Oliver started T-ball

Oliver's favorite teacher from ECFE coaches t-ball. She does it just for fun... nothing too structured or competitive. Oliver and Lucius both love hitting the ball off Daddy's old T, so we signed him up. Last Tuesday was his practice/ game. There were about twenty kids 4-6 years old. It was a little like controlled chaos.

They started with exercises, then rolled the ball to their partners and then ran the bases. After "practice" they broke into teams and played ball. Oliver got put in right field and looked a bit bored.

He paciently waited for his turn to bat and then hit the ball pretty good. He ran as fast as he could to first and then happily ran the rest of the bases when it was time too. We were quite impressed with his listening skills through the evening. He's pretty excited to play again.

Lucius on the other hand just kept shouting that it was his turn next. I knew he was going to really, really want to play instead of just watching. Oh well, he gets a LOT of turns at home.

The Boys' Half Birthday Party

We celebrated the Little Mister's birthday's this past Sunday June 24th from 2-4pm. They are now 2 {and 1/2} and 4 {and 1/2}. Lots of two's and fours just for fun.

Here's a slideshow of the fabulous event:



I handed my camera over to my father who kindly captured a lot of these moments. Thank you so much Dad for being the photographer so I could focus on the little misters and hosting.

 

After finishing opening a gift, I asked Little Man O to tell Great Aunt Melanie "thank you for the present" to which he added his own personal touch to the phrase and yelled out "thank you for this lovely... thing".

Simple Pleasures: Blocks

The boys and I built a Castle using (almost) every block in our house.

And then they knocked it down!

Quotable: a little sad

Oliver's been a little sad lately that he doesn't get to see his school friends now that it's summer. When I might happen to get a little upset with him (possibly raising my voice in frustration), his sadness comes out even more.  He says to himself:

"Marmee scared my friends away. She yelled and it wasn't nice and now my friends aren't going to come back"

He's also said this quite a lot in the last few days as well:

"Marmee scared my dreams away and now they won't come through"

I think he means 'true' but I can't be sure. I tell him that I'm trying to get him and his brother out to meet up with friends- it's probably just not going to happen everyday. I also explain that all his dreams can come true he he wants- to which he tells me that he doesn't want his bad dreams to come true.

It breaks my heart to hear my little man say such things. I want to fix it and make it all better anyway I can.

To not be a completely all sad post here's a slightly funny quote from Oliver. We were driving in the car last week and I told him it would be a pretty long car ride out to our friends house. To which he replied:

"I don't care if its (meaning the drive) a long time, but it's really going to make me boring"

A weekend of BBQ's

Saturday afternoon we went to Uncle Scott's new place for a BBQ. The little misters love their Uncle's and Daddy's side of the family very much. Uncle Jason and Uncle Scott are both super fun to play with. Grandpa gives pretty good tickles too.

Then on Sunday we visited Uncle Hung and Auntie Mick's house to have lunch with Marmee's side of the family. We were especially lucky to have my Aunt Connie in town from Nebraska. We had a fantastic lunch and enjoyed great company.

After a weekend full of family, celebrating Daddy's Birthday and father's day, lots of eating and lots of fun- the boys were thoroughly exhausted. Thank you everyone for a great weekend.

Qoutable: Knitting...

 

While I was knitting yesterday Little Man said to me That "Mormor (grandma) does better stitching (meaning knitting)" Slightly offended, I asked why he thought she was better than me. His two part answer was that "She's older than you" and "Because she's littler and skinnier"

He's got me on the first part- and Mormor will be highly flattered by the second point. Love you Mom but my competitive side isn't quite ready to admit you're better than me at knitting...

Simple Pleasures: my Poolside view

A couple of fun photos I took of the boys jumping in their little pool. 

strawberry pickin'

We headed out to the Pick our own strawberry patch Saturday morning. The boys were super excited. Lucius however slowly started to regret coming along when he saw that we were riding out to the field on the tracker's wagon. Poor guy doesn't like doing new things.

Once out in the field we got a row to ourselves to pick as many berries as we could. Last year was our first year picking and we got a little carried away. We picked 18 pounds of strawberries. This year the plan was to pick around ten pounds. Which is approximately one box full. The berries were so beautiful that the misters went a little pickin happy. We ended up with about 16 pounds.

Oliver was a REALLY good helper. He completely enjoyed hunting for and pulling the strawberries off the vine. Plus he enjoyed sampling quite a few fresh berries. He thought the day was a complete blast.

There's our box of pretty beauties. Oliver's little hand looking for yet another taste.

Once we got home, the boys went down for a nap. Jerimy and I started making fresh jam. Oliver didn't nap too look so we let him watch the crazy assembly line of jam making we had going on. I think we had him mesmerized for a little bit.

We got 15 jars made and still have a bunch of strawberries left to eat, make a pies, freeze and hopefully make a couple more jars of jam.

Can I have a bite?

 Lucius was taking his sweet time savoring every lick of his strawberry popsicle. Oliver had already finished his ice cream bar and kindly asked his brother for a bite. Lucius happily shared almost 3/4 of his popsicle with his brother. It was super cute.

Daddy was away...

Daddy had to go out of town for 6 days for work. He left last Tuesday and came home this past Monday. It was a long week but we made it through with a little help from family and friends.

The little misters and I traveled down to the airport to pick up Daddy. They were pretty excited to see him again and were fairly patient waiting and waiting (pictured left) for him to de-board the plane.

The boys didn't really talk too much about daddy excepting the occasional "I miss daddy, can daddy come home now?" comments. I kept them pretty busy and entertained as much as I could.

The day before he went out of town {memorial day} he took Oliver to a Twins game. If that wasn't exciting enough to look forward too, Daddy decided it'd be Super fun to ride the train into the stadium. Oliver was so happy. I think he enjoyed the train ride more than the baseball game. He's been asking to go on the train over and over again.

While daddy was away we went to a ECFE year end Picnic and played with a parachute. Saying goodbye to school and our new school friends was a little hard- the boys love playing with the kids.

Today was Oliver last day of school. We will greatly miss his Teacher who shared a lot of great parenting advice with us and was a daily loving, caring example to Oliver. We can't wait for next fall to greet her again.

Now it's summer and we'll be figuring out life with two boys home at the same time. I'm excited for some really fun adventure days we're planning and hope for wonderful weather to enjoy the great outdoors.