Roses are red...

Daffodils are yellow, and my husband Tim is a very cool fellow.... Okay, so poetry is not exactly a strength of mine, but my husband was very sweet this last week and brought me the most beautiful roses I have seen in a long time, possibly ever, so I had to share pictures. I've always been a girl who enjoys the occasional surprise/romantic gesture, and I must say Tim has done a fine job of picking up on this over the years. It had been a while since we had fresh flowers in the house, and I have definitely enjoyed staring at these beauties this week. Thank you Tim!

Our Little Soccer Star

Jayden had his first soccer game last Saturday, which we were all very excited to go watch. I started playing at about the same age, so this brought back many memories for me. Tim and I were very curious to see how he would do. Most of all, we wanted it to be fun for him, but knowing Jay's personality and how he tends to want to do well at things and how he can get quite competitive, we were also hoping that he would catch on and feel good about his game. At first, all of the kids were a bit unsure. One player would get the ball, and the others would all follow, without really trying to get the ball away. Finally, a little girl on the other team (they play co-ed at this age) scored a few goals, and the other kids began to figure out what it was all about. So when the second half started and Jay got the ball, took it to the other end of the field and scored, Tim and I were excited for Jay and glad to see that he understood the game. Then, he surprised us all and suddenly turned into the little star of the game, getting the ball and scoring three more times. I have to say, he had quite a knack for dribbling the ball straight for the goal. The best part was that he was very excited afterward, said he had a great time, and enthusiastically announced that he wanted to play soccer forever. Here are some pics.

Warm-ups with his team and coaches.

Taking practice shots before the game.

A shot of our little player right before game time.


Getting ready to take a corner kick. We hope Jayden will continue to have fun, even if he doesn't always get to score. I'm looking forward to watching this little player develop.

The Bathroom...

It's certainly not my favorite room in the house, but I do seem to be spending an awful lot of time in there lately. Between the boys' bathtime and the start of potty training, I think I spent more than half of my day in the bathroom yesterday. We left Tyler with a bare bum yesterday, hoping that this would be a miraculous jumpstart to potty training. Through this we discovered two things: 1. He definitely has the control required to use the toilet. He only had one accident all day, and it wasn't even that bad. 2. He is freaked out about actually using the toilet, though. Tyler must have run into the bathroom 30 times yesterday, saying that he had to go. But once he got there and got all situated on the pot, he just couldn't relax and actually go to the bathroom. The result was that the poor guy just held his bodily functions all day until we put a pull-up on at naptime and bedtime, then he went in the pull-ups right away. Hmmm... I think we'll wait a bit until he actually gets the going in the potty part and then try again. He was such a little trooper, though, and we were really proud of him for trying so hard. But Tim and I felt a bit defeated by it all at the end of the day. Gotta love potty training!

Tyler was quite a fan of having a good read on the potty.

Silly boys. They always ask me to spike their hair during bathtime. Tyler tries to request a mohawk, but it comes out more like "homawk".

Labor Day at the Zoo

Labor Day was exciting for us. Since Tim now works weekends, and Jayden is in school, it was a rare day that we all had off as a family. (Tim happens to have Mondays off.) So we headed to the zoo with friends. The zoo in Tucson is perfect for kids. It's not too big, has a little play area, and you can feed giraffes. What kid wouldn't want to feed a giraffe, right?

Well, Jayden certainly thought feeding the giraffes was cool.

Oh, here's the kid that wasn't too big on feeding the giraffes! After touching the giraffe's toungue on the first attempt and getting pretty grossed out, Tyler opted for just throwing the second piece of food at them. The giraffes managed to get to it.

I thought the rhino in the above picture had the craziest horns of any rhino I've ever seen. They were super long and angled down instead of up. (They had a normal looking rhino there too, but he wasn't nearly as interesting to photograph.)

Tyler in the play area.

And what trip to the zoo would be complete without a group shot on the peacock? After the zoo, we headed to Eegees (a local sandwich and slushie chain) for lunch and then on to Pump it Up with Jayden for a kids Birthday party. It was quite a fun-filled day. Hope you all had a great Labor Day!

On a side note, I bought the tickets for the boys and me to fly to Germany for two weeks in October to visit my mom's side of the family. Yay! We are so excited! I found a new quote of the month to get us ready for this trip.

Late Summer Fun

Well, it's been a few weeks again since I managed to put any pictures on here, so I'll try my best to catch you all up. Now that the temperatures are no longer in the triple digits every day, the boys have been enjoying plenty of outside time in the backyard. A few weeks ago, our neighbors gave us a little play house their kids had outgrown. It's become Tyler's house/fire station. Unfortunately, the below picture doesn't show Tyler's outfit too clearly. But you better believe he has his "fire boots" on his feet and his fire hat on his head. He's ready for action.

The big thing for Jay has been learning to ride his bike. It began as a way for Tim to spend some Daddy and boy time after school with Jay. They would go out every afternoon for just ten minutes or so. By the end of the first week, Jayden was riding up and down the street all by himself. He can't wait for the first time he'll get to ride his bike to a friend's house.
Of course, Tyler wouldn't be left behind, so he was out there on his "bike", helmet and all.
With Jayden in school, Tim and I have been enjoying getting to see Tyler's little personality in full effect every morning. His lively personality compensates for his lack of food interest. We can hardly get the boy to eat lately. The one thing that always goes down well is Trader Joe's yogurt. He gets so into eating it that half of it usually ends up on his face, shirt, chair... etc.

And a couple of weeks ago, we had Tim's family here for an afternoon and evening. The boys just adore their older cousins, and all four boys had a blast playing on the swingset and in the play house.

At the end of the night, they all snuggled on our bed to watch a movie on the laptop. (Well, minus Tyler, he doesn't do so well late at night. But Thais joined the group instead.)