School Days

Jace has been in first grade for over a month now, so I have been feeling pretty guilty about the fact that I had yet to post the photos I took of him when he started Kindergarten over a year ago. This really highlights how far behind I am in posting on the blog. But I am determined to catch up before Christmas, so I can have my blog printed as a sort of family Journal and scrapbook for each of my kids. So more old stuff here.

Jace started Kindergarten on August 10th, 2009. His teacher was Mrs. Strickland, who he absolutely loved. This boy was made for school, and the smile that he wears below was the same smile he went to school and came home with every day of Kindergarten. Jace thrives on possitive feedback and he really excelled in school, so going to school each day was a huge boost to his self-esteem (or ego?). And it was so fun to watch how much he did learn throughout the year.

Jace was also a great bus rider- his bus driver, Mrs. F, was often giving us comments on how well behaved he was on the bus. She really loved Jace and he came home with many Star tickets from her:)

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And on August 10, 2010, this is Jace getting off the bus from his first day of first grade. I was happy to see that he wore the same great smile- hopefully first grade will be as fun as Kindergarten!

T-Ball

Doing some more catch up work here. I have to sort of apologize first for my boring posts of late- I fear I have lost my blogging mojo and I just don't remember how to be funny or witty anymore. It is kind of sad, because in real life I am not a very witty person but I prided myself on my small bits of wit in my blog writing. But maybe having my third child sucked all that wit out of me. So rather that spend hours trying to find something genuinely clever to say, I will dazzle you with a favorite knock-knock joke of my kids. Has been a favorite of theirs for years- here it goes:

Knock-knock...

Who's there?

Baby...

Baby who?

BABY CHANGE MY DIAPER!!!!!!!!!

Hilarious, I know. Crude humor- that is how we roll in this house full of boys. Now onto the post. This last spring Jace played T-ball- when he first started to play, he was not the most coordinated child in the world. Throwing, catching and hitting a baseball did not come very naturally to him, and Tim and I would secretly cringe watching him at first. But one thing that amazes me about this amazing boy of mine is his commitment- ever since he started T-ball last March, he has been practicing nearly every single day. And it has been so fun to see him improve! He has gone from being a bit weak and uncoordinated to having an arm that rivals a Major Leaguer. It is fun that we can actually play catch with him, and he can actually catch and throw the ball back to us. I am really proud of this little guy- and I hope he is as driven as an adult as he is now. These images were taken with my lens 'baby', the 70-200 VR. Seriously, this lens rocks and I look forward to taking sports photos as much as I look forward to watching my kids play:) These are straight out of the camera- no editing at all. Click on them and check out how crisp they are- it makes me drool!

Summertime Classic

I don't think there is anything that spells summertime in the life of a kid better than a good ole' lemonade stand. I myself have very fond memories of hosting a lemonade stand on our driveway, and the other childish business pursuits that were spawned by the success of the lemonade stand (such as cutting up strips of paper, coloring them and selling them door to door as 25cent bookmarks, or painting small pebbles and rocks with clear nail polish and selling them, because isn't a gem stone just a shiny rock?) So when my friend Amy mentioned doing a lemonade stand with my boys (her kids had done it with their neighborhood friends before and loved it) I was all for it! So we gathered at her house around the 5:00 rush, since she lives on a busy neighborhood intersection and let the kids go to work.

Here they are creating their signs- lots of creative genius involved here. Saige had all the words in just the right colors- "strawberry" in red, "lemonade" in a combo of green and pink, and "ice cold" written in blue. It was perfection. By the way, they sold strawberry lemonade, which was way better.

Here they are working hard for the money. My very favorite part was watching Jace when the cars would come by without stopping. He would hold up his sign nice and high and yell "ICE COLD LEMONAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaadddde" and as the car moved on, his sign would slowly drop along with the inflection on the word lemonade, leaving a dejected little boy in the dust. But he would perk right back up for the next one. Luckily they did have a few people stop.

Their first customer- one large glass of lemonade for daddy! He loved it, naturally.

A real customer...

One of the many passers by, avoiding eye contact with the sweet little children whose spirits they knew they were crushing. Note to self: ALWAYS keep change in the car so support the summertime lemonade stands!!!

And after about 1 hour of standing out in the heat, the kids each made about 4 dollars! Not too shabby, I think. But I have to give a shout out to the kind stranger in the BMW who had to pay with a $10 bill and let the kids keep the change. The kids owe the majority of their success to him. But in my opinion, $10 is a small price to pay for boosting kids spirits, good memories and a nice, sweet, ice cold glass of strawberry lemonade.

Good times!

Go Hickory!

Have you ever seen the movie Hoosiers? If you haven't, my husband would probably be somewhat disappointed in you (just kidding). He has very fond feelings and memories when it comes to this movie, and would most definitely put it at the top of his list of all time great movies. Well at the beginning of August we took a little road trip out to Nauvoo for a family reunion. At first we were not looking very forward to the long drive, but when Tim found out that we would be driving right past the location where they filmed the movie, he was pretty enthusiastic about the previously dreaded road trip. And after seeing it, even I will admit it was a pretty cool place:) After you enter the building, there are all kinds of memorabilia about the movie and the original story it is based on. They even have a tour guide there every day and a book where guests to the gym can sign in. Apparently people from all over the country travel to this tiny town in Indiana to see the stadium, which I thought was pretty remarkable. They had plans at one point to tear it down because of lack of funding, but the people of Knightstown banded together to save the Hoosiers gym and it is now a community center as well as a museum of sorts. Isn't it a gorgeous building?

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Jace and Tim standing in front of the post card stand, and photo of the movie cast, signed by Gene Hackman himself. It was so fun to watch Tim in here- he was like a kid in a candy store:)

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The tour guide took us down to the locker room from the movie. Our fam sitting on the team benches.

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Jimmy Chitwood must have left his jacket and shoes down there in 1954.

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The lighting in the gym was amazing...

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Jace trying to be just like his daddy...

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Check out the arc on that ball- my hot hubby
more to come...

Go Hickory! part 2

Tim showing off one of his many baller talents, spinning the ball on his finger. He was really feeling it in here...

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Jace with the assisted dunk...

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Wait a minute here...

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Here son, let me show you how it's done... BOO-YEAH!

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I cannot tell you how much I LOVE this shot- such a classic basketball team pose. Taken by our incredibly sweet tour guide.

More memorabilia, including a ball and photo signed by Larry Bird and some other famous ball players that I don't recognize...
CORRECTION: The ball was signed by Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Carmelo Anthony and Lebron James during an interview with Jim Gray of ESPN on May 21, 2004 in the Hoosier Gym, according to the sticker beneath the ball.

Good times!