Soccer, Soccer, Soccer...

And other stuff, too.



Soccer has been so much fun this year. Just this week William and Judson played against each other, and it was so fun to watch.

I mostly have mediocre soccer pictures to share. It seems like either the light is bad, or the kids have commandeered my camera, or I'm too distracted by visiting with friends or family.

William is enjoying the game...


He gets in a few good kicks just about every game.


(I warned you they were mediocre!)

Trevor has really improved this year. Boy, that just didn't pack the punch I wanted.
Trevor has REALLY improved this year. I can't believe he is the same kid we watched last year. He still enjoys playing Forward, and gets some kicks in. But his new great thing is playing Defense.

Ok, here's a really bad picture...but look close:


If you look close, you can see Trevor (the little one to the left, with his arms out, kicking the -hidden- ball) running up to some pretty big kids...the ball is behind that person's head in the picture. Trevor has just become un-afraid of the ball, and of the other boys. He is DETERMINED to keep that ball away from the goal. It is so fun to watch him working hard and having fun.



Not sure who took that one, but I like it...Trevor looks happy.

We have had other fun on the weekends...


One of the boys had the idea to play Croquet a while back... that was a lot of fun.


I don't think William was swinging that at Samuel's head...There was a lot of "high-sticking" going on, though...

We have also enjoyed flying airplanes...


How fun is that????


Thanks for the planes, Grandpa!! (And the Croquet!)


William flies the most, but the other boys really enjoy it, too...


(And wasn't that a pretty picture?! What a nice yard for flying airplanes!)

Also, Tim built the boys a ramp for their scooters and bikes...


I'll just splash up all the pictures I have of that and let you enjoy their different faces and concentration...and notice when they get "air".













Last one...


Lastly, we have been enjoying one of our new "toys"...a Cool Daddy Fryer. Man, have we had some good food lately. Or, maybe I should say "tasty"...not sure how good it is for us. At least it's good for morale... Good and tasty.

We made these wonderful donuts on a Saturday morning recently:



We got the fryer with Christmas money from Joe...Thanks for the fryer Joe!!







YUM!

Catching up...

...is hard to do! I recently realized I had not sorted photos THIS YEAR. Not this month, not recently, not THIS YEAR. I have hundreds of digital pictures sitting in virtual piles in my computer. So with all the blogging I HAVEN'T done, and all the catching up I WANT to do...and all my piles of pictures...I'm techni-stressed.

In my defense, we DID move...and ARE remodeling...and STILL homeschooling. In addition to that, our internet connection is...what's the right word..."Challenged". (That is, if we accidentally unplug our modem, we have to wait 1 or 2 weeks before it relearns that it is a modem, and it has a job to do.)

So, after all my venting...here are some pictures :)

What we have been up to lately:

-The House-

While I did blog on the social aspect of having WonderWoman here, I didn't show off our work!

Here's a tour of what she accomplished.

We set her to work peeling paper from our lovely bathroom...


and it went so well, we decided to give her some more! The Breakfast area:


The Kitchen:




and the Powder Room, which I forgot to photograph. She was like the "Unpaper-the-wall-Queen". Then, we were really livin' in style for awhile. Compared to the old paper, it was sheetrock paradise.

Next, she helped me decorate some of the rooms that were already painted.

Exhibit 1:


Exhibit 2:


And, my other great picture must be on WonderWoman's camera. Phooey.

So, next, we got to paint!

Here's a bad picture of the den...

It really just is not going to look right until we get rid of the PINK carpet, I'm afraid.

The Breakfast room:


and the kitchen:


By now, you may be wondering, where are all the people?, and what are those things lined up on the kitchen table?

I'm glad you asked!

-The People-

Whilst we were painting, the kids were busy outside (for once) and kept us amused with their discoveries.



William came in with something interesting...


...an army of cicadas! Er, cicada "suits"...I guess all the cicadas are running around our yard naked.


Maybe he brought them in to help eat the crumbs off my table. Good thinking.

They also found a pet...


...a pretty nice-sized Box Turtle.


We kept him for a week or two. A first, he fasted for a couple of days, probably out of sheer terror. But, we were finally able to convince him to eat. He liked bread and apples, and most of all, raw hamburger. He had good manners: he liked to eat his food off of a fork...something I sometimes wish certain ones of my boys would do...

After painting, I needed a snack:


Then the guys got to work on William's new ceiling fan (a fan which I might add, William picked out himself) :


It proved to be a two-man, two-day job...




...but the results were well worth the effort.


(Is that the essence of a satisfied expression, or what?)

And Satisfied is how I feel to have all these pictures ready to post! I'm off to do more virtual housekeeping!

Go Chargers!

Well, we have kicked off into another soccer season! Trevor was lookin' good as he started us out on our first game tonight.





He got in some great kicks and ran hard...



It was a lot of fun to see how much bigger and better the boys looked this year, in the 8-9 year old division. William is in the 6-7 year old group, and will play his first game the coming Tuesday!

Too bad we lost the game tonight 1-4, but we had a lot of fun doing it!