The Most Exciting 25 Seconds?

I have blogged before that we sometimes go to Tiger Band practice. I like to go the Friday before home games because they should (emphasize SHOULD) only be running through the show. We went once or twice at the beginning of the season, but haven't been since. Too busy! Well, the last one was this past Friday and we were free and even though it was technical colder than I would have liked, we went. Everyone had a great time. I know this pictures aren't very good. I forgot my camera and had to use my ipod. Hey Mark, I think I am going to need the 4S when you get me the iphone!

This kids would just run whenever the music played, and stopped when it did not:



Like I said, SHOULD be doing just run throughs. James asked, "Why do they keep stopping?"



Eventually there was rolling down the hill. This was not always on purpose:



Sometimes there was conducting:



And then the highlight, when the band practices the pregame, the let the kids play the part of the football players running through. It does bring tears to my eyes. Here is the set up:



(I think some adults might also want to run). And the other end. The band director high fives them. Not a good pictures I know:



See you next season!

We've been published!

This blog is really my baby book. I record things here that I haven't written down anywhere else. There are times I take hours, just looking at pictures, seeing how the boys have grown. Turns out, you could make a book out of your blog. I have look at a few programs, but, well, you see, I got this groupon. A groupon for shutterfly for a photobook. Everything seemed great, so I signed up for it. Turns out, it expired end of October. Surely, I must have know I would still be working my three jobs then. Can't believe I had to force a blog book in there too! At any rate, I kind of threw it together. It was such a pain. I got better and faster as time went on, but still what a pain. After 3 evenings and one lunch break, I got through the first 6 months of my blog. I got it ordered and swore I would not do that again. Next time I would use one of those professional blog services that would do it for me. Well, this week, wouldn't you know, Shutterfly sent me an email saying they thing they overcharged me (like $4). To compensate, they have given me a $25 dollar credit. Yes, it is a good thing, but now I have to go through this whole process again. Grrr..... At any rate, here is Volume I

Soccer 2011

The kids played soccer this year! It was actually Andy who was interested, and James just went along with it. I also went a long with it because thought that James and Andy could be on the same team in the 3-4s division. Since James did not turn 5, until after Sept 5th, he was still technically 4, right? Imagine my surprise when I was told that since James was actually 5, he had to play with the 5 year olds. That is so weird! Turned out to be a good thing. James had a great team! What an experience for him! He team was awesome, his coaches were awesome, and he had a great time. There there is Andy:



Andy is 3. They really shouldn't let them play until they are least 4. I knew that going in, but I guess I didn't listen. I spent most of the season trying to keep Andy on the field. Here is a picture of the warm up. Now, it might appear that since the coaches both appear to be texting during practice, that they were always texting. That is simply not so. You could also say that since they were wearing shoes, that they were always wearing shoes. (also not necessarily true)



More warming up:



Now, the game. And Andy really wasn't all bad. Keep in mind that midway through the season, I started working full time so he was at school all day every day. It was a transition time. He played sometimes:



Oh, and sometimes he didn't:



James LOVED playing:





He hated being taken out:



Andy loved the post game snack:



Sometimes the loved each other:



We were trying to get a picture of their numbers here. James was "eight is great" and Andy was "five is alive" We wanted to have them in the other order, as in 85, as in ocho cinco for Ms Becky. Just didn't happen!

Halloween - It's an AB pattern!

So, funny thing, I actually had to teach on Halloween night (and did you know that I was the ONLY instructor to have classes on Halloween?!?!? I am so mean!) I assured my students that the kids have plenty of opportunities to dress up and get candy. It is not really Halloween night, it is a whole season. It kind of beats me down. At any rate, we started 2 days before with the Heritage Festival. The kids got to Trick R Treat all the vendors. We took no pictures. For this outing, the kids wore their primary Halloween costume: they were both skeletons. They really got into the spooky aspect of Halloween this year. The next night was the trunk or treat at our church. Suddenly, and I mean, suddenly, James decided he was going to dress as a pirate. And Andy wanted to be a bat. Luckily, we have both costumes in reserve:



Wait, did I say pirate? I mean storm trooper. James actually had a pirate costume in the car, and once we park he changed his mind. Good thing I brought a spare. Since I didn't pack a jacket, the storm trooper was really the way to go.

Wait, did I say storm trooper? I meant clone trooper. Hmmm, I am actually not sure, I will have to ask James. And look at Andy in the bat costume. That has a lot of miles on it.

The next night was Halloween and Mark took the kids around the neighborhood. The kids were skeletons again:



Look at this fall picture:



And with more kids:



When talking about his costume switching, James assure me that everything was ok. It was just an A-B pattern. Oh, is that all?

Big City Fun

Last weekend we travel to Charlotte to visit Uncle Jeff and Aunt Lori. They also had free tickets in the box for the local minor league hockey team. We rode the train downtown, ate dinner there, and went to the game. How cool is all that for these kids? Needless to say, the kids were excited:



Andy in particular loved the train ride:



After a few stops, James turned teenager on us:



And look how excited these kids were about watching the hockey game.



To be honest, while the rest of the stadium was cheering the team, Andy and James were cheering the cotton candy.



They let kids ride the zamboni? How do we sign up? Is it cooler than a tractor?



And apparently the blue collar tour is coming to Charlotte Nov 11th? To bad we have Clemson football tickets the next day.



We all had a great time. The favorite thing for the kids was to find all of Scrabble's toys and throw them hoping he might chase a few. Scrabble really just ran away from the kids!

More guilt - gymnastics

Another sad thing with me starting my new job is that Andy does not get to be in gymnastics anymore...and he LOVES gymnastics. And I LOVE gymnastics. The teachers are great, the activities are so good for Andy, and Andy, well, he loves the two other people in his class. They start off with stretches:



Somewhere during stretches, they make "yucky tacos", you know with things like dirt and eyeballs, etc. I will have you know that Andy is always the only one to eat his yucky taco. Can't get him to eat a peanut butter sandwich, but a yucky taco for Ms. Kip, no problem.

From there, they go to different stations and they do very specific things at these stations. Somewhere in going to the first station, Ms Kip might have said that Andy had to learn a lot since it was his last day. Oops, I actually had not told Andy it was his last day, but he didn't seem to notice. WHEW! Here is Andy at the first station.



Yep, his last day was backwards day...the hardest day! Here he is going backwards on the balance beam. Hopefully he doesn't try to walk the "balance beam" in front of his school backwards.



Another station, this was right in front of me...yikes!




The rope swing at another station:



And finally, the end circle song. How weird is this? Andy would always improvise and just sing "every body hums in a circle". Ms Kip loved it!



And the "hands on your head for stamps" That is how I roll!



And this is still the naptime blog!

Mommy's guilt

You may or may not have heard, but I got a job. I got a real big girl, no not teaching job. I am really excited and I think this is a good opportunity for me. However, even though I have wanted this job and know that it is the best thing for me and my family, it is still hard to make the switch from being a mainly full time stay at home mom (AND a pretty much full time technical college instructor) to a full time working mom (AND still a pretty much full time technical college instructor - yikes!) A big part of that is that the kids will have to be in school all day every day. No more lazy mornings and afternoons, mo more getting out early to beat the crowds. This past Friday was going to be our last free afternoon. I picked the kids up from school at 2pm and then we walked downtown to get ice cream. We went to spill the beans which you can see from the back of their school. The pictures aren't so good because I was talking them on my ipod, but you get the idea that they really like ice cream!



Next week went shopping so I could get a new visor. Let's face it. Pink and orange just don't match. I bought visors all around. Again, mommy guilt.



Then we went to Bowman field to check out the homecomings floats. It was pretty impressive to watch these go up all week as we drove to school everyday. It was even more impressive for the kids to see them up close.





Look at this guy and his visor. Like a little Spurrier.



Also impressive was the habitat for humanity house. The "construction zone" as Andy would call it every day



Driving by this week it was just as impressive to see them all broken down on Monday!