The One With The Return of Ten on Tuesday

1. Even though I've tried really hard to break away from Ten on Tuesday posts, I just really, really like them. So they are back. For good.

2. We call these two chocolate and vanilla. Totally cracks me up how one kid can have such dark hair and the other such light hair. I swear they are both mine. {Come back later in the week for a slideshow with all of the pictures from the photoshoot.}

3. A couple of weeks ago it was unseasonably warm here in Cincinnati-like 70 degrees and sunny- warm. So we spent the day outside. At first, the boys stuck with bike riding. Then, they dragged out the skateboards. {Maybe that should be drug out? I dunno, it's late and I'm on Nyquil for this stupid head cold,  so we'll go with dragged out...}

Have you ever read the children's book "If You Give A Moose a Muffin"? In that book, when you give the Moose a muffin he asks for jam, which leads him to ask for more muffins, then when you go to the store to get muffin mix, it's cold which reminds him about a sweater he wanted to borrow, which reminds him about a puppets he played with and so on and so forth...Opening our garage leads to the same thing. One boy sees a bike, which reminds another one about the soccer ball, and before you know it I have four kids and an adult playing golf in my front yard.

4. Yes, you read that right. They were playing golf in my front yard. I have pictures to prove it. Moosey's got a pretty decent swing. Fortunately, they were using practice balls, especially considering how many times I felt the ball whiz past my head.

5. And yes, those are Christmas lights in the background of that photo. I'm no fool. I went ahead and put them up when it was 70 degrees and sunny. I barely resisted the urge to start turn them on. Barely. I waited until Thanksgiving. Yay me.

6. Moose has definitely hit the terrible twos. He gets into everything, all the time. He knows exactly what he's not supposed to be getting into and goes straight for it. You tell him he can't have cookies? The instant you turn your back on him, he steals the cookies and hides somewhere, eating them as fast as he can. And he is awesome at hiding. Scares the living daylights out of us. The kid will get inside his own toy box and cover himself up with toys to hide from us. But he is also the sweetest, most loving little guy in the world. Loves to give hugs and say "wuv you". And so polite-says "tank you" all the time. It's hard to stay mad at him for very long.

7. Poor Jarron probably had more reason than most of us to be mad at him. Moose head butted Jarron and gave him a black eye. But Jarron, being the sweet natured big brother that he is, just shrugged it off and said, "he's just a baby, he didn't mean it." And then a couple of days later, his other little brother, Jackson, elbowed him in the same eye playing basketball. Adding a cut and further bruising the already bad black eye. Jarron wasn't upset by that either. In fact, I think he was a little proud that Jackson was being so tough on the basketball court. {I wasn't too thrilled. The black eye came just in time for our Christmas card pictures. Awesome.}

Thankfully, the black eye is mostly healed in this picture.

8. Bryce is busy practicing his songs for the play he is in this April at school. He has two solo's-"Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog" and "Rock Around The Clock". He is also back up in a number of other songs, including "Thriller". One night when I picked him up from practice, while rehearsing for Thriller, he was doing, what looked to my untrained eye, to be the "robot". When I asked him later why he was doing the robot, this was his response:
Me: Um,why were you doing the robot?
B: Uh, I wasn't. {Said with his "duh, mom" voice.}
Me: It kinda looked like you were.
B: That's because I was doing the Zombie.
Me: Mmmmkay.
B: Mom, the robot and the zombie are pretty much the same dance. {Again with the "duh,mom" voice.} You know, because, zombies and robots don't have brains and live for hundreds of years.
Me: Oh.
B: Jeesh, Mom.
Clearly, I know nothing about dancing. Or zombies.

9. My sweet little Jackson is turning into one of them. Jackson is..........a basketball player. Sigh. That's right. He's no longer sitting in the stands hanging out with Mom. He's out on the court. I'm having a hard time believing that my baby, my Jack Jack, is old enough to be out there. He, on the other hand, is sooooo excited! He told me all about it the other night in the car-did I know that he gets to wear a uniform like the twins? And dribble the ball and shoot into the hoop? {And apparently elbow people in the face-looks like we don't have to worry about his defensive game...}

10. I'm seriously considering moving the blog to a more user-friendly host. By user-friendly, I mean easier for me, of course. :) If I make the switch-I'll make it easy for you guys too. I'll post a link and all that good stuff. And it won't happen for a couple of weeks. But I know some people don't like change, so I'm trying to ease you into it. I'll keep you "posted". Hee. Hee. Get it? Posted? Because this is a blog "post"? I crack myself up!

The One Where The Football Season Ended

That's right, people, the football season officially came to an end last week. I have a whole month and a half of free Saturdays before basketball starts up.
Woo Hoo!!
And I have to say that last football Saturday of the year was bone chilling COLD! The boys had to wear sweatshirts and pants under their uniforms. Moose had on a big winter coat-it was very, very cold.

I love the player introductions-unfortunately I waited until this particular game to take pictures. They kind of look like homeless people with all the clothes on.

The Tuesday after their last games, we headed out to a mega-church in our area for the awards ceremony.

The kids had a lot of fun-there was a magician and one of the Bengals spoke to the kids-Morgan Trent.

I was on Moose duty. Which was just as challenging as I thought it would be. He was running up and down the aisles before the program started. Once the speakers got on stage, he was super bored. He was throwing fruit snacks and asking me to go home. It was kind of brutal.

 Then, all of the sudden (after he spit chocolate cookies everywhere and I had to take him to the bathroom and use baby wipes to get him-and myself- clean) he just laid down on the pew next to me and fell asleep. And slept the last half hour. It was awesome. Note to self: bring a lot more stuff to entertain the Moose when attending awards functions for the boys.
I'm glad the boys are able to play the sports they are interested in and experience being on a team. But I'm also relieved when we get our life back at the end of each season.
Well, until the next sports season starts up, that is. ;)

The One with the Blue & White Game

My husband is kind of a big Kentucky Wildcats fan. Like "name your pet after the head coach " big fan. Or "try to talk your wife into naming your son after one of the players" big fan.
In the past he and his brother, Don{or as Moosey likes to call him, "Papaw"} have camped out-in tents- for tickets to the first practice of the year. This year tickets to Big Blue Madness were going to be really hard to come by. Some fans camped out for DAYS. So, instead they decided to head down for the annual scrimmage game, the Blue & White game.
The game is played on a Tuesday night, a school night. I was a little hesitant about the twins going but Chuck promised they'd do their homework in the car and would sleep on the drive home. So they went.

And had the best time. Uncle Don, Zachary, and Chuck's parents went too. Jackson was still a little too young to make the trip-maybe next year.

Jackson, Moose and I got to watch them on TV. Yup, right before and after the commercial break the camera zoomed onto the boys dancing and having a good time. Pretty funny.

Can you tell that the twins are kind of big Kentucky fans too? Sigh. I guess I'll get to spend time with them come March. {Or April depending on how this season goes...}