Wordless Wednesday (Sort of)

Costume parade. He so didn't even care that he wasn't in costume, just that he got to be in it. :)
No peaking!
Just another one of the guys.

I think I'm liking this fall thing...

This cold snap is kind of nice. Remind me of that when I start complaining about the cold. ;)

No, I in fact was not aware Giuliana had shared an Oreo with Ali until I went to open the van door. She enjoyed it. :) Being male, he went straight in and picked his pumpkin...didn't have to shop around or compare. Saw it, picked it up. Done deal.
I do believe she was showing us just how full of BBQ her tummy was. Seriously, I'm pretty sure she ate more than I did. This kid loves meat...BBQ'd especially. She kept saying "Moe chikkin!" (All meat is chicken, btw.)
Remember how Tre zeroed right in? Yeah, his polar opposite here had to look at all the pumpkins several times. She's a careful shopper who does her research. Wonder who else we know like that? ;) (That'd be a Fiat trait in case you're wondering.)
We had our last soccer game of the season today. After playing the pink team so many times, it never occurred to me why I was seeing a friend in the parking lot so much. Well duh, her granddaughter was on the pink team! I had just never looked across the field.

Pray for me. I'm substitute teaching in the 1st grade Sunday school tomorrow. :)

How?

How on earth did every.single.stitch of Tre's pajamas end up in the wash at one time? I'm talking like half a laundry basket of just jammies. Color me baffled.

Ready to get jealous? I'm about to head out for the 1st grade Fall party at G's school. Oh, and I'm wrangeling the 2 little ones with me. Al doesn't know it yet, but she's going in the backpack whether she likes it or not.

Soccer Girl

The smile on her face as she and M took off with the ball was priceless. I do believe this resulted in a goal. :)

Note the absence of shin guards. When mom tells you twice to get your shin guards, it's probably a good idea to get them. As it was, she only got kicked once last night.

This was my first time trying to shoot a night game. I'll have to work on a couple settings. The pics require quite a bit of retouching/balancing.

Muffins...

More of Mr. Swimming

She said "2 hands on the wall, but didn't say anything about feet!" ;)
For our last lesson, we learned about water safety. First, they all threw the floatie to Miss Marla and pulled her in. Then, came life jackets and learning to float in them. Tre still wasn't sure about floating on his back with his knees tucked. Here, they were getting loaded into the boat.
Miss Marla had them all turn and wave to the camera. (Again, really cute kids faces blurred because they aren't mine.)I don't recall what he was doing here, but I'd guess he was being a dinosaur.
I just liked this one. I'll probably have to balance the colors a little more, but liked the comp of it.
Stay tuned...when we return from the college fund depletion center...I mean the doctor's office, I'll post pics from Muffins with Mom.

Finally Friday...

Ok, the fun never stops. Busy busy busy week.

I had thought that I would be a good wife and go out and mow the lawn. No such luck. It looks like it's due to storm out there. We had sunshine this morning. I hope it comes back. Our town's festival is this weekend and I got recruited to help sell tickets for the school's PTO.

The kids are doing great. Both are plowing away at their AWANA verses. Which speaking of, God bless the AWANA leaders. I went up to listen to verses this week...wow, it's rewarding, but what a job. Angelo was a Cubbies leader. Have I mentioned lately just how good of a husband and daddy he is? I love that man!

Ali is up sleeping. I'm pretty sure she's hitting a growth spurt. She's been eating a lot, sleeping a lot and rather clumsy.

Tre is busy making a party for "Noisy Dog." For those that don't know ND, he's Tre's special snuggly dog that barks when you squeeze him. Sometimes, he'll tell you how he's ND's daddy and how hard that can be- he's apparently a rather busy dog. He talks pretty much nonstop now...remember Giuliana? He's giving her a run for her money in that department. School has been so good for him.

G had a yucky looking crash at school this week. Apparently she was running on the track during recess and someone came from behind and knocked her over. Big ol' bandages on her elbows and knees. The neosporin leaking through made it look much worse than it was. I was a little concerned that I hadn't heard from anyone at the school. So, I probably looked like High Maintenance Mom when I called the school to find out protocol of when I should expect a call or note. I actually got a call from the nurse the next day, talk about freak out, to let me know that G had been back in her office. I swore to her that I'm really not HMM (High Maintenance Wife, maybe- yes Angelo, that's for you) but wanted to know what to expect. She offered to call me for every bandage etc- as apparently some parents do. I'm ok with her just calling about illness or doctor visit required injuries.

So anyway, that's the jist of our week. :)

Mr. Swimming

Yep, that's my kid with the booger. Before class, I told him not to worry about me being there, to just listen to his teachers and have fun. Uh huh. Yeah. I had to wipe off that booger. But, the bonus was as I looked through my camera bag for a tissue or anything to wipe it on, I found my missing flash card! Happy happy! Oh, and the photoshopping of faces is simply because I don't have their permission to post them on the web (a courtesy, I think).He is so his mother here. The goal of the exercise was to put his face in the water and blow bubbles. He still might do it. He's come so far in the past month. :) He was so proud of himself after the last exercise. I think this was floating out on his own with the teacher.

At the end of class, they get to slide on the froggy and play for a bit. Somehow, he scraped his knee. I don't know if he'd admit it or not, but he loved the one on one with his teacher and was proud of his two bandaids.

CPRA Finals

Seriously, I don't know that I could say 'no' to this little face. Well, ok, I could, if and when he mentions bull riding again. He was rather enamored.Always dancing. She's made it known that when soccer season is over, she's all over dance class. Color me shocked. ;) My favorite Giuliana moment though was on the way in. An attractive gal rode by us on her horse. She says "Oh.Mom.Wow. I've never seen a real cowgirl up that close before." She was star struck. I'm a little surprised she hasn't mentioned wanting a horse yet. After a round of binki roping, Ali's wiped. She took about a 20 minute nap and never looked back. We couldn't believe she stayed awake the whole way home.Now for the rodeo pictures. This one is just one of my favorites from today. I liked the compostion and crispness. Total fluke, lucky shot.

Here's "you couldn't pay me enough." I do imagine he enjoyed the ride on the side. The adrenaline would probably have given me a heart attack. Did I mention Tre has voiced his desire to become a bull rider? Angelo was explaining to him that it was probably in the same arena as motorcycles and we all know how mommy feels about those.

Yep, I'd run too! That was one ticked off bull. I did have to give props to that rider. He was intelligent enough to be wearing protective gear. Which, we noticed a lot of this year. I don't know if it truly was more prevalent or we simply noticed because of an article we just read yesterday.
This bull was so surly, a total crack up. He managed to throw his rider pretty quickly. He then was adamant he was not going back to the pens. The stand off with the JC's had me wondering and a little worried for their horses. More than once, he started chasing the horses. I seriously thought he was going to hurt them. It was by far the longest bull stand off of the day.

On the way to the rodeo...

I know it will shock most of you that we didn't drive straight to the rodeo finals. How un-Griswoldish. Nope, we had to hit a few caches first. One just happened to be a virtual at the Cosmosphere. Talk about a destination. We are so going back there for a real visit. As it was, we just walked around outside. We made ourselves into major touristas and took pictures at the sign.This is everyone under the rocket engine. Tre was fascinated.Ali, being the toddler, thought it would be funny to run away from Daddy. After "explaining" to her that it wasn't safe to run away from Daddy, they all ran circles (I'm sure she got it all too...really ;) ). The amound of giggling, unbelievable.

Ugh.

Still sick. It's now being treated as bronchitis. I'm so beyond done with this.

Poor Daddy has to share his brisket.

Yep, that'd be brisket in her hand. Poor Daddy. Ali LOVES brisket. Perhaps she could be the Phat Jack's spokesbaby? ;) I'm not sure what's brought this on, but any time the camera is out, Tre thinks I should take a picture of his cracker, rock, stick, etc. I liked his smile in this one.
The first tooth finally came out. As you may be able to see, the grown up tooth is already in. She thinks the tooth fairy should leave her some candy next time too. Which, btw, will be sooner than later...#2 is loose.