Randomness from our days....

We seem to have a revolving door for bikes.  I typically don't buy new bikes because the boys are so hard on them and don't take care of them.  We get hand me down bikes and often have more than 1 bike per kid.  We have retired several bikes and usually take off any parts that can be used elsewhere.  My boys recently rediscovered some of the old tires.  We spent several hours outside playing with the tires.  Rolling it down the street, seeing if we could 'ring' each other and even throwing it up into the air and trying to throw a football through it.  (I would not recommend those rolling in down your hallway...tire scuff marks can be hard to remove!)  There is my shoeless Joe again...(we recently watched Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and Joseph loved how they always went without shoes.)

The boys taking on their older 'brother', neighbor Zane.  As I recall, they lost but even Zane admitted that they are getting bigger and stronger and it is taking more for him to beat them.

The boys spent the better part of an hour using our paper cutter.  I had it out prepping some homeschool stuff and they thought it was too cool.

This is what it looks like when 8 year old boys are looking for a snake that crawled under our playhouse.

Recent trip to a BMX track.  Jacob found another boy to race.  (He did have his first wipe out.  He had replaced a tire tube and it was not put on right and he hit a small jump and when he landed it, he came to a sudden halt with the tire bulged out and would not move.  He managed no injuries but hopefully learned a lesson about bike maintenance.  Glad he was wearing his helmet.)

This was one of the first times Joseph really enjoyed it because he was on the bigger bike and could go much faster!

Another beautiful sunset to end our nice summer days.

The boys have been sleeping in close to 9 or 9:30 most mornings.  I think part of the reason is they are staying up later and playing hard, but I am also putting a fan in their open window at night.  Things have been cooling off nicely and often times it is 50 or 55 in the mornings and they don't want to get out of their warm beds.  I have come to really enjoy my early mornings and am probably regretting school starting the most because my mornings will now become rushed, instead of the leisurely time from 6 until 9.