Here are some pictures of B's last soccer game and the Green Ninja's.

He actually got some pretty good throw ins.....

This is one of my favorite...I love the shot I got of B...

Their team lost by several scores but overall a great season for B. It started coming together for him and I think he might just become a little soccer play. He found his hustle on the field.  He almost scored two goals this game but twice he was robbed by a friend of his who took advantage of his slight hesitation as B approached the ball.

Happy 8th Birthday to my amazing B. So thankful that God has given me 2,922 days of being your Mom.

I love you Booger Boo!!!

My boys are like most boys, they aren't the best at picking up after themselves. One thing all three of them do, is take off their socks. Anytime they walk in the house. The socks come off. It drives me nuts because the socks lay where ever they are taken off. I can walk into any given room and find 4-6 socks somewhere in the room. This makes laundry difficult. So I decided a few weeks ago that I was gonna quit trying to match up their socks. Half the time I can't find the match because it is under a bed, a blanket, the couch, in the car, etc. So, now when I do laundry I throw all the clean (unmatched) socks in one 'bucket' and they have to go grab their socks. My precious, almost 8 year old (tomorrow is THE day)! He obviously has a lot better things to do than look for matching socks. When we went camping, take a look at what he wore. (This is not the first time I have seen this combo).

Yes, that is one shin high wool sock and one white ankle sock. The other day when he had baseball camp, I bought him a pair of baseball pants...his first. It did not dawn on me to buy him some baseball socks. So, what did he grab for socks that were high enough....

his wool socks....at least they matched.

I love this kid!!!

On Saturday the boys and I headed out to camp. We always have a favorite spot, because it is a little out of the way, not as well known, potential for lots of wild life, a water supply and free camping! Sure enough, we scored on the wildlife. This spot is 8 miles back and you reach it through an easement on private property. The private property is home to lots of buffalo, it is just that the land is massive and you never know where the buffalo will be. Not only did we get a close view of the buffalo, we had to stop in the middle of the road so they could pass in front of us. I did not even need to 'zoom' on the pictures.

We actually saw a wolf too...a black wolf at that. JR was quite impressed and sorry he missed it. (He met us out there a few hours later)

 

 Here are the boys goofing around at our 'lunch spot'

 

 The view from our campground. There was not a cloud in the sky in the temps were in the 90s. Rather hot for us. Fortunately there are mountains on both sides of us, so shade came sooner for us.

JB walking across a bridge....The 'no railing' on one side made me nervous, but he did great.

The boys trying to pump water from the well.  They were not quite big enough so mom got her workout.

JR brought the BB guns.  He cut off the stock on one of them so it fits Jbird perfectly.  They set up wood with aluminum cans on them.  It took Jbird quite a while to get it, but B did awesome.  He even got to where he could stand up and scoot back and still hit the can.  One time he was even messing around and using only one hand and it the can.

The boys have been wanting to play baseball.  Jbird had a couple of really big hits where the ball actually hit cars.  Fortunately it was a tennis ball and no damage was done.  This was right after he clobbered one that hit a car.

Their first experience with true mountain biking.  They were not real crazy about the rocks, but hopefully in time they will get the hang of it.  (Mom does not do mountain biking...I have come off too many bikes.)

Of course every camping trip has to have s'mores.  Our chocolate got too soft, so we just stuck with marshmallows.

(I sure wish I could remember what he was laughing at...I love his expression.)

 

 As evening wore on, B began asking about church the next day.  He did not want to miss church.  He was adamant about that.  So, after dinner, he and I packed up and headed home so we could go to church.  JR hung out with the other two.  I can't say I was too disappointed since it meant I could sleep in my bed versus on the ground!

Just a few short sentences.

 B has started two different math 'classes' at the local library. One is called Math Whiz and the other is Biz Kids. Both classes are for grades 3 and up. The Math Whiz they play math games, that B said was kind of hard. The Biz Kids class is more about teaching them basic money skills with an entrepreneurial bent. After the first Biz Kids he came home and wanted to open an account at a bank. He has asked several times since then. Maybe with some of his birthday money, I can go help him open an account.

 The boys are wanting to do a lemonade stand and I have finally found an incredible lemonade recipe. It is just the recipe off the bottle of lemon juice (the name escapes me right now). But if you substitute some of the lemon juice with key lime juice....amazing. We can go through a gallon of it in a day! Can't wait to pair it with some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies...just have to find a good warm day to do it.

Tomorrow is the last day of soccer for B.  He sure has improved this season.  JB is even getting into the action.  He loves to head butt the ball.  Jbird has practiced a few times with the team and certainly holds his own with the older kids.  Will be interesting to see Jbird play in the fall.  B finished up a baseball camp this past week.  He really enjoyed it and it has reignited his fire for baseball.  The last day of camp they got to go on a local 'big' field, with stands, etc.  The boys played the dads.  All of them got one 'at bat'.  It took him several swings before he hit the ball, but he made it to first.  He sure did look really small on that big ol' field.

I think I am getting too much sun.  With all the swimming and other activities, I am wiped at the end of the day.  The last several days I have been out in the sun, I have noticed an 'angry' looking rash on my arms.  I thought it was maybe the chlorine at the pool, but noticed the rash after I had not been in the pool.  Not sure what that is about, whether it is something I am using that is reacting to the sun or all this sun exposure is too much for my body.  I know the kids love it.  JB keeps getting darker and his hair lighter.  So glad they at least have the 'olive' gene in their DNA.

An amazing display of God's glory recently. One of the most vivid double rainbows I have ever seen. The color difference above, between and below the rainbows was amazing. The bottom rainbow was so bright and I don't know that I have ever seen such a 'line' between the colors. Usually you can't tell where one color stops and the other starts. Plus several 'lines' of the rainbow were duplicated. We recently saw JR off to work and about 30 minutes later kept hearing a noise by the front door. Then the door opened and shut. We were all eating breakfast so I knew it was not one of the boys. Turns out it was a neighborhood kid wanting to play at 7:30 in the morning! I don't know if I was more shocked that he was at the door or that his mom let him out of the house at that time. I have finally started reprimanding JB for some of the words he says. Not bad words but words I don't appreciate the other two saying. So, the gauntlet starts to fall with him too.

This past weekend B had a 2 day Cub Scout Camp. I helped out on the first day. There were 200 boys there from all places near and far. My job was to help out with our Pack's Activity Station, which was the rain gutter regatta. The boys made ships and then raced them along rain gutters filled with water. They could not touch the ship, just blow through a straw. We quickly found out that it did not take 30 minutes to make a ship (most everything was precut, they just had to assemble) and they got bored racing for 30 minutes. So I put myself in charge of the games when they finished. I took them to the side and entertained them for 10-15 minutes with Shipwrecked and Elbow Tag. I am glad to say that I was still able to chase those kids down and tag them. The theme of the camp was something to do with pirates. They brought home all kinds of arts and crafts. Amazing how you can come up with so many different stations based on just one theme. One of the stations was face painting and B happily showed off his face.

Here is a random picture of my oldest and youngest sleeping. I could not resist this. (yes, dirty faces again....)

We are still enjoying the pool. We found 4 local families that have joined with us, so the boys have friends to play with. Between the 5 families, we have 14 boys and the lone girl is almost 1! Yesterday Jbird took off his life jacket and played around in the pool. Did not go in deep water but another step forward. Trusting himself enough to be in the water without a life jacket or float. (I am sure having his friends not using floats helped). JB on the other hand. He would kick and paddle around by himself in the water with the life jacket on. I thought I was going to get away with not having to get in with him. No such luck. He took his life jacket off for snack and did not put it back on after snack. He headed to the pool. He, very quickly, got to the bottom of the steps and went under. I happened to turn around just after it happened. He was still vertical but fully underwater. I jumped in for him. He came up and did not sputter, cough, cry, nothing. He just clung to me. Based on his reaction when I brought him up, he did not take in any water. It was a huge reminder of how quickly something can happen. There were 6 moms within 20 feet of the steps and probably 4 kids within 3 feet of him, yet no one saw him go under. I am always telling the older two that the worst thing you can do when you do under water is to freak out. You need to stay calm or you can take on more water. Appears JB stayed pretty calm. This week B is doing a Mission Baseball camp. It is offered through a church from 9-12. Learning about baseball and God - great combination. The advertisement said kids 8 years and older. However, when we got there, they were allowing kids 5 and up. I was so excited, just knowing J would love it. However, when I asked him if he wanted to participate, he said no. JB is doing well with therapy. He now says, anytime he sees a small white car, "peace off er". They are very.deliberate.syllables. Omitting the same sounds every time. B lost yet another tooth. He will turn 8 next week and still debating on what to do. He has his guest list made up, but just can't decide what activity would be best. Seems the older they get, the harder it is to find birthday type activities for them.

Guess who went fishing this weekend.....
 A 14 inch trout......Pretty impressive. Needless to say he was excited. He also got to go help JR with a side job over the weekend - replacing some fencing. He loved his 'paycheck'. $7! I love how little it takes to impress kids this age!

We recently spent an afternoon....5 hours to be exact, at a local pond. There were 6 or 7 other families that joined us. One family brought several kayaks and two families brought rafts. The boys had a blast! I got lots of adult conversations in. We were all tired from all the sun and fun.

Here is JB...when we got there he had first ridden his bike and after that refused to take his helmet off.
When B first climbed into this kayak, I 100% expected him to get about 30 yards out, get frustrated that he could not control the kayak and freak out. Much to my amazement, he spent probably close to an hour paddling around the pond. Thursday we headed back to the pool. We were there for over 3 hours (lots of sun this week). The boys did amazing. Jbird now is very comfortable in the water with just a life jacket and he will kick/swim around the whole pool. B is comfortably swimming the width of the pool. JB killed it on the slide. He went down it no less than 25 times back to back - all the while with a life jacket on. Towards the very end, I would catch him and then quickly put him under water on the count of three. He handled it very well. Then I started letting him go down the slide and would not grab him until he came back up from underwater. I would simply grab him, turn him around and tell him to swim to the side. He would kick towards the side and then wait for me to help him out of the water. He also loved kicking off the side of the pool and swimming 5 yards, then he would flip onto his back and kick back to the wall and start all over again. We are on our way to mission accomplished...having three swimmers in the family! I think the boys are excited for JR to join us some day so they can show him what they have been doing.