The Bits: August 19th through August 25th

I thought this week's Bits would be short with the boys back in school.  But they are not.  Mostly because we had the most insanely packed weekend!  The early part of the week was full of finding fun things to do with just Tom.  It was strange to be packing snacks and water bottles for only one.  I shouldn't be too surprised at the length of The Bits, we are in full school/fall activities swing now.  It's quite the juggling act, but thanks to a carpool group for Ben's soccer practices, it's manageable and {most} of us eat dinner together every night still and, thankfully, we have a few evenings when all of us do!  One of the tragic losses for this autumn was Landsharks.  Josh will soon be starting swim team twice a week, and never really loved the running anyhow, Ben desperately wanted to run, but his soccer schedule is just too much, and the meets were all on practice nights, and we made the choice for Luke, with two days a week of soccer, we think he will have enough for this season.  It's a bit of a bummer, but I'm trying to let it go.

Alllllrightee....Here are this week's The Bits!

On Monday, Tommy and I baked up a few batches of melt-in-your-mouth buttery chocolate chip cookies to welcome the brothers home after their first day of school.  I believe I ate way more than my fair share, of course, I had to sample at least one from each batch!

While I was trying to get some housework done in the afternoon, Tommy's boredom without brothers was taken to a new level when he could find nothing better to do than stick a small red Lego piece up his nostril.  It did make his nose bleed a bit (which hopefully scared him enough to keep him from doing it again), but fortunately didn't require a trip to Urgent Care.

Hoping to avoid another Lego/nostril boredom disaster, I took Tommy to the library for story time on Tuesday morning and then we followed up lunch with a walk to Yo Yogurt.  Next time we go, I am only putting gummy worms in his actual cup and giving him just a few sample cups of yogurt, that's all he really wants anyhow.

Tommy and I met up with Tina and Beckett, a couple of fun friends for both of us, at the park on Wednesday to hang out in the late-August heatwave sunshine.  The boys were so cute playing together, following each other all over the playground.  Obviously two little brothers missing their older sibs!

Zac was elected captain for his soccer team by his teammates for this season.  We think it was a wonderful nod to the kind of kid Zac is, he's just a nice, respect-worthy guy!  He's so cute and bashful about the whole thing.  As captain, he helps get the team warmed up at practices and games and peps them up.  He has one co-captain, Jack, chosen by Coach Andrew, and there is a third rotating captain that will switch each weekend among the other boys.

In classic D20 style, the boys started the school year...and then stopped.  After three days of school, Thursday and Friday the boys were out again, only going in for a short time on one of the two days, so the placement tests could be taken.  I'm never sure why they don't do these before the first day so the kids can just get going, but this year I was kind of glad for Luke to have a couple of free days to recover after the initial punch of the first 3 days of all-day school. 

Testing gave us time to play on the school playground while we waited for various brothers to start and finish their tests (this year I didn't get them lined up well and we ended up at the school from 9am-11:15am).  Luke loves the tire swing!  Josh is the best tire swing pusher, and gave Luke some awesome flying spin swings.  Later, after a tire swing break, Luke spun some more with a friend from his class last year...and then barfed.  I guess there is a limit to spinning joy.

You really can't go wrong with a playground play day!  It even had Josh and Luke embracing!

More wild weather has been moving through our state.  We've had a little less of it, and it's been really hot, but on the days the storms do come, they come in mighty!  On the day I took this picture, a large section of neighborhoods just to the west of us got pounded.  The streets flooded and so did a few basements.

More than meets the eye!  Man, this kid cracks me up!

Josh is such a sweet snuggler!  I can always count on him for some love.

I don't know what it is about my boys and cursive, but they have all gotten so excited to learn cursive in 3rd grade.  It's not like it keeps.  They all have pretty sloppy print handwriting.  Oh well.  This year is Josh's turn, and he's already mastered his name.  He's thrilled!

Friday night, Adam and Ben attended our Stake 11-Year-Old Camp Out at the Air Force Academy.  Ben turns 11 next week and will move out of Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts.  With so little time before his birthday, they invited him to attend.  He had a great time helping retire old US flags (seen in the photo above), hiking around the beautiful AFA base, practicing using woods tools in the ax throwing yard to earn his Totin' Chip, and learning all about orienteering.  When I picked him up for his game on Saturday before the scout activities were over, he was torn between his love for soccer and his love for scouting.  Adam loves attending these things with the boys.  He says it's a chance for the dads to hang out with other dads living the dad life and the boys to have a blast celebrating boyhood.

Friday night, while Adam was away with Ben, I went out to water the pumpkin plant and noticed about 8 of these shiny, venomous ladies hanging out by our window well, enjoying the cool night air.  Um.  No.  It is like something straight out of my nightmares.  Seriously.  The moisture we've had this summer is really bringing out the spiders like I've never seen in CO before.  After a night of spider night terrors, where I would wake up batting at the sheets and frantically switching on the light, I purchased spider death spray.  Sorry, gals!  If you weren't poisonous, as long as you stayed outside I'd appreciate your bug-killing ways, but you are, so sayonara spiders! 

Zac's Saturday afternoon game was up in Broomfield, followed by a Sunday game in Vail.  Since the games were both so far away, we allowed Zac to play the Sunday game, which we usually don't do, and Adam and Zac made it a boys' weekend away.  However, Adam invited the two little boys to go with them at the last moment.  Huh?  I only protested for about a second with an, "Are you sure????" and then ran to pack them.  Oh boy, was it ever quiet around here for a couple of days! Adam came home exhausted, "Those little boys are a LOT of energy!" but said they had a great time, other than his mega allergy attack.  Zac came home with two ties, one 0-0 after the Broomfield game was called at halftime due to lightning, and 2-2 for the Vail game.  The second game, according to Adam, was one of the best games the boys have ever played.

With no small boys at my side who need 75% of my attention during most soccer games (leaving only 25% for the game), I decided to bring Ruby with us to Ben's Saturday afternoon game.  She was thrilled, and charmed her way into Ben's teammates' families' hearts, as she always does.  Her joy for being at the game was evident when she salivated on my shorts after Ben's team won with a 4-0 shutout.

I asked Ben to go water the pumpkin Saturday afternoon (the water was already on so he didn't have to go near the black widows!).  When I looked out to check on him, he was reading and spraying simultaneously.  That's my darling bibliophile multitasker!

Saturday night, Ben, Josh and I attended a little impromptu BBQ at the Murdocks'.  Our friends, the Maynards (of Wasatach Back Ragnar fame) were in town for a baptism.  Although it was last-minute, our friends the Nunnellys, who live in Fountain now, and the Perigos, who just moved back from Idaho, were also all able to go.  It was so FUN!  Like old times.  These were the families who were our first Colorado friends, so many gone in new directions now, but still just so treasured.

Me, Adri (and Annie), Kendra, Shaina and Becky--the color coordination was totally accidental!  These ladies are the best.  You know what they say about old friends.  They are gold.

After the BBQ, I dropped Ben and Josh off to get ready for bed and to have some reading time, and dashed to the sweatshirt-making party for my Colorado Ragnar team.  The race is just two weekends away!  We are Team Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, and now that these sweatshirts are done, we are ready to GO GO!  I can't wait.  It's going to be so fun!