Outnumbered Mommy...My Adventures with My Four Little Boys: August 2011

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Summer of Charlie...

Summer wouldn't be summer without Baseball.

Charlie turned FIVE years old!!

And, had his first "kid birthday party".

Do you think Charlie liked the helmet that he got from his Grandmom Adelaide for his birthday?!?!

A very important job, on a very important day...

Party Time!

Silly Charlie.

Fireworks at the Indians Game...

Fireworks at the White Sox Game.

According to Charlie, his favorite part of the White Sox game was the fireworks. Can you tell???

Vacation Time...

Vacation Bible School. Look at our little guy singing and dancing. :) I love VBS! On the way home one day, Jack was picking on Charlie. Charlie looked right at Jack and said "JACK! YOU CAN'T SCARE ME BECAUSE GOD MADE ME!!". You go Charlie!

Charlie riding the Demon at Great America. Amazing that he wanted to ride it...the Demon goes upside-down 4 times! Charlie Rocks!

And, this post wouldn't be complete without a picture of Charlie RUNNING into school on his first real day of kindergarten.

Luckily, I got Ben to grab him for a picture before he went in the building.

His first day went very well. The only minor problem was that it started storming about 10 minutes after school started and stormed all. day. long. Charlie feels the same way about thunder that he feels about fireworks (see above). Yep, the kid will ride upside-down roller coasters, but is afraid of thunder and fireworks. Regardless, I'm fairly certain that he walked around his first day of kindergarten with his hands over his ears, but his teacher never called and according to Charlie, there were no tears. I'll call that a successful day. And, a nice way to end a great summer.

Monday, August 22, 2011

I must interrupt my summer posts...

(Yesterday)

...to send the kids back to school. Yikes!

Getting ready to walk to school with some friends...

And, some more friends.

Welcome to 4th Grade!

And, look out Kindergarten!!!

The first day was successful. Everyone seems very happy with their teachers and class. Charlie's real first day is tomorrow. Today it was just a quick orientation with parents. Tomorrow is our first experience with ALL DAY kindergarten! Wish us all luck!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

The Summer of Jack!

Last Day of School/9th Birthday Party with 9 of Jack's "nearest and dearest"...and 9 of Drew's...and 9 of Ben's. It was quite a party. You'll have to take my word for it since I didn't take many pictures.

Fun with the cousins. Gotcha Jack!

The #1 Cubs Fan, taking a spot at the inteview table of the Phillies.

And, the #1 Cubs Fan racing against Scotty Podsednik. He definitely looks determined to not be out-raced by a White Sock.

And, here is probably the highlight of Jack's summer.

Jack loves, loves, loves baseball. He watches baseball, talks baseball and plays baseball at every opportunity. This summer, Jack started out the baseball season asking to pitch. Unfortunately, at this level, the mound was located 5 feet further back from where it was last year, which is a REALLY big jump for a guy with a skinny little arm. Everytime Jack asked, he was told that if he wanted to pitch, he would need to practice more. So, Jack would go out in the back yard and throw pitch after pitch into the pitch-back. His hard work finally paid off and he was put in to pitch for an inning in the last game of the season.

Apparently, he wasn't nervous, but *I* was!! I'm fairly certain that "Coach Dad" was a bit nervous too. It wasn't that we didn't think he would do a good job, (of course we thought he would do a good job) it was just that this was soooooo important to him. One good inning would "make the season" for him.

And, that is exactly what we got. No hits, 2 walks, no hit batters, resulting in three outs and no runs scored for Mr. Calm-Cool-Collected. It was a fabulous moment for all of us. :)

Jack also had a very successful swimming season. I'm convinced that it was those daily morning practices that really made a difference in building up his muscles and making him a stronger baseball player...which is what he really wanted anyway.