Angie is in England!!

Angie is touring around England this week with some friends and I am attempting to manage the boys by myself. If you are a wife and giggling at the thought of your husband trying to do it all you may be on to something.

I am beginning to suspect that there is a lot more that goes on at home than I am aware of. Apparently there is no a meal fairy that cooks meals, or dishwasher fairy that emptys the dishwasher or homework fairy that tutors the boys through their homework. I think Angie may do some of that stuff!?!?!?

Little things have already stopped working right. Angie was gone less than one hour when I looked up at church and noticed our oldest passing the sacrament with white ankle socks underneath his suit pants. Clearly something that someone (Angie) would have noticed and fixed under normal circumstances!

This morning was our first school morning on our own. I had to make executive decisions about after school activities (yes), book reports (next week when your mother is back) and whether or not batting practice in the backyard could take the place of piano practice this week (yes again--sorry Angie!).

Luckily for me, I have low expectations of myself this week. I will consider the week a success if we can make it through the week with the boys wearing clean clothes to school every day and without starving one of the pets (goldfish or Shaggy the dog). I am going to give myself bonus points for anything else that gets done such as laundry, boys making it to scouts on time, boys playing less than 2 hours of Guitar Hero per day or us eating out no more than once per day.

So if you see my boys wearing the same clothes this week, you will know I have failed miserably and there is a good chance that one or more pets at our house needs to be replaced.

Thank you in advance for your prayers!!

-Chris

A Little Culture

Last week we took the boys to the Hale theater to see "A Christmas Carol". I didn't actually tell the boys where we were going until right before we left for the play. To say that they were not happy would be an understatement. Chandler sulked up until the play started, Jackson just wanted to know what candy he could buy and Christopher ran around outside throwing rocks. I was afraid it was going to be a huge disaster.

We have taken the boys to see musicals before. They have seen "The Lion King" and "Wicked" and they loved both. So I was a little surprised at their reaction to this play. It was almost magical to see how they all softened during the play. It was a great show!! The music and actors were really good. During intermission Jackson asked if we could sit in the balcony next time we come and see a play. Chandler thought it would be cool if we could get season tickets and Christopher decided he wanted to be an actor.

I was surprised that the boys didn't know the story of Scrooge- I guess I have been slacking in my parental duties--but they really got the point and loved the play. I loved the play and think we are going to make it a new Christmas tradition. So at this Christmas time I say "God bless us, every one."

Artistic Pumpkins

Carving pumpkins was so much fun this year. The boys were very creative, their level of pumpkin carving is getting very high. Even Chris created a great pumpkin. Guess who he carved?

Here are the before, during and after pictures.

Christopher hated cleaning out the pumpkin- I thought he was going to throw-up. It was so funny watching him clean it out.

Jackson tried a very difficult pattern which didn't work. He adapted well and changed his pumpkin to a spider/throw-up design. I think the inspiration came after he ate some raw pumpkin.Chandler chose to carve a skull. I didn't think it turned out very well until it was outside and lit. It was amazing!

Chris worked very hard on his pumpkin. We are very proud of his pumpkin carving skills. Of course he couldn't help himself- he had to do the throw-up joke. That really caught on with the boys--thanks Chris. Can you tell who he carved? That is my cute little bat in the background.

Piano Recital

So I have been quite a slacker when it comes to our blog- so here comes some updates.

The Boys had a piano recital a few weeks ago. I am always so proud of the boys and how hard they work to memorize their music.

Christopher is always a hoot. Everyone watches to see what funny thing he does. He is always soooo serious.
Jackson played so well. He worked very hard this year and I am glad I won't have to hear the song "The Train" any more. The train whistle was very loud at 6:30am in the morning.Chandler always takes his recital so serious. He practices hard and is very responsible. He didn't really want his picture taken and rushed out of the room so the picture is not great.

NBA is FANtastic!

So last week a former (law) partner of mine gave me 4 center court tickets to a Phoenix Suns game. Of course since there are 5 of us in the family we had a major decision to make. Should I leave a boy home? Should I stay home and Angie go? Should we give away the tickets since we can't all go?

We decided to settle it the old fashioned way: Angie and I arm-wrestled for the right to take the boys to the game.

Here is the first picture of the night that the winner took. Can you guess who took it?

What can I say? I love dancing. Just kidding. Long story short, Angie let me go even though I lost the arm wrestle. Plus she had book club that night. Now in most marriages it would be no sacrifice for a wife to skip sports and go do girl-talk with appetizers. In our marriage however, Angie is a HUGE sports fan and although I love sports, I am also happy to spend an evening yacking it up and eating finger foods.

Thanks for sacrificing Angie. The boys and I had a great time.

The tickets included passes to all the clubs at the Arena and the area underneath the stadium between the floor and the locker room. At half-time and after the game we gave the players high fives as they ran into the locker room.

After the game we talked Amare Stoudemire into stopping and signing autographs for the boys. They were so excited!


All in all it was quite a lot of fun and hopefully the boys remember the good time we all had with Amare, Shaq, Nash. And the Suns dancers. OK, I don't want them (or Angie) to remember that part.

-Chris

The End of a Season

We ended our baseball season tonight. It was a great night of baseball. Christopher finished an amazing season-but he is glad to be done.

Jackson had an interesting two night tournament. On Monday night, he got beaned by the ball (he gets hit about once a game). This one was really bad. Here is a little picture.

On Tuesday, last game of the season, Kimball decided to give me a heart attack and have Jackson pitch. He has never pitched before. He threw his first pitch in his warm up. He did an amazing job. He got 2 outs and they didn't score any runs from his pitches. They came from behind and won the game. Jackson got hit twice tonight-but they weren't very bad. He played fantastic!!!

We have had a great season, great weather, good company, and great results this season. What a year.

Last Week of School

I am so happy that school is almost over. It has been a busy week and I will be glad when we can sleep in and do nothing. Here is a little review of our week.

Chandler received one of the six character awards for the fifth grade.

Christopher receiving an honor roll medallion. He was on first honor roll for the whole year.

Jackson presenting his report on Stonewall Jackson (all of his school reports have the word Jackson in them).

Chandler on his 5th grade picnic.

Busy Weekend

What a fun weekend we had. On Friday, the boys had their annual piano recital. The boys did really well- a lot of practice the week of. We did have a piano recital miracle. Jackson did not have his songs memorized as of Wednesday but managed to pull it off at the last minute (why do I think this is a foreshadowing of things to come?) I am really proud of them. It is hard for them to practice and they manage to do an okay job of it.

On Saturday we had opening day of Baseball. Christopher did excellent. He had 4 hits and a great defensive stop. He was the MVP of his game. He was very excited.

Jackson had a very exciting game. They won 8-5- it was very tense. He also did great. He had 2 walks and a very exciting steal to home. Chris is also one of the coaches on the team- he did a great job coaching.:)

Making Jam

There was a great sale on Strawberries this week- so you know what that means? Strawberry freezer jam. It was good timing. I was down to my last couple containers of jam. I had a couple of great helpers and a new food processor that helped make the jam in half the time. It is very tasty. (Don't worry Chris, I had the boys wash their hands.)

Holy Mud!!!!

On Monday, Chris took the boys and went with some friends into desert. They had a great time riding a go-cart, shooting bb-guns, and just running around the desert. They also went geocaching. Wayne Pomeroy then led everyone over the river and through the mud. Take a look at my boys in the mud.

Basketball--Yeah!!!

Basketball has begun. I love watching the games. The boys are so much better this year. Christopher scored in his first game- which is much better than last year. He loves playing and is doing great. He is lucky and has some great coaches who are so good with him. They are amazing!!! He is amazing at defense-unfortunately he never looks at the ball only the person he is guarding. Oh well, something to work on.

Jackson is also playing basketball and has a great team. The game on Saturday was a bit stressfull. They started very flat 2-10. But they came back in the end and won. Jackson grabbed a great rebound and got fouled pretty hard. He hit the floor really hard and was shaken up a bit, but he was soon back on the floor. He is starting to play agressive which makes me so proud!

Chandler was the unfortunate the victim of a poorly run program and did not get put on a team. As a result he has taken up golf. He and Chris spent Saturday morning at the golf course taking his first lesson. Hopefully we will have some pictures soon. He is really excited about playing golf and very protective of his new golf clubs.

Chandler's Arrow of Light

Just wanted to give a little shout out to our son Chandler. Last night he received his Arrow of Light. This is the last award he will receive as a Cub Scout. He also received his 20 patch, which means he earned every possible award in Webelos. He did a great job and worked really hard. We are very proud of him.

(Sorry about the dark picture. We had all the lights out so we could use our electric fire for the ceremony.)

He got an real arrow and was able to walk across the bridge to boy scouts. He was very excited. (He is behind the flag.)