My soccer baby

It's soccer season #4.  To say Connor has grown so much in the sport, is an understatement.

We started out with a sweet boy who spent more time on the sidelines in my lap, than on the field.  And look at him now.  He's aggressive, hustles, cheers for his team mates, and knows the game.  My goal for him this season is that he masters his field positioning, is respectfully confident, and learns to lose gracefully.

He's continuing the trend of being the same # as his age.  It's his last season in U8--next season he's in U10 on the bigger fields.  I love to see him love soccer and I love to see him grow in the sport.

Plus, Matt's all in his glory being on the field with Connor now.  Connor loves having Matt out there with him too, which makes me all kinds of happy to see them together.

 

 If Noah continues his current thoughts (which let's be real, can change at any given second), he wants to play this Fall.  We'll officially be juggling two kids in sports & I fear wanting to be in two places at once, but it's all exciting at the same time.  My babies keep growing.  Darnit. :)

Lashes...

Connor is my hard outer shell, soft hearted, freckled, snuggly, sports obsessed boy.

Noah is my too-smart-for-his-age, testing, closet dancing, alphabet crazy, independent boy.

While Connor has constellations of freckles across his face, Noah has lashes for days.

Today, I had a very rare moment where my Noah Monster fell asleep while watching a movie and I had a chance to see his lashes in all their glory while he remained still.

F R E C K L E S

It's been on my back burner to-do list for quite some time now.

Document my favorite features of my kids.

Tonight, it was Connor's turn.  

He let me take his picture without a fight, as long as I taught him how to take my picture on my fancy camera once he was done.  I won't be sharing the amazing photos he took of me and my post gym- gross-goofy faces, but I will leave this one for your viewing pleasure.

Freckles for days.

Next up is Noah Bear.

And the award goes to...

If a family day at my parents' house wasn't enough,

my incredibly sweet brother-in-law surprised Connor with a special award after he won our family Fantasy Football League.  I think Connor enjoyed the spotlight!

Oh and here's Bo.

The happiest dog you ever did meet.

Weeknight adventures

We forget how lucky we have it.

A five minute drive from Nana & Papa's house landed us here last night.

While I tend to teach the boys shell names like "pokey one" and "swirly whirly one," we all turn to Papa to get the real names of each of them.

Shell collecting turned to learning how to skip them along the water.  Connor & Nana learned the art of it, while Noah just basically chucked shells and rocks over and over.

How sweet are my boys together?  How well they model for me on cue!  Let me remind you that photos lie.  They totally lie.  See, I had to repeat my kind request of a quick picture a good 10x before they acknowledged I was actually talking to them.  It was a mix of snapping quick pictures, kindly shouting out commands to my kids, all while thinking to myself that all these pictures are going to be garbage.

Well, photos lie. 

Okay, maybe they were cute & cooperating without whining for a minute.

Taking pictures of my family are wayyyyyy tougher than others.  I can actually blurt out, "You look creepy," "Give your brother some space," "You guys look like robots..."

Okay. I give up.

But then you're reminded that even with goofy, not so perfect pictures, we get to picnic in the back of Papa's truck and watch the sun go down.  The boys got to feast on chicken, mini subs, fruit, chips, and cookies.

Well, let's be real.  It was more like, two bites of chicken for Noah and 75 bites of chips and cookies.

Want to know something awesome?  We managed to wash off the kids and load them in the truck without bringing any sand home with us.  Yep, the perfect end to the perfect mini beach trip.