Rough day

Boy we have had a string of bad luck lately. Yesterday, poor Andrew had an accident and injured his fingers. A propane tank fell and he tried to stop it and it ended up smashing his fingers. It broke the tip of one finger and scraped/pulled off an entire fingernail. One trip to the ER and thankfully they were able to repair. Ouch. Brave boy. He's healing up. Gross picture below.

Tomorrow he will have two root canals due to a baseball to the mouth about a month ago. 

Sending positive vibes to the universe... We need some returned!

Baseball weekend

Another baseball weekend for Chris and Andrew. Looks like they had a blast. Even got to spend some time with my Grandpa. I'm jealous.

Ben, Nic and I hung back due to school and soccer. We got to have a little cousin time!  And the weather was perfect for some outside play.

Sorry the formatting looks so screwy. When I blog from my phone it puts all of these weird spaces into the layout that I cannot delete.  One day I'll have a new and improved blog...

Baseball

Spring baseball started in Vegas last weekend. Photo blog...

Father son ski day

Chris and Andrew had a nice day skiing, just the two of them. Chris skied like a 14 year old and can barely move. Worth it.

Ski season has started!

The big boys are lucky! The have already hit the ski slopes, Andrew has been twice. Andrew went with a few friends to Snowbird on Saturday, and Andrew, Ben and Chris skied for a few hours yesterday afternoon. Skiing before Thanksgiving... Woohoo.

Looks like all their gear fits and is in working condition. We opted to purchase Nic skis this year (instead of rentals). The ski swap price was just a few bucks more than the season rental price. Bargain.

Catching Fire

Awesome time last night at a late night showing of the Hunger Games Catching Fire with Andrew and Ben. Our Theater was packed and it was exciting to see the movie with so many fans and cheers.

IMO the movie was excellent. Perfect adaptation from the book and so well done. Jennifer Lawrence is amazing. Worth seeing. I'm sure we will see it again.

It's late start Friday st school so the boys are still snoozing, getting in those lost zzzz from last night - they need it. No extra sleep for me. Nicholas is always up at the buttcrack of dawn. Ug.

Happy Birthday Andrew

It has been a wonderful day... Andrew turned fourteen today. The last fourteen years really have flown by. Chris and I both vividly remember the day you came into this world and changed our lives forever. We sure love you and are so blessed to learn from you everyday.

We decided to make today a day all about Andrew. As you get older your birthday changes... It's less about friend parties and more about family. Today we honored Andrew with many of his favorite things and show him how much he means to us.

We started today with breakfast out (his choice, IHOP). He spent a good chunk of the day enjoying a Psych marathon (his fav show). And, this afternoon we enjoyed a family party including many of his favorite things... Panda Express-orange chicken, Legos, Texas sheet cake & bundt cake, cookie dough ice cream and Mountain Dew. This kid was spoiled but we were happy to spoil.

Thank you to family who traveled, gave wonderful gifts, and spent the afternoon celebrating with us. We love you.

Happy birthday Andrew!!! Your first 14 years have been awesome and each year just gets better and better. 

Side note: fortune cookies are pretty accurate...

Fence finished!

It took all summer but we officially finished the fence painting before summer ended. Our labor day weekend was not labor free. We really like how the painted fence turned out and hopefully have saved us some money and a few more years before we will have to replace it.

Andrew and Benjamin were very excited to finish working on the fence. It was a long project and took them more time than they thought it would. Lot of lessons learned. Now I need to cough up some money and pay them.  

Here are a few phone pictures of the results.  In the trampoline shot you can see how the fence painting matched the TREX fence we have on the South side of the yard.  Not too shabby.

Side note: You may also notice that our yard is pretty green and not as many dog spots.  I think this is due to Lucy eating so many tomatoes and somehow changing the chemistry of her messes.  Happy accident I guess. Silly dog.

Back to school!

   
School has officially begun. Andrew starts 8th grade and Ben starts 6th grade. Both will be in middle school. Crazy how big they have gotten but we are so excited and proud of them.

Such handsome little men.

Nic will start preschool early September.

Andrew flips

Here is Andrew!

Ben dives

The boys just finished a two week diving course and it is amazing what they learned.

Nicholas also finished a round of swim lessons and can move up to the next level. He finished his lesson with a trip down the waterside and a jump off the high dive. Whoa!

Video documentation of Ben, Andrew will be in next post.

Real vs Sporting Kansas City

The boys enjoyed a fun night if soccer and fireworks at the Real game last night.

Free sunglasses, hair painting and brothers make for cute photos...

Dinosaur park

The boys and I visited the dinosaur park yesterday and had some fun goofing around. Fun place to snap pictures...

I had to show the boys how to model escaping from a viscous Dino!

I love summer!