A few random pics from the Strawberry Days Rodeo

My boys LOVE the Rodeo, any time, any place. We went to the Strawberry Days Rodeo last week with a group of friends, it was a blast! I wish I had video of the reaction my boys had to the bulls and the motorcycles! We try to hit every Rodeo we can all summer, there is a small one in Montana that we go to over and over again. It must be some sick obsession of mine left over from my youth. I used to go to all the horse shows and rodeos with my family and just have to watch because I am so allergic to horses. It really sucked! I think I watched the movie 8 seconds 10 times ( and it is a really stupid movie). The best part of the Strawberry Days festivities is of course the STRAWBERRIES. Coleman ate 3 cups full before the barrel racing even got started, and then right when the motorcycle jumpers came on, I looked over and he had that LOOK on his face. Matt ran with him to the bathroom, and made it just in time. He looked so miserable, but then when he came back he was as good as new, and the first thing he asked me was could he have another cup of strawberries. Flat learning curve...

How come my guys are the only ones pulling faces?

Hyatt and Cannon

It is the responsibility of every 10 year old boy to do what ever it takes to completely gross out the girls they are sitting with. Hyatt did his duty quite well that night, as you can see by the look on Bella's face. Strong work son, strong work.

Ernie the Duck

In a momentary lapse of reason on my part, I let the boys rescue (some may say kidnap...or is it ducknap) a baby duck from a pond by our house. We watched the little guy be pecked half to death for an hour by all the other ducks, until the boys and Matt couldn't handle it anymore. I tried to tell them that you just don't interfere with wild birds, but they we not having it, and finally they wore me down and when the little duck wobbled off the the shore and lay down in the mud almost dead, I caved! They brought the duck home and I was sure it would be dead by morning. Nope. So now we have a pet duck named Ernie. The kids love him, he follows them all over. Griff tried to kill it, but other than that I think the little guy is pretty happy. At least that is what I am telling myself.

You have to admit, it is pretty cute! Nice punch mustache Hyatt!

Schools Out For Summer!

It has been forever since my last post, and I have not been taking pictures either. Summer is too fun to stop and blog! These pics are from the boys last two days of school. The dance program was so cute this year. The twins did a bear hunt song, Brady and Cole really loved shaking their little butts during the line that said "A fuzzy little tail." Hyatt worked hard to learn all the moves for his flag routine, but he frowned during the whole thing. It was the sun in his eyes right? It was NOT the 10 year old " I am too freakin' old for this stupid dance festival" face, I am sure of it!

Mrs. Jones and Senora Tavares. The boys all had the BEST teachers this year! Coleman cried the morning of the last day of school because he realized he was not going to see Mrs. Jones everyday. (We have already been to visit her once this summer. . . I think he likes her more than me!) She is such an amazing woman, and I will am already looking forward to Griff having her as a teacher. Senora Tavares is going to teach the 2nd grade Spanish class next year, so that means the boys will have her as a teacher soon . She was so good to Hyatt this year, he is really speaking an amazing amount of Spanish! He and Matt can speak and leave me completely out of the conversation now, not cool. She just moved into the house across the street from us, so Hyatt thinks that is pretty fun to see her all of the time. I am not sure how fun she thinks it is, but she fakes like she loves is, so she is very sweet. We left for Montana right after these pictures were taken, but I left my cameras at home. . . nice. We had a really good time though.

I could not make the clip work below so here it is as a seperate post. I am truly the worst blogger in the history of earth!

FINALLY!!!

Brady and Coleman have been taking swimming lessons for 3 weeks and the results are amazing! We spent all of last summer with them screaming and crying every time they got near the deep end, even if someone was holding on to them. Brady started it all during swimming lessons at the neighbors pool. He got so freaked out for some reason, and he would not go into the deep end at all, and he was so mean to the girl that was teaching. He would tell her that he hated her and then jump out of the pool and run away. After a few rounds of this then Cole decided that he was afraid of the deep end too, he wasn't as bad as Brady, but it was still pretty bad. I was starting to think that they would never swim when I found this AMAZING woman who teaches little kids as young as 6 mos old to swim and be safe. I have started calling her the Brady Whisperer. She has both of them swimming the length of the pool, jumping off the diving board, and swimming like a little fish. It is unbelievable! We had two episodes of Brady trying to take the chair he was holding onto into the pool with him because he wouldn't let go of it, and then that was that. She has put some kind of spell over him! When you watch the video you may not be too impressed considering that they are kindergartners, but if you could see how much progress they have made in just three weeks you wouldn't believe it!
The top one is Cole, and the bottom one is Brady swimming the length of the pool (starting at the deep end).

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another!

This is what I woke up to yesterday. We just finished redoing the deck and patio from Coleman's paint disaster I posted about a few weeks ago, and the yard was almost looking good again, and then the wind made this little mess. There is glass everywhere! I don't know how I will ever get it all out of the grass! The weather this year has been so crazy, it is May and it is still so cold. We have even had 2 baseball games called because it is just too cold for the kids to play. I can't believe that this did not wake me up, it must have been so loud. It kind of freaks me out that glass could shatter and I just sleep through it, but Griff makes one little peep and I am jumping out of bed, weird!

Back to work I guess.