazy Hair night at AWANA

The Boys had a great time at AWANA on the 14th. It was their "Crazy Hair night" and it is funny because at first all three of them were not so sure that they wanted to do anything with their hair. Because I have all boys, I don't really make it a habit to look for, let a lone buy "crazy Hair colors" for just these occasions. So, I went to good old Walmart to see what they had to offer. I was looking for pretty much any color other than pink because I think that would have just been too much for them. :-) Well, Fuscia was all that they had. So we had to improvise. I let them pick some colored WASHABLE markers and I got to coloring. I was actually quite impressed with the way that it turned out! My only concern was, if they ran around a lot (which they do at AWANA), I was afraid that it would run down their sweaty foreheads. It ended up working great! No streaks down their faces or anything and they got many compliments as well. Brandon decided that blue and purple would work great for him which actually went quite well with the tie died shirt that he had on. :-)

Kevin's is a little harder to see in these pics, but it actually looked pretty cool. He chose green (his favorite color) and yellow which made it so his hair was not as bright as Brandon's, but still looked good.

Logan was the easiest I think with the classic spike/ bed head look. He was my most nervous, because he doesn't really like a lot of attention drawn to him, but I think he ended up liking it the most! He even spiked his own hair the next day! :-)

AWANA has been great for my kids to attend because they not only stress the importance of serving the LORD, but they really show the kids that you can have fun while you are serving Him! This was just one of the many ways that they demonstrated that.

Our Neighborhood "Water Park"

Yesterday when we went to the store to buy a small swimming pool and a slip and slide, I really wasn't thinking at the time that it would become our neighborhood "water Park", but as you can see we had kids a plenty in our back yard. The boys had a great time with the "guys in the hood" and are eagerly awaiting the next time we bring the slip and slide out. We will have to wait a couple of days however, because of the way our yard slopes and pools at the bottom, we need to let the water seep into the ground before we fill the "pool" again. With all of this testosterone literally running through my backyard, it really was a blessing that there were no injuries. I will say that it was truly fascinating to observe the interaction of so many boys at one time. Sometimes I think that my boys only deal with or behave in certain ways and well, ya they are not the only ones!! :-)

It took oh, roughly 20 minutes and they had popped the end of the slip and slide. I am sure that is not a record!

Here comes Kevin "surfing it up!" Like I said, it is amazing there were no injuries! :-)

This is Brandon and one of his new buddies Ryan hanging in the pool away from the big guys. These guys are going to sleep so good tonight!!