Soccer Season

Jake is on the purple team and #8. Purple used to be a girl color but now that we live in MN it is a cool Vikings color! Go yellow and purple! The kids hate green and yellow together. Everything is sports with the boys!

July 9, 2007 - I had to add to this post! Jake scored another two goals tonight and his team won 5-1 and remains undefeated. Jake actually received his first penalty tonight for tripping another kid. Now anyone that knows Jake knows that this is not something Jake would do intentionally so a group of us just laughed at the refs call. Jake and another boy actually went for the ball at the same time and the other kid tripped over the ball as six of us parents witnessed. Anyhow it was just funny because I laughed and said maybe Joshua or Jenna I could see them getting a penalty but not Jake. Anyhow we are just all having a great time with soccer season in full swing and Jake really enjoys playing. Jake has made six goals so far and reminded me that one of them was with a stiched finger. He hit his hand on the pool table with a pool ball and got two stiches in his finger last month. Never a dull moment around here as I always say!

Jake is doing great with soccer and scored two goals in his first game and one goal in his second game. I told him not to score any goals in his first game because I did not have my camera with so of course he scored two! This photo is the goal he scored in his last game. The goal was close but it did go in! Jake's practicing has really paid off and you can just see his excitement when he plays. He is actually one of the smaller kids on the team but this never intimidates him. He is always going after the ball and getting in there. They have referees this year and really actually play the game of soccer playing positions. Jake has two boys from his class and another two from his last years soccer team on his team this year.

The soccer goals were put out in the park behind our house in May. The kids are so excited to have the goals up again. We have been out there playing soccer everyday since the goals were put up. It is tough to get a goal against Jake but I actually scored one today. I will post some photos soon.

Josh turns 5 May 30th

Joshua is counting down the days until he turns five. We have been saying the past year that he is four going on seven because he just tries to do just about everything Jake does. Joshua started to read in March and can now read just about every word in "Hop on Pop" and "Go Dog Go". He just loves these books and will read them just about every day.

Joshua is such a fun kid! He is always do little silly things and making us all laugh. He loves to entertain and has such a fun personality. He can be such a goof but also has a real studious side. He loves doing workbooks, mazes, math facts, etc and wants to follow what Jake is doing in school.

Josh played his first year of team baseball and was so much fun to watch. He showed so much enthusiasm playing and would just get so excited every time he would get on base. While he was in the outfield Josh would play in the dirt, spin around, and take off his shoes to get the dirt out. We were on him about focusing in on the game and he did better as the season went on but those first few games were very entertaining. He technically was not old enough for this team baseball yet but really wanted to play after watching Jake all these years.

During the day on Josh's birthday we went to Jake's end of the year school picnic. Joshua was not real thrilled about doing something for Jake on his big day but did have a lot of fun at the picnic. Grandma bought happy meals and the kids played at the park overlooking the Mississippi river.

We celebrated Joshua's 5th birthday with Grandma at Dave and Busters. This was the kids first time there and they all really enjoyed it! Joshua's favorite games were the nascar game and the horse racing game. Joshua picked out a "Dave and Busters" kick ball with all the tickets he won!

We also had another party for Joshua over Memorial Day weekend at Space Aliens when the Maninis were in town visiting us. Space Aliens is the kids favorite restaurant because they have a lot of cool games to play. We drove up north a bit and went to a park reserve and the kids got to play in the lake. We also saw a bald eagles nest and a bald eagle flying around. We get bald eagles in our backyard now and then and are fascinated by them. We all had so much fun spending time with Vince, Lisa, Lauren, Vincent, and Kaitlyn.




Some of Joshua's favorite things now are Spiderman, Nascar, Star Wars and Cars. His birthday theme was cars. He loves to play outside with Jake and Jenna and all the neighbor kids. He is starting to practice riding without training wheels. He runs around a lot outside and loves playing on the swingset, playing at the park, super soakers, lightsabers, baseball, soccer, video games, plus a ton more... Some of his favorite gifts were his big lego airplane and other lego sets. Joshua is enjoying the summer and ready for Kindergarten in the fall!

Legos

The kids favorite thing to do inside is play Lego's. They would rather play Lego's than watch TV or play video games which is so nice. The boys were really into the Star Wars ones for a while and now are into the "City" series where you build airplanes, firetrucks, and helicopters. They just follow the directions and can build anything and then will play with their creations for hours. Jenna tries to build and take apart the boys legos so we brought out the big blocks to keep her busy.

Baseball

Jake and Joshua are both on baseball teams this year. They play at 6pm and 7pm on Tuesday and Thursday nights. They group the teams by neighborhoods so it is a fun to spend time with the neighbors as we cheer on the kids. Jenna just got her first pink glove and ball set and loves playing ball during the games.

I added some comments about Josh's season under his birthday post. He had a so much fun playing his first year of team baseball. He loved being on a team with a lot of his neighbor friends. After the first game or two he was able to always hit without using tee. There were no outs on his league so Josh enjoyed being able to run around all the bases and was so excited each time he scored.

Jake started the season out doing great! He had so many great games and caught his first fly ball in a game this season. He played first base during one game and did an incredible job. We have been watching Jake play tball / baseball since 2 years old and it is so exciting to see how not only the game changes as far as the competition but also how Jake has improved over the years. Jake's baseball season was cut short because he hurt his finger and had to get it stitched. This was very tough for Jake but the doctor explained that if it got hit at all it could very easily split right back open. He missed two games but did play in his last game of the year .
I will have to post some shots also from during the game but thought I would get these posted for now.

Concert & Earth Day Tree

Jake was a comet in his music concert which took place in April. Jake said he liked the concert but by his expressions you could tell he would rather be playing baseball. The girls were so much more into singing than the boys.


The kids planted a tree that all of the grade school students received from school for Earth Day. I always wondered why Minnesota had so many trees and now I know. We also planted flower seeds around the tree. Joshua also planted peas in a small pot at preschool that are growing well.

Happy 8th Birthday Jake

Jake had a party at Space Aliens with 10 kids to celebrate his 8th birthday. They ate pizza, cake and ice cream and played video games before spending some time with the space alien. Jake had a football theme and just loves anything to do with sports especially football and baseball. He is really into Lego's and plays with his new Lego airplane quite a bit. Jake loves playing Lego's with Josh and Jenna just taking them apart, building and playing with the creations they made. Jake loves playing outside with Josh and Jenna and all the neighbor kids. He rides his bike and scooter all the time. He also spends a lot of time outside practicing baseball and other sports. He is on the blue team this year for baseball and has practices now on Tuesday and Thursday. His games start up next month and he also starts playing soccer again in June. He will also be taking swim lessons with Joshua this summer. Jake is still waiting for his second front tooth to grow in and is getting more of a big kid look. Jake continues to do very well in school and was selected out of 200 kids in second grade to be student of the month for March. He was selected because he always tries very hard in school, is always willing to help out others, and is nice to everyone. He knows how to write all his lowercase letters in cursive and is working on his uppercase ones now in school. He has mastered addition and subtraction and is doing great on his multiplication and division facts. He is also an excellent reader and reads daily to us. We are very proud of Jake and can't believe he is now eight!