Toad

Jared created Toad (from Mario Brothers) out of Play-Doh


Wrong colors, but cute attempt!

He and Connor spent almost two hours playing with Play-Doh the other day; it was GREAT! And they used Play-Doh my cousin bought them at some point over the summer. She texted me saying "I bought your kids Play-Doh... Have fun! hahaha!" I replied, "Thanks so much! Our other stuff was getting all dried out..." *grin* It was fun not giving her the reaction she expected. And the kids were thrilled to get new colors! (Thanks again Mirinda!)

MUCH BETTER!!!

I got Jared's retake pictures home yesterday and it is SOOO much better than the first one!!


In case you need a reminder:

A song for mommy

Jared wrote and sang the following song to me last night:



We weren't at home to be able to grab the video camera, so I'm hoping he'll sing it for me again later today so I can have it recorded!

In case you can't read all of it, it says:

Mommy you are the best ever. You make the best lunch ever. You are a sweetie. I always love you. I do I do love you. I love you for letting me go to school and if I didn't go to school I would not be smart. And since it's Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving.

HOW CUTE IS THAT???

Soccer

Soccer season is officially OVER!

Jared's season lasted longer than Connor's, but officially ended a week ago with a pizza party and trophies. The boys had a blast, and Jared was THRILLED with his trophy. (despite the look on his face in the picture below...LOL!)




Coach Brian was really great with the boys. Jared really enjoyed playing, and we saw some definately improvement mid-season. There were a lot of neat boys on the team, and they all played really hard this season! We're proud of you, Jared!!!

A stack of bones

The boys and I decided to stack a few of Clifford's bones end on end to see how tall the bones were compared to the boys:


For the record, Connor is 2 1/3 bones tall, and Jared is 2 2/3!! *grin*

Um... ????

My guess is that the photographer spent approximately one half second attempting to get Jared to smile before taking this picture. In the "comments" section of the order form, I wrote "please make sure his hair is laying flat and that his collar is straight." I guess I should have written, "Please make sure my child is smiling nicely, and not partially cross-eyed." LOL


Dan says school pictures are supposed to be goofy. I say I paid good money for school pictures and want them to at least be DECENT!! We'll be getting retakes for him on Monday! Keep your fingers crossed they don't come back WORSE! LOL!!

Mario and Luigi

The 1st graders at my children's school have been studying and "raising" meal worms in their science classes. Every week, they examined the meal worms and documented any changes they saw, gave the meal worms fresh bran and a fresh chunk of potato (for moisture), and made guesses about what the meal worms would turn into. Jared named his meal worms Mario and Bowser, but after Bowser died, it was replaced with Luigi.

Currently, Mario has transformed into a beetle, and Luigi is still a pupa.


As the beetles were emerging, permission slips came home to be signed if the parents were agreeable to allow the nasty little critters beetles to come home with their child. My first thought was NO THANKS, but poor Jared was devastated at the idea of not being able to bring home his nasty little critters beetles that he "worked so hard to take care of and now you're just going to let them be thrown away!!!!!!!"

And so, we have a pupa and a beetle to add to our pet collection. Thankfully, the adults only live a few weeks, and they are content in a small plastic container full of bran flakes and a chunk of potato. I can handle that.

It's this I can't handle so much


But it thrills the heck out of Jared, who LOVES science, and who am I to stand in the way of a love of science?

My little reader

Jared has been able to read for quite some time now, but he's never really ENJOYED it. Until about a week ago! He would read because it was part of his homework, or would very occasionally read "just because", but there was a long list of other things he'd rather be doing. A week and a half ago, I gave him a chapter book to read, and he whined and whined about having to read, and about how it was going to take forever, and taht it didn't even have any pictures. I told him to just TRY it and see what he thought.

He read the entire book in a day and a half. He read every spare second that he had, and hasn't looked back.


When he had a friend over to spend the night that same weekend, he offered to read his friend a story before bed:


He still dearly loves his Legos and playing the Wii (especially if it's Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, or Lego Harry Potter!), but now we can add READING BOOKS as something that's high up on his list of favorite activities.

On top of enjoying it, he's also GOOD! I really enjoy listening to him. He's been bringing home 2.0-3.0 level books, which are basically 2nd-3rd grade level books (he's in 1st), and I'm sure he could read even higher. I'm so proud of him, and I'm so glad he's finally taken an interest in reading. It's something I've always enjoyed myself, and something his daddy enjoys as well.

Putty Fun

The kids recently got some putty from the prize box at their dentist's office. After they got home, Emily and Jared charged right into playing with it!

Mutton Busting

Jared did some mutton busting (sheep riding) at our local fair last week! He was REALLY nervous and tearful at the last second, but he finally decided to go ahead and go through with it. His ride lasted for 2.37 seconds! He had decided to back out initially, then after they held the awards ceremony for the kids that participated, he changed his mind, so they went ahead and let him go. His time would have gotten him a 3rd place medal, but since they'd already held the ceremony, he was out of luck. The photographer had also already left the arena by the time he took his turn, so I wasn't able to purchase any photos of his ride. I DO have some video from my own video camera, but I don't currently have a way to get it off my video camera and onto the computer to share. AND, the guy that opened the gate ended up being in the way for a lot of it, too, because I expected him to move left after opening the gate, but he stayed right. At least I have SOMETHING. Jared was very stone-faced/traumatized looking immediately afterwards, but he spent the rest of the night vocally wishing he was younger so he could do it again next year (age 6 is the cut off and he'll be 7 the next time the fair rolls around).

Connor was paid for and all geared up, but he screamed and took off running when they called him for his turn. He wants to try again next year, but I'm not sure I'm willing to pay the $10 again. They don't return your money if your kid refuses to go!

SOCCER!!

The boys both had their first-ever soccer games over the weekend. They were SO EXCITED!

Connor is in a little preschool league where they have practice and games in the same 90 minute block of time each weekend, and teams only have 5-6 kids each. Typically the coaches are parents of the preschoolers, but they couldn't get enough parents to sign up, so they hit up the high school for volunteers. Connor has to two high school soccer players for coaches, which he thought was pretty neat!

They started the kids off with some stretching:


Then they moved into some soccer warm-ups, such as toe taps on the ball:


After some running warm-ups, the game began!

Connor was totally FEARLESS in going after the ball, taking it away from other people, and didn't hesitate charging into the group to help his team:








The problem is that while he totally has the personality for the sport, he had zero idea what the whole point of the game was, so after he'd gain possession of the ball, you were likely to see him doing things like this: (putting his foot on the ball so no one else could kick it away, and giving them all the stink eye! LOL!)


And sometimes if he couldn't make it go quite where he wanted it to, he'd reach out and pick it up and set it down where he wanted it. LOL! I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him and all the other little kids running around on the field with no rhyme or reason. Talk about FUNNY, and totally ADORABLE!

Jared's team has been practicing once a week since August, but this was their first game. For the first game day of the season, there was actually a Jamboree, where each team got to play three short games instead of one regular one.

Jared has a much more timid and hesitant personality compared to Connor and he spent a large chunk of his time doing things like this:


and this:


and this:


and this:


AND this:


And even this: (and we BEGGED him not to have his shirt tucked in, but he went totally OCD over it and it bugged him so much we finally gave him and let him wear it however he wanted... LOL!)


Towards the end of the 2nd game of the Jamboree, he started feeling a bit more confident and did some running with the group of kids (he hung towards the back, but at least he was moving!)


Then he got a tad more into the thick of things, but you can see on his face that he's still unsure of it all:


Same with this one, though I'm not sure how well you can see in the reduced size. Jared's looking off to our right, and ever other kid is looking off to our left. He's running along, but only because the other kids are; he's not making any real effort to get into the game.


His team-mate scored a goal!


GO JARED! He's getting the hang of it:


For the 3rd game, the other team didn't have enough players, so they asked for kids from J's team to volunteer to be on the red team instead. One of his good buddies was on the red team, so J volunteered. The red shirt turned him into a whole new kid; look at him go!


It was a LONG day, but it was great seeing the boys out on the field, having a good time. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the season brings for them both.

I'm also investing in a golf umbrella, because I can't expect the gorgeous sunny day we had over the weekend to last throughout much more of the season!!!

1st day of school

The kids started school last week. Hard to believe the summer is over and done just like that.

My big third grader!




My big first grader!






They both had great first days and have really nice teachers! Should be a great year for them.

Jared's 1st day of soccer!

Jared had his first soccer practice two weeks ago. He LOVED it! Prior to that first practice, he'd pretty much had zero experience with the sport, but he was THRILLED to get to try it out. The first games won't be until September, and he CAN'T WAIT!!







His coach requested we ditch the ball cap, and find some shorts without pockets, because Jared kept fiddling with both... *grin* (I won't comment on how I used to get in trouble for doing the same sorts of things during sports... ha!)

Fun with the boys

On Tuesday, the boys and I went rollerskating in the morning with some friends (I never could get all three little boys together for a picture, but at least got my two!)


After rollerskating, we went to the zoo. Jared has been bugging me to take him to see the polar bears (his favorite animal) for WEEKS, but it just hasn't work out. We made a special trip just for him...and the polar bears were sleeping where you could barely even see them. LOL (which means we'll need to take another trip again soon so he can see his "polies")

We did see a deer wandering around (not within the zoo, but near the parking lot and entrance)


And we got to see the baby tigers (can you see the top of the one's head behind the mom?)




Emily and Connor and I had been at the zoo the week before and the babies and the mom were right up against the glass and the babies were jumping all over the place, but of course, I didn't have my camera last week!

We saw the Clouded Leopards (which are usually snoozing WAY up high in their enclosure, but were actually laying down on the ground this time)


I think the big cats are so pretty!!!

We saw huge fish in the aquarium:


And we saw a cute Gibbon, who I'm convinced was posing for the camera!


And we saw much, much more! The boys had a great time and were EXHAUSTED at the end of the day.

Day Camp

Jared attended Day Camp last week and had a GREAT time. It was pricey, but he went from 9am-5pm, M-F, and CRIED Friday morning because it was his last day and he wanted to keep going. I'd say it was money well spent!! He got to swim, tie-dye, shoot a bow and arrow, climb a huge climbing wall, kayak, ride in a canoe, play games, learn camp songs, etc etc etc. I don't even know half of what he did because mostly what I get from his, "I did so much neat stuff that I just can't even remember it all!"

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to see him throughout the day. Maybe even a fly on the wall with a camera... That said, there was a nice picture of him and some kids from his group posted on the camp website:


I wish they'd taken more!!