The youngest comes running up to me and talking… it sounded like he had his teeth together. I turned around and laughed. I had him repeat it and he said he wanted me to take a picture and send it to Mamaw. I thought putting it out here would be much more fun. Here is a picture of my youngest and some broccoli!

Not to be out done by the younger brother… here comes the older one:

Doesn’t my oldest look really old in this picture. Hard to believe he just turned 8! Ok, it does make him look younger having a bag of grapes on his head, but in general… if the bag wasn’t there… Sigh. Never mind, I give up. Happy Monday.

Seems my youngest decided to compete with the oldest in nightmares. For 3 nights I was getting up with the oldest… last night the oldest slept through, but the youngest hollers at 2am. I go in to find out he was having nightmares. I asked him what it was about and he told me “cobwebs in the toilet”. Mumble mumble. Of course I thought it was funny and said that it sounded pretty cool to me. He just closed his eyes, grabbed my hand and went to sleep. Well, until I let go of his hand, then he would wake up again. Ugh. It took a while for him to complete sleep.

This morning I asked him about his dream. He told me these huge spiders were making spider webs near the toilet by the front door. In fact they had made cobwebs on the hinges of the door. I started to laugh. He looked at me and I told him that a toilet by the front door sounded pretty funny. You could see it go through his head and suddenly he laughed. I don’t think spiders and cobwebs are going to bother him for a while now. Me on the other hand… the thought of having to clean all that.. makes me think it is a nightmare!

You know you are in trouble when you go bowling and your eight year old beats you. By ten pins. He had 100 and I had 90. The next time I actually beat him. He was tired and I finally figured out how to throw a ball. Yet it wasn’t that much different. I had 106 and he had 79. Then again, he ate a hot dog and probably had greasy hands. GRIN.

We went with another family and it was a blast. I was surprised at how much fun we had. I think we need to start having people over to the house more often. I miss the conversations with other adults as a whole group. Yep… will at it to my list of things to do. Now let’s just see if I can make it happen.

Folks, I couldn’t believe my eyes today. I went to K’ohls, to T’arget, to L’owes, to C’ostco and in each place there were ads for Christmas. Seriously, christmas stuff. While I hope to actually get Christmas cards out this year (I missed the last two), I can’t even think about sending out holiday invitations for parties or to start decorating for the season. Halloween hasn’t past, Thanksgiving is still coming… and Labor day hasn’t even occurred. Don’t the stores realize they are going to make some of us avoid them because I don’t want to deal with the thought of the holidays yet???

Look at the silly cakes I made for the kids for their first day back at school… how can you go beyond what is happening today to something four months away?

Ok, I love doing stuff to make my kids smile. Particularly after they had their first day at school… each at a separate school. I was proud of both of them. Bet they are already considering Christmas even if I can’t get my brain wrapped around the idea.

My hubby’s best friend came down. One day when my hubby had to run into work, he got suckered into playing baseball. He gave my oldest some great tips and really helped him hit better!

I was thankful he was willing to play with the boys. They didn’t want him to leave. Another fun thing done this summer.

Wow. I can’t believe it’s over. I hardly posted any of the stuff the kids did during summer. Here are some fun pics of things they did:

I think this was the most fun and repeated as often as necessary:

And of course the big red ball moments:

Yep, dirt and water… the boys best friends.

Ok, after it rains, the heat usually goes down. Not today. It is still hot:

Normally I would put up photos of my kids… but they have stripped themselves down to underwear and I will not post that. They are having water gun / water balloon / just throw water fights. I joined them for a little while but had to leave when Dad joined in. Dad just wouldn’t stop shooting me in the head. The ear and the face hurts. I was done. Over all, it felt great getting soaked! No wonder the boys love getting out and playing in the water!

My youngest walks up to me today and has the following conversation to the best of my memory:

Youngest: “Mom, how much poop comes out of your a.n.u.s?”
Mom: “Depends on how much I ate.”
Youngest: “Can a lot of poop come out of your a.n.u.s?”
Mom: “And why are you asking this?”
Youngest: “I was wondering if you could fill up the toilet bowl.”

At which point I was saved by the phone. Why my 6 year old suddenly has the need to use the word ‘a.n.u.s’ is beyond me. I believe it has been learned by a wonderful book that my friend Sticks gave to my oldest for his birthday. It is one of the Captain Underpants series. I remember hearing them talk about the jokes in the book of the planet Uranus. Yaa… That’s probably where it started but why he is following up on it with me … must be a boy thing I don’t quite get.

Yep, it is getting closer to the start of school. The teachers have called and identified themselves. It should be an interesting year. The youngest got the hardest 1st grade teacher. Don’t get me wrong, she is good… but she pushes hard. It will be… interesting.

The oldest has gotten a teacher that has dealt with a student with dysgraphia. I’m psyched. I hope that I can help set it up to make it easy for her and fun for my son. I am praying that he might actually like school this year. We’ll see how it goes! She asked for 2 weeks to get settled and then she will call me. Works for me. Now if I can just get another initiative off the ground that really interests me… life might just be headed in an up direction.