I'll Meet You at the Track

This year I'm helping out with the Mile Club at Luke's school.

Every other week I sit on the track and initial kids cards every time they do a lap.

On my off weeks, I still go up there to do a couple of laps with him. 

It's our weekly date.

I do have ulterior motives, though. 

I have a much better time chatting him up about school stuff when I'm on his turf--at home I get a lot of "I don't knows".  At the very least I can get answers from his classmastes. 

I also want to get him to start running with me.  I need a built-in running partner and so far he's my best hope.  A date on the track is the perfect place to lure him in!

Most of all, though, I love that his excitement about me coming to his school means that I have yet to cross the line from being a cool mom to being embarrassing.

Is it naive to think that I will forever be on the cool side?!

Finally a Cubscout

All summer long, Henry and Josh Oliver have been working on becoming good boyscouts.

They would do something nice and then say that it was because they were practicing to be a boyscout.

Sometimes they would say it was because they were a good boyscout.  After a few time of saying it that way, Luke would usually get mad and tell them that they ARE NOT boyscouts.
I think it was more because he was annoyed then he was mad at the thought of them being impostors!

Finally Henry has officially become a cubscout.  With all the practicing he's done, he's going to be really good at it!

Celebrity

One of the dad's of Henry's classmate came to school to talk to the kids while he was on military leave.

Henry was beyond excited about it!

He even got is autograph!!  Whoop!  Whoop!

He wrote him a thank you note when he got home. 

It makes me proud--and also laugh a little!

Thank you for coming to our school and talking about the war,
and I like your uniform and thank you for serving the country.

Henry

You Never Know

The boys and I went on walk/bike ride at the Sedgwick County Park the other day.

I thought it would be worth a shot to try to teach Josh how to ride a bike with no training wheels.

Life will be so nice when we can all go on bike rides together!

I was hopeful.  He was not.

Sadly, we weren't successful.

Maybe next summer... 

School at Last!

Josh started school last week!

He's been anxious to get started with "Pre's-K"--don't even think about calling it preschool because that was last year!

It was weird not having any boys at home.  Any!  

I had to call Josh's name out a couple of times because I couldn't hardly believe it.

Last year Josh went to school in the mornings and Henry went in the afternoon, so I always had a least one boy with me.  This year, though, I'm on my own three afternoons a week. 

I've never had that, at least not in the last 8 years.

It's a strange feeling--kind of exciting, kind of sad.

He, on the other hand, is not the least bit sad about leaving me. 

None of them were. 

I don't know why because I'm a fun girl!

Stickers and Fire Dogs

Last weekend, we went to our churches Family Picnic.

There was tons of stuff there--lots of games, lots of food, inflatables, face painting, cotton candy!

They even brought in a sand pit.  I must say that I have cursed that sand pit every day this week when Henry has come home with his clothes completely gross!

A firetruck was also there and started spraying water for the kids to run through.

Ben took Josh across the field to the firetruck. 

Unfortunately for Josh Oliver, Ben didn't notice that the field was covered with stickers.

Josh ended up losing one of shoes and, within a couple of steps, had tons of stickers in his foot.  Sadly , they were the kind of stickers that quickly break off and leave behind lots of little thorns. 

Fun for us!

He screamed and screamed when we tried to pull them out.  

I finally had to just carry him back to the car, where I could pin him down and yank them out with tweezers. 

I felt really bad for him, but I couldn't help but laugh everytime I looked at my crying, screaming boy whose face was painted like a fire dog!