Food for thought today...

It is a luxury to be understood.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen.
- Samuel Paterson

Cleaning out my email, I saw these and they made me smile today, each for their own reason. Thought I would share. Pick your books wisely, for you never know when one might fall on your foot..

Have a great day...I am!

This day forever...

We lived on a hill. No where to ride a bike really, and unfortunately did not make it a priority. He had one, for every stage of growth, they all had training wheels, then there came the scrambler, and we didn't put the training wheels on it. We woke up one morning and every one of William's friends could ride a bike but him. And he was starting to spout the excuses we had...no time to so somewhere flat. live on a hill... etc.

So Tom took him Saturday to the elementary school and started to push him across the parking lot. Half way across he was doing it himself.

They waited until I got home and then we went back for more, I of course had my camera, and Patrick was on his scooter. We really had fun. Once when William got off to tie his shoe I snuck on and took it for a ride, I was surprised I could stay on. I don't remember when the last time was I was on a bike! Tom even took a try.

Patrick and his wisdom amaze me. While we were sitting watching William and Tom set up a serpentine, I was taking photos and Patch was eating snacks. Patrick looks at me and says so innocently.

"Mom, why are you taking pictures? Is it because you want to remember this day forever?"

How lucky we are as scrapbookers that we get to have this wonderful hobby that allows us to photograph and journal our lives so we can remember them, and our children's children can remember them forever...

Needless to say we have ridden the bike everywhere, every day since Saturday...

Fall fun!

Ti's the season for Soccer! I forget how fun it was watching William when he was little run around the field. This is Patrick's first year playing, and William and I have gotten more giggles sitting together on the sidelines watching the kids and laughing at the chaos. I tell him stories of the silly things he did and he denied it all! I know Aunt Jen and Nicole will remember this well...in William's first game he was made goalie, the goal was made up of two orange cones and the coach explained to William that he needed to guard the opening and keep the ball from going through. William guarded the goal for a little while, but I guess he was finding it difficult, so finally he ran over and picked up the cones and moved them closer together...less to guard! We were laughing so hard we couldn't go out there and fix it.

William is doing quite well this year, he has discovered that shin guards are a good thing and that getting the ball is fun! We love watching him and his team play hard on a Sunday morning! My one regret is that some of our favorite friends are not able to be on the team with him this year. Maybe next year!

Patrick has not changed any dynamics of the game as of yet, but he and his teammates have chased the ball off of the field through two other games and into the woods... They don't actually have games, just skill sessions followed by 15 minute scrimmages which they thing of as games, they actually play each other, they just don't know it. His shorts are too long...his socks are too high, and I love every minute of watching it and William doesn't believe for a second that he was ever that small or silly! - We know the truth and have the video footage to prove it!

On another note, a call out to a friend that was hurt today, her strength and grace never cease to amaze me. I am not sure how many times you need to get knocked down, but you always get back up and smile while heading in to the world for more. Wish I could give you a hug before I leave for DC...I will bring you back a treat!

The most WONDERFUL time of the year....

So another year begins, and the big yellow monster ate the kids. Not a moment to soon to be sure! The kids were just ready to get back into the structure of the school year...or was that the moms? Here nor there, everyone was smiling this morning at the neighborhood bus stop. The kids were looking forward to seeing who their teacher was and who was in their class. What a great group we have! Several new kindergartners this year got on the bus and the big kids took good care of them. Patrick really wanted to go, but he will just have to wait until next year.

Patrick started his last year at Mulberry this morning, actually it is called Kindercare now, but after 6 years it will always be Mulberry to us.

William started here when he was 4 and graduated to kindergarten, and Patrick started when he was 10 weeks old. He will graduate from the very same classroom with some of the same teachers William had the end of this year.

Hard to believe they are growing up so fast!

Well, no one will be growing if I do get on with dinner so off I go. Hope everyone had a great first day of school!

Shoes

Crocs have been quite the rage for a while now. I myself after having said I would never wear them have two pairs, and both William and Patrick have a pair of their own. What became fun this summer was collecting the Jibbitz. They earned them for all sorts of things. I was looking at all our shoes laying in the middle of the family room floor this morning and I notices something. Mine are very clean and the Jibbitz are straight and distributed over both shoes (actually all 4). William's shoes while dirty have all the Jibbitz in tact and on one shoe, he is trying to fill in all the holes on one the move on to the other. With Patrick, his shoes are really quite disgusting...half the Jibbitz are missing and the ones that are there are dirty, upside down and missing body parts. Goofy is missing an ear, the Dino's head is gone..and some time between the photo and this post the Yin Yang went missing.

Funny how some shoes can start to look so much like their owners. I still can't figure out how Patrick keeps killing off the Jibbitz, but they keep disapearing! Poor Dino!

A girl's right of passage...

Today I got to witness a young girl's right of passage. It's not the prom, or driving, or dating..or any of the normal things you might expect...but miss Ella got her first taste (Literally!) of a $100 bill.

She had so much fun flashing her "wad" at the store today! She was waving her bills all over the place and when we finally had to take them away from her she accepted scrap paper in trade..I am sure that won't always be the case, but for today whether it was paper or $$ she smiled from ear to ear. Aren't babies fun!

Our family has had lots of fun with babies this weekend. You know how you always offer to watch babies for new moms? Well we finally had someone take us up on it! Friday night Jack came over for a visit. We had a lot of fun. We all went for a walk. William and Patrick both sang him songs, and we went through several bottles! Little Jack must be going through a growth spurt, he went through several bottles quite quickly, and kept wanting more!

Tom said it took me about 1.5 hours to remember why I was done having babies...and it took him 45 min. About the time I told William and Patrick to go to bed, and they went upstairs, brushed teeth, climbed in bed and waited for us to come up, I remembered that with babies there is never any sending them off to do anything on their own, so while Jack Jack is the cutest... There will definitely be no more babies in this house. Even if I have to keep borrowing babies to get it out of my system...I have started to enjoy my Independence way too much to give it up now. The boys are at just the right age that we can start doing stuff together and they can participate, and they can get some stuff done on their own. I am spoiled!

Well, my family is in bed and I am off to bed as well. More fun tomorrow! Can't wait to tell everyone about it! OH yeah! Deena finally sent me a few pics from Alaska! She got home tonight...but better late than never. I had asked her to walk on a glacier for me, her email said this is it...I don't quite get it.. but here it is anyway, I can't wait to ask her what she is talking about! The photo to the left is actually a glacier...what she is touching to the right is - I just don't know!!!!

Talk to you soon!